Borrowed rage

Evan May did a little post on secular ethics, which was swarmed by village atheists:

http://evanemay.com/2013/08/02/borrowed-rage/

Here's my response to the commenters:

Dont be absurd there ARE NO rights or freedoms according to the bible for humans, the very concept of human rights go against what the bible teaches

Both OT and NT ethics lay down basic standards for how humans should normally treat one another. Providing for basic needs, as well as certain protections.

What is wrong with you? dont you think this through do you,if what was the case you would not be outraged if i owned people as slaves?

i) From a secular standpoint, Tony needs to explain why owning slaves is morally wrong:

a) To begin with, many secular thinkers admit that atheism leads to moral relativism or moral nihilism.  

b) In addition, secularism has a very reductionist view of humans. We're just animals. Temporary, fortuitous organizations of matter. So even if an atheist could get over the first hurdle (are there objective moral norms?), why is it wrong to enslave a human animal?

ii) The fact that Biblical law regulates slavery doesn't necessarily mean the Bible condones slavery. Law codes aren't ethical ideals. They simply set a floor for social mores. A minimal standard for what's socially intolerable. The law is not a substitute for moral and spiritual renewal. 

iii) There were basically two reasons for "slavery" in the OT. One was for captured enemy combatants. Well, what's the alternative? If you defeat the enemy on the battlefield today, but let the defeated soldiers go home, you have to keep fighting the same battle. So that leaves you with two practical alternatives: (a) execute them or (b) subjugate them. 

iv) The other reason was insolvency. Indentured service is no fun, but it's preferable to starvation. 

v) As Richard Bauckham discusses in The Climax of Prophecy, Rev 18  is a searing indictment of an economy based on forced labor.

Also you cannot account for the existence of psychopaths and sociopaths, your bible clearly says God had written his moral laws in the hearts of men, but psychos and socios do not care for anyone but themselves WHAT SO EVER, nor can they feel love, the closest thing they can to love is control and domination. And to top it all off these traits emerge when psychos and socios are CHILDREN…

It's not hard to explain how people can turn out badly due to early social malformation. 

if morality is rooted in the will of any being it is subjective by definition

Morality isn't rooted in God's sheer will.

its to show how God did not write his law on anyone’s heart if he did write them on the hearts of men then there would still be evidence of that law being written on his/her heart…

Scripture also talks about a seared conscience (1 Tim 4:2).

if you follow Christian ethics to their conclusions you should be owning slaves and killing everyone who doesn’t follow your religion in a brutal and painful fashion.

Even in the Mosaic theocracy, there was no duty to kill everyone who didn't follow the true faith. There was no duty to kill pagans outside the Promised Land. And there was no duty to kill resident aliens who didn't belong to the covenant community.

God cannot be objective, he is a person and anything rooted in a person is by def subjective…

Suppose I don't understand how a gadget works or what it's for. But the inventor can tell me. He knows why he made it. What it's for. How it works.

Likewise, a writer is the best interpreter of his own writings.

you must steal Chinese or any number of other culture’s morality to support your own primitive stone age tribal morality

Normally, unbelievers date OT books very late. But he's dating them very early: to the stone age! That's earlier than most conservative Christians date them. Just think: Genesis dates to the stone age! That brings it much closer to the events it narrates.

it would be impossible for psychopaths to suppress such things completely, and yet they do as they show no signs of any moral outrage at anything bible god says he finds disgusting

What does he actually know about psychopaths and sociopaths? Is his information based on horror movies? Is it based on academic research of actual cases?

sorry buddy your God isnt objective,because he is a person anything that is based on a person is not objective

Really? What about favors. If somebody does me a favor, I'm in his debt. I owe him a favor in return. Social obligations are often based on reciprocity. Parents cared for their kids. Now grown children should care for elderly parents.

By contrast, we don't have duties to inanimate objects. 

if he was objective he would do things that are considered good INPEDENTDENT of his own opionion .

That begs the question of whether good can be independent of God.

not really… plenty of ethical systems work without a person that enforces things

It's not just a question of a person who enforces things. Rather, social obligations presume that it's possible for one person to obligate another. One person to be obligated to another. For instance, if you save my life at great risk to yourself, I owe you my friendship.

you do realize that all you did was re-word the problem not solve it right? why is something that is considered objectivity good apart of God’s nature instead of something else? how does God’s nature know something is good or bad? in other words is God’s character the way it is because it is good or is God’s character good simply because it is God’s character? If we identify the ultimate standard for goodness with God’s nature, then it seems we are identifying it with certain of God’s properties (e.g., being loving, being fair,being kind). If so, then the dilemma resurfaces: is God good because he has those properties, or are those properties good because God has them?

The Euthyphro dilemma is generated by Platonic metaphysics, where there's a dichotomy between abstract universals and concrete particulars. Persons, including gods, are concrete particulars in Platonism. 

But in Christian metaphysics, God is not an instance of the good. God is the absolute Creator. God is the standard of goodness for creatures because they exemplify divine intentions. But that doesn't generate an infinite regress or vicious circle in relation to God. Since God is the exemplar, there is no standard behind the exemplar. 

Since you acknowledge that your own moral compass is corrupt, I wonder what mechanism you employ in order to ascertain that God is more moral than man – would that be your admittedly flawed moral compass?

Total depravity is mitigated by regeneration and sanctification, as well as common grace. Born-again Christians aren't totally depraved. 

You’re merely blindly accepting DCT from what I read here.

Divine commands aren't arbitrary fiats. Rather, God commands us to do what God designs us to do. Human duties are grounded in human nature, according to God's design for human creatures.