Yahoo Answers is shutting down on May 4th, 2021 (Eastern Time) and the Yahoo Answers website is now in read-only mode. There will be no changes to other Yahoo properties or services, or your Yahoo account. You can find more information about the Yahoo Answers shutdown and how to download your data on this help page.
Trending News
Critical thinking question:?
If a premise ("There is no God") leads to a conclusion you know isn't true ("Napalming babies is culturally relative") then why not change the premise?
Hint 1: If God does not exist, objective moral values do not exist.
Hint 2: Nobody is saying you must believe in God to be moral.
@bestonnet_00, Plato himself saw the solution to this objection: You split the horns of the dilemma by formulating a third alternative, namely, God is the good. The good is the moral nature of God himself. That is to say, God is necessarily holy, loving, kind, just, and so on, and these attributes of God comprise the good. God's moral character expresses itself toward us in the form of certain commandments, which become for us our moral duties. Hence, God's commandments are not arbitrary but necessarily flow from his own nature. They are necessary expressions of the way God is.
@Zander, You may say "the majority has the right to make the law," but do you mean that then the majority has the right to vote to exterminate a minority? If you say "No, that is wrong," then you are back to square one.
@Leo, The fact that people disagree about something does not mean that there is no truth. For example, if you and I were to disagree on the question of whether the earth is round, our disagreement would certainly not be proof that the earth has no shape. Likewise, the fact that a skinhead, a type of neo-Nazi, and I may disagree on the question of whether we should treat people equally is certainly not sufficient reason to conclude that equality is not an objective moral value. Even if individuals and cultures hold no values in common, it simply does not follow that nobody is ever right or wrong about the correct values. Despite the existence of moral disagreement, it is still quite possible that an individual or an entire culture, such as Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany, are simply mistaken.
If the mere fact of disagreement were sufficient to conclude that objective norms do not exist, we would then have to acknowledge that there is no objectively correct position on such issues as slavery, genocide, and child molestation, for the slave owner, genocidal maniac, and pedophile clearly have an opinion that differs from the one held by those of us who condemn their actions. In the end, moral disagreement is simply a sociological observation that proves nothing about the true nature of morality.
10 Answers
- BruceLv 71 decade agoFavorite Answer
Yes. Whenever a premise leads to demonstrably wrong answers, then that premise must be faulty.
The atheistic assumption that there is no God implies that there are no objective rights, restrictions, or requirements for human action. All we have are the opinions of fallible men, whether individual or collective. At times, even collective opinion coincides with slavery, genocide, totalitarian government, and other palpable evils.
History shows that it is relatively easy to lapse into large-scale evil. What is less common is the ability to amass herculean efforts to overcome these evils. Overcoming evil is simply not possible when we lose sight of objective rights, restrictions, and requirements for human action, and these depend on the recognition that objective rights, restrictions, and requirements cannot exist without the reality of God.
Cheers,
Bruce
- ?Lv 61 decade ago
Since this is about critical thinking, here's the problem. While your conclusion does logically follow from the premise (at least as far as we can tell), your assertion that the conclusion is false seems little more than an appeal to emotion. I (hypothetically speaking) do *not* know that napalming babies isn't culturally relative. Unless you can demonstrate that the conclusion is indeed false, you haven't proven anything. Or rather, you've changed a legitimate argument into an appeal to consequence-- which is a fallacy.
- bestonnet_00Lv 71 decade ago
But "god does exist" leads to the exist same conclusion so you don't actually have an argument there.
If there's a god and 'absolute' morality then either something is moral because it is moral in which case there is no need for a God (i.e. we can get morality ourselves without a god to tell us what to do) or something is moral because god says it is which is really just moral relativism since God could change its mind at any time thereby completely changing morality.
- 1 decade ago
It’s all about logic (man’s ability to reason). If you allow me to use an incorrect premise, or faulty logic I can win any argument and arrive at any desired logic.
It is illogical to use something that can not be proved in arriving at a conclusion, take the concept of God for instance. What cannot be proven, can still be believed in, that is what they call faith. Morality depends on the concept of God as their source and authority. It therefore follows that morality based on what may not exist, and if a supreme being does exist, how can mortal man hope to understand the mind of god. Many “prophets” report to have had the word of God revealed to them, but if that were so, shouldn’t such revelations be much more in agreement, or were those revelations be the result of hallucinations caused by starvation (“a voice crying the wilderness”) or chemical reactions in the brain? This difference in the “revealed” word had been at the bottom of the bloodiest wars in history—does that seem like something that God would desire?
Man can reason what is necessary for his harmonious existence. This reasoning is reflected in mutual respect (“all men are created equal”) and is the result of using logic to arrive at rules of conduct, or as it often referred to: “ethics”. Ethics are objective and not subjective like morality. Therefore it is not necessary for God or morality to exist in order for the existence of a successful society. Quite the opposite--it may be hazardous to the future of man in this interconnected world--we are no longer living in a tribal society. Belief should only take over where logic leaves off—give secular humanism a chance.
- LeoLv 61 decade ago
Objective moral values don't exist in this world, as proven by different cultural views -- using your logic, we have just come to the conclusion that there is no God....do you want to re-think that one, or was that the intention? So confused
- dude ILv 71 decade ago
You are confusing Spiritual Law and Physical Law. There is not necessarily any correlation as Men have been given free will to do evil if they so choose.
Source(s): Orthodox Christian. - 1 decade ago
You don't need a moral law giver.
Morality can be agreed upon by consensus.
- 1 decade ago
then who determines Morality? if not a moral law giver?
Consensus? So if we all agree child porn is ok then it becomes morally correct? that makes no sense
- people is grassLv 51 decade ago
You must believe in good to be moral. And 'good' is pretty universal.
- Anonymous1 decade ago
BUT GOD DOES EXIST...AND THERE ARE RULES TO FOLLOW
