I’ll second the question, and add that human rights such as we understand them are a human invention, not an imposition from beyond human existence. The fact that we recognise similar interests in others to those we ourselves have, and our recognition that we cannot hope to pursue our own interests if we do not allow others to pursue theirs, is enough explanation for our mutual investment in the social contract that is human rights.
It means that a living person has an intrinsic objective moral value. If this is true, then it is wrong for example to rape a child. It is wrong because this would be destructive to the physical and psychological value of the living child. In this respect a child has a moral right not to be raped, because the value of a living person is intrinsic and objective rather than subjective and dynamic according to the ideology or opinion of somebodies whim, taste, or fancy.
If only matter exists nothing matters! :bighanky::crutches:
Theists and atheists both disbelieve in all gods except one. How can that single difference stop an atheist from believing in objective morals or allow those theists who believe in one specific god to corner the market with their morality?
Humans still have rights if rights are human inventions. The existence of any right is in the recognition of such a right - if I behave towards you in such a way that recognises your right to some particular treatment from me, then you have that right, regardless of whether there is some grand cosmic justification for it, or whether it’s written in a divine file-o-fax.**No one **has any moral rights if atheism is true and rights are merely human inventions! Everyone can do exactly what they like with total impunity - provided they are cunning enough to avoid detection. That is the prevailing mentality in our secular society…
How do you justify the principle of equality?
How do you define and quantify this “objective moral value?” What’s the process?
An ironic example for a Catholic to use. Are you in favour of your current pope, who - as the documentary evidence clearly shows - knowingly and deliberately protected priests who did this exact thing?
And it is invariably the theist, rather than the atheist, that thinks this, because they believe that their “sacred text” (which is, when all’s said and done, just a book) is somehow an objective truth.
I think you dismiss empathy too cavalierly. Empathy is a human emotion which reveals our deep moral concern for others. Although it needs to be cultivated, its seed is present in virtually all of us, perhaps even psychopathic and sociopathic personalities. Doesn’t Christianity believe that empathic morality is implanted in every person’s conscience regardless of their religious or non-religious beliefs? Your argument that atheists do not have any basis for objective morality–logical as it seems–may therefore not be entirely correct if taken in the context of universal empathy. Further, moral beliefs conditioned by diverse religious perspectives contain specific differences as well as universal principles and truths. The latter, however, derive from our commonly shared, that is, empathic humanity. Further, what might one say about those who may not fully practice their own faith according to objective standards of belief and behavior, or who may have divergent interpretations of its principles: are they too denied objective moral rights by not measuring up to the supposed norm?
I don’t have to. Proving the objectivity of morality is not the context or the basis of the thread. I merely presented what is required inorder to describe something as trully wrong, that is to say true independent of the whim and fancy of a deluded bunch of humanists who think what they say and do has some kind of value or significance without God.
You are silly enough to make acusations that are completly irelivant to the topic and nature of this thread. I would ban you simply for that fact.
There is no such thing as secular morality, if by that you mean objective moral truth. Like i said, you have no moral rights.
If there is no objective morality, there is no objective moral truth. Thus words like “value” and “rights” become objectively meaningless. You choose to live in a fantasy despite arrogantly treating Christians like deluded Goat herders.
And yet you use the term to justify your term “moral right.” So it’s completely relevant. Please be consistent. If you want to use a term to in an argument, then you do have to define what you mean by it. Otherwise your conclusion is faulty.
But you would be unable, having had to ban yourself years ago using the same rule.
If there is no such thing as humanistic morality, then there is no such thing as religious morality. Religious morality is nothing more than the morality of its time, millenia past. The rest of the world has moved on and grown up - religion, and religious morality, is a throwback to the intellectual infancy of our species.
Well, I think we all know that’s not true, don’t we? Women priests? Not on your life!! Homosexuals? No sireee! Birth control? It’s a SIN!!!
Bang on - there is no objective morality. We’ve been around this tree countless times, and there is no evidence for objective (I mean truly objective, not objective by virtue of mass approval) morality.
“In the greater scheme or the big picture, nothing we do matters. There’s no grand plan, no big win…If there is no great glorious end to all this, if nothing we do matters, then all that matters is what we do. 'cause that’s all there is.”