Is Morality possible without God

[Damian]

And reality came to exist exactly how, from whom?

How - We don’t know.
Whom - what makes you think its a whom?
So you’ll take a conspiracy theory over an honest answer of “We don’t know yet.” it seems. Yes it is uncomfortable for some groups to not have answers to questions they have but to other people its a great way to point out where we need to keep applying our scientific study to.

Can you even explain how/why you came to be?

I came from my parents.
How - biology
Why - they wanted to

existence including your own is an accident and devoid of meaning and purpose)

I get to assign meaning to my life as I understand and experience it. How I was made through the guided process of evolution is just a fact to me about reality, like gravity.

Here you are claiming your experience of reality is the sum total of reality

No - only what we can justify to know about reality. We also know we don’t know everything, but to make claims about reality that reality has not demonstrated to be possible, like invisible dragons, is not honest or justified to teach to anyone. The point to believe a conspiracy theory is once the evidence is presented about it, not a moment before. Conspiracy theories can be correct, but it is unjustified and you are lying to people when you claim your conspiracy theory is actually correct when reality does not justify that position yet.

you can’t even explain why you exist

Again, my parents, biology, guided evolution, star dust, eons of time, gravity and all the forces of reality.

what the meaning of your life is

Currently its this, tomorrow that may change.

where you came from

Star dust

where you will go when you die

Currently no one knows this, but all the evidence points to the same place a flame on a candle goes when you blow it out.

 

[Damian]

Doesn’t that seem like a superstitious overreach to you?

Not making up conspiracy theories to explain things about reality that no one knows or people imagined is not overreaching or superstitious. It’s the exact opposite in fact to say, “We don’t know” because that’s the honest answer.

Placing yourself at the center of reality?

No that’s religion. “Isn’t it nice how the entire universe was made for us to be in it?” I don’t make that claim. The universe appears to be designed to make black holes. Life is a rounding error it seems since the vast majority of the universe does not support life.

I always feel a little sorry for atheists, as they deny their own hard-wired search for the truth by parsing the meaning of words like “belief”. Dodging, weaving, redefining, all in an effort to worship the “NO”.

Nope, we use language to discuss nuance of ideas. Just like culture A has 14 different ways to describe snow and culture B as only 2 ways. Their language is used to describe reality as they are experiencing it.

 

[QwertyGirl]

I think I am weird. I find it very comforting to hear “We don’t know”. It is truth in its purest form.

 

[Damian]

You claim it’s not a belief by nothing other than fiat.

Then you apparently have issue with everyone that you’ve never convinced to your side on any issue. Atheists are just people you haven’t convinced yet to your position that the supernatural exists. If you say I believe X and why, if the why doesn’t convince me, then what is my position on X? I didn’t make one, I am only responding to your bad reasons for why you believe X. Same with jury members. They disagree with why the prosecutor believes the defendant is guilty. The jury members are not making a positive statement that the defendant is innocent, only that they are not convinced that there is enough evidence to agree with the prosecutor’s position. To your Hitchen’s Razor, what evidence does the jury need to present for a not-guilty verdict? None, its not their job. It’s the job of the prosecutor to present their evidence as to why they believe the defendant is guilty. If, I’m not convinced, then that’s all I have to say and walk away. Fix your evidence and your logic for why you believe there is the supernatural and then you might be able to convince someone. Right now it’s broken to atheists.

As such, if you need a word to describe what you believe, it would probably be best to find another. This seat, I’m afraid, is enduringly taken.

So, again, what word should I use for your culture and tribe so you understand the concept I am trying to communicate? I don’t believe the supernatural exists for the same reason I don’t believe fairies exist.

 

[Damian]

If you propose a positivist claim that there is no god or gods, then you’re an atheist.

Okay, so you refuse to see the nuance between belief and knowledge. Okay, I don’t. So what do you call someone who believes the supernatural exists based on logical arguments but doesn’t actually know if that is the case or not since we can not actually test that verse someone who is convinced of the supernatural existence based on direct experience with the supernatural? There’s a difference here correct? That is the difference between belief and knowledge. One is an untested hypothesis the other is directly tested with actual data. But that’s the same to you it seems.

It’s a direct descendant of the tribalism that gave rise to civilization.

Wrong here. Tribalism is not what I am talking about at all. I am talking about different forms of government for people. One system of government, the religious kind, is where the leadership removes the power from the people and dictates to them from birth to death how to live, what to fear, what to love, what is right and wrong, teaches the masses they are broken and need a dear leader to save them. That top down power control system of government is inherent in all religions. Verses the other system of government where the people have the power, the governmental leaders are representing the people instead of being dictated to by the leader. The people are the reference point for morality instead of the dear leader.
You are missing this point and just talking about the idea that we do work together, aka tribalism. I am not talking about that. I am talking about systems of government. Both of these systems start out from tribes trying to come up with the best way to govern themselves. One is inherently broken and the other is not.

 

[Damian]

Without something like god or The State, you don’t have any social “glue” capable of assembling a tribe larger than your immediate family

Yes you do, the “State” can be a secular democracy where the “glue” is human well-being. Just with religious based governmental systems, the “glue” is the leadership teaching people they are broken and must have a leader to save them from themselves from birth to the grave. Secular democracies teach that the governed are the stewards and the governmental representatives are to represent the people since the power remains with the people for what is right and wrong, not the dear leaders in government. The responsibility of being right and wrong is to be on us, not the leadership.

People need a reason to think that your system, whatever it might be, should be followed.

Yes, so if we can convinced people, through discourse and argument, why they should adopt our reference point, that works. Just saying that bob is the reference point doesn’t work for people because no one can talk to bob, no one can even tell if bob exists at all. However, if you have a reference point that is universal to humans regardless of sex, tribes, race, time, etc. like human well-being, then you have a better reference point. But you still have to convinced people to accept it since the problem with having that reference point is how to implement it and the hard process of actually discovering morality through that process. It is easier to have bob tell us, but bob isn’t here is he? Societies that learn how to think instead of being dictated to actually do better because they understand why they should get off the couch when told to instead of just following orders.

State Atheism has created more bodies than all the religious wars in history - and it performed the feat QUICKLY. State Atheism, as a practice, is hardly 100 years old.

Yes these regimes are not religious based or have a governmental codified belief in the supernatural, but again, being atheist is not a political system at all. These systems are just mirroring the religious systems by changing the reference point of the credulous from a deity to the dear leader. The exact same practices took place: praise of the leader, infallibility of the leader, heresy laws, isolation from other cultures and indoctrination from childhood to the grave, etc. All they did was change one deity for another.
Where are the failed secular humanist states that followed the teachings of Spinoza, Einstein, Lucretius, Democritus, and Thomas Paine that fell into ruin? Denmark is a pretty close example of what happens when you don’t deify your government and are not taught to believe the people are broken and need a dear leader to save them in the form of a deity or a government. The people have the power, not the leaders.

 

[Vonsalza]

Vonsalza:

You claim it’s not a belief by nothing other than fiat.

Then you apparently have issue with everyone that you’ve never convinced to your side on any issue.

Not true in the slightest. We just both know that your pseudo/crypto-religious declaration that “knowing and believing are discrete” is axiomatic and critical to the belief system you construct with it.

The Gettier Problem proves it’s not consistently true. Sorry man.

I am only responding to your bad reasons for why you believe X. Same with jury members. They disagree with why the prosecutor believes the defendant is guilty.

Right! So they default to the null which is “not guilty” which IS NOT the same as “innocent”.

The default is not “no god”. The default is “unconvinced of god”. It’s the reason agnostics get to be the only folks right by default concerning theism.

Fix your evidence and your logic for why you believe there is the supernatural and then you might be able to convince someone.

I’ve no need to. I’ve known it’s impossible to prove God exists using purely materialist axioms my entire adult life. I can no more empirically prove God than I can prove beauty or goodness exist under those constraints.

This isn’t a problem for me because I’m comfortable with the notion that some aspects of my humanity exist outside the domain of the scientific method. A lot of folks share my comfort. It’s one of the reasons social science and physical science typically occupy different buildings on campus.

So, again, what word should I use for your culture and tribe so you understand the concept I am trying to communicate?

If you’re decidedly uncertain, agnostic. If you posit it doesn’t exist, atheist.

I promise I’m not the guy that came up with these

 

[Vonsalza]

Okay, so you refuse to see the nuance between belief and knowledge.

I’m a slave to truth. The Gettier Problem shows the “nuance” doesn’t exist.

Tribalism is not what I am talking about at all.

It is, actually. You just don’t realize it.

 

[Vonsalza]

Yes you do, the “State” can be a secular democracy where the “glue” is human well-being.

In order for it to be made real, someone must enforce their idea of human well-being.

Traditionally we call these priests or rabbis or what have you. Some nations in the 20th century (under the soviets created for human well-being) called them the KGB.

Yes, so if we can convinced people, through discourse and argument, why they should adopt our reference point, that works.

You’re not understanding. The idea has to be perfect and beautiful, yeah, but there must be concrete realizations of the idea that enforce it with authority. Priests. KGB. Whatever you want to call your enforcing sub-class for your tribe.

The people have the power, not the leaders.

You must be young. I believed that when I was young too.

Complex tribes are never, ever egalitarian societies. Power always concentrates among a relative few. For Catholics it’s Cardinals. Soviets the Politburo. US government the special interests that fund the candidates.

You’ll realize that as you age. Democracy is largely a dog and pony show where, just as with feudalism, the elite hold the real power.

---

Well. Now I feel like we’ve chatted about everything.

 

[o_mlly]

And reality came to exist exactly how, from whom?

Please caucus with your fellow atheists, @Bradskii and @Rossum, as you are the most enlightened atheist in that group. They need you help.

 

[STT]

Morality is either objective, God cannot choose it, or it is subjective, God can choose it. We don’t need God in first case therefore morality is possible without God. In second case we need God to choose morality but there is no base for that then.

 

[Vonsalza]

Rossum is a Buddhist (and a very valued source of contribution on these forums, which lack abundant representation of religions from the far east). As you implicitly claim to have a knack for pinning enlightened people, I assumed you’d have been able to detect that.

 

[Vonsalza]

Morality is either objective, God cannot choose it, or it is subjective, God can choose it.

This, naturally, assumes that morality and god are discrete things. You device doesn’t work for me because I genuinely don’t hold that view.

Morality is an attribute, or derivative of god like redness is an attribute of rust. The redness of rust and rust itself cannot be meaningfully separated.

(As a preemption to retort, I’m referring to Iron (III) oxide when I say “rust”)

 

[o_mlly]

Apparently you have the same gift. Atheism is evil and those poor souls blinded by its falsehoods can not see the Truth. However, I note that you did not mention Bradskii so by implication I assume you agree on his overall need for enlightenment.

 

[Vonsalza]

Apparently you have the same gift. Atheism is evil and those poor souls blinded by its falsehoods can not see the Truth. However, I note that you did not mention Bradskii so by implication I assume you agree on his overall need for enlightenment.

Well… I agree that @Bradskii is an atheist because he’s told us as much and backs it up. Whether he needs enlightened - he seems to embody the attribute substantially more than most folks I meet of all religious stripes.

Folks are atheists because that’s where their understanding of truth leads them. I obviously disagree on more bases than religious, so we seek common axioms and I try to explain why I employ them to conclude “theism” and they try to explain why they use them to conclude “atheism”.

Dialogue, in a word.

 

[rossum]

Please caucus with your fellow atheists, @Bradskii and @Rossum, as you are the most enlightened atheist in that group. They need you help.

First, you give me too much praise, I am very very far from being enlightened. I have a long way and many lifetimes to go yet.

Second, numerically you are a lot closer to atheism than I am. I am Buddhist, and I have tens of thousands of gods (and goddesses) to pick from.

rossum

 

[Vonsalza]

Huh, this leads me to wonder, what religion or government do bees subscribe to?

Hive. Arguably a super-organism at the present, though bees are truly fascinating in that they’ve evolved and reverted away from eusocial behavior several times over the eons.

The “social glue” of bees is the hive itself with the queen at the center. They’re communists and she’s their Chairman Mao

E.O. Wilson’s Social Conquest of the Earth is the best book I’ve read on eusociality. Strongly, strongly recommend it.

But if animals don’t have religion or governments then what holds those large social groups together? I must be missing something.

I’ve read less about herding behavior, but I’m sure it’s an evolved instinct - we display it at times.

Humans have this problem that presents itself when comparing ourselves to animals - we’re so much more intelligent, individually. We’re intelligent enough to have existential crises whereas your buffalo don’t appear to be. Our existential issues drove the developments toward religion. It’s only in the 20th century someone tried to replace it with The State.

 

[Bradskii]

QwertyGirl:

Because if you believe keeping the wallet is moral, then you believe it is moral for someone else to keep YOUR wallet if they find it. How does that sit with you?

People aren’t going to behave like I do; they’ll form their own ethical system. They do that today. I can understand why the smallest person would object to a system of might makes right, but I can’t understand why the largest person would oppose it. That would seem to describe the system in prisons.

Use Kant’s Categorical Imperative. If you think that stealing is acceptable, then you must agree to live in a society where everyone thinks the same. Obviously that wouldn’t work. Not even at the group level.

Now this is not meant (by me) to be used as a moral rule. It’s just an explanation of what works and what doesn’t. And you will find that generally what works is kept and what doesn’t is not. That is, what we accept as being moral behaviour (helping others, not stealing etc) is what has got us to this point.

And OK, there’s a lot more to it bubbling under that surface explanation. But start there and you will not go far wrong.

And in passing, in there anything whatsoever that you think is immoral that God has declared to be moral? Or visa versa? That is, would you always accept what God might say on any matter whatever you personal views or is your sense of morality exactly aligned with Gods?

Personally speaking, I think you have probably sifted codified morality such as the ten commandments through your own personal filter and have decided ‘Yep, that sounds about right to me’. And that if there was an eleventh saying ‘sacrifice all second born if they are female’, you might think ‘Hang on a minute. That can’t be right’.

Oh, and by the way, in case some might think that I have the answer to everything - I don’t know whence reality either. As qwertygirl said, there is a sense of honestly in saying ‘I don’t know’. I wish more people would use the term.

 

[OriginalGabrielof12]

You can’t be serious. Communism out right declares there is no God and that “religion is the opium of the people” (Marxis).

Secondly your source does not speak for the Catholic faith nor the Christian faith under protestantism.

The ancient first century Church was under suppression by both Jews and Pagan Romans. This first century Christian community lived a communal life together while under attack for their faith in Jesus Christ, in order to survive death by hunger. Communism never existed during the first centuries of the Church. Pagans and non-believers alike believed in some sort of deity.

The Jews kicked the Christians out of their support groups both religious and economically. They did not resort to any form of “communism”, or resistance to their secular leadership or secular governments.
Peace and Love was the battle cry by the Christians, not communism.

Your source is wrong and in error and lacks understanding of Church history. Christian living in Love for your neighbor and your enemies is not a form of “Communism”, but a way of living out one’s Christian love of God and love of one’s neighbor. Your source is in error, because the first Christians were Jewish converts and were already living a tribal communal life, which your source wrongly identifies as “Communism”.

Here is an update; The Roman Catholic Pope John Paul II defeated Communism, by declaring in the heart of the beast; “It is Ok to believe in God” and the walls of Communism came tumbling down. So much for falsifying the Christian communism deception from your source.

Wikipedia is never a good source to research the Catholic faith.

 

[STT]

This, naturally, assumes that morality and god are discrete things. You device doesn’t work for me because I genuinely don’t hold that view.

Morality is an attribute, or derivative of god like redness is an attribute of rust. The redness of rust and rust itself cannot be meaningfully separated.

(As a preemption to retort, I’m referring to Iron (III) oxide when I say “rust”)

What do you mean with discrete?