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Since schizophrenia, dementia, and other mental illnesses can induce immoral behavior and severely restrict free will, the simplest and most justifiable belief is that a moral God simply does not exist.God causes or allows through bacteria, viruses, hurricanes, tsunamis, volcanoes, earthquakes, droughts, and floods, people’s indiscriminate suffering, regardless of free will. The randomness of suffering implies that we cannot infer that there is divine justice, love, and morality. A morally perfect and just God would not treat his created persons as collectivities but as individuals. Pain does not systematically promote any discernible moral ends. It is exactly what one would expect in the non-existence of a God: the indiscernibility of God's concern with suffering. If the indiscernibility of God's concern with suffering is beyond religious understanding, belief in a moral God is not justifiable, and the simplest and most justifiable belief is that a moral God simply does not exist. If the world is sufficiently unjust to allow the inference to a just God, are we justified in assuming that a God’s justice will be discovered in a supposed afterlife? If there is no demonstrable difference between the existence of suffering if divine goodness exists, and the existence of suffering if God does not exist, we can say that a moral God has no real meaning. If God cannot prevent evil, how can we trust in divine providence, and that justice will eventually prevail?How is it possible to demonstrate the moral objectivity of faith? Sacred scriptures have inconsistences or contradictions and unacceptable or intolerable morality. In a Godless world, it is easy to understand how men invoking an imaginary God could make the 11 September attacks, Jonestown Massacre in Guyana, and Inquisition. The men who committed these atrocities were men of faith in their supposed objective interpretation of the scriptures. Believers use the imagination of their time to complete the narratives and try to morally justify the passages of the sacred scriptures in which God commands or does not condemn:genocide in the Bible and violence in the Quran;slavery in the Bible and Quran (Until the 19th and 20th centuries, the dominant interpretations of the sacred scriptures had no words against slavery and servitude);antisemitism in the New Testament and in the Quran;rapes in the Bible and child marriage of women in the Quran;unequal gender rights in the Bible and in the Quran;homophobia in the Bible and in the Quran.How can we understand God's moral objectivity well by saying which passages in the sacred scriptures are metaphors, and which passages should be ignored, and still do not understand the morality of God enough to know why he is passive in suffering that people do not want to be passive, such as child abuse and the greater incidence of severe diseases in the poorest children?When people openly understand how religious morality has been concretely applied in history, the trust in the objectivity of religious morality collapses. For believers in God, unbelievers give themselves moral permission to do anything. But for believers, everything can be morally permitted as well. Religious morality about slavery and unequal gender rights, for example, has changed remarkably since the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Why should our rights and freedom be dictated by believers' interpretation of passages in the sacred scriptures that they have chosen at any time to change subjective interpretation? If it is up to each of us to interpret God's morality throughout the centuries, then each of us is a moral authority independent of God.The claims of religious people that their morality is only a matter of objective faith in what is in the sacred scriptures are false. Violent religious extremists and religious conservatives, as well as religious liberals, have the same Torah, Bible, or Quran as the foundation for their faith-based morality. The objective and absolute God's morality simply does not exist.How would the supposed divine omniscience and goodness be useful in faith-based morality? Couldn’t you name a wicked action or a vile statement made by someone, attributable only to religious faith? Can you name a moral action or a statement that has been made by a believer that could not have been made by a non-believer? Is there anything evil that couldn't have been made by anybody who says they have a God on their side? Which God is the true moral authority? Belief in a God is compatible with a variety of contradictory and diverse religious ethical beliefs, including monogamy, divorce, homosexuality, birth control, Mormons' refusal to allow blacks to be priests, etc. Why is the faith that counts just yours? In recent years, several Anglican churches have revised their moral views to allow contraception, the ordination of women, and the blessing of same-sex unions. As an example of someone who thought he had a God by his side, in 1543 Martin Luther, one of the fathers of Protestantism, published an extremely violent antisemitic treatise titled “On the Jews and Their Lies”When reason objectivity fails to save the morality of sacred scriptures, believers cry out that its truth is a matter of faith, and above reason. The free use of belief in faith-based morality should bother religious people because it precludes all possibilities of claiming moral objectivity since historically any and all contradictory moral claims have been supposedly justified by faith. Why would a subjective interpretation by unbelievers of morality lead to moral savagery, and the subjective moral revelations of God not? There is no objective impartial reason at all to think that some group has a monopoly on the process that delivers the truth about morality, the supposed supernatural, and the universe. The statement that "God is an inscrutable mystery that cannot be touched by the intellect and put into words" is an attempt to justify the contradictory supposed “God's morality” throughout the centuries and faiths.THE OBJECTION TO GOD AS THE ABSOLUTE MORAL AUTHORITYWe cannot be justified in believing appeals to a moral God without before assuming moral beliefs. The debate always comes down to whether there is some moral reason to believe in supposed moral authorities. For our morality to be meaningful, our morality must be independent of God.If the supposed God's morality is unintelligible, why would we be morally required to obey him? I might have a self-interested reason to obey the commands of a tyrant who will punish me if I disobey, but I still do not have any moral duty to obey that tyrant. Why should we accept that there is no evil God by definition? Without moral independence, what cause could one have to praise him for what he does, if in doing something quite different he would have done equally well? Arbitrariness can be used as a measure of the will of God, but it deprives the meaning of morality because arbitrariness is not an objective truth. In principle, anything can be allowed, so God cannot be the source of morality. Believers say that it is God's essential good nature rather than his arbitrary will that serves as the ultimate criterion for morality. But how do they know this? God also commanded the Israelites to destroy all that breathed in an entire country (Joshua 10:40). If we do not have independence in moral judgments, and if we don’t have the idea that killing is wrong without divine punishment, not having a God to punish murderers wouldn't be more fearful than not having a God to punish sneezes. Why would love, justice, and morality necessarily come from the divine nature? To say that morality depends on the existence of God is to say to our child: “You are not inherently adorable. I only love you because the fear of God forces me to love everything he loves.” If loving is God's moral commandment, and if morality requires fear of God, then how can we force true love for our neighbors by fearing God?WHAT IS THE MEANING OF AN OBJECTIVE MORAL GOD?An omniscient God knows before creation what free will decisions will be made. Therefore, God created some human beings to make them suffer forever after death. If God does not know everything, how can we trust in God’s providence, and that justice will eventually prevail?From God, we would need the free will, but not freedom to take evil actions. A person's actions cannot kill everyone in the world, but that does not mean that he has no free will. Free will does not mean the capacity to do all things. Free will doesn’t mean free action, just as a parent raises a child. When parents prevent their children from playing with firecrackers, it is the children's freedom of action that is disturbed, not free will. If we can prevent evil actions, then we have a moral obligation to do so. A perfectly powerful and perfectly good God should be much more morally obligated to do the same. God's intervention to prevent or stop evil actions does not destroy free will. In choosing between freedom of action for rape, torture and murder of children, and protection of children, we do not hesitate that the evildoer should be deprived of freedom of action. Freedom is having the means and protection to make the best choices. Believers pray for divine providence and believe in the divine predestination of some. A just and moral divine providence and predestination should protect everyone from all evil behavior.Why do theists support any attempts by people or governments to prevent immorality that God does not want to prevent? God seems to answer Auschwitz’s prayers: “I will not release you, for your fate must be in Hitler’s hands for his freedom of action to be meaningful”. What is more meaningful than God allowing millions of brutal deaths just to promote the freedom of action of a few Nazis and slave owners? If Satan is not omnipotent, why is Satan responsible for evil? If evil is not evidence of an evil god, then good is not evidence of a good God. If we cannot even imagine a justification for God to allow a monstrous evil like Auschwitz, then we cannot justify a belief in a moral God, and the simplest and most justifiable belief is that a moral God simply does not exist.The animals created by God have no free will, but they suffer like us. We have laws to arrest people who cause animal suffering. If there is a God who made the tiger and the lamb, the cheetah, and the gazelle, what is he playing at? Is he a sadist spectator who enjoys blood and pain? God makes us want to eat animals. There isn’t spiritual growth of animals, their suffering is just pointless.Why do young children in Africa need lessons that are not understood in extreme pain to a greater degree than American children? If God gave us life and a good environment for spiritual growth, then why should the world have God’s omission in the cruel suffering of children at the hands of adults and through natural disasters and diseases? Why should paradise serve as compensation for God’s omission in preventing child abuse? No compensation can make omission in child abuse good. Children can die early before they have a chance to master the challenge of spiritual growth. Some children suffer so much pain that they cannot develop morally. The experiences can become so painful that they turn away from God.Our moral obligation to help alleviate heinous suffering disappears if we believe that in the afterlife the victims will always enjoy having gone through God's inaction in heinous suffering. If we trust that the hideous and incomprehensible suffering caused by God or consented to by his lack of help, is truly necessary, just, and good, we must pray for the heinous and incomprehensible suffering caused or consented to by God.God’s intention cannot be that we alleviate the worst suffering, because our ignorance about why God allows or causes terrible and incomprehensible suffering is equal to our ignorance about why we should intervene in God’s supposed always good actions or omissions. If we must trust in God’s intentions, this trust must paralyze our morality.According to ethical principles, a person should always consider others as ends in themselves, rather than mere means. If some people are forced to suffer so that others can demonstrate moral excellence, then God uses the most vulnerable people as a mere means to offer the opportunity to reward others with paradise. If the prevention acts are precisely what God wants, we must rejoice in each new divine evil because they would give us an opportunity for new preventions and the additional suffering occasioned by the sufferers and their loved ones being unable to understand pointless horrendous suffering. Who will rejoice in terrible pain so that others may receive a selfish reward? God may reward altruism, but this reward cannot motivate us without taking from altruism those attributes that he might want to reward. If unselfishness is its own reward, we need not worry about God’s existence as a fundamental moral guide.Babies with Tay-Sachs genetic disease have a short life and suffer so much pain that life is not worth it. When comforting a bereaved mother with such a baby, do not compare her pain to the pain experienced when trying to complete a physical exercise or studying math. Most pain is not a moral teacher and spiritual guide, which helps to achieve higher goals. Pain and happiness have different origins in the brain and do not need each other. If the existence of a divine incomprehensible evil is necessary, why should we know the difference between divine injustice and incomprehensible divine justice?A God who does not want or is unable to give us understanding or ask our consent to the heinous sufferings caused or consented to by him, either does not deserve our trust in his power or doesn't value us as moral beings capable of free will and learning but values us as we value ants. What glory is there in an omnipotent being, torturing forever who could not in the afterlife hurt anyone else? Would it be for the glory of man to fry ants?Whoever says that we should not expect to understand God's purposes about heinous sufferings caused or allowed by him cannot affirm the need for a God to explain the supposed perfection of the design of the universe which is based precisely on the assumption that we can understand God's purposes. If God exists, and if life does not need to be physical, as religions believe, the creation of perfect physical parameters for life needs a purpose, because it isn’t necessary.WHY SHOULD MORALITY BASED ON RELIGIOUS FAITH BE QUESTIONED?If the concept of God is compatible with most cultures remaining radically mistaken, why does every religion like to think that his faith accurately indicates objective true morality? If a moral God existed, he would ensure that people would know how not to relate to him immorally, as through human or animal sacrifices, or through the religious precedence of the masculine over the feminine, or through costly or painful religious demonstrations of vulnerable people to him.Christianity of the Inquisition, Calvinists, and Puritans is no different in practice from the Wahhabi Islam of Saudi Arabia, the Taliban, and ISIS. Or the faith in Mao’s red book. We classify convictions into degrees of credibility, determining how strongly valid objective unbiased proof exists. If faith ignores degrees of objective, unbiased support for evidence, then decisions based on religious faith can lead to moral disasters, as exemplified abundantly in human history. Unjustified beliefs threaten lives, livelihood, and social well-being: Bogus medicine kills people, opportunist religious authorities take our money and freedom. Religious faith can make people completely blind to the evidence against their views, making people more vulnerable to oppression, fraud, and abuse. Living with religious faith is morally dangerous because it forces you to believe without objective impartial evidence justification. Religions believe that their different conceptions of God are consistent with divine evil, for unintelligible divine purposes. In this case, a God is compatible with the divine evil of allowing men to be deceived by faith in false gods, for unintelligible divine purposes. Morality based on religious faith is the disease from which it claims to be the cure.Religion impedes the treatment of diseases by imputing epidemics to God, implying that the cures lie in correcting immoral behavior rather than in medical attention. Pastor Jerry Falwell for example, regularly linked the AIDS pandemic to LGBT issues and stated, "AIDS is not just God's punishment for homosexuals, it is God's punishment for the society that tolerates homosexuals”. However, AIDS cannot be a divine punishment of lust because wives and embryos and those who receive blood transfusions can be punished as well. Religious morality has impeded modern science, by producing bans on much stem cell research, and hindering vaccination through religiously based opposition by Christians and Muslims (See Vaccination and religion and Vaccine controversies). Scriptures are used by Jehovah's Witnesses to explain why their religion refuses to accept blood transfusions. The Amish will not allow heart transplants and, in some cases, heart surgery because they view the heart as "the soul of the body." Christian Science believes that the primary method of healing should be through prayer, and many members have in the past been against modern medical treatments. In Israel, ultra-Orthodox Jews represent 12.6% of the population but account for 28% of Covid-19 infections. Some religious leaders claim that God will protect them from the virus. The non-negotiable point for them is that when science and faith clash, it is always the faith that prevails. And faith, unlike science, does not need to demonstrate its reasons.Faith in a supposed divine morality is to surrender our skepticism and our reason and to put all our trust in someone or something, that is a sinister thing because it will not admit the possibility of error and the need for correction. If someone doesn't value objective impartial evidence, what evidence would you invoke to prove they should value objective impartial evidence? Religious faith can lead people to kill and die for it, without the need for further justification. It can be a gullibility with a halo of virtue, the denial of observation so that unearned moral authority can be preserved. Religions’ moral dogmas are the enemies of the moral and social evolution in history. What a supposed God commands is morally certain, and they are certain because they are commanded.If it is not appropriate to criticize a religion for lack of objective and impartial evidence, then it is not appropriate to engage in it for objective and impartial evidence of its supposed moral effects, for example. Just as you cannot consistently present a logical argument showing that logic is ineffective, you cannot consistently provide evidence for a position that states that the evidence is unnecessary. If we accept the testimony of physicists concerning the truth of scientific theories, we do so not because of their authority, not because they say so, but because we believe that they can provide strong independent evidence in support of their positions. Is the Bible's testimony able to provide strong independent evidence in support of its positions? If scientific truth is compatible with the Christian truth, why do Christian scientists compartmentalize thinking by not incorporating the scientific knowledge into their belief that Jesus walked on water and was resurrected?Why should we accept the most abject moral absurdity of anyone who claims the sanction of faith? Why would religious faith be the basis of morality? Choosing a doctor or babysitter unconditional to objective evidence is not virtuous, it is irresponsible. Why would choosing morality based on religious faith be virtuous? Without confidence conditional on objective and impartial experimental results, why should we think that a particular faith in a supposed God is the right answer and not some delusion? Self-confidence in one's own beliefs has not elicited moral disasters.Supernatural beings have not always been associated with morality. Ancient Greek gods were not interested in people’s ethical conduct. Much like the various local deities worshiped among many modern hunter-gatherers. Trust in the rule of law, in the form of an efficient state, a fair judicial system, and a reliable police force, is a predictor of moral behavior. When the rule of law is strong, religious moral belief declines, and so does distrust against atheists. Statistics show that atheists commit fewer crimes than average. A finding has now been confirmed in numerous laboratory and field studies. No matter how we define morality, religious people ​are not more moral than atheists, although they often say and likely believe that they do. In the world, there is a negative correlation between crime and lack of religious belief. (See for example Zuckerman, P. 2009. “Atheism, secularity, and well-being: How the findings of social science counter negative stereotypes and assumptions.” Sociology Compass; and Hofmann, W., Wisneski, D., Brandt, M., & Skitka, L. 2014. “Morality in everyday life.” Science)Belief in God does not inspire people to be good: the leaders of the Inquisition feared God and desired paradise, but brutally tortured their victims.WHY WOULD A GOOD GOD NEED TO BE ABSENT?Why would God allow mortal disagreements about him for lack of convincing objective impartial evidence, not making his existence and morality absolutely obvious and undeniable? The very fact that there is no faith that is the majority in the world shows that there is not enough objective impartial evidence of a specific God and his supposed absolute morality for the majority. The affection of a caring mother is palpable and comforts her children. A caring mother is not absent and does not need and could not use her power to coerce her children to love her. However, some believers say that God’s true existence and love cannot be palpable because that would unduly coerce people, taking away their moral freedom. If so, then:People are not coerced now, but will be after death, for all eternity;Supposed palpable divine providence and miracles nowadays or in sacred scriptures are palpable evidence of false Gods;Those who believe in God do not practice the morality they desire because they are coerced;Moses, Mohamed, the disciples of Jesus, and even Satan himself were compromised in their moral freedom;Loving a being does not require its palpable existence, only imagination of hypotheses;For sacred scriptures, divine love and moral freedom don’t have any meaning: Eternal hate and everlasting torture await in the afterlife anyone who questions the compassionate God's infinite love. If it's scary and sick if your boyfriend or girlfriend tells you: "If you don't love me, I'll torture you indefinitely", why is it not if God tells you this in the sacred scriptures?If God’s lack of moral improvement does not detract from his perfect goodness, then why does he value so much that we learn to resist evil instead of always being so? If God can create a paradise full of angels with free will, then free will is no justification for suffering. The value developed through experience with evil is the overcoming of evil. If there was no evil, why would God have to allow and make evil? If God's existence and love were palpable, coercion would not be necessary;God is unjust because he does not immediately punish and coerce immoral actions, but only in an intangible supposed life after death, and therefore makes his morality without tangible consequences in this life. The result is that human history and cultures reveal widespread differences of belief about what is morally wrong. We do not know whether a supposed divine command is a legitimate divine command or some delusion. There is no religious morality that forms a majority in the world. If God is hidden, the majority cannot develop the supposedly necessary morality, and therefore the absence of a good God is actually evidence that he does not exist;If an absent God is good, why would evil be the absence of God? Many can testify from personal experience that the state of alienation from God is not a state for which torture is an adequate metaphor. They were never interested in fellowship with God, to begin with, why would death change that?The simplest and most justifiable belief is not that an absent God is good, that it is an unjustifiable belief, but that a good God simply does not exist.A FAITH IS IMMORAL WHEN IT IMPOSES ITS MORALITY BY FORCE ON OTHERS WITHOUT OBJECTIVE MORALITYA faith should not impose its morality by force, as on consensual adult sex or an individual's decision about the supposed sanctity of his painful terminal life. Suppose you came across a vehicle or building on fire, and no way to rescue a trapped person. And suppose you have the means to kill the person quickly and surely, perhaps a pistol. If you were the person trapped, or not, would the sanctity of life always be more important than suffering horribly to die? How long should life be lived without dignity? No one should be forced to endure the unbearable as a blessing from God.Questions of what is sacred, what makes it sacred, and what is the nature of sacredness are in the realm of religious subjectivity. The State should not impose a particular religious view on the supposed sanctity of life in euthanasia and abortion. Why should we accept that simply being alive without consciousness is intrinsically good? Do fertilized eggs and embryos have the same supposed sanctity of life as conscious people? In the choice between saving from a hypothetical hospital fire, 200 fertilized eggs, and one conscious person, why would the life of one conscious person have more supposed sanctity and priority? Do we really need to think that vast resources should be set aside to preserve people in an irremediable coma, while there are no resources to raise the desperate expectations of poor and vulnerable children? Why should we strive equally for our full lives as well as for the lives of people in a hopeless coma and unwanted embryos without a brain aware that they are alive?If God gave us life and therefore, we don't need to understand and we can't blame him for giving us heinous sufferings, why do we blame pregnant mothers who take alcohol and cocaine? About 20% of pregnancies can evolve to natural abortion before 20 weeks, and of these abortions, about 80% are interrupted until the 12th week of pregnancy. Part of the abortions takes place without at least the woman knowing she is pregnant. A God who conceives the human reproductive system with such characteristics does not consider fertilized eggs and human life to be very valuable. Myths about the supposed sanctity of life may erect barriers against euthanasia and abortion, but at the price of religious double standards of morality.Even where everyone believes in a God, there are still vital moral differences. In a democratic society adherents of competing visions of religions, need to leave their particular conceptions behind in public discourse and justify their proposed policies on publicly accessible grounds. Humans need to use their reason and not faith to identify common or collective moral principles according to which present ethical dilemmas can be resolved. If the theistic worldview is the attempt to obey God’s morality, and if the existence of evil is explained by holding that God’s morality is beyond human coherent comprehension, has theism something coherent to tell us?WHAT IS THE EVIDENCE THAT MORALITY BASED ON FAITH IS OBJECTIVE?To assume the objectivity of faith would be to assume what one wants to demonstrate.How can religious faith be an absolute objective foundation of the morality of humanity, if each religious faith is a matter of personal and private choice? There are no objective and absolute criteria for choosing between two rival moralities if morality needs religious faith. There are no independent judges or impartial decision procedures for determining which supposed God’s morality is objectively true. Therefore, arguing objective absolute morality from a God is vacuous. We do not know if a command is a legitimate divine command or some illusion of religious faith. If you are saying that you have got hold of absolute and objective religious moral truth, do you have an impartial explanation of why most people in the world disagree? There is no religious faith that is the majority in the world. The fundamentally subjective nature of religious faith makes the aspirations of the hegemony of a morality based on religious faith an authoritarian fantasy.The correlation between the community in which a person was created and their religious belief undermines religious belief. The demonstrated dependency of religious experiences and beliefs of each culture and time means that religions aren’t objective absolute sources of morality. If all knowledge of religious morality depends on the same source, then this source is unreliable because it leads to conflicting results. So, the grounds for belief in any religious morality seem no stronger than the grounds for an incompatible belief in any other, which is to say they have no objective absolute grounds at all.Defenses of objective morality need to show that a criterion of objectivity is reliable and confer to objectivity a high likelihood of trust. Does moral objectivity mean moral majority? Moral majority where and when? If not, how to find moral objectivity? Was slavery accepted by the majority in the past? Why do we need to assume that an existing social consensus must be right? Experiments show that seeing an issue as objective correlates with the perception of the current consensus on the issue: People tend to vary their estimations of objectivity by the subject matter of the belief, for example, a belief about the morality of abortion is attributed a considerably lesser degree of objectivity than other beliefs such as the wrongness of opening gunfire on a crowd. Suppose you and your best friend are in a car. He drives. Suddenly he runs over a pedestrian. He was at a speed above the permitted speed. There are no cameras or witnesses besides you. Your friend's lawyer says that if you testify, making sure he was driving below the speed limit, you will spare him from prison. What should you do?: a) You should honor the duties of friendship. b) You should not lie in court. This is one of the tests used to differentiate from other countries, countries with at least 4 qualities: Western, industrialized, rich, and democratic. In countries such as the USA, Canada, and Switzerland, more than 90% of entrepreneurs and managers who passed the test answered "b". This was a majority. In countries such as South Korea and Japan, the majority opted for "a". This was another majority. It can be said that the test is guided by different ethics equally valid for the prosperity of a society. Countries "b" tend to value an ethic that should occur in a more abstract and impersonal way. The "a" one, on the other hand, usually has an ethic that the type of relationship you have with a person determines your duties towards them. But even the "b" countries do not totally abandon this principle: you must maintain and educate your children, but not the children of others. (See The WEIRDest People in the World: How the West Became Psychologically Peculiar and Particularly Prosperous - Joseph Henrich)What distinguishes moral norms from etiquette norms, coordination norms, prudential norms, and other norms? Experiments with different religions, Chinese, Westerners, including small-scale societies, show that it is not possible to identify a criterion for a moral and nonmoral normative distinction. The conviction that there must be a natural way of dividing normative judgments into those that are moral and those that are nonmoral is an illusion. (See Kelly, D., Stich, S. P., Haley, K. J., Eng, S. J., & Fessler, D. M. T. - Harm, affect, and the moral/conventional distinction Mind and Language 2007; Knobe, J., & Fraser, B. Causal judgment and moral judgment: Two experiments. In W. Sinnott-Armstrong (Ed.), Moral psychology ) As numerous authors have already noted, people’s moral judgments appear to be generated by the very same sort of cognition that one finds at work in generating nonmoral normative judgments. There is no important distinction between moral and nonmoral cognition. No brain area or network is common and peculiar to moral judgments of wrongness. If the moral domain were a fundamental feature of human cognition, we would expect the distinction between moral and nonmoral norms to be lexicalized in every language. But there is not a universal moral normative domain at all, and many cultures have not formed such a domain different from a nonmoral normative domain.Moral judgments are value judgments like when we evaluate sunsets as beautiful, novels as meritorious, motor vehicles as good or bad ones. These evaluations don't need that our judgments are based on an objective mind-independent reality or need consensus with others whose basic desires might be different from our own. Something’s good-making features may be open to legitimate disagreement. The property of being a good car involves a fit between its objective features and what we want from a car, and that will vary somewhat from person to person. Our ability to explain why we evaluate a particular motor car as a good one gives us no guarantee that there is one objectively best set of specifications for a motor car. A thorny problem for objective morality is to explain why people with different moral standards would necessarily be simply talking about different subjects, while believing that they are talking about the same thing, but not necessarily those who disagree about ideal vacations.Is objective morality the morality that would be universalizable? An agent may reasonably decide a case in one way without implying that anyone else should decide it similarly. Suppose Sophie and her two children are at a Nazi camp. A guard confronts Sophie and tells her that she must decide one of her children will be allowed to live and one will be killed, informing Sophie that if she chooses neither, then both will be killed. Sophie then has a morally compelling reason to choose one of her children. What should Sophie do? Whoever feels the force of conflicting moral demands on him and finally decides, is logically not committed to accepting that anyone else in situations like this should do the same. The fact that an individual adopts a moral norm of conduct for his use does not entail that the person requires it to be adopted by anyone else. An individual can adopt for himself a very demanding moral guide that he thinks is very difficult for most others to follow. One who judges morally in complex situations finds out something about himself, rather than anything one can speak of as holding universally.Moral objectivists have argued that moral disagreements very often derive from disagreement about nonmoral facts. But if ignorance of nonmoral facts can undermine the existence of a true moral disagreement, it can undermine the existence of a true agreement too. To moral objectivists, slave owners may have believed that their slaves were intellectually inferior, and Inuits who practiced infanticide may have been forced to do so because of resource scarcity in the tundra. But would the inferiority of one group justify enslaving them? If so, why don’t we think it’s acceptable to enslave people with low IQs? Would life in the tundra justify infanticide? If so, why don’t we just kill off destitute children around the globe instead of giving donations to Oxfam? Differences in circumstances do not explain why people don't share the same values. Why would we all desire the same ends if we were fully rational and found ourselves in the same circumstances?If the morality of sacred scriptures was created by men, can ignorance of nonmoral facts in historical times explain their morality? Can knowledge of nonmoral facts justify moral objectivity? Nothing can be the conclusion of a valid argument that is not already implicit in the premises. No set of premises consisting entirely of nonmoral descriptive statements and knowledge of nonmoral facts is sufficient to imply moral conclusions. Moral evaluations cannot be expressed using only nonmoral terms. If moral judgments are beliefs that motivate, they can only be beliefs about how to obtain something we desire. Therefore, they are either not objective or they cannot motivate us and therefore are not practical. The moral evaluation expressed by someone is relative to an individual's goals, desires for their own good, preferences. Nonmoral facts cannot justify objective morality.Is objective morality impartial? Some forms of moral partiality are morally admirable. Loyalty to one’s family, friends, community, or country, for instance, is commonly regarded as a virtue. Parents are thought to be morally obliged to take the best affordable care of their children and grandparents. Friendship requires us to do certain favors for friends without weighing our friends' welfare impartially against our working for a charity. We are simply less likely to conclude that our friend acted disreputably, partiality is part of what makes good friends. Forms of love can conflict with the requirements of impartiality. There is not a morally objective decision between impartiality and partiality, so there isn’t an objective position to settle many moral disagreements.A strong demonstration of the lack of objectivity in morality is to demonstrate that collectivities can flourish indefinitely without living a moral life. In the United States and South Africa, and elsewhere, gated, and walled communities, private schools, the flight of white class to increasingly remote suburbs, gentrification, signify the widespread conviction that one can isolate oneself from the moral problems of society at large. A just world would be one in which one could not succeed in this effort.Proponents of the "Most people are religious" argument to prove the objectivity of a moral God, use the word supernatural ambiguously, at first in the broad sense that it may be plausible to maintain the almost universality of supernatural beliefs, and then it changes to a more restricted sense, demanded by the argument, in which it implies a universal belief in a supreme moral God.There are well over 46% of people on the planet earth now who lack a belief in a moral ruler of the universe who is simultaneously omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent, eternal, and the creator of the universe. Billions of people are referring to, addressing prayers, and worshiping the supernatural radically ignorant about his true nature and moral purposes. There is no such thing as a consensus to the best opinion when we come to such emotional and irrational questions as the existence of the supernatural or the immortality of the soul. Some religions, including Buddhism, Advaita Vedanta, and Taoism, for example, do not believe in any personal moral god at all. Some rates of self-reported atheism: Sweden 85%, Denmark 80%, Norway 72%, Japanese 65%. Under what criteria would these countries be immoral?What criteria must be met for a concept of supernatural to be considered legitimate? Supposedly refuting naturalism doesn't establish the existence of any specific sort of non-natural. If there are things outside human knowledge, this doesn’t imply any realm outside the natural. How do we know that a supposed supernatural event does not have a natural explanation so far unknown? Why does someone who claims to have a firm knowledge when something is a manifestation of the supernatural remain silent when asked about the methods and means of the supernatural, and so, how does he know what is the work of the supernatural?On what possible grounds can it be asserted that seem radically different supernatural concepts are, at the bottom, the same concept? If there is the same concept, what would it take for an idea of the supernatural not to share in that same concept? The processes behind religious beliefs about the supernatural are cultural processes of belief formation that are so divergent that they cannot be relied upon to deduce that there is the same supernatural behind the beliefs. The continuing very large secularization in rich industrialized and advanced post-industrial countries, which have a large percentage of non-believers in the supernatural relative to poor countries and countries lagging in human development, is evidence that we are not bound by nature to believe in the supernatural.Those who believe in objective morality can show greater moral commitment and conviction. But they can show greater antisocial moral commitments too, including terrorist acts. The belief in objective morality predicts greater intolerance of another person who disagrees. Alleged objectivity of morality of religions can make disputes more intransigent if the parties consider their positions to be the only morally objective and correct ones. If after you found supposed objective principles, you are going to be incorrigible, and your reliance on supposed objective moral principles encourages dogmatism and narrow-mindedness.HOW HARMFUL CAN RELIGIOUS MORALITY BE?In the Ten Commandments (Exodus 20), we read to not take the Lord’s name in vain, but rape is not there, it is permitted in Genesis 30:3; Deuteronomy 20:14 and 21:10-14; Judges 19:24; 2 Sam 12:11-14; Numbers 31:17-18. 1 John 4:8 assures us that “God is love,” but this love ruthlessly commands Israeli soldiers to kill babies and women (Samuel 15:2-3; Joshua 10:40).“You must not own another person as property” was missing from the Ten Commandments of a culture that had slaves. Christians believed that God supported slavery (Titus 2:9-10, 1 Peter 2:18, Ephesians 6:5). 620,000 Christian soldiers on both sides of the American Civil War were killed to solve the issue of slavery. If God’s love is incomprehensible, no one can truly love God. Without the Law of Moses, would we all wander like a little Jehovah, raping and shedding blood in genocides any time our pride in having the only perfect and merciful love was offended? Why do more than 40 Christian denominations claim to believe what the Bible says, but aren’t there two denominations that agree with what the objective and absolute morality of the Bible says, or with the meaning of Christian morality? When we see that people suffer indiscriminately in natural disasters and diseases, it is completely amazing to see people thanking God for his incomprehensible blessing. Imagine that God is a mother who makes her child suffer terrible pains, and lets her child get scared and die alone, and justifies this pain because it is the child’s opportunity to learn precious lessons that are impossible to understand. Abraham no doubt thought that he should obey without understanding the divine command to murder his son Isaac and was rewarded for this by God (Genesis 22:1-19). This biblical story clearly shows how religious beliefs make morality unintelligible and blind us morally. If believers accept the moral guidance of the Bible, they are forced to accept that the contemporary condemnation of genocide, slavery, and rape is not morally absolute and objective, and their subjective moral interpretation sometimes needs to be changed at the point of a bayonet, as in the case of American slavery and civil war.This is a supplement to What are the strongest arguments against religion

Imagine this:You work really, REALLY hard to get the skills and education needed to get a job you really, REALLY wanted to get. You spend lots of money and thousands of dollars getting that job. Perhaps you have a family you need to support. Perhaps you want to feel as though you can make a genuine difference in the world.One day, you get a call from an employer asking you to come for a job interview. Instantly, there is a strong chemistry between you and the employer: he likes you and you like him. A week later, they confirm that they want to hire you, but they will need to do a background check. The employer also notifies you that as much as he likes you, either the law and/or company policy may have a zero tolerance police for those with criminal records.As far as you are concerned, there is nothing to fret about. After all, it’s not as though you’ve ever been arrested or charged with anything. There is no way you could have a criminal record, right? …RIGHT?!Above: Of Course NOT! I Turned Water Into Wine For God Sake!Well, it turns out that the law is not that simple. For, you see, you don’t need to actually be charged with anything — let alone, convicted — to actually receive a criminal record.How the Canadian police record you didn't know you had could be costing you job opportunities - Workopolis BlogNon-Conviction Records Explained - National Pardon CentreCriminal Records Linger Despite Lack of ConvictionsYes, you heard that right. You could have a criminal record, despite never being talked to by the police; never being arrested; never being charged; never being convicted; and never being imprisoned.And, as it turns out, when your background check comes back with something, you are stunned to find out you are no longer qualified for the job you applied for. What kind of charge could this be? Surely, there must be a mistake!420,000 in police database never convicted: Analysis | The StarWhat’s in your police record? | Canadian NurseCanadians stunned to learn they have police records, despite never being found guilty | The StarNo charges, no trial, but presumed guilty | The StarYou look into your background information, and here is what you find that leaves you completely stupefied, and it goes something like this:When you were a child, you were found to have unlawfully trespassed on private property with a friend. And your friend ended up committing vandalism.What?!Above: Say Goodbye To Your Life SavingsYou tell yourself you don’t even really know what day this was, as the person in question was someone you only met once or twice in your life back when you were in elementary school; hardly a friend to begin with, and definitely not somebody you would want to be associated with.As far as you were concerned at the time, you also did not trespass on private property, as the alleged offence took place in some deserted farmland where seemingly nobody other than yourself and your ‘friend’ were present.Your employer shrugs and simply tells you there is nothing he can do for you, and all your work and time you invested into getting this job is instantly flushed down the toilet because you were completely oblivious that you even had a criminal record to begin with.I thought criminal records were only for violent rapists, murderers, robbers, terrorists and mafia gang members formally convicted of a crime!Above: Like This Guy!No.Police reports have everything ranging from your educational background; your medical history; 9–1–1 calls involving you in any way, shape or form; as well as any reports you or someone else submits involving you — directly or indirectly.10 things you should know if you have a criminal recordFor the rest of your life, that job you worked so hard for is no longer available to you because of some record that dates back to when you may not even have reached the double-digit age. And even worse, you find out that not only is that particular job no longer available — so are most jobs involving everything from healthcare; law enforcement; government-type work; security; teaching; working with children and/or those with disabilities; as well as any job that may be considered “high-risk”: flying an airplane; the military; managing financial assets alongside every other job under the sun requiring more than just a high school education.Impact of Having a Youth RecordOut of Trouble, but Criminal Records Keep Men Out of WorkFor young people, a criminal record should not be a life sentence | Mark Johnson“Challenging The ‘Life Sentence’ Of Unemployment” | New York Criminal Record Sealing AttorneysCriminal Records Ruin LivesSome jobs, such as retail, fast food, construction and delivery jobs still accept those with criminal records, but those jobs are still very likely to do a background check and ultimately choose to hire the person that does not have a criminal record of any type over someone that does.Criminal record: The stain that won't go away | The StarWrongfully Convicted Find Their Record Haunts ThemYou, alongside tens of millions of people have now been officially branded.FOR LIFE!!!Above: And Then They Wonder Why Self-Murder Is So CommonUnemployment causes 45,000 suicides a year worldwide, finds studyBeing Unemployed Could Shorten Your LifespanYou are now the scum of the earth as far as the state, law enforcement and even large portions of the public are concerned.You are a low-life criminal that DESERVES to not have any meaningful work.You are a low-life criminal that DESERVES to become penurious.You are a low-life criminal that DESERVES to suffer for your perceived misdeeds.You are a low-life criminal that DESERVES anything BUT sympathy.Well, I got news for those that think this way:Humans are a social species that need to feel that they belong somewhere and have purpose in their life. If they don’t feel either of these things, then why should they care what society thinks of them? After all, society already has determined that for the rest of their lives, they will be last for everything because of something that someone barely remembers happening years — possibly decades earlier — when they were not yet old enough to even have a social media account.Child criminals should get lifelong anonymity, official report saysAt that point, expecting someone to care about others when the law and society in general makes it clear that the caring is not being returned is like beating a dog and expecting it to lick you rather than biting your neck off.Above: N-N-N-ICE DOGGIE?7 Surprising Things That Could Make You A Sex OffenderThe Most Insane Things That Will Get You Labeled A Sex OffenderYou Might Be a Sex Offender and Not Even Know It!In some places, it is even worse, because sex offender registries — which have done literally nothing to make society safer, but a lot to ruin the lives of millions of people with no positive outcome — are not only restricted from the same types of jobs that those with regular criminal records have, they are also going to have additional restrictions which may or may not apply, depending on which country and/or state they are in:Having their pictures posted onlineBeing forced to spend hundreds — possibly THOUSANDS of dollars a month to take mandatory polygraph tests and “psychology” courses when they are probably unemployedResidency restrictions, such as being told you cannot live within 1,000 feet of a school, church, daycare, bus stop, library, theatre, shopping mall, community centre, beach, park or anywhere else where children “might” congregate. (How many housing options do you think that leaves?)Being told in states such as Georgia that one cannot even WORK within 1,000 feet of any of the examples mentioned above. (How many job options do you think that leaves?)If you are underage at the time — and this has included children as young as six — you might also be sent to a foster home because your parents’ home will likely fall into the residency restriction. In addition, underage children added to the registry are also not allowed to be at school, church or anywhere else where children are — effectively ostracising them for life.Residency Restrictions for Sex Offenders - FindLawhttps://scholarlycommons.law.case.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1802&context=caselrevKiddie Porn Charge for Pictures of HerselfAbove: At Least You Still Have The Ice Cream TruckThe reasons for why people added to the sex offender registry are about as numerous as the number of reasons people might get a criminal record.Reasons why somebody might get added to the sex offender registry include:Peeing in publicMasturbating in public (even if you didn’t think anybody saw you)Being seen nakedHaving sex outsideTaking a picture of yourself when you were underageAllowing your child’s boyfriend/girlfriend to move in with youIntentionally or accidentally viewing pornography around a child“Inappropriately” touching a child and/or adultBeing a prostitute and/or paying for a prostituteHaving sex with someone under eighteen, or having sex while under eighteenThe Juvenile Sex Offender Registry and Its Unintended Consequences - Crime Free KidsRaised on the Registry | The Irreparable Harm of Placing Children on Sex Offender Registries in the USWhen Kids Are Accused of Sex CrimesTurning a profit on teenage sexBogus ‘sex offender’ labels are ruining livesFindLaw's Superior Court of New Jersey, Appellate Division case and opinions.all about meAbove: Children — Too Young To Consent — But Old Enough To Be Sex OffendersThe list of reasons can go on and on and on.Now, as far as regular criminal records go, here are some of the least known crimes that people would be surprised to hear not only exist, but are in fact enforced and can have lifelong repercussions on your life:Whistling and/or swearing in publicPossessing or selling comic books deemed violentFilming the police in publicHaving too many garage salesWearing a mask in publicBeing intoxicated in a vehicle — even if you weren’t even drivingNot being indoors during a curfew if you are a certain ageBeing unhygienic in publicClimbing a treeEating candy or ice cream on a SundayDid you know comic books depicting crime are illegal in Canada?There are literally thousands of laws in existence which can literally screw you or anyone else up for life. Even being friends, acquaintances, co-employees or a family member of somebody convicted or accused of committing a crime can get your name added to the growing list of names found on the criminal background registry.Above: Bah — Who Wants To Be A Doctor Anyway When You Can Become A Drug Dealer?It is evident that at best, this system started off as well-meaning and has now completely backfired — something that former proponents of the sex offender registry, such as Patty Wetterling have stated.Sex-offender registries: How the Wetterling abduction changed the countryPatty Wetterling questions sex offender laws | City PagesHowever, I personally believe that the law was there as a way to regulate and marginalise people and form a sort of casting system whereby those deemed undesirable by law enforcement and the government are deliberately set to become poor for life, alongside their children, who may be depending on their parent to provide them a better standard of living.Mass incarceration does not reduce crime rates, but mass poverty does increase the number of people perpetrating and becoming victims of crime. And when it is no longer possible to have a meaningful life because of a law that was created and enforced by the state and law enforcement personnel — what do you do?For many — they turn to crime.Does anyone think that the homeless really want to be homeless? Do the homeless have any say in how the economy is to be regulated; what kinds of laws exist to harm the public; or whether or not somebody will give them a livable wage?Of course not. And it is also known that the homeless are also far more likely to have physical and/or mental disabilities, in addition to possibly having a criminal record. Those who fall into poverty are far more likely to end up in prison and become trapped in a loop they will never get out of.Above: Homeless Shelters — The Place Where People Enjoy Being Poor, Unemployed and HatedMost police officers and politicians alike will say that criminals create their own problems, but I call farce on that one.Who decides what arbitrary laws should or should not be enforced? Who makes decisions that result in millions of people losing their homes and jobs? Who decides who will be prosecuted, imprisoned, and be slapped with a criminal record intended to deprive someone of any chance of employment?Kids for cash scandal - WikipediaWill Your Criminal Record Keep You Unemployed? - Active ScreeningExploring the experiences of violence among individuals who are homeless using a consumer-led approach.Death of homeless sex offender in Grand Rapids poses questionsThat’s right — police officers, politicians, judges and lawyers make these decisions.When you really come to think of it, one must ask themselves whether or not drug cartels and other so-called violent gang members are really the greater of two evils between themselves and the state.If I want to go get a job, I am not going to be forced to ask the Hell’s Angels for a background check in order to get into nursing, engineering, teaching, social work or the military — but I am very likely going to be forced to go to the police for such a request and hope I don’t get a negative response, in addition to being forced to pay for a background fee that might cost hundreds of dollars out of my own pocket.Above: Criminal Records In The MakingThe state and police regulate every portion of your life, right down to what you can and cannot eat; where you can and cannot live; where you can and cannot work; and even where you can and cannot go for recreational purposes.Drug gangs typically don’t really care what you do, so long as you stay out of their way and don’t try to sabotage their operations. Many people added to the sex offender registry have been arrested and spent years in prison after being previously sentenced for going to church, the library or the internet because the state they were in prohibits all sex offenders from having access to the media, education or religious services.Redemption ban? Sex offenders arrested for going to churchSex offender arrested at Athens Drive public library in RaleighHow many times have you heard of a mafia gang member actually arresting somebody with a criminal record or someone on the sex offender registry because they posted a comment on Facebook when the law makes it a crime for that individual to have internet access?Prisoner gets 37 years in solitary confinement for secret Facebook postsSex Offender With Undisclosed Facebook Wins AppealIf anything, there is a very good chance that the mafia would probably even help such people get on the internet by changing their IP address… in return that they pay a fee for that ‘service’ of course. Much the same way that Al Capone and his gang used to run soup kitchens during the Depression Years in order to help the poor so that their reputation could be improved.Above: The Fatter, More Italian Version Of Robin Hood — Comes With BeerAl Capone started one of the first Soup Kitchens during the Great DepressionI am not saying that I support mafia gangs going around selling drugs — especially the more hardened types such as cocaine — nor do I support them engaging in vandalism against private property or using physical violence against individuals. However, when you come to think about it, destruction of property and physical violence is something that the government and law enforcement practice on a daily basis.The only difference I can see is that the latter not only exercises far more power over our daily lives than the Hell’s Angels and Los Zetas do — they also expect the public to regard the government and police as the good side.Above: When Liking A Facebook Comment Can Get You A Lifetime In The SlammerHomeless people often times resort to drug use because it helps them pass the time of living a wretched existence on the street. Therefore, the government and law enforcement largely help expand the drug business by giving people the mindset of not caring about the legal and social consequences of drug consumption.The government and police can no longer claim they do what they do in the name of public safety when I see that everything ranging from frivolous criminal records; employment shortage; sex offender registries; and even criminalising the homeless and those with disabilities by incarcerating them, and then further limiting their employment opportunities all come as a result of the very laws the government imposes and law enforcement enforce.Can you stop someone from posting your 911 tape?Will My Mental Health Record Show Up in My Background Check? - Active Screeninghttps://ccla.org/recordchecks/doc/Non-Conviction%20Records.pdfMany young children with autism or down syndrome have been added for life to the sex offender registry because they might have taken a naked picture of themselves when they were 12 or 13.Imagine that.Having a criminal record. A place on the sex offender registry. AND… already having limited job opportunities from the time of your birth because of a disability you simply have.The Autistic Children Who Are Labeled As Sex OffendersAsperger’s, autism, and sex offendersHow Our Autistic Son Ended up a “Sex Offender for Life”Winning combination.Above: Sex Offenders And Criminals In The MakingTo be quite frank, I am surprised that crime rates aren’t higher than they already are, seeing as it is quite apparent that the government and law enforcement have been doing everything they can for decades to try and keep the poor in poverty by looking desperately through the thick and voluminous set of laws that can be interpreted as a crime in order to ensure that such people will be barred for life from getting decent employment.And then, that cycle will be imposed on the next generation.Children of criminal parents have a greater chance of becoming criminals themselves: studyHow a parent's criminal record limits childrenA Parent's Criminal Record has a Lifelong Impact...on Their ChildrenWhy should “criminals” have any regards for “non-criminals” when the system allows a background check to defy their entire existence? If you tell someone that is six years old that they are a lifelong criminal because they might have vandalised some property or hit someone in a fit, do you really think that the six year old is going to magically grow a halo and become a great and productive citizen?Of course not. They are going to do what most people do when they are being labelled: living that label.The Labelling Theory - History Learning SiteHow Your Brain Keeps You Believing Crap That Isn’t TrueIllusory truth effect - WikipediaNew evidence says US sex-offender policies are actually causing more crimeCalling someone stupid is not going to make them smarter. Calling someone lazy is not going to make them more productive. Calling someone ugly is not going to make them more beautiful. And calling someone a criminal is not going to make them law abiding — whatever that means.Above: When All Hope Is LostNot only do the people with criminal records suffer for life — so do their family members, friends and neighbours who may be forced to live the consequences of a labelled criminal. Children who grow up in an impoverished neighbourhood because their parents might not be able to afford anything else, due to limited job opportunities, are themselves more likely to experience violence, trauma and end up ultimately getting a criminal record and possibly even prison time.Let’s not kid ourselves about prison, either: prison is not about “rehabilitating” people. The whole purpose of prison in the modern ages is to dehumanise portions of the population and create a form of modern slavery. Those who go to prison are subjected to the types of treatment that would be seen as abuse anywhere else, and then on top of it, they are given a criminal record and quite possibly even added to the sex offender registry if it was decided that the crime was sexual in nature.INSIDE LOOKING OUT. American prisons tend to dehumanize most prisoners. Rehabilitation, as a systemwide policy, is hit-or-miss. The latest crisis fa...A Former Inmate Talks About How Prisons Manufacture CriminalsHigh-profile individuals such as Theodore Kaczynski were subjected to experimental abuse during their university years with the intention of creating violent individuals out of otherwise seemingly innocent men. And in turn, these types of experiments have been imposed on prisoners, patients as well as the millions of people currently on probation or parole.Harvard's Experiment on the Unabomber, Class of '62An Extreme Psychological Study May Have Affected a Young Ted KaczynskiAbove: The Government Made Me Do It!These people will then return to their communities and families with little to no employment opportunities; limited education; the negative experience of prison life; and even being looked down on by most of the public.The result is that often times children and other family members in the household become the victims of a system that the government and law enforcement helped to create. Many frustrated parents who may otherwise have been loving may have a breaking point and begin taking their frustrations out on their children. And when children are subjected to physical and/or mental abuse, studies show that not only will their children grow up to be violent — it may also damage the structure of their brain.Canadians living in low-income households experience higher rates of violent victimizationThe poorest Americans are 12 times as likely to be sexually assaulted as the wealthiesthttp://poverty.ucdavis.edu/sites/main/files/file-attachments/maurer_family_violence_brieft.pdfhttps://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/childhood-bullying-can-lead-to-depression-and-unemployment-in-adulthood-says-study-9268365.htmlBullied children still suffer at 506 CONSEQUENCES OF CHILD ABUSE AND NEGLECTEven if it was the parents that ultimately beat their children, that does not necessarily mean that the parents are primarily responsible for that situation. Going back to the dog biting its owner scenario, we can see that the government and police become the owners to the extent that they will degrade an individual by calling them a criminal, and then subjecting them to mental and/or physical abuse by limiting their job employment to the point that they become homeless, where they could become the victims of weather exposure, gang beatings, or depression.Above: How Children With Criminal Records Get Their MoneyStating that other people without criminal records have lives and families of their own that they want to enjoy as justification for why those with criminal records should effectively hush up and play along is not a valid argument.Those with criminal records also have lives of their own that they want to enjoy. Millions of them have children who want to enjoy their lives just as much as the children of so-called law abiding parents want to.Kids of unemployed and depressed parents more likely to be absent from classWhy should those with criminal records be subjected to such hardships and still have people acting as though they should still be grateful to have any rights at all?Because they have a criminal record?Above: We Apparently Deserve This — Because Our Parents Apparently Do — Because The Government Said SoCrime in itself is subjective. What may be legal one day could be illegal the next and vice versa. At one time, slavery was legal; does that mean that slavery should still be legal?And even if crime were less subjective does not mean that the consequences that come with having a criminal record should be given credibility.Children of registered sex offenders have reported that they are more likely to be harassed, beaten and assaulted by adults and children alike because they saw their parents’ name and picture online.When you’re married to a sex offenderSex Offender Is Suing His Neighbors Over ProtestsCollateral damage: Harsh sex offender laws may put whole families at riskHow ‘vigilantes’ work ‘within the law’ to force child sex offenders out of Canadian communitiesDoes the ideal criminal justice system also tolerate children of “criminals” to become victims themselves?To conclude, all I can say is that if I were ever to find myself barred for life from any employment because of some criminal record that may or may not be accurate; was forced to register as a sex offender; and then have my daily routine regulated by the police: I would also be looking for my next meal in the form of committing a crime.Above: When Chasing A Pizza Delivery Man Is Easier Than Making Minimum-Wage

The word for slave or (man)servant -- 'eved -- appears about 800 times in the Hebrew Bible across a wide range of Biblical books and constituent sources. (But a frequent use includes metaphorical service to the deity or divine mission.) The sources include the Pentateuch's law codes in Exodus, Leviticus, and Deuteronomy, as well as narratives scattered throughout the corpus.Scholars face major hurdles to characterizing the arrangements implied by 'eved in the Bible. These include:Different dates of composition. Some 'eved texts may have been composed in the 10th C. BCE, while others in the 5th C. or later.Diverse political contexts. Some 'eved texts may reflect life under discrete tribes (or city-states), a confederation of tribes, an independent monarchy, a vassal state to a large empire (e.g., Egypt, Assyria, Babylon), a province of an empire (e.g., Persia), or exile in a foreign land.Unclear relationship of text to social reality. It's not at all clear that Biblical or ANE law codes reflect:(1) actual legal arrangements, as we'd assume for laws nowadays,(2) some kind of idealized or desired arrangement,(3) an imagined portrayal of the utopian past, or,(4) an imagined portrayal of a sinful past, which may be a common interpretive angle for explaining the fall of the Northern Kingdom to Assyria (722 BCE) or of Judah to Babylon (ca. 586 BCE).A conservative methodology would hesitate to take a given source as an accurate representation of an 'eved arrangement for the date of (disputed) composition -- and certainly not assume that texts across multiple sources can harmoniously represent a single, coherent socioeconomic situation.Accordingly, we face a diverse set of unreliable textual witnesses to a spectrum of plausible 'eved arrangements spanning 5+ centuries. <sigh>Here are some of these arrangements:Hebrew 'eved. This person was sold in order to pay off a debt. The 'eved becomes the property and laborer for another, at least for a limited period. (Exod. 21, Deut. 15) (2 Kings 4) The 'eved is to be released after 6 years and/or by the sabbatical year. This person is treated like a hired worker according to Leviticus 25:40 and Deut. 15:15:18. Such an 'eved is not permanent property and cannot be inherited. (Lev 25)Foreign captive 'eved. This refers to those captured in war and become the property of the victors. The term of slavery or service is indefinite. This form of bondage may be an alternative to immediately killing the warriors (and often family members), as is discussed in other Biblical passages.Foreign enslaved 'eved. Again, the slave need not be released. This may be closest to the modern-era institutions of serfdom or slavery. Per Leviticus (25), these may be obtained through the slave trade, or by purchasing from resident alien families, and bequeathed to heirs.Israelite enslaved to foreigner. This occurs when an Israelite sells themselves for debt, according to Leviticus, and the indenture can be cancelled by a redemption payment. (It's not stated that such redemption would be honored in other situations.)Subject of the ruler. Both foreign and Israelite kings appear to have considerable power over their subjects. It may be that an 'eved who is set "free" (khofshi) has a status of subjugation to the king's demands (Lemche 140). For instance, narratives say that kings conscript people or force labor. If so, then the notion of a "free" man is anachronistic, insofar as servitude to a private master merely becomes servitude to the monarch.Serfs in Egypt. Story of Egyptians selling themselves to Pharaoh, under Joseph's executive authority. Ancient Egyptian had various modes of unfree labor, bit beyond our scope here, especially since this story seems like a legend.Hebrews in Egypt. Forced labor and brutal repression, per the narratives.(Eunuchs and the king's servants may be slaves, e.g., Esther.)Household servant. Exemplar is Eliezer of Damascus, who serves Abraham. He has wide mobility and discretion. Abraham is concerned that, absent an heir, Eliezer would inherit Abraham's estate (this may be a rhetorical exaggeration, it's not clear). Perhaps Joseph is another example, or Gehazi, the servant of the prophet Elisha. (Of course, these are not assumed to be historical figures, but at least archetypes for the authors.)Regulations.Physical punishment and (mis)treatment. Israelites are enjoined to treat the Hebrew slaves well (e.g., Deut 15). But a foreign slave can be hit, though fatal blows shall be avenged -- and permanent physical harm are grounds for release (Exodus 21:20)It is illegal to kidnap a person and sell them to slavery. (Exod 21:16)Women and marriage. For a Hebrew debtor, if he enters into servitude with his wife, then she is freed with him. However, a wife married during bondage belongs to the master. (Exodus) According to Exodus, a Hebrew daughter sold does not get freed within the time limit because, I gather, she becomes part of the family (to the owner or a son). (Exodus 21) Conversely, the Deuteronomic code holds a woman should be set free after the 6 year limit. Also, Leviticus 19:20 states that a female slave (shifkhah) who is betrothed should not be punished for adultery.Children. The children of a Hebrew 'eved does not belong the master, e.g., upon manumission (Lev. 25:41), whereas the children of a foreign slave remain the master's possessionsVoluntary consent of Hebrew 'eved to extend the time period (Exod 21, Deut. 15)Compensate the indentured Israelite servant after their term and be grateful for their work.Ability to obtain refuge (and not returned to one's master). This asylum may include foreign 'eved, though it's not explicit (Deut 23:16-17)Bias with exilic and post-exilic sources? Leviticus is among the sources written, per scholars, during or after exile in Babylon and Persia. It's not clear that they owned any 'eved of the types described above. However, at the time they returned from exile, they had a strong aversion and conflict with "foreigners," as emphasized in Ezra. Accordingly, I wonder if Leviticus describes the severe rules for foreign slaves with a polemical bias.Concurrent alternatives to 'eved arrangements? Mesopotamian societies had stratified social classes. I'm not sure we should not assume that everybody in Israelite society was either a slave or a fully independent agent.[Yes, more details need to be filled in, with associated sources. Suggested edits would be welcome!]