Well, in that case, Christian morality also comes down to one's opinion,
because belief in God (and a desire to follow His will) is also feelings-
based.
>Feelings are subjective. You're
>speaking about an inner sense of morality which we do indeed have, a sense
>of right and wrong, of fairness - conscience if you will. But it's
>intangible.
I never said it wasn't. But that's irrelevant -- it's still there, and it
still works.
>We can't agree on everything - things such as capital
>punishment, abortion, euthenasia and human cloning to name just a few.
And Christians can't agree on everything either. If agreeing on everything
is your standard for an acceptable moral standard, then nothing passes.
>So
>it *works* inwardly for the individual sure enough, at least to our
>satisfaction. Yet we find disagreement when we compare our moral standard
>to that of others, as I've pointed out. I might feel empathy towards a
>family whose pet cat had just been run over and killed, but another person
>might think it humorous. The empathy-based system is subjective because
>the standard comes from within the individual.
Which is the same reason that the Christian system is subjective -- because
that standard (one's belief in God and one's interpretation of God's desires)
also comes from within the individual. I know this, because I know many
people who are devout Christians, and they all have their own interpretation
of what that means.
>Now before you respond to this in the manner you have so many times in the
>past (by turning it on its head and charging the Christian theist with the
>same thing),
Too late. I will always hold my opponents to the same standard that they
hold me.
>let me make this point to qualify: An atheist cannot point to
>anything within their own worldview that is a transcendent and objective
>standard of morality, whereas a Christian theist can.
Wrong. A Christian theist can point to something that *they think* is
a transcendent and objective standard of morality. The trouble is, another
Christian will have another morality (it may differ slightly or drastically)
that *they* think is transcendent and objective.
_____________________________________________________________
| Russell Stewart |
| http://www.rt66.com/diamond/ |
|_____________________________________________________________|
| Albuquerque, New Mexico | diamond@rt66.com |
|_____________________________|_______________________________|
2 + 2 = 5, for very large values of 2.