For me, as you might guess, it is the Word of God. But it causes me great concern, in that if it’s not the Word of God, exactly what is it that the world, especially our Government leaders, are using for a moral standard?
This isn’t for the purpose of debate, it’s a question I would love anyone to weigh in on. Your answers may give me a reason to delve deeper into a study, scare the daylights out of me, or cause me to ponder your sanity, but I won’t judge you. At least not out loud.
What brought this on?
The latest Epstein antics that have been disclosed. I don’t read a lot of it because it is too dark for my mind to fathom and my frustration with the people involved that are free to walk around in their mansions or communities, and drive freely through the United States without one ounce of accountability makes me want to lay hands on people and not in a godly way.
Over the years most of us have heard of the pedofile behaviors of the rich and famous that are beyond revolting and deserve them to be placed in the basement of a jail without access to anyone and possibly their nether regions cut off like they have promoted for our children.
But the recent reveal of a massive batch of documents in January and February of 2026 have fueled “claims” of child sacrifice, cannibalism and baby farming. Claims are not evidence. I know that, but a Dutch Banker, Ronald Bernard’s testimony stated that he had been invited to participate in ritualistic child sacrifices abroad by individuals in the upper echelons of the financial world, which he described as “Luciferian”.
The Department of Justice noted that while they released a vast amount of material, they withheld, or redacted, materials that depicted child sexual abuse, death, or physical injury.
Redacting the names of innocent parties, I understand. Redacting the act, no… I don’t believe it should have been redacted, because how else will we know the truth of what occurred?
Is it because, the vast majority of the citizens of this Nation would rather not know, than face the reality of how evil our own country is? We love pointing fingers at other lands that have not evolved into the privileged lifestyles of Americans, when America is still committing the sins that got Sodom and Gomorrah destroyed by God while Christians turn their head, refuse to call it sin in fear of offending someone who care less if they offend you.
So let’s leave that ugly, heavy topic, and take a look at our own community when it comes to the original question “Who or What is the Objective Moral Standard?”
What began as 10 Commandments is now thousands of laws that all citizens are expected to adhere to; and yet, we know that it’s not the case when even local, state and national leadership can pick and choose what they want to comply with. Where is their moral standard adapted from? It began in scripture when our Nation was formed. So whether it’s accepted or not, our moral standard was originally biblical. Now… I can’t say that it is. Because there have been many laws that have been passed that are not biblical.
So I’ll leave it there, and ask you for your opinion.
Shari Johnson, Ridgeview News Publisher
Compliments to the editor. I really liked this piece. It has given me plenty to consider over the last several days. I really appreciate when a journalist provokes me to think for myself.
After considerable consideration, the apparent objective moral standard has to be that we do no harm. I think that every single action we take, either individually or collectively, must endeavor to reduce or eliminate suffering for everyone and everything. If we see someone in need, we clothe them, feed them, heal them, protect them, and treat them as our own family members. No matter what. Even if it costs us everything.
So where does this moral standard come from? I would argue from within. An inner moral “compass” that guides us. For example, if you do something nice and kind for someone you feel really groovy about yourself, but if you cause someone harm, you feel really crummy about yourself. Even if you pretend you don’t.
I think this is the word of God. Simply do no harm. I think our society is collapsing because we have been systematically taught to ignore this very simple divine instruction. Any object of morality that we contrive is feckless idolatry designed to justify our inability to simply behave like Jesus told us to behave.
I will close with a quick thought experiment. Imagine we all wake up tomorrow morning, and everyone behaves the way Jesus told us to behave and would do so forever. Would we still need an objective moral standard? Perhaps the very existence of an objective moral standard betrays our selfish desire to follow our own laws that obviously allow harm instead of God’s law that forbids it?
I wish to applaud the previous commentator Kevin who has made some good points that I agree with. Kudos. I think , for me, to begin in answering this question, we really need to clarify the distinction between something’s being objective and something’s being subjective. To say that something is objective is to say that it is independent of what people think or perceive. By contrast, to say that something is subjective is just to say that it is not objective; that is to say, it is dependent on what human persons think or perceive. So, for example, the distinction between being on Mars and not being on Mars is an objective distinction; a particular rock’s being on Mars is in no way dependent on our beliefs. By contrast the distinction between “here” and “there” is not objective: whether a particular event, at a certain spatial location occurs here or there depends upon a person’s point of view.”
I think it becomes pretty clear that I think there are two interesting clarifications here about the nature of objectivity.
The first clarification is the idea that in order for something to be objective, it must be mind-independent. In other words, like the proverbial tree falling in the forest, an objective entity continues to exist even in the absence of a mind which perceives its existence.
I like to think of this as the core, or privileged, sense of “objectivity”. In other words, as the sense that is closest to that implied in the paradigmatic applications of the term. But because I think objectivity is a confusing term, I prefer the more precise term “mind-independence” to refer to this sense of objectivity. Similarly, I’ll use the term “mind-dependent” to refer to that which is typically considered under the term “subjective”.
The second interesting clarification comes that when discussing to define our boundaries, the use of the indexical terms “here” and “there” are extremely important. When I see them it immediately sets certain alarm bells off in my head. Indexicals are probably the distinguishing mark of relativistic claims (moral or otherwise). So I take it that use of the terms in this discussion is intended to exclude the relative from the domain of the objective.
But this raises the question: what does it mean for something to be relative? Roughly, a proposition or state of affairs is relative when its truth/falsity (or existence/non-existence) cannot be determined on its own terms, but only relative to some other proposition or phenomenon.
To modify, the claim “there is a desk ten feet in front of me” can only be assessed for its truth value relative to my current spatial location. It cannot be assessed in the absolute. It is perfectly possible for this claim to be true for me and not for you; no contradiction is entailed by this possibility (but note: it can still be true or false).
Do we need to distinguish the objective from the relative?
If we conflating relativism and mind-independence in the course of clarifying the nature of the “objective” , then there might be a problem. While it might generally be true that mind-dependency and relativity are present at the same time, it is not necessarily true.
Read Richard Joyce, who actually makes this point in the course of his article on Moral Anti-realism. He argues that there can be mind-independent relativisms and mind-dependent absolutisms. As follows:
Mind-Independent Relativism: Michael Jordan might be tall relative to most other men, but he might be average in height relative to other basketball players. Thus the truth of any claim about his tallness is going to be relatively determined, but at the same time there is nothing particularly mind-dependent about it.
Mind-Dependent Absolutivity: We might decide that “X is good” means “My grandmother approves of X”. This would make goodness a mind-dependent property, but would it make the claim “X is good” a relativistic one? No; the truth conditions of that statement would hold true for all individuals at all spatial and temporal locations (it might be epistemically difficult for some of those individuals to gain access to those truth conditions, but that’s another matter).
When considering moral objectivity, is mind-independency really that important? Or is absolutivity the most important thing? I’m not going to propose any answers here. But it’s worth thinking about since one of the most common ways to do metaethics is to first specify what we demand from our moral terms and then look around to see if any of the available theories satisfy these demands. It could well be that no single theory satisfies all the demands and so when it comes to actually figuring out which theory is the most acceptable we have to compromise.
But I should note that I have similar concerns with these things myself. To endorse the idea that moral obligations are relativistic raises its own questions. To be precise, to endorse the claim that moral obligations arise from relations between human beings and God. This would seem to make obligations (if not values) relativistic. As a Christian, I would argue argue in response that the obligations we have towards God never changes and are hence (contingently) absolute. The problem with this is that it is not obviously or necessarily true. A Christian (who believes in Hell) would have to believe that our obligations changed in the post-Jesus era. If this is right, then our obligations are not absolute. But our belief in the tenets and truth the bible calls us to are what we believe true , and because of them, we and our position not only has changed, but it ever evolves. The more truths we learn of in our walk and study of Gods word is forever transforming our lives and making us into the image of Jesus. I know my answer here is still at the very top of the pool and it gets more detailed the further down you go. Just like my faith. But these are things that the individual should answer for themselves. Just my opinion. God Bless