A World without Religion?

[jimmy]

Are “religion” and “conscience” as synonymous to you?

Well, sure. If things are made different then things change.

No. Assuming a world without religion, what is conscience? Conscience assumes that you have an obligation to follow a set of principles. You have an obligation to do what is right as far as you know it.

The point is though that the govt makes the rules, and there is no conscience that can supercede those rules. If you wanted to resist or do things your own way, of course you could, but you would have no precedent. It is merely resistance, which could never be just or moral. The govt and god have become conflated.

 

[ThinkingSapien]

Assuming a world without religion, what is conscience?

The uses of the word “conscience” with which I am most familiar are not dependent on the presences or absence of religions. And one’s conscience can be in conflict with the religious teachings to which she has been introduced. There have been quite a number of threads that have resulted from this in the “Social Justice” sub-forum.

The point is though that the govt makes the rules, and there is no conscience that can supercede those rules.

Sure there are. Someone can give higher priority to her conscience and convictions.

If you wanted to resist or do things your own way,

Wouldn’t that constitute one’s conscience having priority over the rules of some other authority?

of course you could, but you would have no precedent.

Precedent as in having higher importance? If so then considering one’s convictions more important is having a precedent.

It is merely resistance, which could never be just or moral.

Sure it can. Civil disobedience can be and has been motivated by some one trying to follow their convictions and take a stance that she believes to be just and moral even with full knowledge that some possibly fatal suffering will be experienced as a consequence of one taking a stance that is in conflict with that of those that wish to impose otherwise (which includes but is not limited to disobedience of the rules of one’s government).

The govt and god have become conflated.

I’ll just acknowledge that this is your view on the scenario.

 

[Karen107]

A world without religion?

Who’s going to take over for all the religious who are caring for the poor around the world? Don’t the poor have enough to deal with without losing the hope that they have found in God? The places where church attendence is declining is among the well off who have their basic needs taken care of… They have ipods and computers, and they know where their next meal is coming from so of course they don’t think they need God… The ones who aren’t so well off know they need God in their lives because they have found hope in God and from the religious organizations around the world. And the atheists would say this is a bad thing? Helping people who are suffering is never a bad thing and should be encouraged whether a person is religious or atheist or whatever. So whats the beef? The world would NOT be better off without religion… period…

 

[Charlemagne_III]

As an aside, here at u-tube are several voice recordings (totaling eight minutes) of G.K. Chesterton reading monologues in the 1930s.

youtube.com/watch?v=zJjtJrvo87I

 

[PRmerger]

My opinion that “authority” might be a more fitting word is that there are other implications/connotations that go along with the word “god” that vary from person to person. These differences might not be immediately obvious until later disagreements surface. I think the word “authority” has less of these possible additional ideas and feelings associated with it. The intent may be to invoke these ideas and feelings, I don’t know.

Sure.

As long as the authority is noted to be absolute.

 

[PRmerger]

Sure there are. Someone can give higher priority to her conscience and convictions.

Yeah, well in doing that what she is doing is actually acknowledging the existence of a Conscience-Giver.

 

[ThinkingSapien]

Yeah, well in doing that what she is doing is actually acknowledging the existence of a Conscience-Giver.

It might come as no surprise that you and I may disagree on an apparent premise or two for the above.

 

[tonyrey]

That is a problem though. Just because no one is interested in answering doesn’t mean it isn’t a relevant question. That is simply a failure to engage in the argument.

In other words it is an excuse - and a very weak one at that!

 

[tonyrey]

A world without religion?

Who’s going to take over for all the religious who are caring for the poor around the world? Don’t the poor have enough to deal with without losing the hope that they have found in God? The places where church attendence is declining is among the well off who have their basic needs taken care of… They have ipods and computers, and they know where their next meal is coming from so of course they don’t think they need God… The ones who aren’t so well off know they need God in their lives because they have found hope in God and from the religious organizations around the world. And the atheists would say this is a bad thing? Helping people who are suffering is never a bad thing and should be encouraged whether a person is religious or atheist or whatever. So whats the beef? The world would NOT be better off without religion… period…

It is significant that Sweden has one of the highest standards of living in the world, one of the highest percentages of atheists - and one of the highest percentages of suicides…

 

[tonyrey]

… Someone can give higher priority to her conscience and convictions…

If only matter exists nothing matters!

 

[PRmerger]

It might come as no surprise that you and I may disagree on an apparent premise or two for the above.

If everyone is obligated to follow her conscience–no one ought to disobey her conscience–the conclusion is that the only possible source of this absolute obligation is…God.

Now, if you disagree with this conclusion, Peter Kreeft offers 4 other possibilities as this source for an absolute moral obligation for one to follow her conscience.

1. 
   *]something abstract and impersonal, like an idea;
   *]something concrete but less than human, something on the level of animal instinct;
   *]something on the human level but not divine; and
   *]something higher than the human level but not yet divine. In other words, we cover all the possibilities by looking at the abstract, the concrete-less-than-human, the concrete-human, and the concrete-more-than-human.
   
   Which, in your opinion, do you argue for?

 

[tonyrey]

The govt isn’t literally a god, but it occupies the place of God. What happens when you remove a mans right to follow his conscience (which is exactly what would happen if you remove religion from society.). The govt trumps all and becomes the god. Atleast while there is religion in society there is something higher than govt that the govt can be judged according to, even if those in govt don’t care. There is truth.

God, family, and country are the main relationships and obligations you have in life. You remove God and the concept of family will quickly crumble. Then what you are left with is a govt with absolute power. You have no right to conscience and your family takes no precedence, atleast as far as the govt is concerned.

As illustrated by more than a million one-parent families in the UK’s secular society.
Similarly without belief in a heavenly Father there is no rational basis for the principle of fraternity. We would be related solely by** accidents** of birth…

 

[tonyrey]

If everyone is obligated to follow her conscience–no one ought to disobey her conscience–the conclusion is that the only possible source of this absolute obligation is…God.

Now, if you disagree with this conclusion, Peter Kreeft offers 4 other possibilities as this source for an absolute moral obligation for one to follow her conscience.

1. 
   *]something abstract and impersonal, like an idea;
   *]something concrete but less than human, something on the level of animal instinct;
   *]something on the human level but not divine; and
   *]something higher than the human level but not yet divine. In other words, we cover all the possibilities by looking at the abstract, the concrete-less-than-human, the concrete-human, and the concrete-more-than-human.
   
   Which, in your opinion, do you argue for?

1. 
   Thank God, I don’t have to answer that question!

 

[tonyrey]

A world without religion?

Who’s going to take over for all the religious who are caring for the poor around the world? Don’t the poor have enough to deal with without losing the hope that they have found in God? The places where church attendence is declining is among the well off who have their basic needs taken care of… They have ipods and computers, and they know where their next meal is coming from so of course they don’t think they need God… The ones who aren’t so well off know they need God in their lives because they have found hope in God and from the religious organizations around the world. And the atheists would say this is a bad thing? Helping people who are suffering is never a bad thing and should be encouraged whether a person is religious or atheist or whatever. So whats the beef? The world would NOT be better off without religion… period…

A glance at history is sufficient to justify that conclusion when it comes to care for those who are rejected or neglected by society.

And the vast majority of believers have not been fanatics or terrorists…

 

[Paradoxical]

Ah yes. Religion bad. Atheism good.

Whatever.

“So maybe you think the problem is not so much with atheism as with people who do not follow a particular religion (but obviously may believe in God).”

Another non sequitur. How many Deists are getting abortions?

Your “may believe” is telling.

Secular countries have less crime than America. Sweden is one of the happiest places on earth. Catholics represent only about 17% of the world, and you might be surprised that the Catholic next to you quietly had an abortion last year, or spent time in prison for larceny or murder, or that he or she really doesn’t believe a virgin birth occurred or really doesn’t think the pope is infallible, or really doesn’t believe the things you do, yet keeps the “Catholic” tag in order to not create waves in his family or friends. We create the God that resonates with our own wants, needs and desires and it is us.

 

[PRmerger]

Sweden is one of the happiest places on earth.

Source, please. How was happiness in Sweden measured?

Catholics represent only about 17% of the world, and you might be surprised that the Catholic next to you quietly had an abortion last year, or spent time in prison for larceny or murder, or that he or she really doesn’t believe a virgin birth occurred or really doesn’t think the pope is infallible, or really doesn’t believe the things you do, yet keeps the “Catholic” tag in order to not create waves in his family or friends.

Probably true.

We create the God that resonates with our own wants, needs and desires and it is us.

Perhaps some do.

That doesn’t really argue against the actual existence of God, however.

We could all “create the God that resonates with our own wants”, yet God could still exist, right?

 

[Paradoxical]

PRmerger;12635865]Source, please. How was happiness in Sweden measured?

If it’s important, I can find the article. However, happiness is measured by how the respondents answer the question as to whether or not they are “happy”, which would include things such as health, well being, finances, work, leisure time. Therefore, unless we want to claim that people who say they are happy when asked that question really aren’t, because happiness to you means something other than the dictionary definition, I think we have to accept the respondents answers.

Perhaps some do.

How can anyone here NOT create the God of their own desires? Let’s presume for a moment that you have read all of the bible and come away with a belief that God condones hell because he’s "God’ and can do what he wants. You could NOT believe this to be unjust in your own mind, and your personality would be one that rationalizes this and agrees with this. Take another person who has read the very same bible as you do but does not believe in hell, and believes that a non believer is just excluded from God. That person’s personality is such that he is probably was raised in a more liberal family than were you, had more liberal friends than you, and/or decided that he could not square the concept of hell with a loving God. Both of you “Catholics”, and both of you have vastly different God concepts.

That doesn’t really argue against the actual existence of God, however.

One thing I have found in my decades of discussions with those who claim the “Christian” hat is that they conflate the word “God” with their own particular denomination. In other words, they like to argue for a generic God instead of defending the denomination they happen to be in. Your sentence "That doesn’t really argue against the existence of God could be used by a Muslim, or by a Mormon.

We could all “create the God that resonates with our own wants”, yet God could still exist, right?

I am brand new here, and I’m not sure if this site wants to keep young, impressionable minds from reading posts from non believers, so if I am banned, so be it. The existence or non existence of A “God” is unknowable. There is no way you can disprove that the Muslim God is false. For that matter, if you lived in Iran, your God belief would be vastly different, and yet…you could and WOULD use the same arguments you are making to me about the CATHOLIC god, except you and many others conveniently leave out the word Catholic or Christian when using the word God. For what it’s worth, IF there is a God, any God, that God would most definitely not be the Catholic God. Can I prove that? Of course I can’t. Neither can I disprove their is no Mormon God, no Muslim God, no Jesus orbiting the Halle Bopp comet.

 

[inocente]

It is significant that Sweden has one of the highest standards of living in the world, one of the highest percentages of atheists - and one of the highest percentages of suicides…

That’s out of date. The male suicide rate in the UK is now higher than Sweden. Overall Sweden is 35th in the table, better than some countries with much lower percentages of atheists such as Poland (16th) and USA (30th).

Source, please. How was happiness in Sweden measured?

Allow moi. Here’s an independent study of child well-being (pdf). Sweden ranks 2nd, while USA and UK are bottom. The text explains the various measures and weightings.

If everyone is obligated to follow her conscience–no one ought to disobey her conscience–the conclusion is that the only possible source of this absolute obligation is…God.

Now, if you disagree with this conclusion, Peter Kreeft offers 4 other possibilities as this source for an absolute moral obligation for one to follow her conscience.

I’m surprised Kreeft doesn’t include Paul’s explanation, especially as he mentions Romans: “They show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts sometimes accusing them and at other times even defending them.” In other words conscience is a combination of all of Kreeft’s options.

A number of Catholics on CAF have told me that conscience must sometimes be ignored on the basis that CCC 1970 says “Yet it can happen that moral conscience remains in ignorance and makes erroneous judgments about acts to be performed or already committed.” They say this even though the preceding sentence has “A human being must always obey the certain judgment of his conscience. If he were deliberately to act against it, he would condemn himself.”

So it doesn’t seem clear to all Catholics that conscience must always be obeyed even though the CCC says it clearly enough.

 

[PRmerger]

So it doesn’t seem clear to all Catholics that conscience must always be followed, even though the CCC says it clearly.

Sadly, you know more about Catholicism than most Catholics.

 

[ThinkingSapien]

If everyone is obligated to follow her conscience–

I don’t agree that everyone is. We (as in specifically you and I) have had a discussion on this before about a year ago in the thread “Morality without God.”

PRMerger;10314280:

Clarification: are you saying that a person may be acting morally when he acts in a manner that is contrary to his moral judgement? IOW: I believe that my conscience tells me to do [A], but despite this, I think I need to do [not A]

Nope. That’s not what I a, saying. A person may conclude that a certain set of actions is immoral. But may perform them anyway because acting in a way that the person finds to be most moral might not be the only motivating goal for the person’s behavior. Often times in real life a person may be acting taking many competing goals into consideration. Staying within the lines of what the person considers to be most moral may be one motivation. Self interest, the interest of loved ones (or other objects of concern, which could include specific people, animals, and ideals) or anticipated objects of concern( including people not yet met) can also influence decisions. One example (and I’ve got a few others in mind) is the person that concludes that stealing is wrong but does so any way to satisfy the goal of feeding offspring, paying for educational expenses, for personal advantage, or for entertainment and thrill. .

We discussed other facets of this in the above thread.

Now, if you disagree with this conclusion,

I don’t agree with premise. It seems that a condition for some other parts of your post are evaluating that first conditional statement as true (and I don’t). So I don’t have much to say on the parts that are dependent on that condition.