You did not show there was anything at all wrong about your shooting my son. You did say I would be sad, you would feel guilty, and it would hurt my son. None of that makes anything what so ever wrong. All you showed was exactly what I said you would, that I would not prefer it. What I would or would not prefer has nothing what so ever to do with anything being good or evil.
So, you are saying that good or evil has absolutely nothing to do with any of the participants – neither the perpetrator nor the victim. For you, a thing is either good or evil based on only the nature of the thing itself, and not in what results. At least, that seems to be what you are saying.
What is abstruse? You only responded to one simple sentence and it is very clear and direct. Did you mean something in the 90% of my post you did not quote was abstruse?
I was referring to the collection of complex, contradictory thoughts from both of us, that were beginning to lose any coherence in terms of argument.
I posted the best definitions of objective morality and subjective morality I have ever seen. Let me do so once more.
3. Objective morality - Malum in se (plural mala in se) is a Latin phrase meaning wrong or evil in itself. The phrase is used to refer to conduct assessed as sinful or inherently wrong by nature, independent of regulations governing the conduct. Can only exist if God exists.
4. Subjective morality - Malum prohibitum (plural mala prohibita, literal translation: "wrong [as or because] prohibited") is a Latin phrase used in law to refer to conduct that constitutes an unlawful act only by virtue of statute, as opposed to conduct that is evil in and of itself, or malum in se. This is better labeled as ethics, not morality. This one is all that is left if there is no God. It should not even be called morality because that makes discussions about morality confusing. The only things that can exist without God is subjective ethics, legality, preference, and opinion. Any of those terms should be used instead of calling our preferences morality.
I presume you know that these "definitions" are human constructs – and legal ones. They are not part of any philosophy or theology of which I am aware, and I there are many legal theorists who argue strongly that they are arbitrary and not-too-useless notions.
I will even make it simpler. Morality that only exists in a human's mind is actually arbitrary and does not have any relationship with actual moral truth (because absolute moral truths cannot possibly exist without God). If human preferences and opinions are the judges for what is moral then the Nazis, Stalin's communist utopia, and Pol Pot's killing fields were all good and when other more righteous nations (usually the Christian nations) stopped those guys we were wrong to do so by your logic. Without God morality becomes a hopeless disaster.
And I'll make it simpler for you – the "morality that exists in human mind" is the only one to which you have access, unless you make the claim you have access to God's mind. And, as we can see through all of human history, this turns out to be quite true. Oh, sure, we have our scriptures (you, your Christian ones, Muslims their Qur'an and Hadith, Sikhs the Guru Granth Sahib, and so on), but as it turns out, these are not apparently a clear explication of what "God thinks." And how do I know this? Because it has proved impossible to get agreement – not only universal agreement, but even agreement among various religions, resulting in literally thousands of sects, with thousands of definitions.
In that sense, I contend that "with God morality has become a hopeless disaster," and it would not take much digging to find hundreds upon hundreds of examples of the use of "evil as defined by God" resulting in a lot of evil committed by humans in the name of this "God ordained morality."
Let's try an example. It is claimed (in Malum in se) that things like murder, robbery and so on are objective moral evils. So let's start with robbery. Now, it does seem to me that without some subjective individuals (the robber and the robbed), such an evil could not exist at all. That already begins to make it subjective. But let's ignore that for the moment, and posit that "robbery is always and without exception a moral evil."
Now, consider the fellow in a disaster area, let's say New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. Now, there's a fellow in a flooded area of downtown, with his daughter who is a very brittle diabetic. They desperately need insulin, but the druggist (he had money) had locked up his store and got out. So in his desperation, the man breaks into the store, takes only enough insulin to satisfy the present need, and leaves.
Well, if you are saying that the existence of God makes that – irrespective of any of the characters I've described -- and objective moral evil, I confess I have a different opinion. To say so implies that the morally correct action for this man to take is to let his daughter die – that this is, in this current and dire situation, what God would actually want.
Now, you can make any post-hoc arguments you like – that it would be okay if the man came back later and paid, not only for the insulin but the broken window and perhaps some other damages -- but I would have to tell you that you have tried to objectify the moral act, and such post-hoc arguments don't change the single fact that the man broke into and robbed a store owned by another person.
In fact, when it comes to it, I cannot think of a single moral evil that does not involve at minimum two sentient beings. A tsunami that kills thousands is a disaster, but it's a natural one. To make it "evil" you require some being to have caused the tsunami – perhaps you'd like to consider God for this role?
How about the Inquisition, which sought to stamp out “heresy” (or “wrong belief” which presumes that you are in possession of the “right belief” without possibility of error), by the burning to death of thousands of human beings for the presumed “evil” of what they believed?
So, okay, what about masturbation, or prostitution? Which of these might be considered an “objective moral evil?” And on what basis? Because “God said so?” Well, in my very subjective world, both of those can provide tremendous benefit, no harm, and therefore I cannot find any reason to label them objectively evil.
You yourself claimed that only God can provide a reason to suppose that racism is evil, and yet it was God Himself (in the Bible) who claimed the Jews as a separate, special, holy (and therefore better) people. In fact, God gave permission to hate and to kill others. God has faves, as it were. Well, if God has faves, then faves are objectively good, and we can all have them. You argument fails on that basis.
I know where we differ, by the way – you cannot see the world as I see it, as being one of sentient beings created by nature and needing to co-exist. You see it as ordered by God – although I say to you that you would be very hard-pressed to tell us, in a definitive and unassailable way, a single “Objective Moral Evil.” That is, an evil that would still be evil even if there were no subjective players.
