Thanks in advance!

I an attempt to hopefully see from the the viewpoint of others, I’ve come up with a question to help me understand the believers view on the world.
http://potomac9499.wordpress.com/2008/08/31/a-question-for-believers-are-there-any-limits-to-your-faith/

Hopefully you can give me your thoughts and help me to understand the mind of a believer, just a bit better.

Secondly you mention that all successful cultures have adopted similar codes of morality. I’m not sure what you mean by “successful” but would you say that cultures that have existed for centuries like India have a successful culture? If so their idea of a caste system is anything but civil and certainly provides no rights for those whom it subjugates. Likewise China or Cuba or Communist Russia or countless other cultures.

Thirdly, if these culture are evolving separately then why do they consistently return to a similar moral framework? You see many of the same things idealize for thousands of years and across hundreds of cultures. This sort of consistency I suppose could be explained by saying that there’s only one system of morality that works. But even that is pretty unique and I believe supports a system of absolutes rather than independently developed moral frameworks.

Finally, what happens when two societies clash? In your system and in a global society there is a sort of global morality. When we find ourselves in contradiction to the practices of another society we have no moral grounds by which to interfere of the oppressed of those societies. Places like Sudan, Darfur or Tibet need to be left alone. But in an objective morality we have the prerogative to do something. Obviously history has shown that we frequently make mistakes but the objective morality better explains the desire to influence other cultures.

I realize that there can be a naturalistic explanation for morality. I’m certainly not denying that. My point is that a sense of objective morality better fits what we actually see.

I’m interested in your thoughts about this.

You’re right in saying that evil is something that a group decided is wrong. But you’re only half right.

Let me illustrate.

Let’s say in Victorian England it was wrong for a woman to show her ankles. The was a construct of that society. The objective truth was that it was not wrong and that was something that earlier societies and later societies figured out.

For some reason Victorian Society obscured the objective truth of the issue.

Now take something like slavery. Society in the 18th and 19th centuries generally accepted slavery as morally OK. But the objective truth was that it was not. A few men, appealing to that objective truth, changed the minds of the majority.

Had there been no objective truth men like William Wilberforce, who did much to change the culture of accepting slavery, would have been immoral because they stood in opposition to society.

Thus we see that there is a subjective definition of evil, but there is also an objective definition of evil, one of which society is not always in compliance. If we do away with the objective sense of morality then slavery becomes just as valid as non-slavery. Child-molestation becomes just as valid as being horrified by that crime. If morality is truly relative then we have nothing by which to condemn immoral (even by society’s standards) behavior.

This should read: “There is NO ultimate arbitration saying whose right is right and whose wrong is wrong”

One person’s evil is another person’s good.

There is ultimate arbitration saying whose right is right and whose wrong is wrong.

But it’s simplistic and unhelpful to just say ’such and such is evil cos God says so’ without looking under the surface and trying to find out what is actually going on.

I would say Hitler was very destructive, for whatever reason. I think most people would be in agreement (excepting neo-Nazis). Once we’ve agreed this, society can then decide if it wishes to act against such a destructive force for the benefit of the community as a whole.

In Britain’s case, most people were against doing anything. A petition was sent to Chamberlain which was partly responsible for him delaying re-armament. At the time, the people were happy because they did not want to fight a war. In hindsight, that was a mistake and if Britain had stood up to to Hitler there’s a chance WW2 could have been avoided.

America’s policy was to stay out of it until they had no choice.

So much for the concept of “evil”. My answer is long but I’ve hardly even scratched the very tiniest outer layer of the surface. Where does “evil” come into it?

“Again by what standard does it need improving?”

By the standard of society at the time. That is how society has worked and will work, whether you like it or not.