kurt vonnegut said:

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What is the moral degradation of our current society?

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Speaking specifically about the US, it is our further removal from adhering to God's moral law.

dermdoc said:

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Bob_Ag said:

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Sapper Redux said:

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Bob_Ag said:

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It is of no great surprise to me that as this number goes up, the moral degradation of our society correlates. You can include a large contingent of the "church" who has betrayed the teachings of sacred Scripture for cultural appropriation. We must repent.

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I am also curious as to how our society is morally worse than other time periods.

The Romans, Stalin, Hitler, slavery, Civil War, sexism, etc. seem much worse than where we are today.

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I recognize its not fair to Bob for me to read this much into his post, but I read his post as less of a claim about moral degradation against objective standards and more about personal judgement of current social trends.

When I asked on the previous page about how we react to the 'rise of the nones', this was the attitude that I feared. The attitude of condemning others as degenerates for having a different system of values is not something that I think is consistent with Progressivism (capital P) or with how I think many Christians think.

My moral philosophy is obviously going to be different from the Christians on this board. Nevertheless, I can recognize you all as moral individuals and as being morally driven persons. If I considered you all to be moral degenerates, what hope would we have of coexisting on this board, let alone in a society? In a more perfect world (my opinion), atheists stand up for Christian rights and Christians stand up for atheist rights.

This all feels very 'Golden Rule' to me. You don't have to like the secularization of this country. But, I don't know what Christians feel is accomplished by meeting the change with judgement and hatred. Nor, do I think that reaction is consistent with what most Christians feel they are called to do.

I recognize this is almost a reply to Bob, but I'm replying here because I think you would be sympathetic to this point of view.

dermdoc said:

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Bob_Ag said:

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Sapper Redux said:

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Bob_Ag said:

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It is of no great surprise to me that as this number goes up, the moral degradation of our society correlates. You can include a large contingent of the "church" who has betrayed the teachings of sacred Scripture for cultural appropriation. We must repent.

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This is brought up repeatedly, but it bears bringing up again. The past was not more moral.

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I'm the last person in the world you'll ever hear arguing that. I'm not talking about humanity over the course of world history. I'm talking about a specific place and a specific time period.

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I am also curious as to how our society is morally worse than other time periods.

The Romans, Stalin, Hitler, slavery, Civil War, sexism, etc. seem much worse than where we are today.

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Morality is always derived from God and his law. It is the only and objective definition of morality as well as truth. There is no need to have a subjective debate about every historical event that has occurred because that would not be an objective way to determine anything.

The objective measure is, are we more or less Christian as a nation now versus our past? And I mean Christian in the strictest sense, not the way its become conflated in society. The answer is clearly no. We live in a secular society far removed from our largely Christian oriented beginnings as a nation.

This notion that its a fallacy to say a society is more or less moral versus past times is really quite strange from a Christian standpoint. The Bible gives countless examples of this occurring which always resulted in God's judgment to correct a people back on track in adherence with His law (Moral law, not Levitical Law).

The reason why I said I would be the last person to proclaim "The Golden Age" of years past is that I think humanity has progressed, not regressed in terms of morality. This is because we've seen Christianity and the Gospel take root and expand across the globe. As Christianity grows, so does the morals and virtue of society.

kurt vonnegut said:

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dermdoc said:

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Bob_Ag said:

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Sapper Redux said:

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Bob_Ag said:

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It is of no great surprise to me that as this number goes up, the moral degradation of our society correlates. You can include a large contingent of the "church" who has betrayed the teachings of sacred Scripture for cultural appropriation. We must repent.

---

---

---

I am also curious as to how our society is morally worse than other time periods.

The Romans, Stalin, Hitler, slavery, Civil War, sexism, etc. seem much worse than where we are today.

---

I recognize its not fair to Bob for me to read this much into his post, but I read his post as less of a claim about moral degradation against objective standards and more about personal judgement of current social trends.

When I asked on the previous page about how we react to the 'rise of the nones', this was the attitude that I feared. The attitude of condemning others as degenerates for having a different system of values is not something that I think is consistent with Progressivism (capital P) or with how I think many Christians think.

My moral philosophy is obviously going to be different from the Christians on this board. Nevertheless, I can recognize you all as moral individuals and as being morally driven persons. If I considered you all to be moral degenerates, what hope would we have of coexisting on this board, let alone in a society? In a more perfect world (my opinion), atheists stand up for Christian rights and Christians stand up for atheist rights.

This all feels very 'Golden Rule' to me. You don't have to like the secularization of this country. But, I don't know what Christians feel is accomplished by meeting the change with judgement and hatred. Nor, do I think that reaction is consistent with what most Christians feel they are called to do.

I recognize this is almost a reply to Bob, but I'm replying here because I think you would be sympathetic to this point of view.

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Your post is fine and I appreciate your response. Let's be clear here, no one is condemning anyone nor is it any of our responsibility to play Judge.

The problem here is not that we have differing points of view on morality because we in our own nature can't define morality. The problem is the notion that morality can be relative. That is only the fallacy encountered on this thread so far.

If morality is relative, then nothing can be moral. If everyone get's to define morality, than society will plunge into chaos, which is what we see in our current day. There is no way to logically reason why one person's view of morality is superior or inferior to another's. If I say something is morally wrong, but you say its morally right, on what basis can either one of us be correct? Society can't function in this manner.

You may say, well societal standards give us a framework for what is moral and what is not. That is a not a causal argument for objective morality. Societal standards are only byproducts of what is fed into them. America and its rule of law, was largely based on Biblical standards of the 10 commandments. Thus, objective morality comes from above and is derived vertically, not horizontally because its not possible otherwise.

You may not believe in God, however if you did, I think you would probably agree that the one at the top gets to define what is true and not true, would you agree?

Bob_Ag said:

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Your post is fine and I appreciate your response. Let's be clear here, no one is condemning anyone nor is it any of our responsibility to play Judge.

The problem here is not that we have differing points of view on morality because we in our own nature can't define morality. The problem is the notion that morality can be relative. That is only the fallacy encountered on this thread so far.

If morality is relative, then nothing can be moral. If everyone get's to define morality, than society will plunge into chaos, which is what we see in our current day. There is no way to logically reason why one person's view of morality is superior or inferior to another's. If I say something is morally wrong, but you say its morally right, on what basis can either one of us be correct? Society can't function in this manner.

You may say, well societal standards give us a framework for what is moral and what is not. That is a not a causal argument for objective morality. Societal standards are only byproducts of what is fed into them. America and its rule of law, was largely based on Biblical standards of the 10 commandments. Thus, objective morality comes from above and is derived vertically, not horizontally because its not possible otherwise.

You may not believe in God, however if you did, I think you would probably agree that the one at the top gets to define what is true and not true, would you agree?

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Unless you can show these objective standards to be true and to be truly objective, everything above is simply assertion.

kurt vonnegut said:

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Bob_Ag said:

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Your post is fine and I appreciate your response. Let's be clear here, no one is condemning anyone nor is it any of our responsibility to play Judge.

The problem here is not that we have differing points of view on morality because we in our own nature can't define morality. The problem is the notion that morality can be relative. That is only the fallacy encountered on this thread so far.

If morality is relative, then nothing can be moral. If everyone get's to define morality, than society will plunge into chaos, which is what we see in our current day. There is no way to logically reason why one person's view of morality is superior or inferior to another's. If I say something is morally wrong, but you say its morally right, on what basis can either one of us be correct? Society can't function in this manner.

You may say, well societal standards give us a framework for what is moral and what is not. That is a not a causal argument for objective morality. Societal standards are only byproducts of what is fed into them. America and its rule of law, was largely based on Biblical standards of the 10 commandments. Thus, objective morality comes from above and is derived vertically, not horizontally because its not possible otherwise.

You may not believe in God, however if you did, I think you would probably agree that the one at the top gets to define what is true and not true, would you agree?

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Unless you can show these objective standards to be true and to be truly objective, everything above is simply assertion.

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Not so at all. All I have to do is prove morality and truth can't be relative. If they can't be relative, then they have to be objective. If they have to be objective, then there can only be one framework for truth and morality by definition. That's not possible in a horizontal manner with mankind, it has come from the top down.

Bob_Ag said:

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kurt vonnegut said:

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Unless you can show these objective standards to be true and to be truly objective, everything above is simply assertion.

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Not so at all. All I have to do is prove morality and truth can't be relative. If they can't be relative, then they have to be objective. If they have to be objective, then there can only be one framework for truth and morality by definition. That's not possible in a horizontal manner with mankind, it has come from the top down.

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Great, prove that morality must be objective and that it cannot be relative. Even if you complete that task, you have the problem of then describing objective morality in a way that is well defined. Saying "objective morality is described as being in accordance with God's will' is not well defined. And then you have the problem with proving that what you have defined as moral is actually objectively correct. How do we do that? Ask God? Lets run an experiment where we all ask God what is objectively morally correct and see how many different answers we get.

Any argument for the necessity of morality to be objective requires presuppositions that cannot be validated and any argument for the correctness of the objective morality proposed by Christianity requires presuppositions that Christianity is correct.

All you've done is assert that objective morality exists and that your faith grants you permission to claim to me that you know the mind of a God for which there is zero evidence of but to which you say I must submit. But, the biggest problem with religious objective morality is that even if it does exist, it is beyond our reach and understanding simply by virtue of how you've defined it and God. Christians describe God as this infinite being beyond our comprehension and in the same breath tell the rest of us that they know His mind and what He demands we do.

Sapper Redux said:

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Lower birth rates comes along with greater standards of living. I'm not sure how it's somehow intrinsically evil to realize you don't want 4 kids.

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No I think people's thought is that with fewer kids come greater standards of living. It doesn't make sense to me that people have less kids because they can afford to have more kids.

I didn't say it was intrinsically evil to not want to have 4 kids. But you can't do that at any cost. If your aversion to 4 kids leads you to kill 3 of them, that's evil.

Bob Lee said:

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dermdoc said:

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Bob_Ag said:

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Sapper Redux said:

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Bob_Ag said:

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It is of no great surprise to me that as this number goes up, the moral degradation of our society correlates. You can include a large contingent of the "church" who has betrayed the teachings of sacred Scripture for cultural appropriation. We must repent.

---

This is brought up repeatedly, but it bears bringing up again. The past was not more moral.

---

I'm the last person in the world you'll ever hear arguing that. I'm not talking about humanity over the course of world history. I'm talking about a specific place and a specific time period.

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I am also curious as to how our society is morally worse than other time periods.

The Romans, Stalin, Hitler, slavery, Civil War, sexism, etc. seem much worse than where we are today.

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Part of the reason there's a sense of moral degradation is because there are novel technological developments that create the means for people to carry out evil on an industrial scale. And the rate at which these things beget evil is on another level. The Internet and pornography. Abortion clinics. Surrogacy and IVF. These are things that have so warped people's attitudes about the human person and human sexuality that people don't even have children at the rate of replacement anymore. We live in a society that's rejecting our most basic human instinct. To procreate.

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I agree. I look at it more in terms of human nature never changes. There may be new, "better", and easier ways to promote evil, but the human nature is the same.

Bob Lee said:

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Sapper Redux said:

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Lower birth rates comes along with greater standards of living. I'm not sure how it's somehow intrinsically evil to realize you don't want 4 kids.

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No I think people's thought is that with fewer kids come greater standards of living. It doesn't make sense to me that people have less kids because they can afford to have more kids.

I didn't say it was intrinsically evil to not want to have 4 kids. But you can't do that at any cost. If your aversion to 4 kids leads you to kill 3 of them, that's evil.

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News flash: kids are a lot of work to raise well and extremely expensive. As soon as living standards rise in an area the birth rate drops. It's not the other way around. A lot of people don't want kids or can't invest the resources. Rising living standards provides access to education and medical care that reduces unwanted pregnancies and allows access to opportunities that result in later marriage and pregnancy.

I'm not going to address the abortion stuff. It's been going on since humanity began. There's nothing new about it.

Sapper Redux said:

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Bob Lee said:

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Sapper Redux said:

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Lower birth rates comes along with greater standards of living. I'm not sure how it's somehow intrinsically evil to realize you don't want 4 kids.

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No I think people's thought is that with fewer kids come greater standards of living. It doesn't make sense to me that people have less kids because they can afford to have more kids.

I didn't say it was intrinsically evil to not want to have 4 kids. But you can't do that at any cost. If your aversion to 4 kids leads you to kill 3 of them, that's evil.

---

News flash: kids are a lot of work to raise well and extremely expensive. As soon as living standards rise in an area the birth rate drops. It's not the other way around. A lot of people don't want kids or can't invest the resources. Rising living standards provides access to education and medical care that reduces unwanted pregnancies and allows access to opportunities that result in later marriage and pregnancy.

I'm not going to address the abortion stuff. It's been going on since humanity began. There's nothing new about it.

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What system are you stuck in that this is true? Imagine not putting your kids in the 'school to debt' pipeline where every graduate has loans on top of living expenses far away from family (where the 'jobs' are). It changes the dynamic. It doesn't mean no college but it does mean a different outlook in purpose while in college, where one chooses to live, and how one chooses to grandparent as well.

The boomer path isn't a good one or one we should keep normalizing. Edit: it's not as expensive as you think; it requires being less materialist (ironically, and not in a spiritual sense), which would be good for everyone.

AGC said:

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Sapper Redux said:

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Bob Lee said:

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Sapper Redux said:

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Lower birth rates comes along with greater standards of living. I'm not sure how it's somehow intrinsically evil to realize you don't want 4 kids.

---

No I think people's thought is that with fewer kids come greater standards of living. It doesn't make sense to me that people have less kids because they can afford to have more kids.

I didn't say it was intrinsically evil to not want to have 4 kids. But you can't do that at any cost. If your aversion to 4 kids leads you to kill 3 of them, that's evil.

---

News flash: kids are a lot of work to raise well and extremely expensive. As soon as living standards rise in an area the birth rate drops. It's not the other way around. A lot of people don't want kids or can't invest the resources. Rising living standards provides access to education and medical care that reduces unwanted pregnancies and allows access to opportunities that result in later marriage and pregnancy.

I'm not going to address the abortion stuff. It's been going on since humanity began. There's nothing new about it.

---

What system are you stuck in that this is true? Imagine not putting your kids in the 'school to debt' pipeline where every graduate has loans on top of living expenses far away from family (where the 'jobs' are). It changes the dynamic. It doesn't mean no college but it does mean a different outlook in purpose while in college, where one chooses to live, and how one chooses to grandparent as well.

The boomer path isn't a good one or one we should keep normalizing. Edit: it's not as expensive as you think; it requires being less materialist (ironically, and not in a spiritual sense), which would be good for everyone.

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I didn't say anything about college, and yes, it's still extremely expensive and resource intensive to have kids, regardless of help. I'm not interested in political bromides about the state of families, I'm referencing global data about birth rates as living standards rise.

Sapper Redux said:

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Lower birth rates comes along with greater standards of living. I'm not sure how it's somehow intrinsically evil to realize you don't want 4 kids.

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I'm very glad being childless and having fewer kids has become normalized. I feel like couples were shamed for not wanting to constantly be popping out kids in the past. To some degree they still are. But given how harsh American society is on people who have kids and how one child can financially ruin a family, it's understandable.

Sapper Redux said:

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AGC said:

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Sapper Redux said:

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Bob Lee said:

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Sapper Redux said:

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Lower birth rates comes along with greater standards of living. I'm not sure how it's somehow intrinsically evil to realize you don't want 4 kids.

---

No I think people's thought is that with fewer kids come greater standards of living. It doesn't make sense to me that people have less kids because they can afford to have more kids.

I didn't say it was intrinsically evil to not want to have 4 kids. But you can't do that at any cost. If your aversion to 4 kids leads you to kill 3 of them, that's evil.

---

News flash: kids are a lot of work to raise well and extremely expensive. As soon as living standards rise in an area the birth rate drops. It's not the other way around. A lot of people don't want kids or can't invest the resources. Rising living standards provides access to education and medical care that reduces unwanted pregnancies and allows access to opportunities that result in later marriage and pregnancy.

I'm not going to address the abortion stuff. It's been going on since humanity began. There's nothing new about it.

---

What system are you stuck in that this is true? Imagine not putting your kids in the 'school to debt' pipeline where every graduate has loans on top of living expenses far away from family (where the 'jobs' are). It changes the dynamic. It doesn't mean no college but it does mean a different outlook in purpose while in college, where one chooses to live, and how one chooses to grandparent as well.

The boomer path isn't a good one or one we should keep normalizing. Edit: it's not as expensive as you think; it requires being less materialist (ironically, and not in a spiritual sense), which would be good for everyone.

---

I didn't say anything about college, and yes, it's still extremely expensive and resource intensive to have kids, regardless of help. I'm not interested in political bromides about the state of families, I'm referencing global data about birth rates as living standards rise.

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It's not what you think it is and the communities I'm a part of make it really evident. That's going to hold true for most large family communities too. The data reflects the system, not the reality of whether it's hard or not.

For most people, having children (at least in the USA) is very punishing. Society does not reward families for having children. Declining birthrate has nothing to do with morality and more to do with economics.

barbacoa taco said:

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For most people, having children (at least in the USA) is very punishing. Society does not reward families for having children. Declining birthrate has nothing to do with morality and more to do with economics.

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Hmmm....maybe, just maybe killing 60+ million babies has something to do with a lack of a moral compass. Call me crazy....

I know, I know that there are other causes too for declining birth rates. But it is a factor.

Sapper Redux said:

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AGC said:

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Sapper Redux said:

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AGC said:

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Sapper Redux said:

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Bob Lee said:

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Sapper Redux said:

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Lower birth rates comes along with greater standards of living. I'm not sure how it's somehow intrinsically evil to realize you don't want 4 kids.

---

No I think people's thought is that with fewer kids come greater standards of living. It doesn't make sense to me that people have less kids because they can afford to have more kids.

I didn't say it was intrinsically evil to not want to have 4 kids. But you can't do that at any cost. If your aversion to 4 kids leads you to kill 3 of them, that's evil.

---

News flash: kids are a lot of work to raise well and extremely expensive. As soon as living standards rise in an area the birth rate drops. It's not the other way around. A lot of people don't want kids or can't invest the resources. Rising living standards provides access to education and medical care that reduces unwanted pregnancies and allows access to opportunities that result in later marriage and pregnancy.

I'm not going to address the abortion stuff. It's been going on since humanity began. There's nothing new about it.

---

What system are you stuck in that this is true? Imagine not putting your kids in the 'school to debt' pipeline where every graduate has loans on top of living expenses far away from family (where the 'jobs' are). It changes the dynamic. It doesn't mean no college but it does mean a different outlook in purpose while in college, where one chooses to live, and how one chooses to grandparent as well.

The boomer path isn't a good one or one we should keep normalizing. Edit: it's not as expensive as you think; it requires being less materialist (ironically, and not in a spiritual sense), which would be good for everyone.

---

I didn't say anything about college, and yes, it's still extremely expensive and resource intensive to have kids, regardless of help. I'm not interested in political bromides about the state of families, I'm referencing global data about birth rates as living standards rise.

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It's not what you think it is and the communities I'm a part of make it really evident. That's going to hold true for most large family communities too. The data reflects the system, not the reality of whether it's hard or not.

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Except it is hard and expensive. Your anecdotal experience and personal feelings about children are not universally applicable.

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It's not. It's a symptom of your worldview and system. Everyone who buys into it believes that and reports it. The survey reflects people who believe like you, not the 'reality'. People opt in to ways of life and the cost manifests in the reporting. A different way of life leads to different outcomes and that's not 'anecdote'.

Side note: you're treating this 'kids are hard and expensive' complaint like an objective truth. Ironic given your earlier posturing on morality in this thread. How is this not subjective?

Sapper Redux said:

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RAB91 said:

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barbacoa taco said:

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For most people, having children (at least in the USA) is very punishing. Society does not reward families for having children. Declining birthrate has nothing to do with morality and more to do with economics.

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Hmmm....maybe, just maybe killing 60+ million babies has something to do with a lack of a moral compass. Call me crazy....

I know, I know that there are other causes too for declining birth rates. But it is a factor.

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And again, abortion has always been a part of human societies, and it is not a morally consistent position across time or geography that a zygote and a child are identical.

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A zygote is a human in its earliest stage of development. You either recognize that humans are intrinsically valuable, or you assign value to humans according to their utility which leads to horrific outcomes.
Our understanding about human development has increased alongside the creation of a lucrative baby killing industry. That's horrific in and of itself. Abortion might have existed, though not at near the same scale, but we're more morally culpable now that we know as a matter of fact that a zygote, fetus or whatever stage in human development you want to reference, is a human person.

AGC said:

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Sapper Redux said:

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AGC said:

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Sapper Redux said:

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AGC said:

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Sapper Redux said:

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Bob Lee said:

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Sapper Redux said:

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Lower birth rates comes along with greater standards of living. I'm not sure how it's somehow intrinsically evil to realize you don't want 4 kids.

---

No I think people's thought is that with fewer kids come greater standards of living. It doesn't make sense to me that people have less kids because they can afford to have more kids.

I didn't say it was intrinsically evil to not want to have 4 kids. But you can't do that at any cost. If your aversion to 4 kids leads you to kill 3 of them, that's evil.

---

News flash: kids are a lot of work to raise well and extremely expensive. As soon as living standards rise in an area the birth rate drops. It's not the other way around. A lot of people don't want kids or can't invest the resources. Rising living standards provides access to education and medical care that reduces unwanted pregnancies and allows access to opportunities that result in later marriage and pregnancy.

I'm not going to address the abortion stuff. It's been going on since humanity began. There's nothing new about it.

---

What system are you stuck in that this is true? Imagine not putting your kids in the 'school to debt' pipeline where every graduate has loans on top of living expenses far away from family (where the 'jobs' are). It changes the dynamic. It doesn't mean no college but it does mean a different outlook in purpose while in college, where one chooses to live, and how one chooses to grandparent as well.

The boomer path isn't a good one or one we should keep normalizing. Edit: it's not as expensive as you think; it requires being less materialist (ironically, and not in a spiritual sense), which would be good for everyone.

---

I didn't say anything about college, and yes, it's still extremely expensive and resource intensive to have kids, regardless of help. I'm not interested in political bromides about the state of families, I'm referencing global data about birth rates as living standards rise.

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It's not what you think it is and the communities I'm a part of make it really evident. That's going to hold true for most large family communities too. The data reflects the system, not the reality of whether it's hard or not.

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Except it is hard and expensive. Your anecdotal experience and personal feelings about children are not universally applicable.

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It's not. It's a symptom of your worldview and system. Everyone who buys into it believes that and reports it. The survey reflects people who believe like you, not the 'reality'. People opt in to ways of life and the cost manifests in the reporting. A different way of life leads to different outcomes and that's not 'anecdote'.

Side note: you're treating this 'kids are hard and expensive' complaint like an objective truth. Ironic given your earlier posturing on morality in this thread. How is this not subjective?

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It is anecdotal. It's not a policy position, it's just a claim that, "if everyone lived like I say they should live, everything would be better." You don't have have data to support this, you just assert it. There's a huge opportunity cost, particularly for women, when they have kids. There's a big health risk to pregnancy and the postnatal period, and there are huge expenses to having kids for the vast majority of people who don't have big family networks or flexible careers / disposable income, this is especially true in the US.

But the fertility decline is across the developed world, even in countries with larger, connected extended families and generous social support systems. In other words, countries that are structurally closer to what you claim would make things better don't find that things are actually better.

https://www.vox.com/23971366/declining-birth-rate-fertility-babies-children

Bob Lee said:

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Sapper Redux said:

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RAB91 said:

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barbacoa taco said:

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For most people, having children (at least in the USA) is very punishing. Society does not reward families for having children. Declining birthrate has nothing to do with morality and more to do with economics.

---

Hmmm....maybe, just maybe killing 60+ million babies has something to do with a lack of a moral compass. Call me crazy....

I know, I know that there are other causes too for declining birth rates. But it is a factor.

---

And again, abortion has always been a part of human societies, and it is not a morally consistent position across time or geography that a zygote and a child are identical.

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A zygote is a human in its earliest stage of development. You either recognize that humans are intrinsically valuable, or you assign value to humans according to their utility which leads to horrific outcomes.
Our understanding about human development has increased alongside the creation of a lucrative baby killing industry. That's horrific in and of itself. Abortion might have existed, though not at near the same scale, but we're more morally culpable now that we know as a matter of fact that a zygote, fetus or whatever stage in human development you want to reference, is a human person.

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An egg and a sperm are required and we give them no value. Life is a spectrum; you're just arbitrarily drawing a new hard line and declaring it "science." And past civilizations understood that a fetus in very early development would develop to a child, but they understood personhood as something different endowed at a different time. Same argument we have now.

I'm done with this conversation. The abortion debate on this forum is beyond played out. Search my old posts if you want to rage at someone.

Sapper Redux said:

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AGC said:

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Sapper Redux said:

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AGC said:

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Sapper Redux said:

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AGC said:

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Sapper Redux said:

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Bob Lee said:

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Sapper Redux said:

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Lower birth rates comes along with greater standards of living. I'm not sure how it's somehow intrinsically evil to realize you don't want 4 kids.

---

No I think people's thought is that with fewer kids come greater standards of living. It doesn't make sense to me that people have less kids because they can afford to have more kids.

I didn't say it was intrinsically evil to not want to have 4 kids. But you can't do that at any cost. If your aversion to 4 kids leads you to kill 3 of them, that's evil.

---

News flash: kids are a lot of work to raise well and extremely expensive. As soon as living standards rise in an area the birth rate drops. It's not the other way around. A lot of people don't want kids or can't invest the resources. Rising living standards provides access to education and medical care that reduces unwanted pregnancies and allows access to opportunities that result in later marriage and pregnancy.

I'm not going to address the abortion stuff. It's been going on since humanity began. There's nothing new about it.

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What system are you stuck in that this is true? Imagine not putting your kids in the 'school to debt' pipeline where every graduate has loans on top of living expenses far away from family (where the 'jobs' are). It changes the dynamic. It doesn't mean no college but it does mean a different outlook in purpose while in college, where one chooses to live, and how one chooses to grandparent as well.

The boomer path isn't a good one or one we should keep normalizing. Edit: it's not as expensive as you think; it requires being less materialist (ironically, and not in a spiritual sense), which would be good for everyone.

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I didn't say anything about college, and yes, it's still extremely expensive and resource intensive to have kids, regardless of help. I'm not interested in political bromides about the state of families, I'm referencing global data about birth rates as living standards rise.

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It's not what you think it is and the communities I'm a part of make it really evident. That's going to hold true for most large family communities too. The data reflects the system, not the reality of whether it's hard or not.

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Except it is hard and expensive. Your anecdotal experience and personal feelings about children are not universally applicable.

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It's not. It's a symptom of your worldview and system. Everyone who buys into it believes that and reports it. The survey reflects people who believe like you, not the 'reality'. People opt in to ways of life and the cost manifests in the reporting. A different way of life leads to different outcomes and that's not 'anecdote'.

Side note: you're treating this 'kids are hard and expensive' complaint like an objective truth. Ironic given your earlier posturing on morality in this thread. How is this not subjective?

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It is anecdotal. It's not a policy position, it's just a claim that, "if everyone lived like I say they should live, everything would be better." You don't have have data to support this, you just assert it. There's a huge opportunity cost, particularly for women, when they have kids. There's a big health risk to pregnancy and the postnatal period, and there are huge expenses to having kids for the vast majority of people who don't have big family networks or flexible careers / disposable income, this is especially true in the US.

But the fertility decline is across the developed world, even in countries with larger, connected extended families and generous social support systems. In other words, countries that are structurally closer to what you claim would make things better don't find that things are actually better.

https://www.vox.com/23971366/declining-birth-rate-fertility-babies-children

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It's not hard and expensive is what I was saying.

What you think contradicts my point I view as supporting it. My premise is that it's expensive because of the system people are in - go to college, borrow to get there, have no other way to repay it than by working, which requires you to pay people to watch your kid so you earn marginal income. Define yourself by job and career rather than community and social group. Move for the job you want instead of being around family to help with the burden of care (boomers can be pretty selfish, this is the generation that created active adult communities that bar children for longer than a few weeks).

Everyone polled believes in this system, even evangelical Christians who mostly do little to nothing differently with how they approach the world. It's an endless boomer created treadmill that policymakers feed - we need more women in college and the workforce! (more debt, identity defined by job, fewer children) college is about exploring and discovering yourself! (or get multiple jobs, live on nothing, and come out debt free) We could go on but most people have no desire to deny themselves and ultimately reach what is the inevitable output of a system that serves corporations and colleges well but not the people going through it.

I look forward to the enrollment cliff and de-emphasizing of college degrees. It will be a nice right-sizing for much of society.

kurt vonnegut said:

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Bob_Ag said:

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kurt vonnegut said:

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Unless you can show these objective standards to be true and to be truly objective, everything above is simply assertion.

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Not so at all. All I have to do is prove morality and truth can't be relative. If they can't be relative, then they have to be objective. If they have to be objective, then there can only be one framework for truth and morality by definition. That's not possible in a horizontal manner with mankind, it has come from the top down.

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Great, prove that morality must be objective and that it cannot be relative. Even if you complete that task, you have the problem of then describing objective morality in a way that is well defined. Saying "objective morality is described as being in accordance with God's will' is not well defined. And then you have the problem with proving that what you have defined as moral is actually objectively correct. How do we do that? Ask God? Lets run an experiment where we all ask God what is objectively morally correct and see how many different answers we get.

Any argument for the necessity of morality to be objective requires presuppositions that cannot be validated and any argument for the correctness of the objective morality proposed by Christianity requires presuppositions that Christianity is correct.

All you've done is assert that objective morality exists and that your faith grants you permission to claim to me that you know the mind of a God for which there is zero evidence of but to which you say I must submit. But, the biggest problem with religious objective morality is that even if it does exist, it is beyond our reach and understanding simply by virtue of how you've defined it and God. Christians describe God as this infinite being beyond our comprehension and in the same breath tell the rest of us that they know His mind and what He demands we do.

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This is really quite simple. Relative morality is a reductio ad absurdum argument. All you have to do is take it to its logical conclusion to see the fallacy.

If we are to individually determine what is moral, or more accurately, what is ethical, then everyone's claim is equally valid. If I say rape is good and you say rape is bad, on what basis am I wrong or you right? Without the presence of a standard, then there is no possible basis for saying what is good and what is wrong. As I mentioned previously, it is not a logical argument to say societal standards are the basis for right and wrong because they too can't be relative. Societies are often called out for war crimes or crimes against humanity, but by what basis are we able to say what they are doing is wrong?

If I have a blue lollipop and you call it purple, how do we know who is right? Well we objectively have a color spectrum of visible light and the reflection of light into our eyes allows us to objectively determine the color based not on ourselves, but on an external standard. Without that standard, there is no basis of objectively determining the color of the lollipop. Without that standard I can't tell you you are wrong.

However, when you look at our world empirically, morality is not actually relative. There is general consensus that things are morally wrong. We all agree that rape is immoral. But that's not possible without an external objective standard. Morality can't be relative because human society can't function in that manner or it would be chaos.

But equally so, and this is the important thing, that standard has to be external because by definition it can't be objective if its internal.

Morality is objective. Moral standards have to be external to be objective. Therefore, morality is derived from God.

Aggrad08 said:

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Morality and truth are not the same thing. Treating them the same is a bait and switch and actually assumes the premise.

But by all means prove morality can't be relative in all human history you would be the first to do so.

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I never said they were the same, but there existence is derived in the same manner.

Ok then, if morality is relative, how is it possible to say what is right and wrong? As a society we have a rule of law, correct? Is our rule of law subjective? Does our law not objectively say rape is illegal based on the grounds of immorality? If its subjective, then there is no such thing as justice.

Yet, that the exact opposite of what we see. We all know rape is objectively immoral. We all recognize that punishment for rape is morally good. It is an argument in absurdity to argue otherwise.

Sapper Redux said:

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Bob Lee said:

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Sapper Redux said:

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RAB91 said:

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barbacoa taco said:

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For most people, having children (at least in the USA) is very punishing. Society does not reward families for having children. Declining birthrate has nothing to do with morality and more to do with economics.

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Hmmm....maybe, just maybe killing 60+ million babies has something to do with a lack of a moral compass. Call me crazy....

I know, I know that there are other causes too for declining birth rates. But it is a factor.

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And again, abortion has always been a part of human societies, and it is not a morally consistent position across time or geography that a zygote and a child are identical.

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A zygote is a human in its earliest stage of development. You either recognize that humans are intrinsically valuable, or you assign value to humans according to their utility which leads to horrific outcomes.
Our understanding about human development has increased alongside the creation of a lucrative baby killing industry. That's horrific in and of itself. Abortion might have existed, though not at near the same scale, but we're more morally culpable now that we know as a matter of fact that a zygote, fetus or whatever stage in human development you want to reference, is a human person.

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An egg and a sperm are required and we give them no value. Life is a spectrum; you're just arbitrarily drawing a new hard line and declaring it "science." And past civilizations understood that a fetus in very early development would develop to a child, but they understood personhood as something different endowed at a different time. Same argument we have now.

I'm done with this conversation. The abortion debate on this forum is beyond played out. Search my old posts if you want to rage at someone.

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Sperm doesn't meet the definition of living organism, but zygote does. It's not arbitrary. It's not a spectrum. I agree that personhood has been denied to certain groups of humans throughout history, but most people recognize those instances as an abomination. Past civilizations lacked the knowledge we're privy to. But to the extent they knew that what they were doing was killing a human being, then they're morally culpable.