Let's quarrel over morals!

[Furious Grandmothers]

Thank you for responding to my post. I agree with your first point. The problem, as I am sure that we both can agree, is the degree to which deviations from prohibitions on bad acts are deviated from. It is one thing to tell a lie in order to hopefully achieve the goal of passing misinformation to an enemy. It is another thing to tell a lie just to get out of trouble. One act is a good one objectively. The other one is a good one only to a criminal mind that is focused on self interest.

You're quite welcome. But what if, say, the enemy is America and you are Hitler? Is that lying good? And, again, what if your parents beat you for talking to the police, and you do so anyways and lie to get out of that trouble? Again, you must go on a case by case basis.

I also do not believe there is a objective good, so you'll have to prove that to me.

As to your second point, I am pleased that you know not to murder. I am pleased that you do not need anyone to tell you that it is wrong. Jesus mentioned about the wolves in sheep's clothes and I think he and you agree that there are scoundrels who use religion to advance bad things. I agree with you guys too. However, there is something that is good and noble and practical about having some rules, perhaps with a little wriggle room that ought not to be broken. I think I can clarify this by stressing that one moral rule should not be broken unless following that rule would break another rule. For example we may have two pretty uncontroversial rules: 1) Do not kill people; and 2) Protect human life. When we apply these rules to a hostage situation hostages will be killed unless you kill the bad guy.
Ordinarily, we do not rush to kill people. However here we are protecting human lives by taking a human life.

You'd have to have billions of rules--Perhaps a infinite amount. Is it not better to just have guidelines? Just such as, try to create happiness as long as it does not hurt others, so on. Much less bickering of rules and freezing should the case come.

The moral dilemna situation gets perverted when people have lousy moral values. If someone values self pleasure equal greater than the rights of other people, this can lead to all sorts of evil. There are many other ways that this can be perverted and some sort of a check is needed. I think the key to this is perhaps some sort of objective system of thinking such as the use of reason.

Like I said, I don't believe in a objective system of morality.

As to your third point, I am not Christian, but I am familiar enough with it to discuss it. How is sinning the only way to achieve good from a Christian perspective? I suppose it has something to do with the moral dilemna.

Well, imagine a situation where your parents order you to murder and rape a innocent person? It's a sin not to do it. But it's not a very nice thing to do. Also, sorry for the assumption, the vast majority of Theists I know are.

As to your fourth point, I do not understand your point. Communist societies are the only atheistic ones that I am aware of. Do you know of any others? I know that not all of the atheists are communists. I think we both know that. The point is that when you take God out of the moral and ethical thinking, it can very likely have bad results even if God does not exist. They did it in the different communist societies and those societies became hells on Earth.
I have heard of some native american tribes who had no gods, but I do not have their names on me at the moment, so I won't bring it up.

The point is, you're taking one situation, with one quality, and saying that that specific quality will lead to the situation every time. The nordic people ate cheese. Does that mean every cheese-eater will become a Viking and pillage the land? No. Just because communist societies did not have a theocratic hellhole of a morality system, doesn't mean that lack of a god automatically means people will oppress and starve others.

Here's an example of such a tribe, if it helps.

[Free Soviets]

consistently trying to be a good friend but failing is not as good a thing as trying and succeeding at it, even though it is clearly better than failing for lack of trying. the best, though, is being the sort of person who doesn't have to try; being the person who just is a good friend. seems right, yeah?

but also consider the person who wants to be a backstabbing, manipulative 'friend', but happens to suck at it. as far as the world can see, they are a great friend. they just don't want to be. it seems to me that the only way to go worse than that asshole is to either succeed with their bad intentions or just be that sort of awful person (and i'm not sure which of those is worst off the top of my head. probably the bad intentions, as they are putting effort into it, but i could be convinced otherwise).

as i said, complex. outcomes matter, but they aren't all that matters. and intentions both are and aren't important at different places on the scale. striving to be virtuous is praiseworthy. but once you are there, its not a matter of effort but a matter of simply seeing what is best and doing/choosing/following that out of your deep nature because it is best.

late correction:
when it comes to trying to be a good friend but failing, it probably depends on just how badly you fail. fail badly enough and nobody will want to hang out with you, no matter that your heart is in the right place or whatever. at some point the negative consequences overpower the positive intentions, and people would rather not be your friend at all. so 'try-but-fail' can rank both above and below 'didn't-bother', depending on circumstances.

just another layer of complication, really.

[The Daktanese Technocracy]

I have come to believe that morality is at the very least, partially objective and not merely subjective. There are certain things that are agreed upon as right or wrong across cultures. For example, most people of rational mind would all agree that murder, rape, and theft, are all wrong and should be punished.

Murder is by definition illegal killing. That doesn't really count.

[The Daktanese Technocracy]

Here's an example of such a tribe, if it helps.

Ah, thank you!

[Glorious Freedonia]

Here's an example of such a tribe, if it helps.

How can you not believe in an objective system of morality? Your guidelines as you call them, seem to me to be just the sort of thing that I am referring to that prevent us from justifying the goodness of any action?
If Hitler, as his administration did, used misinformation against the Americans, this is/was not an evil act. We were the enemy.
People should not lie to their parents. If they are beaten, well that was the parents decision, not the child's. The parents are bad parents for punishing talking to the police. There is no sin in disobeying your parents to do good things. One is required to honor their father. That does not necessarily mean that we must obey our parents although that is certainly a perfectly valid way of honoring them.

There are approximately 512 commandments in the Old Testament. We could supplement them with a few personal rules, but I really do not think that there needs to be more than 650 rules for a man to live his life by. Surely rules do tend to conflict in the real world and that is why we have brains to deal with these dilemnas. One of the nice things that like about my faith (Judaism) is that for the glory of God we do not sin in situations where there is no dilemna. In situations where there is a dilemna, we do not dishonor ourselves or God if we make either choice as long as we take the time to contemplate the dilemna. I like this because we do not make the rules we just follow them and if the rules are imperfect (as they are because in a perfect system there would be no dilemnas because there would be a rule for dealing with them) then that is not our problem. It is God's problem. If he wants to fix it, he can through a prophet or something.

[Big Jim P]

There is no such thing as objective morals.

[The Blaatschapen]

There is no such thing as objective morals.

Free lunch is an objective moral then?

[The Daktanese Technocracy]

Here's an example of such a tribe, if it helps.

How can you not believe in an objective system of morality?
By not being shown proof.
Your guidelines as you call them, seem to me to be just the sort of thing that I am referring to that prevent us from justifying the goodness of any action?
There are many standards. Evolutionary standards, whatever helps us prosper better and survive, as a example. It's up to you to decide which standards mean what to you.
If Hitler, as his administration did, used misinformation against the Americans, this is/was not an evil act. We were the enemy.
You have strange standards. I assume it would, by your standards, be a very moral act if I killed you because I viewed your hairstyle as a offense to me and you a enemy of good hair?
People should not lie to their parents.
Why?
If they are beaten, well that was the parents decision, not the child's. The parents are bad parents for punishing talking to the police. There is no sin in disobeying your parents to do good things. One is required to honor their father.
Why the hell would I be required to honor my father?
That does not necessarily mean that we must obey our parents although that is certainly a perfectly valid way of honoring them.

There are approximately 512 commandments in the Old Testament. We could supplement them with a few personal rules, but I really do not think that there needs to be more than 650 rules for a man to live his life by. Surely rules do tend to conflict in the real world and that is why we have brains to deal with these dilemnas. One of the nice things that like about my faith (Judaism) is that for the glory of God we do not sin in situations where there is no dilemna. In situations where there is a dilemna, we do not dishonor ourselves or God if we make either choice as long as we take the time to contemplate the dilemna. I like this because we do not make the rules we just follow them and if the rules are imperfect (as they are because in a perfect system there would be no dilemnas because there would be a rule for dealing with them) then that is not our problem. It is God's problem. If he wants to fix it, he can through a prophet or something.
Then what is the point of rules in the first place?