Morality without God?

[JDaniel]

So Crow, where does this “innate” goodness come from?

Yes - that’s what I’d like to know!

JD

 

[JDaniel]

I would say that morality with gods is totally arbitrary. The Christian god commits genocide in the Noah story, for example, but believers in this god claim that it is still the seat of morality. Genocide is good if a god does it, which is to say that evil is good if a god does it. That’s arbitrary.

Genocide can also be good, relatively speaking, as CatsAndDogs proved someplace herein. But, God did not commit “genocide”. He left humans behind to start anew.

If I started a batch of chickens and discovered they had bird flu, I would kill them all. After all, they ARE mine to do with as I please.

And, I guess if you had to, you could call that avescide. And, if you avesomorphized the occurence, you could call it “bad.”

JD

 

[christcnection1]

Assuming God does exist then yes, it is fair enough to say He can make, change or abolish any rule He wants - He made the world. But my argument is not in the making of the rules but the way they are given to us and interpreted. Sure I can except that the rules given to us by Jesus are solid - He was God. But every rule that the Catholic Church teaches was not given directly by Jesus. Relatively few in fact were. Some general principles were given and humans interpreted them into what is now cannon law. Human’s are inherently flawed. We misinterpret, forget, overlook information, miscalculate and are subconsciously influenced by the world around us. Even our powers of reason are not necessarily flawless. Thus we shouldn’t assume to know the will of God. Even though the bishops and scholars who wrote cannon law claim to be guided by the Holy Spirit, this is itself open to deception. How is one to know that as they are receiving spiritual inspiration it is coming from God and not another spirit, even the devil? Clerics would claim to be be able to know God from other spirits but how do they know that they know? There is way too much assumed knowledge in society and particularly religion. Be more like Socrates, perhaps the greatest thinker of all time, who said, “there is one thing only I know, and that is that I know nothing”.

I don’t totally disagree with you. In fact, I think what you’re saying is quite reasonable. That said, the same reality exists with Sola Scripturists. If the original Protestant Reformers were alive today, they would hardly recognize modern Protestantism. A similar reality applies.

To suggest that we can’t know the will of God is very dangerous. Indeed, its also dangerous to suggest that we absolutely know, because this has gotten us into trouble in the past.

Concerning Socrates quote, if that’s something you believe in the context you seem to be using it, it seems that you are not sure that you know if any of your statements are true. Essentially, you are undermining your own argument.

Similarly, a quote of the modern Protestant Apologist Ravi Zacharias says: “it’s foolish to say that you know you can’t know.”

If you know you can’t know, then we can’t stand on much of anything, at any time, for any reason. Pardon me, but I need a little more clarity in my life than that.

 

[JDaniel]

Assuming God does exist then yes, it is fair enough to say He can make, change or abolish any rule He wants - He made the world. But my argument is not in the making of the rules but the way they are given to us and interpreted. Sure I can except that the rules given to us by Jesus are solid - He was God. But every rule that the Catholic Church teaches was not given directly by Jesus. Relatively few in fact were. Some general principles were given and humans interpreted them into what is now cannon law. Human’s are inherently flawed. We misinterpret, forget, overlook information, miscalculate and are subconsciously influenced by the world around us. Even our powers of reason are not necessarily flawless. Thus we shouldn’t assume to know the will of God. Even though the bishops and scholars who wrote cannon law claim to be guided by the Holy Spirit, this is itself open to deception. How is one to know that as they are receiving spiritual inspiration it is coming from God and not another spirit, even the devil? Clerics would claim to be be able to know God from other spirits but how do they know that they know? There is way too much assumed knowledge in society and particularly religion. Be more like Socrates, perhaps the greatest thinker of all time, who said, “there is one thing only I know, and that is that I know nothing”.

Yes, however, The Perfect Jesus CANNOT create a Church that is imperfect, or, that would result in imperfections later on. Consider His intention.

So, He directly guides the Church in those matters - even as we speak.

JD

 

[christcnection1]

Yes, however, The Perfect Jesus CANNOT create a Church that is imperfect, or, that would result in imperfections later on. Consider His intention.

So, He directly guides the Church in those matters - even as we speak.

JD

And if we can’t trust that Jesus didn’t guide His Church, why would be trust in Jesus? Agreed.

This is why I embrace the CC and not my own interpretation of one of the many versions of the Bible.

 

[JDaniel]

My mum often resorts to the idea that our world is fundmentally irrational. But the problem with this arguement is that it is not based on our experiences, but it is instead based on a desire to escape any logical inference of Gods existence. If somebody wants to believe that the world just magically appeared with all its qualities and emergent properties, without an ultimate cause, then they are nolonger doing philosophy but are instead dictating what they would like reality to be. Being an honest person i cannot allow myself such a belief. And I refuse to believe that the world is insane. If that is the case, then what is the point of my existence in this sharade you call reality? The world around me strikes me as rational and meaningfull. Pehaps a little too rational. Rational enough that i think it was created.

Interesting. Perhaps we are not as free to think as we think we are.

JD

 

[JDaniel]

This is a great explanation. Thanks.

Beauty cannot be measured by scientific principles. It is measured by other methods of human thought. Therfore, science cannot be the only means that we have to understand the universe.
The Aesthetic Arguement is very powerful.
As you point out, it’s very similar to arguments for the supernatural origins of morality.
“Goodness” is very similar to what we call “beauty”. Both are realities that cannot be understood by science, but which are essential to human life.

Yes! Beauty is arrived at by juxtaposing slices, if you will, of objects of sensory perception and instantly comingling them, in our minds, until we arrive at something pleasing to us. Hmmm. Very subjective, indeed; although, we might impale (implore) another to concur.

Good, on the other hand, cannot be arrived at by these sorts of means. Otherwise, good would be abjectly subjective as well. But, universal good, not pleasurable good, is known and understood. Even a rationally "bad’ person, if unaberrated, knows deep in the well of his being that he is being bad. And, so does every rational, unaberrated being near him.

JD

 

[JDaniel]

Similarly, a quote of the modern Protestant Apologist Ravi Zacharias says: “it’s foolish to say that you know you can’t know.”

If you know you can’t know, then we can’t stand on much of anything, at any time, for any reason. Pardon me, but I need a little more clarity in my life than that.

Very interesting. I captioned this because I want to come back to it at a later time, with your permission.

JD

 

[crowonsnow]

So Crow, where does this “innate” goodness come from?

Hi Fran65.

The pat response to your question is to reply that this innate goodness comes from “the same place gods come from.” As such, you and your god are no more or less preferable than myself and my goodness.

Goodness is a measure of behavior. I don’t know any other way to judge a person’s goodness than to observe what they do. So if stories about gods, including the Yahweh god are to be believed, there are behaviors there that are clearly lacking in goodness.

In my case, I inherit “goodness” from my ancestors. It is their behaviors and dispositions which we call “good.” Nothing more. And of course, we’re constantly inventing new behaviors that may or may not get passed along as same.

 

[reggieM]

Yes! Beauty is arrived at by juxtaposing slices, if you will, of objects of sensory perception and instantly comingling them, in our minds, until we arrive at something pleasing to us. Hmmm. Very subjective, indeed; although, we might impale (implore) another to concur.

I don’t agree that the apprehension of beauty is more subjective than that of the good. One does not need to use this means to recognize beauty. The ability to appreciate and know beauty is inherent in each human being – it’s an intuitive sense that does not need to rely on analysis.

We appreciate beauty (in many forms) in the same way that we appreciate the good. It aligns with human nature.

This is why we know what the term “beauty” means. We do not need a scientific definition (none is possible), but the term “beauty” has universal meaning in humanity and always has had it. Beauty is experienced – and sometimes the efforts to describe beauty can be beauty themselves (poems or paintings of nature, etc).

The good is very much the same.

 

[crowonsnow]

If I started a batch of chickens and discovered they had bird flu, I would kill them all. After all, they ARE mine to do with as I please.

An earlier poster compared children killed in the Noah story to rabid dogs. Now you’ve compared those children to chickens with bird flu.

If I were to invent a god, it certainly at the very least would not commit mass murder against children and infants. It is revealing that people would invent and then embrace such an alleged being.

 

[reggieM]

If I were to invent a god, it certainly at the very least would not commit mass murder against children and infants. It is revealing that people would invent and then embrace such an alleged being.

It might be worth investigating what you actually do invent, how you live, what your personal qualities are and how trustworthy your judgement is.

The reason for that investigation is that you’ve established some kind of standard by which you judge God and judge His works. I can only assume that the standard you use is “yourself”. I would like to know and share that higher standard so that I could judge God the way you do (if your standard is correct).

I would expect that your judgements would be highly accurate. You should be able to predict the future, since you’re judging the value of things today and the past as either good or bad. Without knowing how they affect the future, your judgements would be based on blindness and ignorance.

Your own personal goodness would be another standard. If you had flaws in your character or committed sins against others, we couldn’t trust that your mental judgements were necessarily all that accurate. Your own mind could very well be flawed, and thus you’re not seeing God in an accurate way. You could be mentally ill or a victim of hallucinations and delusions. But we have to trust your judgement about God and goodness.

You establish something as a standard of goodness. That standard exists in your own mind. The only way we can know it is if you explain it to us in detail, or if we could jump into your mind somehow.

So, you’re either judging God on very limited, biased and inaccurate information – or you really have a high degree of moral and intellectual purity and wisdom by which you can judge things correctly.

I would like to believe that you have such, but I think you should do a very much better job in showing and explaining such.

 

[CatsAndDogs]

Quote:
Originally Posted by Fran65 View Post
So Crow, where does this “innate” goodness come from?

Hi Fran65.

The pat response to your question is to reply that this innate goodness comes from “the same place gods come from.” As such, you and your god are no more or less preferable than myself and my goodness.

God doesn’t come FROM, He is from which comes good (which is everything but evil).

That is axiomatic, which means that you may ignore the fact, though ignoring truth is quite often quite dangerous.

And “gods” come from elsewhere that good comes from, thus making your “gods” quite less preferable to the source of all goods.

Goodness is a measure of behavior.

No. Goodness is a measure of the RESULTS of behavior.

I don’t know any other way to judge a person’s goodness than to observe what they do. So if stories about gods, including the Yahweh god are to be believed, there are behaviors there that are clearly lacking in goodness.

You’re, as usual, simply not “reading” enough of the story. Salvation history is about what happened before Christ, and after Christ, and the “result” of that history is Christ, which is a very good thing.

In my case, I inherit “goodness” from my ancestors. It is their behaviors and dispositions which we call “good.” Nothing more. And of course, we’re constantly inventing new behaviors that may or may not get passed along as same.

You do indeed inherit what “goodness” means from your ancestors, but you misidentify your ancestors.

Your ancestors found God due to their listening to the previous people of God. Your ancestors who were the people of God were given knowledge of God, and His goods, which eventually made it’s/their way to you.

Insomuch as you have “invented” goods, you misunderstand the meaning of “good”.

:shamrock2:

 

[warpspeedpetey]

The problem with your arguements is that you take things for granted.

First of all, we do not know and cannot possibly prove that Beauty is an objective reality. We sense it, and therefore accept that it exists; but we cannot measure it according to scientific principles. We can see that there are things and people that appear less or more bueatifull then others. But why something should be objectivley more bueatiful then others, cannot be explained by the laws of physics, since value transcends the reality of spin, motion, and dimension; Beauty is therefore not a product of natural causes, but instead accompanies the natural world.

There are two types of qualities.

1. “Shallow Qualities”; Geometic qualities such as shape structure and pattern which are caused by natural forces, the shifting tide of change, and enviroment. these can sometimes give rise to shallow functions, like a cog wheel turning another cog weel.
2. “Deep Qualities”. The quality of deep functions. Qualities which emerge according to patterns in the natural order, but which have no casual link with physical events. They arrive by fiat.

E.g, the function of sight has a shallow cause, and that is the geometry of the “eye” and the shapes which are involved in its processes. However, nature does not determine the “function” that is synonomous with the act of seeing. It was always true since the beginning of time that given a specific geometrical shape and structure, the quality of sight would emerge. So if the Universe had a beginning, then what ultimately detemines those functions? What causes the qualities of nature?
Niether does Nature determine the nature of an atom or a quark or the reality of space and time. Nature does not cause everything. There are deep qualities that accompany nature which emerge acording to patterns and structure, but cannot logcally be accounted for by the pattern involved in its emergence. The structure or pattern merely signifys its existence. In otherwords, nature cannot explain why it has any specific nature according to any specific shape pattern or structure. Neither can nature expain its own existence since it needs to first exist before it can give an explanation to something; therefore it is neccesary to transcend nature for an ultimatle explanation.

The “Aesthetic Arguement” is often used as a proof that beauty is not, and cannot be the work of nature, but instead points ultimatley to a Creator as the best explanation.

Back to morality; We sense moral good as oppossed to moral evil, and so we know that it exists, but evil cannot be ultimately reduced to physical things, and therefore it is not reasonable to think that physics is root of moral values. Good behavior supposes that there is a way things ought to be, that you ought to be good rather then bad. This reveals that there is a plan behind nature. If there is a plan behind nature, then that plan trancsends nature–so far as space time energy/matter is concerned–and gorvens it accordingly. Since we cannot deductively or inductively determine what is good by studying the behavior of atoms, we can only assume that apart from the universe, there exists, and has always existed, a perfect good(God) which brought all things into being. Otherwise the word good has no objective meaning.

It is a logical neccesity. Whether or not an atheist thinks he or she can regognise good or be good is irellevent to the true nature of good. It either exists or it does not. It seems to me that good exists. Therefore there is a God.

ooooooooohhhhhhhh, yeah what he said!

 

[Leela]

Leela:

I wonder . . . if you and I were well known, and were commissioned to provide argument as to why an extant group of enslaved people should be set free, but, the slaves had to choose between us, which one’s argument would they choose? Your argument, based upon reason alone, or mine, based upon knowledge of God, of tradition, and of reason?

JD

Hi JD,

The problem with saying that “God says so” as a moral argument is that this is not really an argument at all. How can you claim to know what God thinks? All such a claim can lead to is “No he doesn’t!”/“Yes he does”. How could such a disareement ever be settled? The answer is to discuss such issues rationally, and share our stories in order to pursuade the other side of our point of view.

Best,
Leela

 

[davidv]

Hi JD,

The problem with saying that “God says so” as a moral argument is that this is not really an argument at all. How can you claim to know what God thinks?

Because God became a man, Jesus, who taught us some of what God thinks.

All such a claim can lead to is “No he doesn’t!”/“Yes he does”. How could such a disareement ever be settled?

It can be settled by understanding who Jesus is. This can be done civilly as you describe below.

The answer is to discuss such issues rationally, and share our stories in order to pursuade the other side of our point of view.

Best,
Leela

 

[Leela]

Hi Mindovermatter,

The problem with your arguements is that you take things for granted.

My arguement is simply that people are taking for granted that the existence of morality is proof of the existence of God.
MindOverMatter;4391642:

First of all, we do not know and cannot possibly prove that Beauty is an objective reality. We sense it, and therefore accept that it exists; but we cannot measure it according to scientific principles.

Why would we question our own experience about what exists? I don’t know what existence could mean if experinece is not relevent.

Just because a mass spectrometer provides no information about beauty does not mean that beauty is not real.

Once again it is the believer and not the pragmatist who is a materialist. If aesthetics are just subjective and do not really exist then I just wasted a lot of money on a painting whose worth is imaginary. I don’t know why I bothered to decorate my house at all, and there are a lot of people making a living doing imaginary work.

We can see that there are things and people that appear less or more bueatifull then others. But why something should be objectivley more bueatiful then others, cannot be explained by the laws of physics, since value transcends the reality of spin, motion, and dimension; Beauty is therefore not a product of natural causes, but instead accompanies the natural world.

Why do you take for granted a real and categorical distinction between subjectivity and objectivity?

Back to morality; We sense moral good as oppossed to moral evil, and so we know that it exists, but evil cannot be ultimately reduced to physical things, and therefore it is not reasonable to think that physics is root of moral values.

Why this idea that something need to be reduced to something else for it to be real?

Is the value in the subject or in the object? Since neither answer is satisfactory you say that there must be a third term to explain value, and this third term must be God. But why the assumption that reality has a primary subject/object dichotomy? Why not simply start with “experience” without taking anything such distinction for granted? Certainly our mystical experinces confirm for us that this subject/object distinction is not primary and undifferentiated experience is possible.

Is that undifferentiated exprience of mysticism not aesthetic in nature? I see value as the primary experience and the division of experience into subjects and objects as analogues of experience rather than as what is most fundamental. And value is absolutely aesthetic and moral. Neither the subject of the object can contain value because both are themselves aesthetic creations of the intellect based on analogues of experience i.e. value.

Good behavior supposes that there is a way things ought to be, that you ought to be good rather then bad. This reveals that there is a plan behind nature. If there is a plan behind nature, then that plan trancsends nature–so far as space time energy/matter is concerned–and gorvens it accordingly. Since we cannot deductively or inductively determine what is good by studying the behavior of atoms, we can only assume that apart from the universe, there exists, and has always existed, a perfect good(God) which brought all things into being. Otherwise the word good has no objective meaning.

Again, you argue from the scientistic premises. The idea of the atheist as a scientistic materialist is a stawman. It’s possible that some such people actually exist somewhere, but I’ve never met one.

It is a logical neccesity. Whether or not an atheist thinks he or she can regognise good or be good is irellevent to the true nature of good. It either exists or it does not. It seems to me that good exists. Therefore there is a God.

This is a huge leap. Good exists–It is trivially easy to come up with empirical evidence that some things are better than others, but that in no way suggests to me that this implies the existence of a personal god.

Best,
Leela

 

[Ender]

There are somethings that really do make good societies that promote human flourshing and others that make bad societies. There are objective truths to be discovered about morality.

This is an argument based on pragmatism, not morality, and allows for all kinds of behavior that conventional morality would disallow in the name of “human flourishing.” In fact, doesn’t this sound an awful lot like “the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few?” It would surely allow sacrificing a few individuals in order to help out society as a whole (where do you think the idea for human sacrifice came from?), which is not exactly what conventional morality (or the law) allows.

In lion prides, when a new male takes over, one of the first things he does is to kill all of the young kittens who are still nursing so that the (ex) mothers will mate with him. It seems objectively true that this behavior works very well for lions so, by your definition (that which is socially beneficial is moral), doesn’t this also make it moral? Are you ready to argue that morality exists among animals or do we need to look for a different definition of morality?

Finally, why should an individual care about what behavior is beneficial to society if that conflicts with what is beneficial to himself? Why should he be more solicitous about strangers than he is about himself and his family? I am happy to have you eschew cheating, stealing, and killing since it makes me safer but you provide no argument that would compel me to behave in a way that makes your life better and mine worse. I would argue, by the way, that most societies throughout history have behaved just this way: inside the clan you were treated morally, outside the clan you were treated as not much different than an animal. That seemed to work for millennia … did that make it moral behavior?

Ender

Ender

 

[JDaniel]

I don’t agree that the apprehension of beauty is more subjective than that of the good.

I nowhere said that it was.

One does not need to use this means to recognize beauty. The ability to appreciate and know beauty is inherent in each human being – it’s an intuitive sense that does not need to rely on analysis.

Thus, the beauty of a thing is universal. Thus no one could possibly say, “roses are not beautiful to me.”

We appreciate beauty (in many forms) in the same way that we appreciate the good. It aligns with human nature.

No. Creation is Good. How do we know that? Because we are skipping around and having lots of fun here on earth?

This is why we know what the term “beauty” means.

No. The term beauty did not come from objects that were percieved as beautiful precisely because they were beautiful.

We do not need a scientific definition (none is possible), but the term “beauty” has universal meaning in humanity and always has had it.

I am not seeking a scientific definition, I am seeking that you understand that beauty is abjectly subjective. I can’t stand the Mona Lisa!

Beauty is experienced – and sometimes the efforts to describe beauty can be beauty themselves (poems or paintings of nature, etc).

Unfortunately, I think you are confusing the term with the thing. Man created the word so that a concept could be communicated. But, the thing, ah, the thing is only to each of us individually. Notwithstanding that there probably are some things that most of concur is beautiful, you must remember that within this sentence is the word “most”.

The good is very much the same.

That, sir, is the dilemma of the atheist: the “good” is very much not the same. Otherwise I should slaughter the infidel.

JD

 

[JDaniel]

An earlier poster compared children killed in the Noah story to rabid dogs. Now you’ve compared those children to chickens with bird flu.

If I were to invent a god, it certainly at the very least would not commit mass murder against children and infants. It is revealing that people would invent and then embrace such an alleged being.

Twist and turn as you may. Your attempted covert ad hominem is still clearly visable. And, yet, you provide no cogent argument.

JD