Exactly! The objective moral standard is something demanded of evolution because it's what all religions claim for their many and various dogmas. It doesn't follow from rational assumptions; that morality is - or should be objective. Rationally, morality is a subjective sense, informed inter-subjectively. But it was necessary to create an objective authority for morality, to unite hunter gatherer tribes under a common moral doctrine. Religion, law, politics, economics - are political expressions of the innate moral sense.Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Mon Sep 27, 2021 1:28 amI believe that the moral sense, as fallible as it is, does not refer to nothing. But as I said before, the fact that people have that sense doesn't even remotely imply that we can decide that sense is accurate. They could be completely mistaken, of course, merely imagining ogres under the bed, so to speak, or trying to shake off the historical shackles of their mental confusion. So we can rest nothing much on such an observation.
What we can rest on is this: IF (and I offer this at the moment only as a hypothetical; I'm asking you only to consider the implications IF it's true, not to agree THAT it's true, okay?), IF it's true that there's a God, then this world was not created without purpose and direction. The Supreme Being had an intention in creating what He created. Some things were created for one purpose, and some for another. And if a creature actualizes the function and purpose for which it was created, or if a creature is helped to do so, then that is moral. IF, on the other hand, a creature is suffered to depart from its intended function, or if it is used in a way not intended by the Creator for it, then that is immoral.
But human beings are the only creatures on the earth endowed not merely with an intuition about good and bad, but with the self-awareness necessary to recognize that they are moral agents, to reflect and theorize about their moral standing, to consider the consequences and ramifications of their actions in light of the moral, and to be responsible to the Creator for what they do or fail to do. Lower animals, from the complex to the single-celled, or trees or the environment itself have no such self-awareness, no such reflective moral capacity. They have reactions, instincts, and some even have emotions...but the awareness of themselves as moral entities, they do not have. They simply run according to program, so to speak.
And there is a further way in which ethics are unique to human beings. God does not speak to dolphins and chimps -- or if He does, they're remarkably reticent about it. But we have the hypothesis that God speaks to man, revealing what HIs specific purposes and intentions in Creation are. Now, you might say, "I don't believe that God has done that." Fine and dandy: but I should say again that we are speaking only in hypotheticals right now, only in IFs. And IF God exists, there seems no reason at all why the Creator IF He should choose to do so, couldn't reveal His will and intentions to people. We humans communicate all the time -- including sharing our moral views. There is no prima facie reason to suppose God should be incapable of the same, surely.
The Papal Court of the Inquisition was established around 1200 AD to prevent the return of Greek and Roman knowledge to Europe; because knowledge might cast doubt upon the Church's claim to absolute moral authority, and those who, in service to God, went butchering people in foreign lands, were, upon their return destroyed as heretics by the Church that sent them.
400 years later, in 1633, Galileo was arrested and tried by the Inquisition for the heresy of proving earth orbits the sun. The Industrial Revolution is generally dated to 1730. The last witch burned alive by the Inquisition was in 1792 - 160 years after Galileo. Her name was Anna Goddi. The Inquisition wasn't disbanded until 1972; and you think it's "laughable" the Church had a long term effect on science - as you repeatedly demand from me, objective morality that only exists as a religious claim.
You might want to hope that God of yours really exists, because you've killed us all by making science a heresy to maintain religious authority. You divorced science as a tool from science as understanding of reality, and used the tools in service to religiously justified, political and economic ideological power. Rather than apply technology in accord with a scientific understanding of reality; casting politics as knowing what;s true and doing what right in terms of what's true, you've applied technology to prosecute ideologically defined ends. How's that working out for you? Let's have a look. The forests are burning, the oceans are a landfill, and the sky is about to catch fire. But at least you ain't coveting your neighbours ass! Because that's what God really cares about; that and beards, and eating fish on Fridays!