Morality without God?

[Charlemagne_II]

Science has been so successful because the pencil is mightier than the pen.

Science has indeed been successful, and in large part because it has been able to rub out errors of thought in its own realm. But using that rubber to erase only shows that it was absolutely wrong in the first place, and that it was moving again toward the presumed absolute truth that is always waiting to be found.

But science has not been able to rub out the ink by which moral absolutes are written. Science has been successful in finding a way (nuclear arsenals) to annihilate the human race, and even most other life forms. It has not been successful in rubbing out the ink of the law which says that the annihilation of humanity would be absolutely wrong.

So you see, in the context of moral choices the pen is really mightier than the pencil.

 

[CatsAndDogs]

Your conception of truth sounds to me like that of the scientistic materialist that you criticize.

You think that your words about reality correspond to reality itself.

I realize you “live in your mind”, but this really shouldn’t be so hard to understand:

Truths are a very small number of things. They are ONLY concerned with faith and morals, and are exhaustively enumerated by the Church.

The universe, the great machine that God created as our environment, has nothing to do with truth. It has only to do with “workings”.

Science is a perfectly legitimate method to discover these workings of the universe, which it RIGHTLY calls theories and NOT truths, because those findings as regards the workings are not expressible fully in words (symbolically) and are only a limit approaching “what works in this particular context”.

Science DOES NOT deal with truth.

Simply to posit that truth has anything to do with science is to not understand the meaning of either term.

You started with all the scientistic assumptions about reality, encountered all the philosophical problems with that position, and posited a God as a solution to those philosophical problems.

Wrong again.

After learning that God was “not real” by scientistic re-education, I eventually discovered the hollowness of a Godless universe, and found that my re-education was in error and needed to return to my belief in God, which when I found the Church gave the best explanation (the best POSSIBLE I later found) of why God is God and quite real indeed.

Now when you encounter another person who does not believe in God, you assume that that person is a scientistic materialist like you were and needs to solve his philosphical problems in the same way you did.

You demonstrate one being a scientistic materialist, who has found a clever way to disguise that fact, by claiming to be a gnostic.

Your “philosophical problems” are not my concern. I respond to your statements, which when compared with the truth (as given by the Church) are easily “answered”, which is all that I’m doing.

You are a materialist, though call yourself a “spiritualist” (using other words, of course), because you demand material evidence for anything that needs “proving”.

You are scientistic because your “authority” is human exclusively-scientific knowledge known by yourself.

But there are other solutions to the problems of scientism. I followed a different path from yours.

I went back to the root of the problem and chose not to buy into the assumptions of scientism in favor of a more radical empiricism and pragmatism that does not exclude values and morals from rationality as materialism does.

Your pragmatism is “what works”.

Your empiricism is “what I can sense”.

“What works” is SCIENTISM.

“What I can sense” is MATERIALISM.

How are you NOT a scientistic materialist?

You can certainly classify yourself as you like, but if you smell like a duck, you’re a duck!

(( …“smell”? ))

:shamrock2:

 

[Fran65]

Quack (imo)

 

[Leela]

Hi Cats, Fran,

…
You demonstrate one being a scientistic materialist, who has found a clever way to disguise that fact, by claiming to be a gnostic.

Have I claimed to be a gnostic? I don’t claim to be in possession of any revealed truth. I’m not sure how you are using this word. Can you explain?

…
You are a materialist, though call yourself a “spiritualist” (using other words, of course), because you demand material evidence for anything that needs “proving”.

I don’t specifiy any particular type of evidence. Material evidence that would be convincing to me is validation of any of the miracle stories in the Bible, but that is not the only sort of evidence that would be convincing. A good rational argument would also suffice. What other sort of evidence should I find convincing to not be considered materialist?

You are scientistic because your “authority” is human exclusively-scientific knowledge known by yourself.

Scientism holds that only knowledge gathered through a particular method of inquiry is to be considered valid. Such a position is easily refuted because the validity of the method itself is not knowledge gathered through the method.

…
Your pragmatism is “what works”.

You are confusing pragmatism with utilitarianism?

Pragmatism is the opinion that metaphysics is to be largely cleared up by the application of the following maxim suggested by Charles Pierce: “Consider what effects, that might conceivably have practical bearings, we conceive the object of our conception to have. Then, our conception of these effects is the whole of our conception of the object.”

Pragmatism helps us cut through such philosophical conundrums as: When you say that something means something, what does that mean? (How would you answer that question?) As a pragmatist, what a word means cashes out to how the word is used.

I’m no expert of pragmatism. There are of course lots of different school’s of thought within pragmatism, but as far as I know “what works” does not describe any of them.

…
Your empiricism is “what I can sense”.

“What works” is SCIENTISM.

“What I can sense” is MATERIALISM.

This is not my view as you should well know by this point. My empiricism is not that of Hume (concerned only with the five senses) but rather the radical empiricism of pragmatism which has a broader view of experience that includes thoughts and values as experience.

I don’t generaly get myself involved in metaphysics since pragmatism shows that diverse metaphysical positions often cash out as equivalent, but as I’ve said previously, when I do get in a metaphysical mood, experience is equated with value rather than substance. Substance is an idea derived from experience (value).

…
How are you NOT a scientistic materialist?

You can certainly classify yourself as you like, but if you smell like a duck, you’re a duck!

Fran says, “Quack.”

From my point of view, you two both smell a lot more “ducky” and sound more “quacky” than I do. You accept the fundamental premise of materialism of a substance-based reality which I do not buy into. To get around the problem of scientism not being able to validate itself, you postulate the existence of a God. I don’t need to do that because I don’t accept the premises of scientism or materialism.

Best,
Leela

 

[Leela]

Hi Charlemagne,

But science has not been able to rub out the ink by which moral absolutes are written.

I have an image in my mind of a scientist trying to erase something written in pen, but other than that I don’t know what you mean. I don’t think science tries to prove that anything does not exist if that s what you are saying.

Science has been successful in finding a way (nuclear arsenals) to annihilate the human race, and even most other life forms.

But only God actually achieved this in the Great Flood?

It has not been successful in rubbing out the ink of the law which says that the annihilation of humanity would be absolutely wrong.

So you see, in the context of moral choices the pen is really mightier than the pencil.

Why would science be used to demonstrate that the annihilation of humanity is a good thing? Scientists want to live as much as you do.

Best,
Leela

 

[Leela]

Hi Cats,

I realize you “live in your mind”, but this really shouldn’t be so hard to understand:

Truths are a very small number of things. They are ONLY concerned with faith and morals, and are exhaustively enumerated by the Church.

Can you list these few Truths for me?

The universe, the great machine that God created as our environment, has nothing to do with truth. It has only to do with “workings”.

Science is a perfectly legitimate method to discover these workings of the universe, which it RIGHTLY calls theories and NOT truths, because those findings as regards the workings are not expressible fully in words (symbolically) and are only a limit approaching “what works in this particular context”.

Science DOES NOT deal with truth.

Simply to posit that truth has anything to do with science is to not understand the meaning of either term.

Science certainly deals with truth. It definitely tries to find claims that are true. Your scientistic view of the universe as God’s great machine may be causing a blind spot for you? Science just doesn’t have anything to say about capital-t Truth as some sort of essence. One need not believe in Truth as an essence to believe in truth as a value any more than I have to posit an essence of transcendent Smelliness to believe in the existence of odor.

Wrong again.

After learning that God was “not real” by scientistic re-education, I eventually discovered the hollowness of a Godless universe, and found that my re-education was in error and needed to return to my belief in God, which when I found the Church gave the best explanation (the best POSSIBLE I later found) of why God is God and quite real indeed.

You do this thing a lot where you say, “WRONG,” and then go one to say what I just said.

I said, “You started with all the scientistic assumptions about reality, encountered all the philosophical problems with that position, and posited a God as a solution to those philosophical problems.” Then you said, “wrong again” and proceeded to describe exactly what I just said.

You found scientism to be in error as I did. From there we took different paths. You posited a God to solve the philosophical problems of scientism while maintaining the scientistic belief in the universe as a “great machine concerned with workings” with no place for values, while I went all the way back to the root assumptions of scientistic materialism and instead followed the path of pragmatism in recognizing that truth itself is a value.

I don’t need to hold any beliefs in the supernatural to make sense of values, when there is nothing more empirical than value.

Best,
Leela

 

[Charlemagne_II]

Leela,

I think you don’t grasp what I am talking about, so I will bow out of this forum.

 

[warpspeedpetey]

Well we have an example of morality without G-d.

The animal kingdom, with no G-d, we would have no reason to act differently than them.

imagine if the only constraint on my behavior was my ability to to enforce my desires, whether through physical force, intimidation, bribing, or cooperating with others in my quest.

it would be rule by might, just a s it was in the past, and still is many places.

there would be no freedom as the developed world knows it, there would arise power structures, that would apportion power based on the number of sons you could provide to fight

no woman would be safe, harems would grow as breeding factories.

we would essentially be stuck in a pre-ad style system.

that might lead you to believe that we would develop morality separate from G-d, and indeed you could call the system some version of morality, but not one any one would wish to live in but the strongest of us.

with no injunction against murder, robbery, theft, rape these become property crimes not intrinsically evil, just something you could do if you could afford to pay for it, after all your not hurting people your damaging property

no, the morality we have now is, historically, a benefit of the Christians who took their morality from another source than self aggrandizement, at least here in the western world. what we would have without them would probably no different what the Romans had, great if you had money or power, horrible if you didnt

 

[buffalo]

Hi Cats,

Can you list these few Truths for me?

Science certainly deals with truth. It definitely tries to find claims that are true. Your scientistic view of the universe as God’s great machine may be causing a blind spot for you? Science just doesn’t have anything to say about capital-t Truth as some sort of essence. One need not believe in Truth as an essence to believe in truth as a value any more than I have to posit an essence of transcendent Smelliness to believe in the existence of odor.

You do this thing a lot where you say, “WRONG,” and then go one to say what I just said.

I said, “You started with all the scientistic assumptions about reality, encountered all the philosophical problems with that position, and posited a God as a solution to those philosophical problems.” Then you said, “wrong again” and proceeded to describe exactly what I just said.

You found scientism to be in error as I did. From there we took different paths. You posited a God to solve the philosophical problems of scientism while maintaining the scientistic belief in the universe as a “great machine concerned with workings” with no place for values, while I went all the way back to the root assumptions of scientistic materialism and instead followed the path of pragmatism in recognizing that truth itself is a value.

I don’t need to hold any beliefs in the supernatural to make sense of values, when there is nothing more empirical than value.

Best,
Leela

Still unanswered - why didn’t the first atheist murder the second?

But we can move on - Was Hitler right?

 

[Leela]

Still unanswered - why didn’t the first atheist murder the second?

I’m pretty sure I’ve answered this question for you at least three times. You seem to be looking for a particular answer? Why don’t you just say what answer you are looking for?

But we can move on - Was Hitler right?

Of course not.

Best,
Leela

 

[Leela]

Well we have an example of morality without G-d.

The animal kingdom, with no G-d, we would have no reason to act differently than them.

Hi Petey,

There are lots of good reasons to act differently from animals. Though many animals take care of their young, because of out faculty for reason we have a much better idea about how to take care of our children than animals do.

And what moral precept could be more moral than the Golden Rule? If I do to others what I say others should not do to me, I would not be taken seriously. Virtually every society has come up with some articulation of the ethics of reciprocity which predates Jesus.

For some “Ethic of Reciprocity” passages from the religious texts of various religions and secular beliefs, see…
religioustolerance.org/reciproc.htm

Best,
Leela

 

[warpspeedpetey]

leela,

im talking about the extrinsic motivation to act outside those desires, not the ability to reason that a better way might exist, indeed all of human history is full of intelligent people, but still we have yet to make a society that is truly just (just ask a long list of political, ethnic, religious, or sexually identified minorities, though those groups have subjective experiences)

as to the site you site they affirm that though all philosophies of any kind have a version of the golden rule, almost none of them follow it. once again there is no extrinsic motive to follow the golden rule, and all of human history provides empirical evidence that the rule we actually follow is the the rule stated thusly “he who has the gold(power) rules.”

indeed i happen to be a large male, who has enough social skill to organize others into effective groups of allies, what then prevents me from fulfilling my basest desires in a world where every one makes up their own morality? nothing, ive never met a woman who is capable of overpowering me, and my little gang and I can run off any challenge from males in possession of females (yes i state it this way because this is how it works in most of the animal world). so yes i can reason that a better morality exists, but its not to my advantage so why live by it? by evolutionary theory the only imperative i need follow is that to breed, thats what money, power, nice cars, bars, and nice clothes are for, nothing but the desire to attract a mate. Why attract when i can just take?

so an extrinsic morality is necessary because there is no intrinsic motivation to not fulfill ones basest desires. there is no altruism gene, and it is no more provable than one can prove the existence of G-d through solely empirical means

 

[Mijoy2]

You are an atheist and you have a wallet in your pocket with 100 dollars cash in it. It’s midnight and you are walking over a bridge and notice someone has fallen in and is drowning. You take out your wallet so it does not get wet. There are two people up on the bridge that you do not know. However one has a tatoo that says “athiesm rules” and the other is proudly wearing a crucifix.

To whom do you give your wallet to hold?

I believe a belief in God instills a deeper awarness in us to rethink what might be our first instinct and to do what is good, based on what has been taught to us and revealed to us by God. The atheist might argue that this is a false good because we do it out of a fear of God (someone is watching). There may be a component of this certainly but the believer also believes he has a fallen nature and is inherenly proud and therefore (to varying degrees) needs this fear of God and requires this revealed teachings to help one grow in goodness.

I am a believer and I need help being good. Inherently I am not so good.

 

[MindOverMatter]

Hi MIndOverMatter,
You don’t need to believe that good exists as an essence to believe that perfect good exists as a concept

If the perfect good does not exist, then how is it possible that you can have an accurate–let alone correct–concept of it? How do you know that your concept reflects the true reality of the perfect good?
Out of nothing comes nothing.

Your arguement is at best a weak assertion pretending to be a refutation. Please explain why good doesn’t need to exist in order for it to be true of real events?

If morality is concerned with human suffering and human flourishing then there is no question that morality corresponds to real events

We are not talking about human suffering; we are talking about the truthfulness of moral statements. It seems to me that you are confusing the truth of a statement with the benefit of an action. Which brings me back to my original post where I was talking about survivalism and conseqentailism?

Something isn’t immoral just because it hurts you. While it may benefit certain individuals if you behave in a particular way towards them, this does not tell me that it is good for me to do so; it only tells me that my behavior is pleasing to them, and therefore you identify this with your own subjective idea of good because it “feels good”. However, I might feel good if I rape 5 women, destroy 5 homes and burn 10 children alive. Now, while I certainly agree with you that I would not like to be among those numbers, there is nothing true about moral statements such as “I ought not to murder, rape, and burn children”; regardless of the consequences. We both think that our behavior is good because it “feels good” and therefore such and such behavior appears beneficial to our needs.

Neither of our behavior has anything to say about Objective Moral Truths and cannot be defined as right or wrong so far as the “act” is concerned. The consequence is beside the point. It is perfectly normal and natural for organisms to destroy each other and rape each other. In order for those actions to be defined by moral standards that are true, one needs to believe that there is such a thing as an objective perfection. True morality is true whether you agree with it or not; but survivalism is merely proposing that ones behavior may lead to suffering. The only reason you’re cooperating with such a system, is not because any act is good, but because you want to avoid as much suffering as possible. While it might aid your survival to behave in a way that is pleasing to others, this unfortunately has nothing to say about right or wrong; you are simply trying to change the meaning of words in order to confuse people.
There is a big difference between survival logic and moral truths. Plus Survival logic does not provide a basis on which one can make sense of “guilt”, since all actions and “feelings” are ultimately manifestations of nature and our personal value systems. Why should anybody give a dame about humanity as a whole? Some individuals are living quite well by being filthy rich off the backs of poor people; and not sharing. They live full lives, sometimes with minimal danger of being harmed in their life time as a result of reprisal. You can certainly label them with the word selfish as opposed to selfless, but it doesn’t follow that they are wrong to be selfish, that they’re behaving in a immoral manner, just because it doesn’t go down well with how you want the world to be. Some people don’t care about the consequences as long as they fulfill their own personal good, and without God, we are simply modes of energy that have been fooled or coerced by the pains and illusions of nature into placing value on human life.

and that there are verifiable objective truths that can be claimed about it.

You can prove that there is an objective good? I can’t wait to see the evidence!

Love is more conduscive to happiness than hate.

I agree, but it doesn’t follow that it is immoral to be hateful. All things are permissible

Cruelty is wrong.

This is a fallacy. Cruelty is not wrong. It’s just not desirable if you’re on the receiving end.

It’s good to teach your children to respect adults.

I agree if you mean that it is an objective law of reality to teach your children; but with out a lawgiver, we are free to treat our children any way we want to; and the only person saying otherwise is you. Your baseless opinion is simply that…a baseless opinion.

Continued…

 

[MindOverMatter]

These are all valid falsifiable claims that we can make about morality that either promote human flourishing, or they don’t.

Yes, so far as they might provide a fragmented map which shows as the root to material pleasure. But what has that got to do with moral truths?

What evidence could you ever hope to provide to others to convince them of your claims? It seems to me that you’ve postulated a basis with no pragmatic value.

Values are dependent upon what you want out of life. There’s no guarantee that we are going to agree on what is best, since best is simply your personal take on things. Yes, if I give a dame about my health I should stop smoking, but it is not wrong for me to smoke or to harm others with my second hand cancer fumes.

That is not true. There are something’s that really do make good societies that promote human flourishing and others that make bad societies.

I don’t think that anybody disagrees with you; however I don’t think that the search for material benefits and social/biological pleasure is enough to sanctify and secure society to an extent that will provide us with real purpose and meaning free from fantasy. God is a natural and necessary belief so far as God provides a vital sense of an objective identity, personal value, purpose, and moral law, which nobody can take away or change. With God there is meaningful direction and identity, which might not be true. With a godless society we only have our dreams and fantasies to guide us, which we know are all lies.

That something’s are better than others? You can verify that fact for yourself at any time. Try sitting on a hot stove and notice the low quality of your situation for yourself.

Quality? I’m just a walking talking bag of chemicals, a truth which you obviously take for granted. Something’s are more pleasing don’t you think? This would probably be a better statement. Your use of word “better”, is a bit misleading because your using it as if it suggests an objective standard that ought not to be transgressed and thus provides a natural means by how we can know what is best for us with out invoking God.
But the word best or better can be no more then an illusion of desire and feeling since to infere its objectivity would suggest that there is a purpose behind things. The reality of an objective standard of “better”, suggests the existence of a purpose or plan behind nature.
For instance, what if it’s my preference to burn myself on a hot stove. I do not become suddenly irrational just because you wouldn’t. Why am I less better off now just because I have a burnt my bottom? Sure it’s painful, but that’s only going to be relevant to me if I place value on my bottom. Maybe I want to feel pain. Whether something is better for me or not is a subjective preference; it has no universal truth attached to it. E.g. “I would “prefer” not to be burnt on my bottom today thank you very much!”

Let me put it another way. If my heart stops; the only thing that has changed is the mode of my being. I have not so much “died” as I have merely “changed” from one state to another. Whether or not my new state of being is a more desirable or better state to be in, is not a matter or concern of objective truth, but rather is a subjective preference. To say something is better is a meaningless concept so far as the objective truth of things are concerned. Just because my heart stops does not mean that my heart ought to beat. Just because I have legs to walk, doesn’t mean that it would be abnormal if I didn’t have any legs, or arms for that matter. Abnormality is a subjective concept; like madness is simply a word that describes a state of mind which has no practical use in terms of building a useful society. But this doesn’t mean that we ought to have a society of sane people, or that your idea of a useful society will reflect my own. This is just the subjective opinion of those who have invested in a specific end which requires a specific type of consistent behavior. With God, these things become meaningful so far as God created things to be certain way and to work to certain ends. To say that something doesn’t work, is implying that it ought not to be broken which implies purpose/design.

The sensation of sitting down on a hot stove is not something I like personally, but my moving off that stove is a matter of pain tolerance.
I might feel that it’s better to burn my self alive on your front porch in order to make a political statement concerning the liberation of your pet; but why is it “better” that I do not? Isn’t that just your opinion? I might commit suicide; how do you know that this is not the best thing to do? Truths are not conditional on peoples desires.

Your arguments are at best misleading; at worst, they make no sense.

 

[buffalo]

I’m pretty sure I’ve answered this question for you at least three times. You seem to be looking for a particular answer? Why don’t you just say what answer you are looking for?

Of course not.

Best,
Leela

Tell me why Hitler was wrong without using a moral argument.

 

[CatsAndDogs]

Quote:
Originally Posted by CatsAndDogs View Post
…
You demonstrate one being a scientistic materialist, who has found a clever way to disguise that fact, by claiming to be a gnostic.

Have I claimed to be a gnostic? I don’t claim to be in possession of any revealed truth. I’m not sure how you are using this word. Can you explain?

“I don’t claim to be in possession of any revealed truth.”

Sure you do.

You claim to know that “revealed truth” is bogus. By what manner do you know this? It’s, apparently, been “revealed” to you.

“Have I claimed to be a gnostic?”

No one, unless their are QUITE juvenile indeed, ever CLAIMS to be a gnostic.

They claim to “know what truth is apart from the Church”.

If you are claiming to know what truth is (apart from the Church) then you are a gnostic.

If you aren’t claiming to know anything of truth, then we’re not really have an argument, are we?

:shamrock2:

 

[CatsAndDogs]

Quote:
Originally Posted by CatsAndDogs View Post
…
You are a materialist, though call yourself a “spiritualist” (using other words, of course), because you demand material evidence for anything that needs “proving”.

I don’t specifiy any particular type of evidence. Material evidence that would be convincing to me is validation of any of the miracle stories in the Bible, but that is not the only sort of evidence that would be convincing. A good rational argument would also suffice. What other sort of evidence should I find convincing to not be considered materialist?

What you describe as “a good rational argument” is not available to explain God.

You premise your “good rational arguments” on materialist grounds, and only on those grounds.

The only “(acceptable) argument” available as evidence for God’s existence must come directly from God. That is called revelation. You a priori dismiss revelation. Therefore, you will never have evidence of God until you widen your meaning of “acceptable evidence”, and then actually seek that evidence.

:shamrock2:

 

[CatsAndDogs]

Quote:
Originally Posted by CatsAndDogs View Post
I realize you “live in your mind”, but this really shouldn’t be so hard to understand:

Truths are a very small number of things. They are ONLY concerned with faith and morals, and are exhaustively enumerated by the Church.

Can you list these few Truths for me?

Dogmas of the Catholic Church

You’ll have to figure out what the “de fide”, etc., designations are about, as I’m not that terribly familiar with them.

…you might also want to do a (google, etc.) search on “catholic dogma”.

Most of the dogmas are refinements of “encompassing” ones, so there really aren’t as many “base” dogmas as there seem to be.

But, will this be persuasive to you? No.

Why? Because if one has a dogmatic disbelief in dogma qua dogma (ie the Church’s dogma) then no exposition of dogma will mean anything other than “a larger of smaller list of nonsense”.

:shamrock2:

 

[CatsAndDogs]

Quote:
Originally Posted by CatsAndDogs View Post
The universe, the great machine that God created as our environment, has nothing to do with truth. It has only to do with “workings”.

Science is a perfectly legitimate method to discover these workings of the universe, which it RIGHTLY calls theories and NOT truths, because those findings as regards the workings are not expressible fully in words (symbolically) and are only a limit approaching “what works in this particular context”.

Science DOES NOT deal with truth.

Simply to posit that truth has anything to do with science is to not understand the meaning of either term.

Science certainly deals with truth. It definitely tries to find claims that are true.

You’ll probably agree with what I’m about to say:

Science finds facts and fashions them into symbolic “laws”.

Those “laws” are always capable of being “refined” and “re-approximated” closer to some “limit”.

Just as “pi” is not perfectly definable, as one can never get to the last digit of pi, science is concerned only with “really close approximations”, which by definition are never “truths”.

Your scientistic view of the universe as God’s great machine may be causing a blind spot for you? Science just doesn’t have anything to say about capital-t Truth as some sort of essence.

Truth is not a “essence”. Truth is not contained in material things.

Truths, are simply (and simple) statements of fact.

Truth: God is real.
Truth: God is three persons.
Truth: It is evil to kill innocents.
etc…

:shamrock2: