Religious Claims to Objective Morality are Might Equals Right Arguments

** That being said, My opponent's R1 argument isn't about this debate. He asks for the definition of certain words which are fairly well defined generally, And then asks for definitions to words that do not pertain to the topic. A distraction, Which is a debate strategy my opponent seems to favor. The entire 2nd half of his post is debating subjective morality, Which isn't the topic for discussion. Another distraction. Nowhere does he give an argument for attributing God with objective morality, So I am left with nothing to debate. ** Subjective morality not a topic for discussion? You yourself in your opening offer up a challenge to defend objective morality. I am also challenging your initial assertions in your opening. In your opening you proposed what the religious argument is about God and morality, And then you refute the argument, Claiming victory. All I said was your argument was wrong, You are starting off on the wrong foot when you say the theist believes God can"t be wrong about morality because God created the universe. That"s not how the religious argument is. You then try to prove yourself right by saying "Is it unimaginable that something could create the universe and be evil? " The answer to this is no. " Again, You don"t offer any basis for this, You just simply say it"s true and expect others to go along with it. When I challenge you on it, You say I"m being a distraction. Are you saying I can"t challenge your assertions? . You throw out statements and assume them to be factual, But when challenged on them you say "it"s not what the debate is about. " My argument is all about the debate, But in order to do so, One must start at the beginning so to speak. One can"t jump right into Nuclear Physics, One must first start with the foundation. Your opening statement/argument ends with the challenge "If you believe your morality is objective then defend it. " Morality is all about a determination of what is "good" and "bad", "right" and "wrong". Since you didn"t define these in you are opening remarks, I want to make sure I understand what YOU mean by them when YOU say them. I don"t want to assume that you accept the general definition of these terms. Likewise, You shouldn"t with me. It"s pretty simple to give me your definition of these terms. It"s not a distraction, But critical when discussing morality. ** He asks in the comments after reading my R2 "How do YOU attribute objective morality to God? " This is a silly question. I don't. I believe that attributing an entity, Even if it were known to have created the universe, With objective morality is ridiculous. There is no justification. It is exactly like saying your Mother and Father created you so they determine the morality of all your actions. No one agrees with this. No one agrees that people who invent things or create things are the moral authors of those things, And that they determine what is good or evil uses of their inventions. Their opinions are subjective either way. ** Really? Where did I ask that? What I asked you to do was invalidate an attribute of God (such as Omnibenevolence). YOU are the one that said you could invalidate an attribute of God, Not me. And you said it"s trivially easy. So I challenged you to do it. Or do you expect to take what you state as fact without anything to back it up? Please re-read the comments. If I am wrong about what I wrote or said, Then please show me. **God's opinion is subjective. Objective Morality is true outside of ANY consciousness, Including God's. The attribute of omniscience (All-knowing) cannot even be attributed to God. Something could create the universe with less than full knowledge of everything that exists. Inventors of many things are ignorant of many facts. If God created the universe FOR us then he did a hell of a poor job did he not? We can't live in 99. 999% of the space that we know to exist. The Andromeda Galaxy will eventually collide with the Milky Way. The sun will eventually expand and burn everything on the face of this planet to death. Entropy will end us all in the heat death of the Universe. Any of these facts an omniscient or omnibenevolent (all-good) God could have avoided. ** Wow. You believe there is a much better way of creating/designing the universe for humans to live? If that"s not the height of arrogance, I"m not sure what is. That"d be like me scoffing at Shakespeare and saying "Sheesh, Hamlet could"ve been written much better " Just because you don"t like how something is designed or think there is a better way, Doesn"t mean there is actually a better way. But yet, You state it and expect me to take that as fact. Your statements about it being a hell of a poor job is simply a matter of opinion"yours. Dare I say it, It"s a subjective opinion. ** There is no reason to attribute omnibenevolence to God except by saying Might Equals Right. That God's superior knowledge or power compared to us would make him correct as to how we should act. There'd be no difference if I made a claim that my IQ is 4x yours, And you must follow all my orders and accept all my moral claims due to this disparity in intelligence. You would not accept this, Were it proven to be true. If God says to kill your child, Then you have no room to say no. Who believes this? Would you, My judges, Sacrifice your child if a powerful being told you to do so? Would you rape your best friend when told? Would you Genocide entire races of humans to the last babe and justify it because a celestial dictator told you it was morally correct to do so? ** Those who say "yes" to all of these statements are morally bankrupt. My opponent assumes that objective morality has no basis outside of God. He assumes I believe not in objective morality. This is entirely a strawman, As well as an argument that has nothing to do with the debate itself. It is entirely relevant to the debate. Any discussion about Morality involves a discussion on "good" vs "bad", And with God as part of the discussion and the Goodness of God, It is right to discuss omnibenevolence. You yourself state that you can refute Your argument against omnibenelovence, So I challenged you. This argument disregards Man"s Free Will. God may state something, But he doesn"t force people to do it. He gives them the choice. Parents with older kids certainly know this. Imagine being the parent of a 17 year old son. He wants to hang with his friends on Friday night. The father wants him to spend the evening with him. So the father says, "Son, If you spend time with me and do as I say, I promise you"ll have greater reward than you can imagine. But the choice is yours. I won"t force you to spend time with me. " The son now has a decision to make. He makes the decision to go hang with friends. Now imagine the son calling the father from his friends and saying "Dad, I want you to give me the reward you said you"d give me if I spent time with you. If you don"t, Then yhou don"t really love me. You"re not good or loving, Otherwise you"d give me the reward. " Most people would call that son spoiled and a brat. The father didn"t force the son to make the decision he did. The argument against Omnibenevolent is typical, But flawed Flaw #1 " The person posing this argument is elevating themselves to the level of a God and stating "I see things as God sees them". IN other words, What "I view as "good" is viewed as "good" by God, And what I view as "bad" is viewed as "bad" by God. SO if I see it as bad, God surely sees it as bad, And if God sees it as bad, Why does he allow it to happen? " People will think of the most heinous or dastardly thing and pose that and say how could a benevolent God allow that to happen. That tends to draw emotion and put the opponent on the defensive. Rather than draw emotion, It doesn"t matter what the situation is. Let"s just call it "good thing" and "bad thing". The question becomes, Why would a benevolent God allow a bad thing to happen? Flaw #2 " The person fails to ask an important question. "Could there be a reason to allow a bad thing to happen. " Just because we view something as bad, God may have a bigger purpose, A greater good he is envisioning growing out of this bad thing. Just because you can"t conceive or think of a greater good that could possibly come of something bad, Doesn"t mean it"s not possible. It"s arrogant to think that just because I can"t think of a greater good, One doesn"t exist. ** This is my conclusion. I leave it to the readers to determine whether or not my claim is true. That my opponent has not provided a single argument for me to analyze. He has spent all his time arguing against Subjective Morality - a position that has nothing to do with the argument at hand. ** Um, Isn"t this what you asked in your debate challenge: "If you believe your morality is objective then defend it. " Wouldn"t a defense of objective morality also include arguments against Subjective Morality? My opponent is more than welcome to provide us - at last - with a genuine argument for attributing God with omnibenevolence in his R3 outside of a might equals right assertion, Or a "because I defined it as such" i. E. Ontological assertion, Which I may dismiss simply by saying "not by my definition. " as my evidence would be the same as his. I will address any real argument in the comments. Again, I apologize if R2 was confusing for the judges. I apologize for making it necessary for you to dig through the comments to find my true R2. I submit that I gave my opponent time in the comments to read my R2, Which he did, And reply, Which he did. With nothing more than asking me how I could debate his position for him, Which I am unable to, Because his position cannot be defended. May your thoughts be clear, All I am doing is challenging your initial assertion. In Your first argument you propose what the Theist believes about God and morality, And then you refute the argument, Claiming victory. All I said was your argument was wrong, You are starting off on the wrong foot when you say the theist believes God can"t be wrong about morality because God created the universe. That"s not how the religious argument is. You then try to prove yourself right by saying " "Is it unimaginable that something could create the universe and be evil? " The answer to this is no. " Again, You don"t offer any basis for this, You just simply say it"s true and expect others to go along with it. When I challenge you on it, You say I"m being a distraction. Yet, These are what are in YOUR arguments. You throw out statements and assume them to be factual, But when challenged on them you say "it"s not what the debate is about. " My argument is all about the debate, But but in order to do so, One must start at the beginning so to speak. One can"t jump right into Nuclear Physics, One must first start with the foundation. Your opening statement ends with the challenge "If you believe your morality is objective then defend it. " Again, Morality is all about a determination of what is "good" and "bad", "right" and "wrong". Since you didn"t define these in you are opening remarks, I want to make sure I understand what YOU mean by them when YOU say them. I don"t want to assume that you accept the general definition of these terms. Likewise, You shouldn"t with me. It"s pretty simple to give me your definition of these terms. It"s not a distraction, But critical when discussing morality.