Today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your heart in rebellion. Whoever conceals his sins will not prosper, but he who confesses and forsakes them will obtain mercy and forgiveness. If you repent and believe in the gospel, placing your faith in Jesus Christ, you will inherit salvation, which leads to everlasting life. With this salvation comes a necessary spiritual rebirth; God will give you a new heart and His Holy Spirit, which will give you wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him, put His Laws into your heart and write them in your mind, guide you into all the truth, help you, and comfort you. By the blood of Jesus, sanctifying you and cleansing you of all unrighteousness—conforming you to His image.
He who conceals his sins doesn’t prosper, but whoever confesses and renounces them finds mercy. Blessed is the man who always fears; but one who hardens his heart falls into trouble. (Proverbs 28:13-14 WEBPB)
If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and righteous to forgive us the sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we haven’t sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us. (1 John 1:8-10 WEBPB)
He said to them, “This is what I told you while I was still with you, that all things which are written in the law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms concerning me must be fulfilled.” Then he opened their minds, that they might understand the Scriptures. He said to them, “Thus it is written, and thus it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead the third day, and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name to all the nations, beginning at Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things. Behold, I send out the promise of my Father on you. But wait in the city of Jerusalem until you are clothed with power from on high.” (Luke 24:44-49 WEBPB)
That's demonstrably false. I can go to history or different cultures and point out human sacrifice was deemed moral. But I don't even have to do that because there is human sacrifice in our society as we speak in the form of abortion. If people inherently knew what was good and evil there would be zero debate on any moral issue including abortion. Same goes for slavery, death penalty, freedom of speech, homosexuality, adultery, indecency, etc. None of this is inherently good or evil outside of a specific moral framework.
The problem of justifying morality outside of religious dogma has been a major one for Enlightenment philosophers and was relevant until the 20th century when they dropped it because they saw it's a fools errand. One of the major empiricists, David Hume (an atheist) posed a very important problem - that you can't get an "ought" from an "is". You can't infer a moral truth through knowledge about the world as it is. What this means is you can't expect people to know what's good, desirable, valuable via observation of the world around them.
If you're somewhat familiar with philosophy you should know there aren't self-evident basic truths outside of a worldview/paradigm that interprets the world. This is true for metaphysical and epistemological problems, but it's most evident and most accessible to lay-philosophers in the ethical field. This is why I asked what's your account for morality under your worldview since you obviously reject the Christian account. What's the framework that let's you determine what is good and what is bad and is that just your subjective preference or is it an universally valid objective principle?
You have presented many OPINIONS based on your worldview. Aborting a FETUS...not a baby, you cannot freeze a baby and still have it be viable, once a fetus is viable, at about 17 - 20 weeks, and even that is early, more like 22 weeks, it then has the ability to live independently from the mother, that is a viable human. Until then it has the proper DNA to be a human, but not the ability to live on it's own.
I know that you will reject this view, and you are right to have your beliefs and opinions, and I would never do anything to impune.
I had forgotten the work of Hume, and that was a good rebut
I feel we are at an impasse. Your point about human sacrifice is interesting, but from the view of the practitioners of that ancient practice, was it not done for the greater good? Heinous though it may seem to modern worldviews and practices. It is the same with abortion, some (not me as you might suspect) may see it as serving a good, but you do not, who is right?
You've just proven my point by disagreeing. It was exactly my intention and that's why I brought a divisive subject like abortion to illustrate that how you see it (moral or immoral) depends on your worldview. I'm not even going to argue about whether a fetus is a human being and what the criteria is. Like who decided viability is the way to go? Viability is a stupid and arbitrary criteria because when born, babies still can't live on their own without adults taking care of them - how is this viable? Also, you can't freeze a fetus but an embryo. Most abortions are at the fetus stage.*
**There are two logical options: **
there is universal objective morality, which has to have a standard and be justified within the worldview; if the worldview is materialism, then morality should be found somewhere within the material world (like the physical standard for kilogram residing in a Paris museum or maybe inside the brain which some atheists go for)
morals are relative to the subject/society in which case nothing is inherently good or bad and everything, including the worst crime possible you could imagine, is a matter of preference. Like in the case of Jeffrey Dahmer eating brain custard - a moral relativist is forced to say "it's not my thing and I don't prefer it, but you do you buddy" if he were consistent in his position (which they never are).
The crux of our argument is that my worldview can account for objective morality while yours can't. Unless you come up with a way to justify objective morality, you're stuck with moral relativism, in which case you can't call anything inherently good or bad.
*Looks like I did argue that too after all.
Could not get back to this until today. You are, of course, right about the fetus v embryo correction. I made a mistake.
I have also made a mistake in engaging in this banter with you, for you are stuck solidly in your beliefs, which I admire. I still reject the idea that one must have some external source for morality, but I guess I am loathe to present a cogent argument for such a belief.
Good day to you.