Comment of the Week: Relativism vs. Absolute Morality
What's really ironic is that morality in Christianity is relative as well.
Ask a Christian this: Is it wrong to commit mass infanticide against a nation with which you are at war? Generally you will be told that would be wrong.
Then ask if it was moral when Yahweh told the Hebrews to slaughter the Amalekite children and infants in I Sam 15:2-3: "This is what the LORD Almighty says: 'I will punish the Amalekites for what they did to Israel when they waylaid them as they came up from Egypt. Now go, attack the Amalekites and totally destroy everything that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys."
Unless the Christian accepts that the Bible can contain an error--god has just commanded something they would label as "immoral."
But the literalists I've talked to all assert that the Amalekites deserved this action--because of their history with Israel--and because Yahweh ordained it was to be done.
So, there are some cases when mass infanticide is the right course of action. And we're not talking here about some odd ethical dilemma hypothetical situation--we're talking about old grudges between nations with a history.
If what is immoral becomes moral if god commands it--then what is moral is flexible. That is the very definition of relative. What is moral? Whatever god says. What if god says otherwise tomorrow? Then tomorrow THAT is moral. In other words, to this person, nothing is really immoral in an of itself. It's only immoral until god says to do it, then it magically becomes moral.
[original post]
Obviously not every Christian reads the Bible literally and not all those who do treat it as history will attribute every story to the will of God. Moderate and liberal Christians will typically either not accept the described events as historically accurate or, if they do to any degree, will deny that God actually willed the execution of large numbers of children. These Christians, though, are not the same ones who are likely to be arguing that atheism is bad because of some connection to moral relativism while Christianity is morally superior because of some connection to objective moral standards. So, there is no contradiction to find in those cases.
When a Christian does proclaim the existence of absolute, objective moral standards to be found in the Bible and also that the Bible should be read as a literal, historical account of God's will through the past, then a contradiction can be established. Either the mass slaughter of infants and children is always and objectively immoral or not. If "not," and if there are circumstances where such an event can be treated as morally licit, then we have the acceptance of relative morality. It's not that conservative, fundamentalist Christians reject moral relativism; instead, it's that they only want morality to be relative to the whims and desires of some super-authority figure — be it God, priests, dictators, etc.
Comments
He who gives, takes away.
Humans cannot take life, but God, who made it, has every right to.
If you read about the Amalekites (not just in the Bible), you will see how horrible these people were and what they did to deserve God’s punishment.
I use punishment in the connotation as that of a parent to a kid. Do you not punish your kids when they do something wrong?
Because God can do it, does not mean we believe in moral relativity, it’s not ok for us to do anything of that nature. And before you say “the people killed Amalekites”, yes, they did, but it was under God’s specific authority.
They manage to do so quite regularly.
In what way is this “right” established?
All of them? Even the infants and children?
I don’t kill kids who do something wrong.
I hate to break the news to you, but that’s the definition of moral relativism: the morality of an action is “relative” to the person, culture, era, etc.
So, any time a person believes they are ordered by God to kill, that’s moral?
I love how Underdog80 basically proves your point about Christianity and moral relativism, Austin. Like in the article you posted about the Christians killing child “witches” in Nigeria, he claims those aren’t “true” Christians, but then in an entirely different article, he defends God killing children.
Brooks: Underdog is also demonstrating the degree to which “moral relativism” is simply a scape goat for conservative Christians like him. It’s not that conservative Christian don’t engage in some measure of moral relativism themselves, but they have invested so much in attributing this to “outsiders” that they can no longer acknowledge their own participation. As a consequence of turning a blind eye to it, they actually manage to exacerbate whatever problems moral relativism can create.
To add another funny story, this past Sunday on Atheist Experience one of the callers was trying to defend the morality of a doctrine that includes a “hell.” His argument began with “you can’t judge god.” In other words–god’s morality is beyond human judgement.
Later, when he was asked if it would be moral to rape a woman if god told him to do it (since god commanded it, it’s moral, right?)–he _actually_ replied, “God would never tell someone to do a thing like that.”
Despite the reality that god commanded all sorts of atrocities under the Law and in situations like the Amelakite issue, there is a deeper issue: If you can’t judge god’s moral decisions, choices, actions, commands–on what grounds do you assert “god would never…” tell someone to do something?
Wouldn’t that statement in itself require a personal moral judgment about god’s morality? If I can’t judge god’s morality–as a human–then I am incapable of asserting “god is moral.” If I say god is moral–am I not making a judgment about god’s moral character? (Rhetorical, YES, I AM.)
If we can call god “moral”–then we, clearly, can judge god’s morality. And I don’t know how else to “judge” whether or not something is moral than to examine the actions of that person(age) and ask the question, “does this demonstrate a moral character?”
Does commanding genocide and mass infanticide (seriously–punishing infants? Of _what_ could infants possibly be guilty that would merit a death sentence? Who could assert such stupidity?) constitute a moral action? When we see genocide and infanticide do we call that moral? No, we do not. And we condemn those who commit such acts as plagues upon humanity who are without moral conscience–animals, beasts, criminals, monsters.
So, if we examine god’s actions, and they align with “monstrous”–aren’t we forced to judge god as an _immoral_ character? And if we cannot know his reasons and cannot judge his actions–then aren’t we saying that we cannot actually say he _is_ moral in that case?
In other words, a judgment must render immoral if we use normal moral standards. And if we say other standards–of which we cannot be privy–must be used…then we cannot judge. We must, at best, say that we cannot make a determination of whether or not god is a moral character. And if that is the case–why would anyone follow god’s commands–without anyway of being able to determine they represent moral action?
just to ask: How could we differentiate between an immoral and a moral god in such a model? (Rhetorical, WE COULDN’T.)
When you think about it though, technically aren’t Christians more like nihilists than moral relativists? Like Christians teach that we aren’t supposed to love the world or the things of the world, thus Christians in reality teach that this life has no meaning, contrary to their contradictory claims God gives life meaning. And xtians teach that the will of God trumps morality, contrary to their claims of believing we can be moral because of God, thus it’s not so much xtians don’t believe morals are relative, rather they don’t believe in any morals at all, but to follow whatever God ways whether it’s moral or not, thus xtians really don’t believe in morality either, so xtians are actually nihilists.
Something else I’ve noticed, that’s quite similar, is that Christians will accuse atheists of having no choice but to believe that “might equals right” if there’s no god, or something along those lines.
The lack of self-awareness is truly breathtaking. Christians worship a being they believe to be the mightiest entity in existence, and they believe right and wrong is determined by the decisions of this being.
What is this if it’s not belief that “might makes right”? And yet THEY accuse US of believing that “might makes right”, and use that as some sort of argument against atheism.
Again, if you don’t think something’s OK when people do it but you think it’s fine when your god does it you are an arch moral relativist.
If you think Stalin and Hitler were bad because they killed people but you think God killing people is fine, you’re a moral relativist.
They always play the Stalin card against atheists, but no atheist is telling anyone to worship Stalin. Christians want us to worship a god who is at least as much of a killer as Stalin. Is there a word for serial genocidist? if there is, the Christian god is that.
Bizarre.
Brook:
I think Mark hits it. It’s not that they say there is no morality–it’s more like Hitler was immoral for doing X, but god is not immoral for doing X. So, their god model actually has no morality. That’s why I was careful to caveat (where I posted above) that my problem is mainly with Christians who assert a moral model of god–and then try to use the Bible as a moral guide–where god clearly commits or commands just about every major immoral action known to modern man.
Mark:
Not surprisingly, in this same episode of AE I references above, I actually said, “Might makes right” in response to this theist’s arguments–since that is precisely what his argument amounted to. He had to pause and ask, “What?” And at that point Matt D and I had to repeat it to him. “You’re saying might makes right–rule by brute force is moral.”
That’s precisely what it boils down to. “God is god and can do whatever he likes [implying ‘morally’].” But this is generally followed up with a wag of the finger toward you for “judging god.” But if we can’t judge their model of god–according to them–where is their basis for asserting their god is “moral”?
And this is what Brook is driving at–it’s not about morality at that point, because we’ve dropped all “moral” framework.
Liberals often lose because they do not make an absolute response when one is called for. When confronted by a conservative liar and bully, is important to respond with the black hatred such a person deserves. Moral relativism is just dithering in such a situation.
All of you, thank you very much for giving such clear and concise arguments against the Christian belief in absolute morality. I found it difficult to explain how killing can be acceptable and murder isn’t. It is my belief the bible’s commandmant word for kill was a translation error. The word should have been murder. Murder isn’t acceptable, but killing in self defense or the defense of others can be. With all your ideas I have a much better understanding of morality and immorality and feel more prepared to defend the difference between killing and murder!