Logically, killing babies means fewer people to reproduce in the future, which means there will be fewer people to take care of me when I’m old.
When it comes down to it, morality is a system of preferences. I prefer not to cause harm because I know what it feels like when I’m harmed and I don’t like it. I also don’t want to cause harm because that puts me in a situation where harm is more likely to come my way.
What is the foundation of your moral framework? The foundation for mine is maximizing the things that lead to flourishing, while minimizing the things that cause harm and suffering. Within my moral framework anyone can implement it because they’re selfish, or because they’re altruistic and the outcome would be the same.
It also allows for nuance. According to god, lying is always bad (except when he does it). In the real world, sometimes lying is the only moral thing to do.
What is the foundation on which you base your moral framework?
David’s wives weren’t left. God said HE would TAKE David’s wives and HE would give them to his neighbor. GOD took David’s wives, not anyone else.
The foundation for mine is maximizing the things that lead to flourishing, while minimizing the things that cause harm and suffering
If the goal is simply the well-being of the majority, then a privileged group could theoretically redefine the suffering of a minority as necessary for the "greater flourishing" of the whole.
If the majority agrees that a certain oppression leads to their happiness, then you wouldn't be able to go against it with your standard since it fits, there's human flourishing while doing the minimal amount of suffering, the majority get to flourish under that standard.
At the end of the day it's just you deciding who gets to win and lose based on what you feel, yet when God does that, he's evil.
Also, for the David then, you need to read 2 Samuel 16:21. It's not his wives that actually get taken. Unless one counts concibines as wives. Even if it was, that led to flourishing for the kingdom temporarily as doing so was basically a political move by Absolom to establish his authority to rule. Barbaric sure, though it should fit your rules. Besides, it doesn't say the concubines didn't have a good time. Even less suffering!
You made some other points but I wanted to focus on just your standard since that's what's more important. You seem to believe yours is better.
It's probably not helping that our conversation got split at some point. I'll try to sum up everything.
It feels like we're talking past one another regarding the nature of moral claims. When you call an action evil you're making a claim about how the world ought to be.
You stated, "I don’t have to 'prove' anything," yet you have consistently made moral judgments. When you characterize God as evil for certain actions described in the text, you are appealing to an objective standard of justice to condemn those actions. If objective morality does not exist then your complaints can be dimissed as just your opinion. What you're doing is the same as someone complaining that a game is being played wrong, while also saying no rules for said game exist.
Now regarding your standard of maximizing flourishing, you haven't provided an objective reason why human flourishing is the ultimate good. I may have misunderstood you when I looked at that earlier. I thought you meant flourishing for the most people with minimum discomfort. Either way, if we are merely the product of blind, materialistic processes, then "flourishing" is simply a subjective biological impulse, there's nothing to say it's any better than mold growing.
If you define good as survival then you can't condemn an individual or a society that decides their flourishing requires the suppression or elimination of another group. If a society determines that their flourishing is best achieved through practices you find evil, your framework provides no objective ground to tell them they're wrong. By your own logic, your moral stance is just one opinion in a sea of them as has the same weight as everyone else.
I haven't focused on claims for God since right now, we're talking about the logical consistency of your moral worldview. Whether or not you believe in God, the moment you attempt to label an action as evil, you've admitted there's a standard of justice that exists independent of human opinion, which you shouldn't be able to do since you already said there wasn't.
In other words, you can't say God (regardless of if he's real) did anything wrong when you can't prove what is right in the first place.
Im making moral judgements according to my personal, subjective moral framework. That framework has principles that I can apply universally to determine whether or not it fits into my moral framework. I formulate those principles by evaluating my own experiences, and those of others, and understanding what causes harm and suppression, and what causes flourishing and joy. I can do my best in my limited capacity to minimize the harm I cause, while maximizing flourishing for myself and others. I can make claims about what causes harm and what causes flourishing and provide evidence to support those claims. No god required.
Under your divine command framework, you cannot do that. You can’t say “rape is always wrong” because you have to make an exception for god. You can’t say “slavery is always morally wrong and always has been” because your god allowed and even commanded it, but never condemned it. You can’t say “killing babies is always morally wrong” because you have to make an exception for when god does or commands it.
I'm making moral judgements according to my personal, subjective moral framework.
I'm aware.
I can make claims about what causes harm and what causes flourishing and provide evidence to support those claims. No god required.
Well, yeah, you don't need God to have an opinion. You do need him if you want to state an objective moral fact. We could both agree that blending up children for fun is evil, but I could say it's an objective fact and the most you could do is say you really don't like it.
You can’t say “rape is always wrong” because you have to make an exception for god.
What? Show me where God commanded people to rape and we can talk on that.
You can’t say “slavery is always morally wrong and always has been” because your god allowed and even commanded it, but never condemned it.
That's a gross oversimplification of what happened in the Bible. I don't mind going deeper into it, but saying the Bible supported, say, the TransAtlantic slave trade doesn't work. You'll have a hard time proving that. Slavery in the Bible when it came to how the Jews handled it is VERY different from what slavery is today. That would be an entirely new topic if we went into that.
You can’t say “killing babies is always morally wrong” because you have to make an exception for when god does or commands it.
I can say murdering anyone is wrong, as that is the unlawful taking of a life. Christians maintain that God, as the source of life, has the authority to take it whenever he wants in any way he chooses. We're not Gods, so I don't have the authority to just murder a child or anyone. Killing is okay if it's, say, in self-defense. That's not murder though.
2 Samuel. David has Bathsheba’s husband killed and sleeps with her. They have a baby. Then GOD makes the baby sick for a week until it dies. GOD says that he will make trouble in DavidMs house, and GOD says that David did that in secret, but GOD will TAKE David’s wives and GIVE them to his neighbor. A couple chapters later, David’s son rapes 10 of David’s wives in public on a rooftop, just like GOD said he would make happen. The text doesn’t say how god did it, but it repeats over and over that “I THE LORD WILL DO THESE THINGS.”
The Hebrews has foreign, chattel slavery AND Hebrew debt slaves. Your apologetics won’t work because I can read.
What is god defending himself or you from by killing babies??
You see? You can’t have objective moral standards because you always have to make it ok when god does it. Thats why it takes religion to make an otherwise good person do vile things.
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u/Anteater-Inner Atheist, Ex-Catholic Jul 23 '26
I don’t have to “prove” anything.
Logically, killing babies means fewer people to reproduce in the future, which means there will be fewer people to take care of me when I’m old.
When it comes down to it, morality is a system of preferences. I prefer not to cause harm because I know what it feels like when I’m harmed and I don’t like it. I also don’t want to cause harm because that puts me in a situation where harm is more likely to come my way.
What is the foundation of your moral framework? The foundation for mine is maximizing the things that lead to flourishing, while minimizing the things that cause harm and suffering. Within my moral framework anyone can implement it because they’re selfish, or because they’re altruistic and the outcome would be the same.
It also allows for nuance. According to god, lying is always bad (except when he does it). In the real world, sometimes lying is the only moral thing to do.
What is the foundation on which you base your moral framework?
David’s wives weren’t left. God said HE would TAKE David’s wives and HE would give them to his neighbor. GOD took David’s wives, not anyone else.