Were does morality come from?

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This has got to :hmmm: be be one of the more interesting threads yet.

I guess I am more of a relativist.

God is absolute morality, absolute truth and absolute justice,… all that.

Human morality is based on whatever functions beneficially in any group of individuals.

Human morality is relative.
God (as MORALITY) is absolute.

🤷 I think…
 
Betterave said:
We recently had a long discussion with Ender in another thread (“Does morality exist?”) and were unable to get him to see the over-simplicity of his position. Ender thinks you must believe in God before you can believe in morality. Most of us believe that that claim is just silly and we presented plenty of arguments to that effect.
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I am staggered by the complete lack of comprehension this statement represents. Not only did I never say or imply such a thing I never even raised the issue of God, going so far as to explicitly state that for the debate we were to assume that there was no God. Had you dealt with my actual comments instead of (incorrectly) anticipating where I was going you would not have made such an egregious mistake.

That argument was not all that different from this one, at least for StrawberryJam, as I have asked - and he has refused to answer - whether he believes morality exists and, if so, what is its source. That, after all, was the question raised by the OP.

Ender
 
Thank you for a thought provoking thread.👍
I gave it 5 stars!

For what it is worth.
MORAL RIGHTS or "natural right"s are different from legal rights. In the natural order of things we start to see that we aren’t really much different than animals at all in the moral sense of what is right or correct; universal rights which every being is entitled to merely as a result of their existence. It boils down to each being is entitled to lead as pleasant a life as possible within the realm of their experience. To purposely influence another being in any way for self gain is a violation of the autonomy of that being.

After all, in a world without “GOD”, there is no absolute morality. I think that since we all have an instinctual notion of what is right and wrong, this shows there is at least a collective consciousness or awareness of morality. Where does this sense of morality come from? Objectively… I don’t know. Subjectively? I think it is evidence of a spiritual dimension to existence.
👍
 
If morality is taken to mean “the distinction between good and evil” there are only two reasonable sources of morality: God or human beings.
  1. There is no evidence that any other form of life on earth has insight into, or chooses to live according to, moral values.
  2. If moral values exist solely in human minds there is no reason to believe they are necessary for personal development and fulfilment.
  3. If moral values are necessary for personal development and fulfilment they do not exist solely in human minds.
  4. Since moral values cannot exist in inanimate matter they must originate in personal existence - of which the most adequate and economical source is God…
 
If morality is taken to mean “the distinction between good and evil” there are only two reasonable sources of morality: God or human beings.
  1. There is no evidence that any other form of life on earth has insight into, or chooses to live according to, moral values.
  2. If moral values exist solely in human minds there is no reason to believe they are necessary for personal development and fulfilment.
  3. If moral values are necessary for personal development and fulfilment they do not exist solely in human minds.
  4. It can be demonstrated that moral values are necessary for personal development and fulfilment.
  5. Since moral values cannot exist in impersonal objects they must originate in personal existence - of which the most adequate and economical source is God…
 
Betterave said:
I agree, VS, the answers have not been very helpful. Your Wiki reference was not bad, an awful lot of missing citations though!

We recently had a long discussion with Ender in another thread (“Does morality exist?”) and were unable to get him to see the over-simplicity of his position. Ender thinks you must believe in God before you can believe in morality. Most of us believe that that claim is just silly and we presented plenty of arguments to that effect.

What Strawberry is worried about (I’m guessing) are the kinds of actions attributed to God in the Old Testament. Do we really believe God told the Israelites to slaughter whole towns, men, women, and children? It’s a perfectly legitimate concern. What we want to say about that, I think, is that God is not the sole author of Sacred Scripture. The human authors of sacred scripture are very much contributing to the content and what we have presented in the Bible is the story of people gradually learning to know God. So when they write about God, they are writing about themselves and their own understanding of God, which we can see is often very tainted by their particular historical-cultural situation.

So we don’t want special pleading for God. If there is any special pleading, it is for the human authors. But that is not really ‘special’ either - human moral understanding is always bound to a particular historical situation and this is part of what Scripture can teach us (we post-Enlightenment types tend to forget this).

But we do recognize that our moral understanding is directed towards more than just affirming whatever our culture tells us. We want to do what is genuinely just, not just whatever is accepted as just. We do seek for perfection, even if we don’t see how to get there. We interpret this longing - ‘the voice of conscience’ - as God’s image within us making itself known. When we pay attention to this longing, we notice that we are not God and that we are separated from God and that this separation is not good.

Of course it’s not like we are forced to draw these conclusions, but reflections on this kind of thing can serve as a kind of invitation to at least try to learn to know God, provided we are open to this possibility.
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A couple of thoughts. OT vs NT. The gates of heaven closed, then opened.

Moderns focus on the body and death. What became of these souls before the Crucifixion? Why should we automatically seem that it was the same then as it is now?
 
Ender said:
I am staggered by the complete lack of comprehension this statement represents. Not only did I never say or imply such a thing I never even raised the issue of God, going so far as to explicitly state that for the debate we were to assume that there was no God. Had you dealt with my actual comments instead of (incorrectly) anticipating where I was going you would not have made such an egregious mistake.

That argument was not all that different from this one, at least for StrawberryJam, as I have asked - and he has refused to answer - whether he believes morality exists and, if so, what is its source. That, after all, was the question raised by the OP.
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I wrote: “Ender thinks you must believe in God before you can believe in morality.” I don’t want to hurt your feelings, but I don’t think this represents a complete lack of comprehension on my part. I think you don’t understand your own position. But maybe I’m wrong…

Was the position you advanced not the following: If God does not exist, morality does not exist? (Certainly I think you raised the issue of God!)

Your presupposition for this claim was that the existence of morality could not coherently be believed in without believing in the existence of God; hence my comment. If you disagree please say something substantive about what your position actually is, don’t just tell me I’m “egregiously mistaken.”

To answer your question to Strawberry (if I may): of course he believes morality exists. Only a psychopath could believe that morality doesn’t exist, and it’s safe to assume that Strawberry is not a psychopath.
 
tonyrey said:
If morality is taken to mean “the distinction between good and evil” there are only two reasonable sources of morality: God or human beings.
  1. There is no evidence that any other form of life on earth has insight into, or chooses to live according to, moral values.
  2. If moral values exist solely in human minds there is no reason to believe they are necessary for personal development and fulfilment. :confused:
  3. If moral values are necessary for personal development and fulfilment they do not exist solely in human minds.
  4. It can be demonstrated that moral values are necessary for personal development and fulfilment.
  5. Since moral values cannot exist in impersonal objects they must originate in personal existence - of which the most adequate and economical source is God…
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Why (2)? First, the antecedent is false; moral values obviously *don’t *“exist solely in human minds”; at the very least they exist in human cultures/institutions as well. Second, the consequent - “there is no reason to believe they are necessary for personal development and fulfilment” - doesn’t seem to follow.
 
Buffalo
I ggogled your signature phrase
“We are not some casual and meaningless product of evolution. Each of us is a thought of God.” Pope Benedict XVI

And searched for it in the Vatican archives. I would love to see where he said this!👍
 
Betterave said:
I wrote: “Ender thinks you must believe in God before you can believe in morality.” I don’t want to hurt your feelings, but I don’t think this represents a complete lack of comprehension on my part. I think you don’t understand your own position. But maybe I’m wrong…

Was the position you advanced not the following: If God does not exist, morality does not exist? (Certainly I think you raised the issue of God!)

Your presupposition for this claim was that the existence of morality could not coherently be believed in without believing in the existence of God; hence my comment. If you disagree please say something substantive about what your position actually is, don’t just tell me I’m “egregiously mistaken.”

To answer your question to Strawberry (if I may): of course he believes morality exists. Only a psychopath could believe that morality doesn’t exist, and it’s safe to assume that Strawberry is not a psychopath.
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I believe morality exists, you are correct Betterave.👍
 
buffalo said:
A couple of thoughts. OT vs NT. The gates of heaven closed, then opened.

Moderns focus on the body and death. What became of these souls before the Crucifixion? Why should we automatically seem that it was the same then as it is now?
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The scriptures are in conflict? Hebrew scriptures against New Testament scriptures?
Gates of heaven closed? To who? God is bound by laws he made for men to follow?
Even Gamaliel was a canonized saint for some time. Or at least considered so for a while.
That may have changed in the late 50’s or so if I am not mistaken.
 
StrawberryJam said:
The scriptures are in conflict? Hebrew scriptures against New Testament scriptures?
Gates of heaven closed? To who? God is bound by laws he made for men to follow?
Even Gamaliel was a canonized saint for some time. Or at least considered so for a while.
That may have changed in the late 50’s or so if I am not mistaken.
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No - It is development.

The gates of heaven were closed until the Crucifixion. The souls of the dead were in were in the abode of the dead until then.
 
buffalo said:
No - It is development.

The gates of heaven were closed until the Crucifixion. The souls of the dead were in were in the abode of the dead until then.
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Then how did Gamaliel get cannonized? Even though, he is not considered so anymore?
 
StrawberryJam said:
What man wrote most of your New Testament? Paul, supposedly educated by Gamaliel. I don’t believe that, but you should know this.
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Paul wrote most of the NT? Luke wrote the most. But in any case…

DId you catch the part about the informality of cannonization early on?
 
buffalo said:
Paul wrote most of the NT? Luke wrote the most. But in any case…

DId you catch the part about the informality of cannonization early on?
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A bit of that I did. I missed the part where one could suddenly take back the title. With no reason offered really.

I did not research that part of it yet. :o
 
Betterave said:
I don’t want to hurt your feelings, but I don’t think this represents a complete lack of comprehension on my part. I think you don’t understand your own position.
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Your confusion comes from not using words carefully yourself and assuming that I don’t either.
Was the position you advanced not the following: If God does not exist, morality does not exist? (Certainly I think you raised the issue of God!)
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I hadn’t so much advanced a position as raised an issue. Here is how I started that forum - from which it should be quite clear that I was trying to exclude God from the discussion:

*There are two questions I would like to address based on the assumption that God does not exist:
  1. Can morality objectively exist or is all morality subjective?
  2. What are the implications if morality is purely subjective?*
Your presupposition for this claim was that the existence of morality could not coherently be believed in without believing in the existence of God; hence my comment.
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This comment is subtly but significantly different than the one I commented on. What you said earlier was: “Ender thinks you must believe in God before you can believe in morality.” This claim is not just false but demonstrably false - as any number of contributors to these forums who don’t believe in God but do believe in morality have shown. Nor did I come with presuppositions. I came with a challenge for someone to explain the origin of morality other than God. That I was unimpressed by the attempts - and could explain why - does not constitute a presupposition.

As for your comment in post 65 (boxed above), I would agree with it (except that it was not a presupposition; it was a conclusion) but the key word in that statement is “coherently”. If one cannot rationally explain the origin of morality then there is no coherent reason to believe it exists.
Only a psychopath could believe that morality doesn’t exist, and it’s safe to assume that Strawberry is not a psychopath.
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Explain how you know that morality exists. Where does it originate? Since StrawberryJam is an atheist he cannot say it comes from God so he is left to answer the question I tried raising in the other thread: does morality objectively exist or is it entirely a subjective construct of the human mind?

Ender
 
StrawberryJam said:
I believe morality exists, you are correct Betterave.👍
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I’m sure you believe it exists. I am equally sure you cannot identify its source. In this case I mean by “morality” a set of values that are objectively true and independent of an individual’s opinions as to what they are. I grant that subjective morality exists: many people behave morally based on their individual perceptions of what that means.

Ender
 
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