Alex O'Connor vs Frank Turek | The Moral Argument DEBATE

[ding]

So all of the bad things that people ascribe to this universe and blame God for and use as an excuse to not surrender to God's will, don't really exist. They are the absence of God's attributes and attributed to man's free will to not choose God's attributes.

The universe is neither "bad" nor "good" it simply is.

Actually, existence is good. Bad is not extant. Bad is the absence of good. It is two sides of the same coin but the coin is good. We know this because everyone has a preference for good. Even bad people.

Those are value judgement therefore subjective.

Your assertion that there are only 2 states: the bad and the good leaves out the most prevalent state of the natural world, neutrality.

There is no bad. There is only good. By any objective measure existence is good. Go ahead and do a full accounting. What you perceive as bad is..

1. the absence of good
2. completely overstated
3. tiny in comparison to what is good

Arguing neutrality is a shade of grey that has no bearing on the self evident truth that existence is good.

Again good is a subjective assessment imposed by humans on the world.

Good and bad have no meaning to the universe.

Your behaviors say otherwise.

What behaviors are those?

That she behaves as if she believes in absolute truth and fairness. Everyone behaves that way.

 

[Blues Man]

So the question that naturally begs to be asked is if there is a universal code of common decency that is independent of man how come we all don't behave the same way when it comes to right and wrong? The reason man doesn't behave the same way is because of subjectivity. The difference between being objective and being subjective is bias. Bias is eliminated when there is no preference for an outcome. To eliminate a preference for an outcome one must have no thought of the consequences to one's self. If one does not practice this they will see subjective truth instead of objective truth. Subjective truth leads to moral relativism. Where consequences to self and preferences for an outcome leads to rationalizations of right and wrong.

Behold, the essence of the universal standard of natural law understood by all. Everyone knows when they violate this standard as they cannot sustain their petty to vile violations of this standard by any other means but coercion or suppression.

Behold, we are not beholden to religious extremists who make false and unsubstantiated claims such as "the essence of the universal standard of natural law understood by all''.

Firstly, ''natural law'' is not a function of supernatural gods who would ''naturally'' create supernatural law. Secondly, various cultures inventing various gods who delivered contradictory versions of law refutes quite clearly the religious extremists' statement about some universal standard,

Behold, the confused, inarticulate rambling of the religious extremist.

Nothing unsubstantiated about what was written in this thread. In fact, you have not refuted one single thing.

just as you have not proven one of your assertions

 

[ding]

when humans were tribal and nomadic there was a different set of morals.

as humans started to live in larger groups there had to be a corresponding shift in behaviors and attitudes.

Morals are nothing but acceptable behaviors that a society defines.

There is no universal set of morals because even today there exists differences in morals between different societies

Religious people like to claim that their god has put down a universal code and that does not prove that there is one.

I missed this earlier, but ding addresses it masterfully. Simply stated, moral truth is deciphered or discovered by finite minds via experience and logic. The sort of differences you seem to be alluding to are societal or cultural norms. The fundamentals of morality are universally understood. The violation of the latter will always entail some form of coercion or suppression.

There is no moral truth.

Morals are a human concept. And as human societies become similar, the more their behaviors and attitudes will align.

That this happens is not necessarily proof that there is some absolute moral code floating in the ether but rather it demonstrates that humans are far more alike than they are different

So there are no moral absolutes, except the moral absolute that there are no moral absolutes?

crickets chirping

On another thread, you held that there's a difference between killing someone and murdering someone..

So what precisely is your underlying justification for this moral distinction, and by what means do you make this distinction?

Yes, I am very curious about his answers too. It seems that good and bad do have meaning to him and he is part of the universe.

So you are so arrogant as to think your thoughts are the thoughts of the universe?

We are nothing when compared to the vastness of the universe. Humans have been in existence for 200000 years or so. That is nothing compared to the age of the universe.

We are the universe so to speak. We are the most complex thing the universe has ever produced. You can only know what something is by what it ends up being. The universe is an intelligence creating machine. The universe was created by intelligence to produce intelligence.

 

[Blues Man]

So all of the bad things that people ascribe to this universe and blame God for and use as an excuse to not surrender to God's will, don't really exist. They are the absence of God's attributes and attributed to man's free will to not choose God's attributes.

The universe is neither "bad" nor "good" it simply is.

Actually, existence is good. Bad is not extant. Bad is the absence of good. It is two sides of the same coin but the coin is good. We know this because everyone has a preference for good. Even bad people.

Those are value judgement therefore subjective.

Your assertion that there are only 2 states: the bad and the good leaves out the most prevalent state of the natural world, neutrality.

There is no bad. There is only good. By any objective measure existence is good. Go ahead and do a full accounting. What you perceive as bad is..

1. the absence of good
2. completely overstated
3. tiny in comparison to what is good

Arguing neutrality is a shade of grey that has no bearing on the self evident truth that existence is good.

Again good is a subjective assessment imposed by humans on the world.

Good and bad have no meaning to the universe.

Your behaviors say otherwise.

What behaviors are those?

That she behaves as if she believes in absolute truth and fairness. Everyone behaves that way.

you said that as a response to my post so what behaviors of mine were you referring to?

 

[ding]

So the question that naturally begs to be asked is if there is a universal code of common decency that is independent of man how come we all don't behave the same way when it comes to right and wrong? The reason man doesn't behave the same way is because of subjectivity. The difference between being objective and being subjective is bias. Bias is eliminated when there is no preference for an outcome. To eliminate a preference for an outcome one must have no thought of the consequences to one's self. If one does not practice this they will see subjective truth instead of objective truth. Subjective truth leads to moral relativism. Where consequences to self and preferences for an outcome leads to rationalizations of right and wrong.

Behold, the essence of the universal standard of natural law understood by all. Everyone knows when they violate this standard as they cannot sustain their petty to vile violations of this standard by any other means but coercion or suppression.

Behold, we are not beholden to religious extremists who make false and unsubstantiated claims such as "the essence of the universal standard of natural law understood by all''.

Firstly, ''natural law'' is not a function of supernatural gods who would ''naturally'' create supernatural law. Secondly, various cultures inventing various gods who delivered contradictory versions of law refutes quite clearly the religious extremists' statement about some universal standard,

Behold, the confused, inarticulate rambling of the religious extremist.

Nothing unsubstantiated about what was written in this thread. In fact, you have not refuted one single thing.

just as you have not proven one of your assertions

I disagree. I have explained what it is. You have only argued what it isn't.

If the universe were created through natural process and we are an accidental happenstance of matter and energy doing what matter and energy do, then there should be no expectation for absolute morals. Morals can be anything we want them to be. The problem is that nature does have a preference for an outcome. Societies and people which behave with virtue experience order and harmony. Societies and people which behave without virtue experience disorder and chaos. So we can see from the outcomes that not all behaviors have equal outcomes. That some behaviors have better outcomes and some behaviors have worse outcomes. This is the moral law at work. If the universe was created by spirit for the express purpose of creating beings that know and create we would expect that we would receive feedback on how we behave. The problem is that violating moral laws are not like violating physical laws. When we violate a physical law the consequences are immediate. If you try to defy gravity by jumping off a roof you will fall. Whereas the consequences for violating a moral law are more probabilistic in nature; many times we get away with it.

Morals are effectively standards. For any given thing there exists a standard which is the highest possible standard. This standard exists independent of anything else. It is in effect a universal standard. It exists for a reason. When we deviate from this standard and normalize our deviance from the standard, eventually the reason the standard exists will be discovered. The reason this happens is because error cannot stand. Eventually error will fail and the truth will be discovered. Thus proving that morals cannot be anything we want them to be but are indeed based upon some universal code of common decency that is independent of man.

So the question that naturally begs to be asked is if there is a universal code of common decency that is independent of man how come we all don't behave the same way when it comes to right and wrong? The reason man doesn't behave the same way is because of subjectivity. The difference between being objective and being subjective is bias. Bias is eliminated when there is no preference for an outcome. To eliminate a preference for an outcome one must have no thought of the consequences to one's self. If one does not practice this they will see subjective truth instead of objective truth. Subjective truth leads to moral relativism. Where consequences to self and preferences for an outcome leads to rationalizations of right and wrong.

Man does know right from wrong and when he violates it rather than abandoning the concept of right and wrong he rationalizes he did not violate it. You can see this behavior in almost all quarrels and disagreements. At the heart of every quarrel and disagreement is a belief in a universal right and wrong. So even though each side believes right to be different each side expects the other to believe their side should be universally known and accepted. It is this behavior which tells us there is an expectation for an absolute truth.

If there were never a universal truth that existed man would never have an expectation of fairness to begin with because fairness would have no meaning. The fact that each of us has an expectation of fairness and that we expect everyone else to follow ought to raise our suspicion on the origin of that expectation.

 

[Blues Man]

when humans were tribal and nomadic there was a different set of morals.

as humans started to live in larger groups there had to be a corresponding shift in behaviors and attitudes.

Morals are nothing but acceptable behaviors that a society defines.

There is no universal set of morals because even today there exists differences in morals between different societies

Religious people like to claim that their god has put down a universal code and that does not prove that there is one.

I missed this earlier, but ding addresses it masterfully. Simply stated, moral truth is deciphered or discovered by finite minds via experience and logic. The sort of differences you seem to be alluding to are societal or cultural norms. The fundamentals of morality are universally understood. The violation of the latter will always entail some form of coercion or suppression.

There is no moral truth.

Morals are a human concept. And as human societies become similar, the more their behaviors and attitudes will align.

That this happens is not necessarily proof that there is some absolute moral code floating in the ether but rather it demonstrates that humans are far more alike than they are different

So there are no moral absolutes, except the moral absolute that there are no moral absolutes?

crickets chirping

On another thread, you held that there's a difference between killing someone and murdering someone..

So what precisely is your underlying justification for this moral distinction, and by what means do you make this distinction?

Yes, I am very curious about his answers too. It seems that good and bad do have meaning to him and he is part of the universe.

So you are so arrogant as to think your thoughts are the thoughts of the universe?

We are nothing when compared to the vastness of the universe. Humans have been in existence for 200000 years or so. That is nothing compared to the age of the universe.

We are the universe so to speak. We are the most complex thing the universe has ever produced. You can only know what something is by what it ends up being. The universe is an intelligence creating machine. The universe was created by intelligence to produce intelligence.

we are not the universe.

we are creatures exisiting in the framework of the universe. The universe has been here long before us and will be here long after we are gone

 

[ding]

So all of the bad things that people ascribe to this universe and blame God for and use as an excuse to not surrender to God's will, don't really exist. They are the absence of God's attributes and attributed to man's free will to not choose God's attributes.

The universe is neither "bad" nor "good" it simply is.

Actually, existence is good. Bad is not extant. Bad is the absence of good. It is two sides of the same coin but the coin is good. We know this because everyone has a preference for good. Even bad people.

Those are value judgement therefore subjective.

Your assertion that there are only 2 states: the bad and the good leaves out the most prevalent state of the natural world, neutrality.

There is no bad. There is only good. By any objective measure existence is good. Go ahead and do a full accounting. What you perceive as bad is..

1. the absence of good
2. completely overstated
3. tiny in comparison to what is good

Arguing neutrality is a shade of grey that has no bearing on the self evident truth that existence is good.

Again good is a subjective assessment imposed by humans on the world.

Good and bad have no meaning to the universe.

Your behaviors say otherwise.

What behaviors are those?

That she behaves as if she believes in absolute truth and fairness. Everyone behaves that way.

you said that as a response to my post so what behaviors of mine were you referring to?

I just told you. You believe in absolute truth and fairness. You may say you don't but you prove otherwise with every quarrel and argument you have. Man does know right from wrong and when he violates it rather than abandoning the concept of right and wrong he rationalizes he did not violate it. You can see this behavior in almost all quarrels and disagreements. At the heart of every quarrel and disagreement is a belief in a universal right and wrong. So even though each side believes right to be different each side expects the other to believe their side should be universally known and accepted. It is this behavior which tells us there is an expectation for an absolute truth.

 

[ding]

when humans were tribal and nomadic there was a different set of morals.

as humans started to live in larger groups there had to be a corresponding shift in behaviors and attitudes.

Morals are nothing but acceptable behaviors that a society defines.

There is no universal set of morals because even today there exists differences in morals between different societies

Religious people like to claim that their god has put down a universal code and that does not prove that there is one.

I missed this earlier, but ding addresses it masterfully. Simply stated, moral truth is deciphered or discovered by finite minds via experience and logic. The sort of differences you seem to be alluding to are societal or cultural norms. The fundamentals of morality are universally understood. The violation of the latter will always entail some form of coercion or suppression.

There is no moral truth.

Morals are a human concept. And as human societies become similar, the more their behaviors and attitudes will align.

That this happens is not necessarily proof that there is some absolute moral code floating in the ether but rather it demonstrates that humans are far more alike than they are different

So there are no moral absolutes, except the moral absolute that there are no moral absolutes?

crickets chirping

On another thread, you held that there's a difference between killing someone and murdering someone..

So what precisely is your underlying justification for this moral distinction, and by what means do you make this distinction?

Yes, I am very curious about his answers too. It seems that good and bad do have meaning to him and he is part of the universe.

So you are so arrogant as to think your thoughts are the thoughts of the universe?

We are nothing when compared to the vastness of the universe. Humans have been in existence for 200000 years or so. That is nothing compared to the age of the universe.

We are the universe so to speak. We are the most complex thing the universe has ever produced. You can only know what something is by what it ends up being. The universe is an intelligence creating machine. The universe was created by intelligence to produce intelligence.

we are not the universe.

we are creatures exisiting in the framework of the universe. The universe has been here long before us and will be here long after we are gone

The atoms in your body were created from nothing ~14 billion years ago. Since that time they have merely changed form. Or don't you believe in the conservation of energy?

 

[Blues Man]

So the question that naturally begs to be asked is if there is a universal code of common decency that is independent of man how come we all don't behave the same way when it comes to right and wrong? The reason man doesn't behave the same way is because of subjectivity. The difference between being objective and being subjective is bias. Bias is eliminated when there is no preference for an outcome. To eliminate a preference for an outcome one must have no thought of the consequences to one's self. If one does not practice this they will see subjective truth instead of objective truth. Subjective truth leads to moral relativism. Where consequences to self and preferences for an outcome leads to rationalizations of right and wrong.

Behold, the essence of the universal standard of natural law understood by all. Everyone knows when they violate this standard as they cannot sustain their petty to vile violations of this standard by any other means but coercion or suppression.

Behold, we are not beholden to religious extremists who make false and unsubstantiated claims such as "the essence of the universal standard of natural law understood by all''.

Firstly, ''natural law'' is not a function of supernatural gods who would ''naturally'' create supernatural law. Secondly, various cultures inventing various gods who delivered contradictory versions of law refutes quite clearly the religious extremists' statement about some universal standard,

Behold, the confused, inarticulate rambling of the religious extremist.

Nothing unsubstantiated about what was written in this thread. In fact, you have not refuted one single thing.

just as you have not proven one of your assertions

I disagree. I have explained what it is. You have only argued what it isn't.

If the universe were created through natural process and we are an accidental happenstance of matter and energy doing what matter and energy do, then there should be no expectation for absolute morals. Morals can be anything we want them to be. The problem is that nature does have a preference for an outcome. Societies and people which behave with virtue experience order and harmony. Societies and people which behave without virtue experience disorder and chaos. So we can see from the outcomes that not all behaviors have equal outcomes. That some behaviors have better outcomes and some behaviors have worse outcomes. This is the moral law at work. If the universe was created by spirit for the express purpose of creating beings that know and create we would expect that we would receive feedback on how we behave. The problem is that violating moral laws are not like violating physical laws. When we violate a physical law the consequences are immediate. If you try to defy gravity by jumping off a roof you will fall. Whereas the consequences for violating a moral law are more probabilistic in nature; many times we get away with it.

Morals are effectively standards. For any given thing there exists a standard which is the highest possible standard. This standard exists independent of anything else. It is in effect a universal standard. It exists for a reason. When we deviate from this standard and normalize our deviance from the standard, eventually the reason the standard exists will be discovered. The reason this happens is because error cannot stand. Eventually error will fail and the truth will be discovered. Thus proving that morals cannot be anything we want them to be but are indeed based upon some universal code of common decency that is independent of man.

So the question that naturally begs to be asked is if there is a universal code of common decency that is independent of man how come we all don't behave the same way when it comes to right and wrong? The reason man doesn't behave the same way is because of subjectivity. The difference between being objective and being subjective is bias. Bias is eliminated when there is no preference for an outcome. To eliminate a preference for an outcome one must have no thought of the consequences to one's self. If one does not practice this they will see subjective truth instead of objective truth. Subjective truth leads to moral relativism. Where consequences to self and preferences for an outcome leads to rationalizations of right and wrong.

Man does know right from wrong and when he violates it rather than abandoning the concept of right and wrong he rationalizes he did not violate it. You can see this behavior in almost all quarrels and disagreements. At the heart of every quarrel and disagreement is a belief in a universal right and wrong. So even though each side believes right to be different each side expects the other to believe their side should be universally known and accepted. It is this behavior which tells us there is an expectation for an absolute truth.

If there were never a universal truth that existed man would never have an expectation of fairness to begin with because fairness would have no meaning. The fact that each of us has an expectation of fairness and that we expect everyone else to follow ought to raise our suspicion on the origin of that expectation.

right and wrong as concepts are a human invention. They did not exist before our minds were capable of the intellectual processes that could consider them.

The history of societal morals is the history of man as they could not have existed before man.

Our morals have evolved for no other reason than some behaviors are more beneficial to survival.

The concept of fairness is no different. In fact I believe the concept of fairness was born out of the human trait of jealousy.

 

[ding]

So the question that naturally begs to be asked is if there is a universal code of common decency that is independent of man how come we all don't behave the same way when it comes to right and wrong? The reason man doesn't behave the same way is because of subjectivity. The difference between being objective and being subjective is bias. Bias is eliminated when there is no preference for an outcome. To eliminate a preference for an outcome one must have no thought of the consequences to one's self. If one does not practice this they will see subjective truth instead of objective truth. Subjective truth leads to moral relativism. Where consequences to self and preferences for an outcome leads to rationalizations of right and wrong.

Behold, the essence of the universal standard of natural law understood by all. Everyone knows when they violate this standard as they cannot sustain their petty to vile violations of this standard by any other means but coercion or suppression.

Behold, we are not beholden to religious extremists who make false and unsubstantiated claims such as "the essence of the universal standard of natural law understood by all''.

Firstly, ''natural law'' is not a function of supernatural gods who would ''naturally'' create supernatural law. Secondly, various cultures inventing various gods who delivered contradictory versions of law refutes quite clearly the religious extremists' statement about some universal standard,

Behold, the confused, inarticulate rambling of the religious extremist.

Nothing unsubstantiated about what was written in this thread. In fact, you have not refuted one single thing.

just as you have not proven one of your assertions

I disagree. I have explained what it is. You have only argued what it isn't.

If the universe were created through natural process and we are an accidental happenstance of matter and energy doing what matter and energy do, then there should be no expectation for absolute morals. Morals can be anything we want them to be. The problem is that nature does have a preference for an outcome. Societies and people which behave with virtue experience order and harmony. Societies and people which behave without virtue experience disorder and chaos. So we can see from the outcomes that not all behaviors have equal outcomes. That some behaviors have better outcomes and some behaviors have worse outcomes. This is the moral law at work. If the universe was created by spirit for the express purpose of creating beings that know and create we would expect that we would receive feedback on how we behave. The problem is that violating moral laws are not like violating physical laws. When we violate a physical law the consequences are immediate. If you try to defy gravity by jumping off a roof you will fall. Whereas the consequences for violating a moral law are more probabilistic in nature; many times we get away with it.

Morals are effectively standards. For any given thing there exists a standard which is the highest possible standard. This standard exists independent of anything else. It is in effect a universal standard. It exists for a reason. When we deviate from this standard and normalize our deviance from the standard, eventually the reason the standard exists will be discovered. The reason this happens is because error cannot stand. Eventually error will fail and the truth will be discovered. Thus proving that morals cannot be anything we want them to be but are indeed based upon some universal code of common decency that is independent of man.

So the question that naturally begs to be asked is if there is a universal code of common decency that is independent of man how come we all don't behave the same way when it comes to right and wrong? The reason man doesn't behave the same way is because of subjectivity. The difference between being objective and being subjective is bias. Bias is eliminated when there is no preference for an outcome. To eliminate a preference for an outcome one must have no thought of the consequences to one's self. If one does not practice this they will see subjective truth instead of objective truth. Subjective truth leads to moral relativism. Where consequences to self and preferences for an outcome leads to rationalizations of right and wrong.

Man does know right from wrong and when he violates it rather than abandoning the concept of right and wrong he rationalizes he did not violate it. You can see this behavior in almost all quarrels and disagreements. At the heart of every quarrel and disagreement is a belief in a universal right and wrong. So even though each side believes right to be different each side expects the other to believe their side should be universally known and accepted. It is this behavior which tells us there is an expectation for an absolute truth.

If there were never a universal truth that existed man would never have an expectation of fairness to begin with because fairness would have no meaning. The fact that each of us has an expectation of fairness and that we expect everyone else to follow ought to raise our suspicion on the origin of that expectation.

right and wrong as concepts are a human invention. They did not exist before our minds were capable of the intellectual processes that could consider them.

The history of societal morals is the history of man as they could not have existed before man.

Our morals have evolved for no other reason than some behaviors are more beneficial to survival.

The concept of fairness is no different. In fact I believe the concept of fairness was born out of the human trait of jealousy.

Right and wrong / fairness is an artifact of intelligence. It is based on logic. It existed before man existed and was only waiting to be discovered like everything else which is apart from man.

 

[Blues Man]

So all of the bad things that people ascribe to this universe and blame God for and use as an excuse to not surrender to God's will, don't really exist. They are the absence of God's attributes and attributed to man's free will to not choose God's attributes.

The universe is neither "bad" nor "good" it simply is.

Actually, existence is good. Bad is not extant. Bad is the absence of good. It is two sides of the same coin but the coin is good. We know this because everyone has a preference for good. Even bad people.

Those are value judgement therefore subjective.

Your assertion that there are only 2 states: the bad and the good leaves out the most prevalent state of the natural world, neutrality.

There is no bad. There is only good. By any objective measure existence is good. Go ahead and do a full accounting. What you perceive as bad is..

1. the absence of good
2. completely overstated
3. tiny in comparison to what is good

Arguing neutrality is a shade of grey that has no bearing on the self evident truth that existence is good.

Again good is a subjective assessment imposed by humans on the world.

Good and bad have no meaning to the universe.

Your behaviors say otherwise.

What behaviors are those?

That she behaves as if she believes in absolute truth and fairness. Everyone behaves that way.

you said that as a response to my post so what behaviors of mine were you referring to?

I just told you. You believe in absolute truth and fairness. You may say you don't but you prove otherwise with every quarrel and argument you have. Man does know right from wrong and when he violates it rather than abandoning the concept of right and wrong he rationalizes he did not violate it. You can see this behavior in almost all quarrels and disagreements. At the heart of every quarrel and disagreement is a belief in a universal right and wrong. So even though each side believes right to be different each side expects the other to believe their side should be universally known and accepted. It is this behavior which tells us there is an expectation for an absolute truth.

But I don't believe in absolute fairness or in absolute morals.

And my own personal sense of right and wrong is mostly due to the society I was raised in.

There are so many contradictions to the idea of absolute morality that I could never run out of examples.

Humans are so adept at holding two opposing thoughts that we don't even realize we do it.

Example:

A man is mowing the lawn in a park and he sees a flock of baby chickens but instead of going around them he runs them over and his mower spews out macerated baby birds all over the grass. A group of parents with their children see him do this and are appalled at the cruelty. The man with the mower is arrested for his crime and will at least be fined if not jailed and will probably lose his job.

These parents of the traumatized children celebrate their victory over this evil man by all going out for a breakfast of scrambled eggs and bacon.

Now the farmers at the poultry farm where those eggs are collected will routinely throw live male baby chicks into a machine where they are macerated while still alive.

But the farmer who macerates the baby chicks on the farm is not considered evil.

There is no moral absolute there

 

[Blues Man]

So the question that naturally begs to be asked is if there is a universal code of common decency that is independent of man how come we all don't behave the same way when it comes to right and wrong? The reason man doesn't behave the same way is because of subjectivity. The difference between being objective and being subjective is bias. Bias is eliminated when there is no preference for an outcome. To eliminate a preference for an outcome one must have no thought of the consequences to one's self. If one does not practice this they will see subjective truth instead of objective truth. Subjective truth leads to moral relativism. Where consequences to self and preferences for an outcome leads to rationalizations of right and wrong.

Behold, the essence of the universal standard of natural law understood by all. Everyone knows when they violate this standard as they cannot sustain their petty to vile violations of this standard by any other means but coercion or suppression.

Behold, we are not beholden to religious extremists who make false and unsubstantiated claims such as "the essence of the universal standard of natural law understood by all''.

Firstly, ''natural law'' is not a function of supernatural gods who would ''naturally'' create supernatural law. Secondly, various cultures inventing various gods who delivered contradictory versions of law refutes quite clearly the religious extremists' statement about some universal standard,

Behold, the confused, inarticulate rambling of the religious extremist.

Nothing unsubstantiated about what was written in this thread. In fact, you have not refuted one single thing.

just as you have not proven one of your assertions

I disagree. I have explained what it is. You have only argued what it isn't.

If the universe were created through natural process and we are an accidental happenstance of matter and energy doing what matter and energy do, then there should be no expectation for absolute morals. Morals can be anything we want them to be. The problem is that nature does have a preference for an outcome. Societies and people which behave with virtue experience order and harmony. Societies and people which behave without virtue experience disorder and chaos. So we can see from the outcomes that not all behaviors have equal outcomes. That some behaviors have better outcomes and some behaviors have worse outcomes. This is the moral law at work. If the universe was created by spirit for the express purpose of creating beings that know and create we would expect that we would receive feedback on how we behave. The problem is that violating moral laws are not like violating physical laws. When we violate a physical law the consequences are immediate. If you try to defy gravity by jumping off a roof you will fall. Whereas the consequences for violating a moral law are more probabilistic in nature; many times we get away with it.

Morals are effectively standards. For any given thing there exists a standard which is the highest possible standard. This standard exists independent of anything else. It is in effect a universal standard. It exists for a reason. When we deviate from this standard and normalize our deviance from the standard, eventually the reason the standard exists will be discovered. The reason this happens is because error cannot stand. Eventually error will fail and the truth will be discovered. Thus proving that morals cannot be anything we want them to be but are indeed based upon some universal code of common decency that is independent of man.

So the question that naturally begs to be asked is if there is a universal code of common decency that is independent of man how come we all don't behave the same way when it comes to right and wrong? The reason man doesn't behave the same way is because of subjectivity. The difference between being objective and being subjective is bias. Bias is eliminated when there is no preference for an outcome. To eliminate a preference for an outcome one must have no thought of the consequences to one's self. If one does not practice this they will see subjective truth instead of objective truth. Subjective truth leads to moral relativism. Where consequences to self and preferences for an outcome leads to rationalizations of right and wrong.

Man does know right from wrong and when he violates it rather than abandoning the concept of right and wrong he rationalizes he did not violate it. You can see this behavior in almost all quarrels and disagreements. At the heart of every quarrel and disagreement is a belief in a universal right and wrong. So even though each side believes right to be different each side expects the other to believe their side should be universally known and accepted. It is this behavior which tells us there is an expectation for an absolute truth.

If there were never a universal truth that existed man would never have an expectation of fairness to begin with because fairness would have no meaning. The fact that each of us has an expectation of fairness and that we expect everyone else to follow ought to raise our suspicion on the origin of that expectation.

right and wrong as concepts are a human invention. They did not exist before our minds were capable of the intellectual processes that could consider them.

The history of societal morals is the history of man as they could not have existed before man.

Our morals have evolved for no other reason than some behaviors are more beneficial to survival.

The concept of fairness is no different. In fact I believe the concept of fairness was born out of the human trait of jealousy.

Right and wrong / fairness is an artifact of intelligence. It is based on logic. It existed before man existed and was only waiting to be discovered like everything else which is apart from man.

Logic was invented by man in an attempt to better his own reasoning ability.

 

[Blues Man]

when humans were tribal and nomadic there was a different set of morals.

as humans started to live in larger groups there had to be a corresponding shift in behaviors and attitudes.

Morals are nothing but acceptable behaviors that a society defines.

There is no universal set of morals because even today there exists differences in morals between different societies

Religious people like to claim that their god has put down a universal code and that does not prove that there is one.

I missed this earlier, but ding addresses it masterfully. Simply stated, moral truth is deciphered or discovered by finite minds via experience and logic. The sort of differences you seem to be alluding to are societal or cultural norms. The fundamentals of morality are universally understood. The violation of the latter will always entail some form of coercion or suppression.

There is no moral truth.

Morals are a human concept. And as human societies become similar, the more their behaviors and attitudes will align.

That this happens is not necessarily proof that there is some absolute moral code floating in the ether but rather it demonstrates that humans are far more alike than they are different

So there are no moral absolutes, except the moral absolute that there are no moral absolutes?

crickets chirping

On another thread, you held that there's a difference between killing someone and murdering someone..

So what precisely is your underlying justification for this moral distinction, and by what means do you make this distinction?

Yes, I am very curious about his answers too. It seems that good and bad do have meaning to him and he is part of the universe.

So you are so arrogant as to think your thoughts are the thoughts of the universe?

We are nothing when compared to the vastness of the universe. Humans have been in existence for 200000 years or so. That is nothing compared to the age of the universe.

We are the universe so to speak. We are the most complex thing the universe has ever produced. You can only know what something is by what it ends up being. The universe is an intelligence creating machine. The universe was created by intelligence to produce intelligence.

we are not the universe.

we are creatures exisiting in the framework of the universe. The universe has been here long before us and will be here long after we are gone

The atoms in your body were created from nothing ~14 billion years ago. Since that time they have merely changed form. Or don't you believe in the conservation of energy?

That has nothing to do with morals.

Once again you equate the physical world with thought.

 

[BreezeWood]

.
there are absolutes between one or the other in triumph however the divergence of good and evil being equal precludes a set standard otherwise - in accordance from antiquity.

Do you speak English?

.

is there a physiological being without a spirit ...

Do you speak English?

.
howbout it ringtone, your 4th century religion's forgeries -
.

.
is there a physiological being without a spirit - other than collective humanity and their disingenuous self interests promoted and disguised as religions. christianity. pure in its unwavering scriptures.

 

[ding]

So all of the bad things that people ascribe to this universe and blame God for and use as an excuse to not surrender to God's will, don't really exist. They are the absence of God's attributes and attributed to man's free will to not choose God's attributes.

The universe is neither "bad" nor "good" it simply is.

Actually, existence is good. Bad is not extant. Bad is the absence of good. It is two sides of the same coin but the coin is good. We know this because everyone has a preference for good. Even bad people.

Those are value judgement therefore subjective.

Your assertion that there are only 2 states: the bad and the good leaves out the most prevalent state of the natural world, neutrality.

There is no bad. There is only good. By any objective measure existence is good. Go ahead and do a full accounting. What you perceive as bad is..

1. the absence of good
2. completely overstated
3. tiny in comparison to what is good

Arguing neutrality is a shade of grey that has no bearing on the self evident truth that existence is good.

Again good is a subjective assessment imposed by humans on the world.

Good and bad have no meaning to the universe.

Your behaviors say otherwise.

What behaviors are those?

That she behaves as if she believes in absolute truth and fairness. Everyone behaves that way.

you said that as a response to my post so what behaviors of mine were you referring to?

I just told you. You believe in absolute truth and fairness. You may say you don't but you prove otherwise with every quarrel and argument you have. Man does know right from wrong and when he violates it rather than abandoning the concept of right and wrong he rationalizes he did not violate it. You can see this behavior in almost all quarrels and disagreements. At the heart of every quarrel and disagreement is a belief in a universal right and wrong. So even though each side believes right to be different each side expects the other to believe their side should be universally known and accepted. It is this behavior which tells us there is an expectation for an absolute truth.

But I don't believe in absolute fairness or in absolute morals.

And my own personal sense of right and wrong is mostly due to the society I was raised in.

There are so many contradictions to the idea of absolute morality that I could never run out of examples.

Humans are so adept at holding two opposing thoughts that we don't even realize we do it.

Example:

A man is mowing the lawn in a park and he sees a flock of baby chickens but instead of going around them he runs them over and his mower spews out macerated baby birds all over the grass. A group of parents with their children see him do this and are appalled at the cruelty. The man with the mower is arrested for his crime and will at least be fined if not jailed and will probably lose his job.

These parents of the traumatized children celebrate their victory over this evil man by all going out for a breakfast of scrambled eggs and bacon.

Now the farmers at the poultry farm where those eggs are collected will routinely throw live male baby chicks into a machine where they are macerated while still alive.

But the farmer who macerates the baby chicks on the farm is not considered evil.

There is no moral absolute there

Your behaviors do say you believe in absolute morals and fairness. That's why when someone violates what you believe is right or fair, it illicits a strong feeling within you. If you really didn't believe in absolute morals and fairness, you wouldn't care because those concepts would just be opinions with no opinion being better than any other.

As I said before logic determines what is right and wrong and fair. So society and you are free to pick whatever silly thing you want but logic says you will suffer the consequences of picking lower standards. But I am really shocked that you would accept child molestation as moral if society said it was moral. I wouldn't because logic says it is wrong.

As to your moral dilemma example... unnecessary death or death for pleasure is wrong. The eggs we eat are unfertilized so no moral dilemma there, right? Every living creature is born to die so death in and of itself is not bad because without regeneration there would be no life. Death is a necessary part of life. It is the unnecessary taking of life that is morally wrong. So if a farmer is unnecessarily killing males, it is wrong. I don't see anyone celebrating it, other than maybe you who is trying to profit from it to rationalize there is no such thing as good and bad when logic clearly says otherwise. You lose again.

 

[ding]

So the question that naturally begs to be asked is if there is a universal code of common decency that is independent of man how come we all don't behave the same way when it comes to right and wrong? The reason man doesn't behave the same way is because of subjectivity. The difference between being objective and being subjective is bias. Bias is eliminated when there is no preference for an outcome. To eliminate a preference for an outcome one must have no thought of the consequences to one's self. If one does not practice this they will see subjective truth instead of objective truth. Subjective truth leads to moral relativism. Where consequences to self and preferences for an outcome leads to rationalizations of right and wrong.

Behold, the essence of the universal standard of natural law understood by all. Everyone knows when they violate this standard as they cannot sustain their petty to vile violations of this standard by any other means but coercion or suppression.

Behold, we are not beholden to religious extremists who make false and unsubstantiated claims such as "the essence of the universal standard of natural law understood by all''.

Firstly, ''natural law'' is not a function of supernatural gods who would ''naturally'' create supernatural law. Secondly, various cultures inventing various gods who delivered contradictory versions of law refutes quite clearly the religious extremists' statement about some universal standard,

Behold, the confused, inarticulate rambling of the religious extremist.

Nothing unsubstantiated about what was written in this thread. In fact, you have not refuted one single thing.

just as you have not proven one of your assertions

I disagree. I have explained what it is. You have only argued what it isn't.

If the universe were created through natural process and we are an accidental happenstance of matter and energy doing what matter and energy do, then there should be no expectation for absolute morals. Morals can be anything we want them to be. The problem is that nature does have a preference for an outcome. Societies and people which behave with virtue experience order and harmony. Societies and people which behave without virtue experience disorder and chaos. So we can see from the outcomes that not all behaviors have equal outcomes. That some behaviors have better outcomes and some behaviors have worse outcomes. This is the moral law at work. If the universe was created by spirit for the express purpose of creating beings that know and create we would expect that we would receive feedback on how we behave. The problem is that violating moral laws are not like violating physical laws. When we violate a physical law the consequences are immediate. If you try to defy gravity by jumping off a roof you will fall. Whereas the consequences for violating a moral law are more probabilistic in nature; many times we get away with it.

Morals are effectively standards. For any given thing there exists a standard which is the highest possible standard. This standard exists independent of anything else. It is in effect a universal standard. It exists for a reason. When we deviate from this standard and normalize our deviance from the standard, eventually the reason the standard exists will be discovered. The reason this happens is because error cannot stand. Eventually error will fail and the truth will be discovered. Thus proving that morals cannot be anything we want them to be but are indeed based upon some universal code of common decency that is independent of man.

So the question that naturally begs to be asked is if there is a universal code of common decency that is independent of man how come we all don't behave the same way when it comes to right and wrong? The reason man doesn't behave the same way is because of subjectivity. The difference between being objective and being subjective is bias. Bias is eliminated when there is no preference for an outcome. To eliminate a preference for an outcome one must have no thought of the consequences to one's self. If one does not practice this they will see subjective truth instead of objective truth. Subjective truth leads to moral relativism. Where consequences to self and preferences for an outcome leads to rationalizations of right and wrong.

Man does know right from wrong and when he violates it rather than abandoning the concept of right and wrong he rationalizes he did not violate it. You can see this behavior in almost all quarrels and disagreements. At the heart of every quarrel and disagreement is a belief in a universal right and wrong. So even though each side believes right to be different each side expects the other to believe their side should be universally known and accepted. It is this behavior which tells us there is an expectation for an absolute truth.

If there were never a universal truth that existed man would never have an expectation of fairness to begin with because fairness would have no meaning. The fact that each of us has an expectation of fairness and that we expect everyone else to follow ought to raise our suspicion on the origin of that expectation.

right and wrong as concepts are a human invention. They did not exist before our minds were capable of the intellectual processes that could consider them.

The history of societal morals is the history of man as they could not have existed before man.

Our morals have evolved for no other reason than some behaviors are more beneficial to survival.

The concept of fairness is no different. In fact I believe the concept of fairness was born out of the human trait of jealousy.

Right and wrong / fairness is an artifact of intelligence. It is based on logic. It existed before man existed and was only waiting to be discovered like everything else which is apart from man.

Logic was invented by man in an attempt to better his own reasoning ability.

We have already covered this before. Logic, math, science, music, art, love, mercy, kindness, forgiveness, etc all exist apart from man. They are artifacts of intelligence. You keep confusing man inventing those things when by any objective measurement man discovered those things.

 

[ding]

when humans were tribal and nomadic there was a different set of morals.

as humans started to live in larger groups there had to be a corresponding shift in behaviors and attitudes.

Morals are nothing but acceptable behaviors that a society defines.

There is no universal set of morals because even today there exists differences in morals between different societies

Religious people like to claim that their god has put down a universal code and that does not prove that there is one.

I missed this earlier, but ding addresses it masterfully. Simply stated, moral truth is deciphered or discovered by finite minds via experience and logic. The sort of differences you seem to be alluding to are societal or cultural norms. The fundamentals of morality are universally understood. The violation of the latter will always entail some form of coercion or suppression.

There is no moral truth.

Morals are a human concept. And as human societies become similar, the more their behaviors and attitudes will align.

That this happens is not necessarily proof that there is some absolute moral code floating in the ether but rather it demonstrates that humans are far more alike than they are different

So there are no moral absolutes, except the moral absolute that there are no moral absolutes?

crickets chirping

On another thread, you held that there's a difference between killing someone and murdering someone..

So what precisely is your underlying justification for this moral distinction, and by what means do you make this distinction?

Yes, I am very curious about his answers too. It seems that good and bad do have meaning to him and he is part of the universe.

So you are so arrogant as to think your thoughts are the thoughts of the universe?

We are nothing when compared to the vastness of the universe. Humans have been in existence for 200000 years or so. That is nothing compared to the age of the universe.

We are the universe so to speak. We are the most complex thing the universe has ever produced. You can only know what something is by what it ends up being. The universe is an intelligence creating machine. The universe was created by intelligence to produce intelligence.

we are not the universe.

we are creatures exisiting in the framework of the universe. The universe has been here long before us and will be here long after we are gone

The atoms in your body were created from nothing ~14 billion years ago. Since that time they have merely changed form. Or don't you believe in the conservation of energy?

That has nothing to do with morals.

Once again you equate the physical world with thought.

It has to do with your argument that you are not the universe. That the universe is not conscious or that consciousness plays no part in anything. The universe is every single thing that has existed since the universe was created from nothing ~14 billion years ago. You are part of it. Even Carl Sagan recognized the universe became conscious through human beings. I'm not sure why a conscious being like yourself cannot see it.

We got onto this because you intentionally took Nobel Laureate George Wald's statements out of context.

 

[Blues Man]

So all of the bad things that people ascribe to this universe and blame God for and use as an excuse to not surrender to God's will, don't really exist. They are the absence of God's attributes and attributed to man's free will to not choose God's attributes.

The universe is neither "bad" nor "good" it simply is.

Actually, existence is good. Bad is not extant. Bad is the absence of good. It is two sides of the same coin but the coin is good. We know this because everyone has a preference for good. Even bad people.

Those are value judgement therefore subjective.

Your assertion that there are only 2 states: the bad and the good leaves out the most prevalent state of the natural world, neutrality.

There is no bad. There is only good. By any objective measure existence is good. Go ahead and do a full accounting. What you perceive as bad is..

1. the absence of good
2. completely overstated
3. tiny in comparison to what is good

Arguing neutrality is a shade of grey that has no bearing on the self evident truth that existence is good.

Again good is a subjective assessment imposed by humans on the world.

Good and bad have no meaning to the universe.

Your behaviors say otherwise.

What behaviors are those?

That she behaves as if she believes in absolute truth and fairness. Everyone behaves that way.

you said that as a response to my post so what behaviors of mine were you referring to?

I just told you. You believe in absolute truth and fairness. You may say you don't but you prove otherwise with every quarrel and argument you have. Man does know right from wrong and when he violates it rather than abandoning the concept of right and wrong he rationalizes he did not violate it. You can see this behavior in almost all quarrels and disagreements. At the heart of every quarrel and disagreement is a belief in a universal right and wrong. So even though each side believes right to be different each side expects the other to believe their side should be universally known and accepted. It is this behavior which tells us there is an expectation for an absolute truth.

But I don't believe in absolute fairness or in absolute morals.

And my own personal sense of right and wrong is mostly due to the society I was raised in.

There are so many contradictions to the idea of absolute morality that I could never run out of examples.

Humans are so adept at holding two opposing thoughts that we don't even realize we do it.

Example:

A man is mowing the lawn in a park and he sees a flock of baby chickens but instead of going around them he runs them over and his mower spews out macerated baby birds all over the grass. A group of parents with their children see him do this and are appalled at the cruelty. The man with the mower is arrested for his crime and will at least be fined if not jailed and will probably lose his job.

These parents of the traumatized children celebrate their victory over this evil man by all going out for a breakfast of scrambled eggs and bacon.

Now the farmers at the poultry farm where those eggs are collected will routinely throw live male baby chicks into a machine where they are macerated while still alive.

But the farmer who macerates the baby chicks on the farm is not considered evil.

There is no moral absolute there

Your behaviors do say you believe in absolute morals and fairness. That's why when someone violates what you believe is right or fair, it illicits a strong feeling within you. If you really didn't believe in absolute morals and fairness, you wouldn't care because those concepts would just be opinions with no opinion being better than any other.

As I said before logic determines what is right and wrong and fair. So society and you are free to pick whatever silly thing you want but logic says you will suffer the consequences of picking lower standards. But I am really shocked that you would accept child molestation as moral if society said it was moral. I wouldn't because logic says it is wrong.

As to your moral dilemma example... unnecessary death or death for pleasure is wrong. The eggs we eat are unfertilized so no moral dilemma there, right? Every living creature is born to die so death in and of itself is not bad because without regeneration there would be no life. Death is a necessary part of life. It is the unnecessary taking of life that is morally wrong. So if a farmer is unnecessarily killing males, it is wrong. I don't see anyone celebrating it, other than maybe you who is trying to profit from it to rationalize there is no such thing as good and bad when logic clearly says otherwise. You lose again.

How do you know what does or does not elicit "strong feelings" in me?

And you really downplay the effect society has on people. We are products of the society we are raised in. If we were raised in a society that was war like and placed warriors above all others and that glory in battle was the only thing that mattered ( Think Sparta) we would not have the aversion to killing that we do today.

And FYI I don't eat any animal products at all anymore because I think factory farming is cruel. I for one do not want to contribute to the suffering and death of animals just so I can eat meat, or eggs etc.

So you might want to stop making assumptions about me and stick to the topic.

 

[Blues Man]

when humans were tribal and nomadic there was a different set of morals.

as humans started to live in larger groups there had to be a corresponding shift in behaviors and attitudes.

Morals are nothing but acceptable behaviors that a society defines.

There is no universal set of morals because even today there exists differences in morals between different societies

Religious people like to claim that their god has put down a universal code and that does not prove that there is one.

I missed this earlier, but ding addresses it masterfully. Simply stated, moral truth is deciphered or discovered by finite minds via experience and logic. The sort of differences you seem to be alluding to are societal or cultural norms. The fundamentals of morality are universally understood. The violation of the latter will always entail some form of coercion or suppression.

There is no moral truth.

Morals are a human concept. And as human societies become similar, the more their behaviors and attitudes will align.

That this happens is not necessarily proof that there is some absolute moral code floating in the ether but rather it demonstrates that humans are far more alike than they are different

So there are no moral absolutes, except the moral absolute that there are no moral absolutes?

crickets chirping

On another thread, you held that there's a difference between killing someone and murdering someone..

So what precisely is your underlying justification for this moral distinction, and by what means do you make this distinction?

Yes, I am very curious about his answers too. It seems that good and bad do have meaning to him and he is part of the universe.

So you are so arrogant as to think your thoughts are the thoughts of the universe?

We are nothing when compared to the vastness of the universe. Humans have been in existence for 200000 years or so. That is nothing compared to the age of the universe.

We are the universe so to speak. We are the most complex thing the universe has ever produced. You can only know what something is by what it ends up being. The universe is an intelligence creating machine. The universe was created by intelligence to produce intelligence.

we are not the universe.

we are creatures exisiting in the framework of the universe. The universe has been here long before us and will be here long after we are gone

The atoms in your body were created from nothing ~14 billion years ago. Since that time they have merely changed form. Or don't you believe in the conservation of energy?

That has nothing to do with morals.

Once again you equate the physical world with thought.

It has to do with your argument that you are not the universe. That the universe is not conscious or that consciousness plays no part in anything. The universe is every single thing that has existed since the universe was created from nothing ~14 billion years ago. You are part of it. Even Carl Sagan recognized the universe became conscious through human beings. I'm not sure why a conscious being like yourself cannot see it.

We got onto this because you intentionally took Nobel Laureate George Wald's statements out of context.

We exist in the framework of the universe and yes the elements in our bodies were created in stars long ago.

But that does not mean we are the universe nor does it mean we can affect the universe with a thought.

Look at it this way, a neuron in your body is part of your body but does that neuron make you who you are? If that neuron dies from an injury do you stop being you?

 

[Blues Man]

So the question that naturally begs to be asked is if there is a universal code of common decency that is independent of man how come we all don't behave the same way when it comes to right and wrong? The reason man doesn't behave the same way is because of subjectivity. The difference between being objective and being subjective is bias. Bias is eliminated when there is no preference for an outcome. To eliminate a preference for an outcome one must have no thought of the consequences to one's self. If one does not practice this they will see subjective truth instead of objective truth. Subjective truth leads to moral relativism. Where consequences to self and preferences for an outcome leads to rationalizations of right and wrong.

Behold, the essence of the universal standard of natural law understood by all. Everyone knows when they violate this standard as they cannot sustain their petty to vile violations of this standard by any other means but coercion or suppression.

Behold, we are not beholden to religious extremists who make false and unsubstantiated claims such as "the essence of the universal standard of natural law understood by all''.

Firstly, ''natural law'' is not a function of supernatural gods who would ''naturally'' create supernatural law. Secondly, various cultures inventing various gods who delivered contradictory versions of law refutes quite clearly the religious extremists' statement about some universal standard,

Behold, the confused, inarticulate rambling of the religious extremist.

Nothing unsubstantiated about what was written in this thread. In fact, you have not refuted one single thing.

just as you have not proven one of your assertions

I disagree. I have explained what it is. You have only argued what it isn't.

If the universe were created through natural process and we are an accidental happenstance of matter and energy doing what matter and energy do, then there should be no expectation for absolute morals. Morals can be anything we want them to be. The problem is that nature does have a preference for an outcome. Societies and people which behave with virtue experience order and harmony. Societies and people which behave without virtue experience disorder and chaos. So we can see from the outcomes that not all behaviors have equal outcomes. That some behaviors have better outcomes and some behaviors have worse outcomes. This is the moral law at work. If the universe was created by spirit for the express purpose of creating beings that know and create we would expect that we would receive feedback on how we behave. The problem is that violating moral laws are not like violating physical laws. When we violate a physical law the consequences are immediate. If you try to defy gravity by jumping off a roof you will fall. Whereas the consequences for violating a moral law are more probabilistic in nature; many times we get away with it.

Morals are effectively standards. For any given thing there exists a standard which is the highest possible standard. This standard exists independent of anything else. It is in effect a universal standard. It exists for a reason. When we deviate from this standard and normalize our deviance from the standard, eventually the reason the standard exists will be discovered. The reason this happens is because error cannot stand. Eventually error will fail and the truth will be discovered. Thus proving that morals cannot be anything we want them to be but are indeed based upon some universal code of common decency that is independent of man.

So the question that naturally begs to be asked is if there is a universal code of common decency that is independent of man how come we all don't behave the same way when it comes to right and wrong? The reason man doesn't behave the same way is because of subjectivity. The difference between being objective and being subjective is bias. Bias is eliminated when there is no preference for an outcome. To eliminate a preference for an outcome one must have no thought of the consequences to one's self. If one does not practice this they will see subjective truth instead of objective truth. Subjective truth leads to moral relativism. Where consequences to self and preferences for an outcome leads to rationalizations of right and wrong.

Man does know right from wrong and when he violates it rather than abandoning the concept of right and wrong he rationalizes he did not violate it. You can see this behavior in almost all quarrels and disagreements. At the heart of every quarrel and disagreement is a belief in a universal right and wrong. So even though each side believes right to be different each side expects the other to believe their side should be universally known and accepted. It is this behavior which tells us there is an expectation for an absolute truth.

If there were never a universal truth that existed man would never have an expectation of fairness to begin with because fairness would have no meaning. The fact that each of us has an expectation of fairness and that we expect everyone else to follow ought to raise our suspicion on the origin of that expectation.

right and wrong as concepts are a human invention. They did not exist before our minds were capable of the intellectual processes that could consider them.

The history of societal morals is the history of man as they could not have existed before man.

Our morals have evolved for no other reason than some behaviors are more beneficial to survival.

The concept of fairness is no different. In fact I believe the concept of fairness was born out of the human trait of jealousy.

Right and wrong / fairness is an artifact of intelligence. It is based on logic. It existed before man existed and was only waiting to be discovered like everything else which is apart from man.

Logic was invented by man in an attempt to better his own reasoning ability.

We have already covered this before. Logic, math, science, music, art, love, mercy, kindness, forgiveness, etc all exist apart from man. They are artifacts of intelligence. You keep confusing man inventing those things when by any objective measurement man discovered those things.

You keep saying that but you have yet to prove it.

There was no musical code writ in the ether for man to discover.

I could argue that the first man that heard a sound discovered that sound but that isn't really the way we became aware of sounds and their causes.