Is Morality possible without God

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toddy said:
Faith is the requirement of morality which include many other virtues like charity, obedience, truthfulness, trustworthiness, righteousness, insight, fairness, rectitude, justice, kindness, compassion, discernment, forbearance, forgiveness, frugality; etc.

Greek virtues do not include Faith, but the Theological virtues of Catholics and Eastern virtues do require faith as the first priority. Atheist can not convince that morality is without God or Faith .

John 1:1 " In the beginning was the Word , and the Word was with God, and the Word was God."
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Some more biblical virtues:

GODLINESS [ Mt 6:33, 1 Ti 4:8 ]
Faith [ Mt 17:20, Ac 20:21, Heb 11:1 ], Hope [ Ro 15:13, Tit 1:1-2 ]
Thankfulness [ Eph 5:19-20 ]

LOVE [ Mt 22:37-40 ]
Compassion [ Col 3:12 ]
Generosity [ Ps 37:25-26, 2 Co 9:6 ]
Forgiveness [ Lk 6:37 ]
Peace [ Ro 12:18 ]

HOLINESS [ 2 Co 7:1 ]

Self-Control [ 1 Pe 1:13 ] Justice [ Mt 23:23 ] and Mercy [ Jas 2:12-13 ]

HUMILITY [ 1 Pe 5:5 ]

INTEGRITY [ 1 Ch 29:17, Pr 11:3, Tit 2:7-8 ]

Truthfulness [ Eph 4:25 ], Sincerity [ 1 Pe 1:22 ]

PERSEVERANCE [ Heb 12:1 ]

Endurance, patience [ Col 1:10-12 ]

COURAGE [ 1 Co 16:13, Heb 3:6 ]

INSIGHT [ Pr 4:7, Jas 1:5 ]

Knowledge [ Php 1:9-11

Understanding [ Pr 4:7 ]

God does not require many virtues.
 
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I don’t speak for all religions and you probably don’t speak for all secular societies.

Racism is a form of hate period. It does not take a Psychology course for one to identify racism.

In my Catholic Christian faith, it is a mortal sin to have hate in your heart against a fellow brother (Man).

Do I fail at times at loving my neighbor as myself, or as God has divinely revealed for me to love my enemies? yes, but in recognizing my fault’s at times, God gives me the grace and forgiveness from God’s sacramental ministry of reconciliation. Which has much more to offer in my life than a Psychologist.

In secular societies racism is found in many forms from the selected individual morality that is practiced in selfishness and being closed to strangers in need. A secular morality rejects God’s gift of Love and Grace to all of humanity. From this secular morality who rejects God’s Love, begins the path of racism against another in different forms.
 
No. It isn’t. Original sin broke everything. And, we are incapable of good without God. (the root of the word “good” is God…it is kind of like, a hint.) 🙂
 
I am late to the discussion, but I would like to try to explain it to you.

Early on in the thread you posted:

“This is where theistic arguments often fail, they assume the existence of that which they’re trying to prove. You wanted me to make a moral judgment, and that would suggest a universal moral standard to which I assent. Thus my assenting to a moral standard would prove that there is a moral standard.”

This line of thinking, it seems to me, is actually falling out of favor with many skeptics, but it was certainly common for a long time. It does however, make little sense if one looks at the empirical evidence. When you look across all of the human cultures, what is amazing is that not that there is so much difference in the moral norms, but that there are so much in common. If we look at vices: lying, stealing, killing, we find that all societies to some extent try to suppress them all through their moral norms. Indeed, skip past the first three ten commandments, and all of them are covered by almost every society. Even if we look at the 6th commandment, it is easy to say that there are cultures that are more “libertine” than orthodox Christianity, but to some extent every moral code attempts to regulate in some form marriage and sexual activity. Likewise, if we look at the virtures: prudence, courage, temperance, etc , in some form those are exalted in almost every human society. The commonalities of both accepted vices and virtues far outweigh the differences.

So to blindly say there is not a universal moral code is really to deny the evidence we see all around us.

But yes, you do find a lot of civilizations who put a low value on human life. First of all, it is always valued to some extent in all, murder is always prohibited to some extent by the laws and norms). So that low value of human life, can more easily be explained by equating to differences in other categories of morality. There are differences across societies, but the commonalities obviously outweigh the differences and the differences are in the details. How to explain this: the most logical is the fallen nature of man and due to that, societies become corrupted. But a common starting point seems quite obvious. Much more obvious than varied starting points and the different societies converged to such a level of commonality.
 
Yes they do, but my thesis is much more specific than that. Mine is that all moral systems have some level of respect for human property, have some level of respect for elders, have some level of regulation of sex and marriage, have some level of value placed on human life, have some level of respect for honesty, and all of them place a value on the virtues of courage, prudence, justice, temperance, etc.

The amount in common suggests there is a universal moral code, in my mind it almost proves the existence of such a code, of course we as Catholics would call it “natural law”.

Indeed, the existence of such a law, which seems obvious to me, is the best proof we have that God exists.
 
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tafan2 said:
Yes they do, but my thesis is much more specific than that. Mine is that all moral systems have some level of respect for human property, have some level of respect for elders, have some level of regulation of sex and marriage, have some level of value placed on human life, have some level of respect for honesty, and all of them place a value on the virtues of courage, prudence, justice, temperance, etc
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Yes, one can imagine the evolutionary advantage the development of such empathetic behaviours would give the human race.
 
Which precisely illustrates my statement that most skeptical have abandoned the claim oo universal moral code. Now, the whole code is imagined as a product of evolution. I am not a denier of evolution, I find the modern “scientific” tendency to explain all things via evolution rather unconvincing.
 
tafan2 said:
I am not a denier of evolution, I find the modern “scientific” tendency to explain all things via evolution rather unconvincing
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You don’t think God could have chosen this way to instil a moral code in humanity?
 
Its a possibility. I certainly think God likely chose evolution as a means of creating humanity. But there is evidence of that. But creating natural law via evolution is just a possibility that we can imagine, I don’t see the evidence.
 
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I agree here. What do you mean by Natural Law theory? As a Secular Humanist, I first observe what causes humans emotional stress in the context of the situation they are in towards a goal of a better life. “Better” would be longer life, emotional needs met, food, shelter, etc. all met. These can come into conflict, like choosing a job that doesn’t pay as well as another so you can’t afford better healthcare, but on a daily basis, the quality of life is better though. Daily quality of life supersedes investment for say future cancer treatments for example. All this is observable in reality to everyone. From what I’ve experienced, the Venn Diagram of what people use as their reference point of good and bad quality of life is “Human Well-being” regardless of culture, race, sex, time, etc.
 
Okay, here’s where I’m stuck. If you are following a deity’s commandments, regardless of your moral assessment of them, that is Divine Command Theory. You have shelved your ability to assess anything it does and just assume everything it does is morally correct. But how can you know if it is morally correct if you never assessed it to begin with? If you did assess it to be morally correct, then what standard did you reference to determine what your deity pronounced was good or bad? If you do morally assess anything, including your deity, then you are using a reference point of “good” and “bad” that is outside of your deity. If you don’t morally assess your deity, then you are not being a moral agent and are just following orders since you never morally assessed your deity. You’re jumping off the couch just because you are told to but never understanding why standing on the couch is wrong at all. It’s wrong just because the boss says so.
 
Vonsalza said:
The non-negotiable is that it must have a transcendent quality
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The transcendent quality, as I understand it, is the universal overlapping human experience. Fire=Hot=Bad and go from there. I get more food working with a group than by my self. I get a better quality of life when my social group is emotionally healthy, so I’ll console my friend when they are depressed. The experience of being human when all of our emotional and physical needs are met is Human Well-Being. Just that there is no perfect solution to this for everyone, just like there is no perfect solution of nutrition for everyone. Or perhaps good enough is the perfect solution. Such as giving up a well paying job for a better quality of life on a day to day basis will out weigh someone’s need to pay for healthcare in the future. But when they get cancer, their priorities shift and they’ll go back to the better paying job to help pay for the healthcare. Both are perfect for that person since that is good enough for them out of all the solutions they can try. We as a society can observe that conflict and then write our laws to fix this conflict. When we have good health we want a better quality of life, so we should write laws that socialize the cost of healthcare for everyone so we can keep picking careers for a better quality of life over pay for example. All this is observable and can be referenced by anyone.

That is what a “transcendent quality” is to me as I understand it in reference to the human experience. Its the most common overlapping human experience regardless of time, culture, race, sex, social status, etc. If this is not the same for you, then what would you use?
 
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Vonsalza said:
Don’t shift the goalposts. I’m not talking about “humans” being another sky-fairy. “Human Well-Being” is the sky-fairy you’re alluding to.
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I was talking about human well being is referenced to humans. It’s a process that you observe towards a goal of better than before. What ever the better is each of us may be subjective, like my nutrition example. Eating nutritiously is a process that is observable that increases the quality of life. It’s subjective to eat apples or pears today, but no one is saying that eating Fruit is bad or that drinking battery acid is good in reference to Nutrition as the goal. That’s my point. So is that still moving the goal post?
As to using a deity as the reference point for morality, I was pointing out that the idea of a deity is what people are using and its imagined character is what they are using as good or bad. Only problem is that no one can actually demonstrate this entity’s actual existence. So it’s like reading a comic book and then imagining what actions we would take that would upset spiderman. However, we can like spiderman as an example to live by, but that is because we are referring spiderman’s actions towards the goal of Human Well-Being. All our heroes that rescue us are rescuing us from the powerful that are taking away the betterment of humanity for others. they are not rescuing us from things that are irrelevant to human well being are they?
 
Damian said:
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Vonsalza:
The non-negotiable is that it must have a transcendent quality
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The transcendent quality, as I understand it, is the universal overlapping human experience. Fire=Hot=Bad and go from there.
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In a way that is objective and able to be reproduced?

:warning:SKY-FAIRY ALERT!!!⚠️
 
Damian said:
I get more food working with a group than by my self. I get a better quality of life when my social group is emotionally healthy, so I’ll console my friend when they are depressed.
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If by this you mean good and evil are determined by what is good or bad for you personally, then I would agree. Without a god I don’t see that there is a reason for ever doing anything not in your own best interest.
 
oldnskeptical said:
So to think that without a God, people are simply motivated by what’s in their own best interest, is a mischaracterization of human behavior.
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I didn’t characterize human behavior. What I asked was why I should ever do anything not in my own best interest? That is, isn’t whatever is good for me also moral for me to do?
 
Ender said:
What I asked was why I should ever do anything not in my own best interest? That is, isn’t whatever is good for me also moral for me to d
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We act in the interests of others than ourselves because of empathy. Empathy is what fires morality.
 
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PickyPicky said:
We act in the interests of others than ourselves because of empathy. Empathy is what fires morality.
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I’m trying to make a simple point here: what is the argument that I should ever do something that is not in my best interest, and if something is in my best interest, why shouldn’t I do it? If you want to say I should help people because it makes me feel good, fine, but this only supports my position: I do it because of what’s in it for me.
 
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