Non-theistic foundation of morality?

[Tomdstone]

Is burning a heretic at the stake immoral and against the will of God?

Yes,

By saying yes, it appears that you are agreeing with a heretical and condemned opinion of Mr. Martin Luther. In the papal bull Exsurge Domine, the following belief was condemned as an error:
33. That heretics be burned is against the will of the Spirit.

“With the advice and consent of these our venerable brothers, with mature deliberation on each and every one of the above theses, and by the authority of almighty God, the blessed Apostles Peter and Paul, and our own authority, we condemn, reprobate, and reject completely each of these theses or errors as either heretical, scandalous, false, offensive to pious ears or seductive of simple minds, and against Catholic truth. By listing them, we decree and declare that all the faithful of both sexes must regard them as condemned, reprobated, and rejected . . . We restrain all in the virtue of holy obedience and under the penalty of an automatic major excommunication…”:
papalencyclicals.net/Leo10/l10exdom.htm
Are you sure that the Church gives a definitive answer on all moral questions?

 

[PRmerger]

By saying yes, it appears that you are agreeing with a heretical and condemned opinion of Mr. Martin Luther. In the papal bull Exsurge Domine, the following belief was condemned as an error:
33. That heretics be burned is against the will of the Spirit.

“With the advice and consent of these our venerable brothers, with mature deliberation on each and every one of the above theses, and by the authority of almighty God, the blessed Apostles Peter and Paul, and our own authority, we condemn, reprobate, and reject completely each of these theses or errors as either heretical, scandalous, false, offensive to pious ears or seductive of simple minds, and against Catholic truth. By listing them, we decree and declare that all the faithful of both sexes must regard them as condemned, reprobated, and rejected . . . We restrain all in the virtue of holy obedience and under the penalty of an automatic major excommunication…”:
papalencyclicals.net/Leo10/l10exdom.htm
Are you sure that the Church gives a definitive answer on all moral questions?

I think you should re-read the document.

No Pope has ever taught that burning heretics was something that “should be done”.

Ex Surge Domine was a papal bull which rejected 42 of Luther’s propositions.

One of the propositions that Luther made was “That heretics be burned is against the will of the Spirit.”

The Church condemned this statement.

But that ought not be interpreted as the Pope saying, “It is therefore the will of God that heretics be burned”.

 

[Peter_Plato]

People constantly confuse Darwin’s use of the term ‘survival of the fittest’. He meant it to mean ‘survival of those best fitted’, not the more modern useage of healthiest or strongest. Which renders Social Darwinism in that context meaningless.

Hence Peter’s confusion with his lifeboat example. It’s an easy to understand simplistic argument though, which is why it is used so often. Kill or be killed. Well, if we were still living in trees it would be true.

Luckily for us, evolution doesn’t control us any more. We control evolution. We have taken the random element out of the equation. But, and this is the point, we still are animals formed by the evolutionary process. And the characteristics developed during that process are still there. Hence you snarl. Hence you cower. Hence you strut and growl and fight.

Evolutionary psychology recognises the causes. It doesn’r prescribe actions.

I would suppose that “survival of those best fit” devolves in a lifeboat to survival of the healthiest and strongest which has no “rendering meaningless” effect on Social Darwinism. When push comes to shove, by bet is that social niceties and human control over evolution will degenerate to the strong and healthy prescribing the action of throwing the weak and helpless overboard unless there is a compelling purpose beyond a simple “We now control evolution but don’t prescribe any actions.”

For human morality to transcend evolution, there has to be a compelling reason for rising above mere biological outcomes. In fact, there has to be a plausible transcendent good or end which must be something more substantial than the mere, “It is good because we thunk it on our own” motivation.

 

[Tomdstone]

Ex Surge Domine was a papal bull which rejected 42 of Luther’s propositions.

One of the propositions that Luther made was “That heretics be burned is against the will of the Spirit.”

The Church condemned this statement.

A poster said that he agreed that burning heretics at the stake is immoral and against the will of God.

 

[Bradski]

I would suppose that “survival of those best fit” devolves in a lifeboat to survival of the healthiest and strongest which has no “rendering meaningless” effect on Social Darwinism…

I’m not sure that you understand the concept. So here’s a test.

Lots of children in a lifeboat plus two men. One very big, fit and strong and has never been in a small boat before. The other is small and weak but an expert seaman. The boat is sinking and all will drown if it goes down.

Do you:

A: throw the big guy out (the fittest).
B: throw the little guy out (the best fit).
C: throw two children out.
D: throw no-one out and sink.

Send your answers to:
Bradski
C/o Catholic Answers forum

Winner will be announced in due course.

 

[inocente]

Evolutionary ethics devolve (forgive the pun) into lifeboat ethics – as you, yourself, have demonstrated a number of times. That is because the assumption of atheism is that human beings are on our own as far as existence and morality is concerned. Where there is no ultimate plan or teleology built into existence itself (which is the fundamental difference between any atheistic moral system and any theistic moral system) then the ground rules can be shifted very quickly.

Take evolutionary ethics which must – at the very least – use survival of some human beings, even at the expense of other human beings as the grounding premise. Anything which threatens the survival of all can be used to rationalize the extinction of many or at least some on the pretext that otherwise the lives of all are at stake.

So, using some kind of doomsday scenario – overpopulation, peak oil, lack of resources, or even global warming – an evolutionary ethicist can argue (quite compellingly it seems to others of the ilk) that there is justification for killing off large numbers of human beings (the old, the unborn, the unproductive, the handicapped) for the sake for preserving at least some human life with a modicum of “well-being” (AKA “the good life.”)

So, “feminists” will argue that they have a “right” to kill the babies in their wombs to protect and secure their own “well-being.” Soon, as the euthanasia ideology works its way through society, governments will use the slippery-slope-is-a-fallacy-fallacy to avail themselves of responsibility for those who cannot contribute to the public good. Wait until the millennials will have to pony up for all their entitlements and find looking after their progenitors is too costly a burden – old bodies (like unborn bodies) will start piling up. Lifeboat ethics (AKA evolutionary ethics) at work. Anything can and will be justified under the rubric of survival of – if not of the fittest – at least of those holding the reins of power to make the rules.

This is the problem with all progressivist thinkers, they can’t or won’t think through the implications of their ideas to complete their thinking. Deep down, they understand where it leads, but have the impression if they don’t verbalize it, no one else will notice or catch on – as if those about to be tossed from the lifeboat are incapable of that depth of thought, but are merely capable of treading water (instead of going deep or walking on it) as far as logic is concerned (again forgive the pun.)

Lifeboat ethics (evolutionary ethics) has to presume there is no higher power in control of everything that happens in order for humans to presume to themselves complete authority to make the rules as far as who gets tossed and who has a “right” to survive. It is a Faustian bargain all around seeing as anyone who accepts the perspective must reduce themselves to a less than human mode of seeing reality.

Only problem being that most humanists don’t look to evolutionary ethics anyway.

Feminists, for instance, often use duty ethics to conclude that we have categorical duties towards each other (Locke, Kant), one of which is to treat women equally with men.

Most people, whether religious or not, also base our conduct on what we think is best for all concerned, known as consequentialist ethics, as in utilitarianism and social contract theory (Bentham, Hobbes).

We all also value good character, as in virtue ethics (going back to Plato and Aristotle).

Most people try to be moral. The major difference between religious and non-religious is not so much in conduct as in the metaphysics - whether we believe the foundation of morality is in God, or in reason. For instance, the concept of human rights developed out of duty ethics, and it can be argued that rights are granted by God, or by pure reason (as in the golden rule, human rights follow logically from the premise that we ought never treat another person as the means to an end).

Since God is reason, we end up with much the same morality either way. Well, religious moderates and secular moderates do, by the virtue and duty of listening to each other rather than writing-off anyone who doesn’t agree with them .

 

[inocente]

I’m not sure that you understand the concept. So here’s a test.

Lots of children in a lifeboat plus two men. One very big, fit and strong and has never been in a small boat before. The other is small and weak but an expert seaman. The boat is sinking and all will drown if it goes down.

Do you:

A: throw the big guy out (the fittest).
B: throw the little guy out (the best fit).
C: throw two children out.
D: throw no-one out and sink.

Send your answers to:
Bradski
C/o Catholic Answers forum

Winner will be announced in due course.

Are we allowed to eat one of them?

(Referring to the famous case in which shipwreck survivors convicted of murder and cannibalism had their death sentence reduced by clemency to six-months in prison - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R_v_Dudley_and_Stephens)

 

[PRmerger]

A poster said that he agreed that burning heretics at the stake is immoral and against the will of God.

Oh, yes. I do too.

It is not a heretical statement to say: burning heretics at the stake is immoral and against the will of God.

You incorrectly asserted that here:

By saying yes, it appears that you are agreeing with a heretical and condemned opinion of Mr. Martin Luther

 

[o_mlly]

I’m not sure that you understand the concept. So here’s a test.

Lots of children in a lifeboat plus two men. One very big, fit and strong and has never been in a small boat before. The other is small and weak but an expert seaman. The boat is sinking and all will drown if it goes down.

Do you:

A: throw the big guy out (the fittest).
B: throw the little guy out (the best fit).
C: throw two children out.
D: throw no-one out and sink.

Send your answers to:
Bradski
C/o Catholic Answers forum

Winner will be announced in due course.

E. jump out yourself

 

[PRmerger]

E. jump out yourself

 

[Bradski]

E. jump out yourself

I’m not IN the bloody boat. There’s just a big, fit guy and a small guy who know how to sail. Plus children.

Hey, look. I’ll make it easier. The big guy is a wife beating paedophile who, if he survives, has sworn to murder your family, all your friends and all their families as well. He’s already under sentence of death for the massacre of a school full of children.

Good grief. Do you want me to spell it out for you? How come the answer is so bloody obvious but no-one wants to give it?

 

[o_mlly]

I’m not IN the bloody boat. There’s just a big, fit guy and a small guy who know how to sail. Plus children.

Hey, look. I’ll make it easier. The big guy is a wife beating paedophile who, if he survives, has sworn to murder your family, all your friends and all their families as well. He’s already under sentence of death for the massacre of a school full of children.

Good grief. Do you want me to spell it out for you? How come the answer is so bloody obvious but no-one wants to give it?

Lighten up, friend. Assuming that throwing any one person in the boat out would keep the boat from sinking, then heroic virtue would call anyone in the boat to jump out.

Absent heroic virtue, anyone who intends to save one’s own life may throw anyone else out of the boat. While not heroic such act is permissible if, and only if, all the criteria of the Double Effect are met.

 

[o_mlly]

Only problem being that most humanists don’t look to evolutionary ethics anyway.

Feminists, for instance, often use duty ethics to conclude that we have categorical duties towards each other (Locke, Kant), one of which is to treat women equally with men.

Most people, whether religious or not, also base our conduct on what we think is best for all concerned, known as consequentialist ethics, as in utilitarianism and social contract theory (Bentham, Hobbes).

We all also value good character, as in virtue ethics (going back to Plato and Aristotle).

Most people try to be moral. The major difference between religious and non-religious is not so much in conduct as in the metaphysics - whether we believe the foundation of morality is in God, or in reason. For instance, the concept of human rights developed out of duty ethics, and it can be argued that rights are granted by God, or by pure reason (as in the golden rule, human rights follow logically from the premise that we ought never treat another person as the means to an end).

Since God is reason, we end up with much the same morality either way. Well, religious moderates and secular moderates do, by the virtue and duty of listening to each other rather than writing-off anyone who doesn’t agree with them .

The ethical systems which emanate from reason, I believe, are empty of content.

Duty ethics (Kant) offers an imperative but lacks specifics. Utilitarian ethics (the good for the most) is deranged as it elevates solidarity over subsidiarity, renders the individual as existing for the state rather than the state for the good of the individual.

St. Augustine rebuked the Greeks for the emptiness of virtue ethics: “Salvation,such as it shall be in the world to come, shall itself be our final happiness. And this happiness these philosophers refuse to believe in, because they do not see it, and attempt to fabricate for themselves a happiness in this life, based upon a virtue which is as deceitful as it is proud.”- St. Augustine,The City of God,XIX,4.

Even natural law, subject to wide interpretation, lacks agreed absolutes among all men over all generations. For those who deny human nature or who disagree on its definition, there is no natural law.

None of these rational ethical systems approaches Matthew 5 as a guide to living the life well lived.

 

[Tomdstone]

Oh, yes. I do too.

It is not a heretical statement to say: burning heretics at the stake is immoral and against the will of God.

You incorrectly asserted that here:

Do you agree that burning heretics is against the will of God?

 

[Tomdstone]

I’m not sure that you understand the concept. So here’s a test.

Lots of children in a lifeboat plus two men. One very big, fit and strong and has never been in a small boat before. The other is small and weak but an expert seaman. The boat is sinking and all will drown if it goes down.

Do you:

A: throw the big guy out (the fittest).
B: throw the little guy out (the best fit).
C: throw two children out.
D: throw no-one out and sink.

Send your answers to:
Bradski
C/o Catholic Answers forum

Winner will be announced in due course.

I am not sure but I think that Catholic morality does not allow you to do evil in order to bring about good. A good end does not justify an evil means. So I guess that you would have to choose D according to Catholic principles but hope that there would be some other way of saving everyone. I don’t see how you could deliberately choose to kill someone to save others?
God hates the hand that sheds innocent blood:
Proverbs 6
16 These six things doth the Lord hate: yea, seven are an abomination unto him:
17… hands that shed innocent blood

 

[PRmerger]

I’m not IN the bloody boat.

What a curious comment.

Who is the “you” that you are referring to here (emphasis mine):

I’m not sure that you understand the concept. So here’s a test.

Lots of children in a lifeboat plus two men. One very big, fit and strong and has never been in a small boat before. The other is small and weak but an expert seaman. The boat is sinking and all will drown if it goes down.

Do you:

A: throw the big guy out (the fittest).
B: throw the little guy out (the best fit).
C: throw two children out.
D: throw no-one out and sink.

Send your answers to:
Bradski
C/o Catholic Answers forum

Winner will be announced in due course.

And then why is this “you” not able to do this:

E. jump out yourself

It seems kind of odd to have this pronoun represent a hypothetical person who’s in the situation for one response, but then, weirdly, cannot be in the situation for another’s response.

 

[PRmerger]

Do you agree that burning heretics is against the will of God?

I think today burning heretics would be against the will of God.

I think in another situation, culture, time it might be permissible.

That is: I agree with the Church’s teaching on Capital Punishment, which is: there seems to be no reason to kill people in our developed nations, but there’s no absolute prohibition against CP in general.

 

[PRmerger]

Lighten up, friend. Assuming that throwing any one person in the boat out would keep the boat from sinking, then heroic virtue would call anyone in the boat to jump out.

Absent heroic virtue, anyone who intends to save one’s own life may throw anyone else out of the boat. While not heroic such act is permissible if, and only if, all the criteria of the Double Effect are met.

Yes. And I think it’s telling, quite telling indeed, that it is a Believer who proposed a solution which offers heroic virtue as an option.

Heroic virtue wasn’t even a consideration with the atheistic worldview.

(Now, to be sure, this isn’t to say that atheists can’t be heroes. And couldn’t do an act of heroic sacrifice. Of course they can.)

But I think this model limns the superiority of the Believer’s Morality over the Atheist’s Morality.

Who would you rather have in your children’s boat: a Believer who considers an action of heroic virtue or an Atheist who doesn’t even offer it as an option?

 

[Tomdstone]

Pose a moral problem which has no definitive answer from the Church.

Is a moral teaching definitive if at one point in time the action is allowed, whereas at another point in time the same action is condemned?
Take for example, burning a heretic at the stake.

 

[PRmerger]

Is a moral teaching definitive if at one point in time the action is allowed, whereas at another point in time the same action is condemned?
Take for example, burning a heretic at the stake.

This was already answered above.

The Church’s teaching on Capital Punishment is a great example of this: it may be permitted in one time and culture, but today there is no reason for it (in developed countries).