Morality Without Religion?

[Gilbert_Keith]

*it just makes no obvious sense to me to tell someone that they can’t be moral without god while standing at the front of a long line of moral atrocities committed by god-fearing men. *

Exactly which moral atrocities by “god-fearing men” do you refer to? And are you certain these were truly “god-fearing men”?

The short answer to your point, the only one I can give right now … is to consider whether it makes sense to compare the moral atrocities of so-called “god-fearing men” with the moral atrocities of godless men. Or, as I think it was Montaigne who asked, if the world is so bad with religion, what would it be like without it?

The answer to his question is found everywhere in history:

In the French Revolution, in the Russian Revolution, in the atrocities of godless men like Hitler, Stalin, and Mao, which collectively dwarf the atrocities of any so-called Christian men living in the 20th Century. And isn’t it interesting that the Russians have restored religious freedom since the fall of atheistic communism? Not enough glue in atheism?

This thread is not about proving to atheists that God exists through the moral argument. It is about what moral glue would hold societies together in the absence of religion? Yes, the natural law is moral glue. But is it designed to hold societies together if men acted as though God *and *the natural law did not exist?

Two examples:

That people of the same sex should be allowed to marry.

That killing one’s unborn child is one’s natural right.

The natural law by itself can be manipulated by clever reason any way one likes. Activist judges do it all the time. But the Commandments of Moses and Jesus are not so easy to manipulate.

 

[sara888]

** Hily said:I think its sad that some religious people feel that were there no religion/god they would degenerate into some kind of monster. It would seem they have plenty of faith in their god, yet little or none in themselves.

That is whats happening now, people have left their faith and turn themselves into their own Gods.

Monsters, some, however without God people are empty souls. I feel sorry for people who dont have God not as a religious but as a human-being. If they only knew what will happen to their souls.

Getting back to the topic at hand, it does help to have God in your life as this help’s us to be better moral people, otherwise without consequences, it would be complete chaos.!

Dont you think if Religious people thought and knew there was no God and no consequences for our actions the world would be in total disorder.
Sara**

 

[john_doran]

Gilbert Keith:

Exactly which moral atrocities by “god-fearing men” do you refer to? And are you certain these were truly “god-fearing men”?

i’m talking about any killing by people who are putatively religious. like islamic suicide bombers, or serbian/croatian snipers shooting children, or IRA bombers taking out cars or buses or pubs, or burning “witches” at the stake, or even the more pedestrian alcoholic catholic husbands who beat their wives and children, or…

and it depends on how you define “god-fearing”; what i meant was simply “theistic”, but i could go as far as to include individuals with a more robust religious belief - i.e. those who actually take it seriously and perhaps go through at least some of the ritualistic/ceremonial motions (like go to church or synagogue or mosque, or whatever).

basically, i am observing that religious people do bad things, so holding up religion as the moral bulwark of society seems a little inaccurate, to say the least.
Gilbert Keith:

The short answer to your point, the only one I can give right now … is to consider whether it makes sense to compare the moral atrocities of so-called “god-fearing men” with the moral atrocities of godless men.

why wouldn’t it make sense? i mean, they’re both moral atrocities, and even if you could motivate some argument that chrisitan wrongdoing is somehow not as bad as atheist wrongdoing, what difference would it make? they’re both atrociously wrong.

in fact, i would go so far as to say that christian wrongdoing is worse precisely because we ought to know better, and we do the wrong thing anyway.
Gilbert Keith:

Or, as I think it was Montaigne who asked, if the world is so bad with religion, what would it be like without it?

i don’t know, but i suspect that it wouldn’t be at all like the pictures painted by many of the apocalyptic doomsayers around here: the moral law isn’t like the law of electromagnetism, so that were EM all of a sudden to be suspended, everything would instantaneously fall apart. the moral law is normative, which means that it prescribes rather than describes, so suspending it would have no immediate visible effect.
Gilbert Keith:

The answer to his question is found everywhere in history:

In the French Revolution, in the Russian Revolution, in the atrocities of godless men like Hitler, Stalin, and Mao, which collectively dwarf the atrocities of any so-called Christian men living in the 20th Century.

i think tallying up bad acts is a bad idea. besides, the actions of singularly malevolent men cannot usefully be attributed to their atheism, since the kinds of atrocities they perpetrated were violations of the simplest, most profound, and most profoundly evident moral principles: they killed millions of people. surely you are not suggesting that all atheists are morally equivalent to mao, stalin, pol pot, and hitler. are you?
Gilbert Keith:

And isn’t it interesting that the Russians have restored religious freedom since the fall of atheistic communism? Not enough glue in atheism?

no - there’s not enough freedom in communism.
Gilbert Keith:

This thread is not about proving to atheists that God exists through the moral argument. It is about what moral glue would hold societies together in the absence of religion? Yes, the natural law is moral glue. But is it designed to hold societies together if men acted as though God *and *the natural law did not exist?

what (some) atheists disbelieve is the explanation of their moral convictions as offered by natural law, NOT the principles of the natural law themselves. that is, atheists believe that raping, killing, stealing, cheating, etc. are wrong - they just disagree that those principles were “written on their hearts by the hand of god”.
Gilbert Keith:

Two examples:

That people of the same sex should be allowed to marry.

That killing one’s unborn child is one’s natural right.

i don’t believe that the first of these constitutes the total moral anarchy - a hobbesian state of nature, if you will - that some might portray it to be.

the second, in my estimation a moral atrocity if ever there was one, is perpetrated by people of all stripes, believers and unbelievers alike.

but keep in mind that the abortion issue isn’t a religious one, it’s a philosophical one about the nature of personhood; everyone agrees that killing people is wrong - abortionists disagree that the fetus is a person.
Gilbert Keith:

The natural law by itself can be manipulated by clever reason any way one likes. Activist judges do it all the time. But the Commandments of Moses and Jesus are not so easy to manipulate.

more difficult, perhaps, but the human capacity and ingenuity for and in rationalization is inexhaustible.

 

[Gilbert_Keith]

AnAtheist

This from Kant’s preface to “Religion within the Limits of Reason Alone.”

…morality…stands in need neither of the idea of another Being over [man], for him to apprehend his duty, nor of an incentive other than the law itself… Hence for its own sake morality does not need religion at all…; …it is self-sufficient… But although for its own sake morality needs no representation of an end which must precede the determining of the will, it is quite possible that it is necessarily related to such an end, taken not as the ground, but as the inevitable consequence of maxims adopted as conformable to that end… Morality thus leads ineluctably to religion, through which it extends itself to the idea of a powerful moral Lawgiver, outside of mankind, for Whose will that is the final end (of creation) which at the same time can and ought to be man’s final end.

 

[john_doran]

**Dont you think if Religious people thought and knew there was no God and no consequences for our actions the world would be in total disorder. **
Sara

for this to be true, then it would also have to be true that the only reason that religious people don’t do evil, chaotic things is out of fear of divine retribution.

i don’t know about you, but i don’t avoid hurting people because i’m afraid god will punish me. same goes for rape and theft and murder and lying and cheating.

i don’t do any of those things because they’re wrong. period. and i try to do the right thing because it’s right.

and even if that doesn’t describe the totality of everyone’s moral life - even if there are religion-specific norms like mass-on-sunday, or abstain-on-friday - it certainly describes the core part of everyone’s moral reasoning, the part that deals with killing and hurting and raping and stealing. the part, basically, that keeps society on the rails rather than spinning out of control.

 

[Gilbert_Keith]

John Doran

I think you are going to exhaust me.

Let’s just agreee to disagree and not hurl accusations against each other and put words into each other’s mouth that were never said.

Thank you…

 

[john_doran]

Gilbert Keith:

John Doran

I think you are going to exhaust me.

Let’s just agreee to disagree and not hurl accusations against each other and put words into each other’s mouth that were never said.

Thank you…

ok. though i don’t believe i attributed any words to you that were not in the quotes i copied from your posts.

and i apologize if it seemed like i was hurling accusations at you; i believed myself only to be engaging in a civilized discussion.

take care.

 

[Gilbert_Keith]

John Doran

surely you are not suggesting that all atheists are morally equivalent to mao, stalin, pol pot, and hitler. are you?

I never suggested anything of the sort, but you were quick to ask if I was.

The point I was trying to demonstrate is that a world without religion (admittedly some religions are not true religions … but masks for brutality) is very capable of resulting in the regimes of Hitler, Stalin, and Mao. These were regimes that opposed all religion (except the worship of the state, which became their immoral glue).

I never said atheism results in all atheists (your words, not mine) starting to behave like Hitler. But the statistics speak for themselves. The history of atheist leadership in the twentieth century is not encouraging for the future of mankind without religion, which is what I think nearly all atheists may well hope, if not pray, for.

 

[john_doran]

Gilbert Keith:

I never suggested anything of the sort, but you were quick to ask if I was.

i know. it was a rhetorical question. but it was nonetheless a question, and did not purport to be a transcription of what you actually said.
Gilbert Keith:

But the statistics speak for themselves. The history of atheist leadership in the twentieth century is not encouraging for the future of mankind without religion, which is what I think nearly all atheists may well hope, if not pray, for.

as i noted, though, taking the leadership of megalomaniacal madmen as your sample set of atheist leaders is problematic, since the far more plausible conclusion to draw is that their genocidal behaviour is a result of their lunacy rather than their atheism.

 

[Gilbert_Keith]

john doran:

i know. it was a rhetorical question. but it was nonetheless a question, and did not purport to be a transcription of what you actually said.

as i noted, though, taking the leadership of megalomaniacal madmen as your sample set of atheist leaders is problematic, since the far more plausible conclusion to draw is that their genocidal behaviour is a result of their lunacy rather than their atheism.

 

[Gilbert_Keith]

John Doran

as i noted, though, taking the leadership of megalomaniacal madmen as your sample set of atheist leaders is problematic, since the far more plausible conclusion to draw is that their genocidal behaviour is a result of their lunacy rather than their atheism.

O.K. now you have exhausted me.

The field is all yours.

So long.

 

[AnAtheist]

john doran:

as i noted, though, taking the leadership of megalomaniacal madmen as your sample set of atheist leaders is problematic, since the far more plausible conclusion to draw is that their genocidal behaviour is a result of their lunacy rather than their atheism.

Exactly.

And I must note (again and again, because some people don’t get it), Hitler was no atheist, and Nazi Germany was not an atheistic nation.

 

[barsapp]

john doran:

as i noted, though, taking the leadership of megalomaniacal madmen as your sample set of atheist leaders is problematic, since the far more plausible conclusion to draw is that their genocidal behaviour is a result of their lunacy rather than their atheism.

Are you so naïve to think that the genocides carried out by the atheist leaders of the last century were the task of lonely madmen? Remember Nietzche’s “God is dead”, remember Marx’s “Religion is the opium of the people”.

 

[john_doran]

barsapp:

Are you so naïve to think that the genocides carried out by the atheist leaders of the last century were the task of lonely madmen? Remember Nietzche’s “God is dead”, remember Marx’s “Religion is the opium of the people”.

well, i don’t know if they were lonely or not, but if you mean to wonder if i believe that these men acted alone, then, no, i don’t - they themselves actually didn’t do anything except convince a great many other people to commit acts of terrible evil.

let me ask you something: if it’s legitimate to conclude that atheism leads inevitably to the commission of great evil because there are atheist evildoers, how do you avoid the the conclusion that religion leads just as ineluctably to the commission of great evil because there are religious evildoers?

 

[barsapp]

john doran:

well, i don’t know if they were lonely or not, but if you mean to wonder if i believe that these men acted alone, then, no, i don’t - they themselves actually didn’t do anything except convince a great many other people to commit acts of terrible evil.
let me ask you something: if it’s legitimate to conclude that atheism leads inevitably to the commission of great evil because there are atheist evildoers, how do you avoid the the conclusion that religion leads just as ineluctably to the commission of great evil because there are religious evildoers?

Those atheist leaders were not only supported by millions of people (in fact they didn’t have to convince anyone), buy they were convinced themselves of the advantages of genocide. So for them those “policies” were not “terrible evil” at all but goodness for the State and the People. Also they had a strong philosophical support from atheist philosophers.

Regarding “religious evildoers”, I really don’t remember any Catholic political leader calling for genocide as a good work. May be you can tell me. As far as I know the Catholic Church were among the few that opposed atheist totalitarian regimes.

 

[john_doran]

barsapp:

Those atheist leaders were not only supported by millions of people (in fact they didn’t have to convince anyone), buy they were convinced themselves of the advantages of genocide. So for them those “policies” were not “terrible evil” at all but goodness for the State and the People. Also they had a strong philosophical support from atheist philosophers.

do you seriously believe that each member of the nazi party was already independently committed to the racial extinction of the jews before hitler came into power?

but that is as may be. if you’re right, then you have eviscerated your own argument: hitler really isn’t all that bad because he didn’t do anything bad at all - it was the nazi soldiers who did the actual killing, which they would have done even without hitler’s influence.

substitute “pol pot”, “idi amin”, “stalin”, and whatever other genocidal maniac you like for “hitler” in that paragraph.

barsapp:

Regarding “religious evildoers”, I really don’t remember any Catholic political leader calling for genocide as a good work. May be you can tell me. As far as I know the Catholic Church were among the few that opposed atheist totalitarian regimes.

but we’re not talking about the Church - we’re talking about individual catholics - in fact, we’re only talking about individual theists…

and as far as ***that’s ***concerned, how many people would catholics or other christians or religious individuals have to kill before it would become morally problematic for you?

but whatever. do some reading on the war in bosnia if you want to see what catholics are capable of. or about the massacres at the palestinian refugee camps at sabra and shattila, committed by the lebanese christian militia. surely you already know enough about the programmatic violence of the IRA…

look, man - you have to accept that people do bad things. all people of all beliefs. trying to make moral distinctions between atheists and theists is like trying to make the same distinctions between brunettes and redheads. or bosnians and serbs. or blacks and whites…

 

[barsapp]

john doran:

everyone agrees that killing people is wrong - abortionists disagree that the fetus is a person.

also slaves and jews were considered not human beings. but you know what? abortionists perfectly kwow what they do. they know they are killing people as the State knows when execute somebody.

 

[barsapp]

john doran:

do you seriously believe that each member of the nazi party was already independently committed to the racial extinction of the jews before hitler came into power?
but that is as may be. if you’re right, then you have eviscerated your own argument: hitler really isn’t all that bad because he didn’t do anything bad at all - it was the nazi soldiers who did the actual killing, which they would have done even without hitler’s influence.
substitute “pol pot”, “idi amin”, “stalin”, and whatever other genocidal maniac you like for “hitler” in that paragraph.
but whatever. do some reading on the war in bosnia if you want to see what catholics are capable of. or about the massacres at the palestinian refugee camps at sabra and shattila, committed by the lebanese christian militia. surely you already know enough about the programmatic violence of the IRA…

The ideas of racial superiority were popular and came mostly from Darwin’s theories. So Hitler found the path well prepared to apply his “final solution”. He was an instrument of such an atheistic ideology, and of course you can change names as you wish: Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, Mao, the judges of the Supreme Court of the United States (Roe vs. Wade) exemplify atheistic philosophy and atheistic politics in action. But you have to forget concepts as “genocidal maniacs”. They were not. They were putting in action specific ideological atheistic principles. So it is better not to talk about “maniacs”, “madmen”, “lunacy”. As I told you before they considered that policy as a benefit for the common good.
the examples you put about Catholic wrongdoers are not very accurate. IRA was (or is) a revolutionary group that never held power: it is not a State, they can not impose any law. the same with the lebanese christian militia. In bosnia you had orthodoxs against muslims. anyway, genocide was never an official State commitment. There were no laws as regards Nazi final solution or abortion in the United States.
i’m not saying that evil is an exclusive atheistic characteristic and Catholics are always good. i’m not talking about individuals. I’m describing what happens when atheism is in power.

 

[kim_wilson]

LSK:

Gosh, this is an interesting question! I mean, if someone says to me “I don’t need religion, I just follow my conscience and I know the difference between right and wrong” the question becomes who makes the determination for you - what is your ultimate authority? )

The ultimate authority becomes the concensus of the majority of individuals in a given time period. Unless the government becomes dictatorial at which point government officials become the ultimate authority. Still, some individuals may follow a still small voice inside of themselves, but more often than not, that small voice will eventually echo one of the above.

Signed,

a former agnostic

 

[kim_wilson]

john doran:

but keep in mind that the abortion issue isn’t a religious one, it’s a philosophical one about the nature of personhood; everyone agrees that killing people is wrong - abortionists disagree that the fetus is a person.

Actually John, the scary thing is that many abortionists are starting to openly admit that it is a person. They justify what they are doing by defending the woman’s right to choose whether or not this “person” lives or dies.