Why Should God Be the Moral Authority?

[grannymh]

This thing is so replete with errors, it’s hard to get motivated to read it in its short entirety. Leela, puhleeze! The only things that are “misguided” are these people themselves.
jd

What you are reading is an outdated version. While the current Manifesto is similar in some respects, it would be more enlightening to study how it is being applied.

 

[grannymh]

Can you give an example of an “error”? This is a statement of what Humanists believe. How could it be in error? Are you saying that the Humanist Manifesto is wrong about what Humists actually believe?

Does everyone practice what they preach? Check out what the American Humanist Association was actually doing in 2008.

 

[JDaniel]

What you are reading is an outdated version. While the current Manifesto is similar in some respects, it would be more enlightening to study how it is being applied.

Hi, Granny:

I suspect the you are right, but, I doubt studying the new version will make it any more palatable, if it still rejects even the possibility of God.

jd

 

[grannymh]

If we can’t agree that these instincts can’t eventually take the form of emotions, can we at least agree that there are different, all but established levels of happiness for each person (though not all of those hierarchies are the same)?
quote]

 

[Contarini]

Hello everyone, I’m new to these forums. I don’t subscribe to any established religion, though I do have vague religious beliefs. I don’t believe that religion is a basis for ethical principles, though, so I’ll try my best to fit in here, despite the differences.

Now, to the question. Typically, I will hear three responses from Christians in this order (I know; predictable, right?). I’ll try to outline the situation:

1. First, the typical Christian will say that it is only fitting that God be the moral authority because he did, after all, create all those subject to it. This seems to me to be evidently absurd. God should be able to demand anything of us just because he created us? What of our happiness or suffering? People tell me “You should be grateful. You want to live, right? He gave you that life.” Well, that’s the problem: I want to live because I’m alive. He didn’t fulfill a being’s interests by creating them. Instead, he created a being with a desire (of living) that will eventually fail to be satisfied, not even counting the living’s other interests.
2. When the same person sees that argument failing, weakening, or simply not appealing to the opponent, they will fall back on God’s omniscience. It only makes sense that God set the rules, they say, because he knows everything, and thus can predict/foresee the exact results of such rules. This argument is weaker than the first. We see its weakness when we contrast it with Hume’s proposal of the is-ought gap, which claims that, since the properties of goodness and badness don’t seem to be natural (as compared to such adjectives used as fine sand or gnarled wood), and because they only seem to exist in one’s opinion of concrete items/circumstances, all sense of morality is subjective, or emotion-based. Moral knowledge is impossible. While I must agree that, if God can be proven to know more than any being (I don’t know how one can use inferior intelligence to discover a superior intelligence), and he shares our interests, he should be our moral authority. This is only true, of course, if God shares our interests, which, given that he is made out to be such an alien being, may be a bit of an ambitious assumption. In short, God has the infallible means to get whatever he wants, and we ought to follow him so long as our wants and his match. But just by flipping through the Bible, I doubt that’s the case.
3. Lastly, and in desperation, the Christian proponent makes the ironically feeble claim that, because God is the most powerful (whatever you take that to mean), he should be the moral authority. I don’t think I even have to point out why this is not only a ridiculously unconvincing argument, but also a dangerous mindset. This is a “might makes right” philosophy that not only divides God and creatures, but society as well (because it asserts that power means everything). To make this post complete, I must evoke Hitler for a moment. Notice that he fit the bill in both arguments (2) and (3), but we wouldn’t consider him to have the moral high ground over almost anyone.

Am I right in my analysis? Are there additional proposals or objections?

Your “objections” are quite pathetic. You hardly deserve a response when you go around deliberately picking weak arguments. Why do it? Or are these really representative of the arguments Christians have made to you?

The traditional Christian view of God is that God is by definition the form of goodness. It’s not that there is some being out there called “God” who is the moral authority, but that God is the name we give to that being who is ultimate in being, which includes both ultimate power and ultimate goodness. Arguing whether God is the “moral authority” is meaningless. When we say “God,” we mean primarily a being who is ultimately and absolutely good. It’s understandable that you would argue that such a being does not exist. But it’s incoherent to argue that such a being is not the “moral authority.” It’s like saying that the sun is not the center of the solar system (when obviously if it weren’t, the term “solar system” would be silly).

Edwin

 

[JDaniel]

Can you give an example of an “error”? This is a statement of what Humanists believe. How could it be in error? Are you saying that the Humanist Manifesto is wrong about what Humists actually believe?

Sure:

"(1.) Humans are an integral part of nature, the result of unguided evolutionary
change. Humanists recognize (2.) nature as self-existing. We accept our life as all and enough, distinguishing things as they are from things as we might wish or imagine them to be. We welcome the challenges of the future, and are drawn to and undaunted by the yet to be known. (3.) Ethical values are derived from human need and interest as tested by experience.

I’ve bolded and numbered three of them above.

jd

 

[grannymh]

Hi, Granny:

I suspect the you are right, but, I doubt studying the new version will make it any more palatable, if it still rejects even the possibility of God.

jd

More palatable is the right description for the present P.R. program of American Humanist Association. It draws the unsuspecting in so that rejecting the possibility of supernatural reality seems reasonable. Yes, every new thing I’ve seen still rejects God. The way the new version is presented makes it tough to remain a theist.

 

[JDaniel]

Sorry, but I don’t really see you defeating the arguments you raise. I see you rejecting them, but not defeating them.

If there is a Supreme Being, that being is only possible source for moral authority, because only such a being is in a position to arbitrate. It’s a Nietzsche thing. Without God, you no longer have good vs. evil, because you can’t establish an objective morality. All you have left is good vs. bad. Good vs. bad is subject to different situations and cultural mores, and it carries no objective truth with it.

Without some moral arbiter, stabbing a little old lady and taking her purse is exactly as “moral” as helping her cross the street. Who is in a position to judge? You? Britney Spears? Barack Obama? We’re all standing at the same level, and none of us has the authority to make that call. Some day, we’ll all be dead, and our opinions on the matter will be dead with us.

So, God is the only one who can be a moral authority. Human beings can only form an opinion and then use violence on each other to enforce it.

Hear! Hear!

jd

 

[JDaniel]

He used his power in such ways merely because of his values, which were apparently much different than ours. I don’t think it was because he was irreligious, or whatever. The point is that absolute power (infallible means to obtain any goal) is only useful if properly applied, and I happen to think that the god Christianity portrays is malicious at worst, and sluggish at best, because of the way he used, and did not use, his power.

Oh, how ostentatiously clever. Now that I can see that you wish to be the King, I’m liking your philosophy even less! You have cleverly indicated that you do not subscribe to “rules-based” humanism. How, then, shall we apply this system to everyone? Or, will it simply be assimilated because people will clearly “see” its absolute verity?

jd

 

[Oreoracle]

I do admit, Jdaniel, even if we consider all factors in regard to utility, (including considering the intensity of beings’ wants, etc.) we’ll run into some cases where it will be considered morally good to extremely oppress a minority. I’m certain that that path won’t cause the most happiness, but it would be considered at least good by the axioms alone. Here’s what I don’t get…

Are you really naive enough to believe that the human world can ever be free of majority rule? Even Christianity, a philosophy grounded on a supposedly unchanging being, has become democratic in its principles. Just look at Leviticus…or the entirety of the Old Testament.

 

[JDaniel]

Firstly, I’d like to know why you’d think damnation to Hell is necessary for anyone. And I mean the “lake of fire” Hell too.

Because they have embraced evil all the way to their deaths. Because they have no remorse for their evil acts all the way to their deaths. Because their evil acts were heinous.

jd

 

[Leela]

Hi, Granny:

I suspect the you are right, but, I doubt studying the new version will make it any more palatable, if it still rejects even the possibility of God.

jd

I don’t think Humanism rejects any possibilities. Humanists don’t have any special knowledge that anyone else don’t have about whether or not gods exist. Humanists choose to live as though this life is of utmost importance and try to live the best life we can live. We can either live as though our life is a preparation for an afterlife, or we can live as though this life is the only life we have. This choice is based on our assessment of the evidence for the truth of any particular religion. Anything is possible, but what do we do in the face of uncertainty?

Best,
Leela

 

[JDaniel]

I wouldn’t say correct. “Correct” makes it sound like we’re talking about facts. As far as the values go, I think Hitler, like everyone does, developed his values from the ones he had at the beginning of his life. But I’m sure that we can agree that he overrode some of those previous values in the pursuit to glorify others. He successfully shrugged off a general respect of life, causing the development of the respect of others’ happiness to cease as well. That was his major mistake in ethical reasoning, in my opinion.

Not so. He merely wanted to improve the species. He was simply giving natural selection a boost.

jd

 

[Sarpedon]

Do you really think pleasurable “happiness” is enough to fulfill us?

 

[Sair]

Well - all it would take would be one generation deciding not to reproduce, and the whole thing would be gone. In China today, they thought they were going to halve their population with the one-child policy, but they failed to take into account human nature. Parents prefer boys because they are cheaper to raise and tend to bring their wives home to take care of their parents when they marry, so there is now a ratio of ten boys to every one girl - which means that nine out of ten boys will be marrying outside of their own race. If the next generation does the same thing, there will be no full-blooded Chinese within less than 100 years - an entire race, simply gone, just like that.

True, but the human race would live on (anything short of the destruction of the earth is unlikely to kill us off now), and that is the biological imperative. Surely you’re not suggesting that different races constitute different species of human…?

 

[JDaniel]

God apparently thinks that Hell is the necessary punishment for a sinner. And it is he who makes this a consequence. One does not just poof into Hell; God sends them. It is perfectly avoidable, despite wickedness, if only God did not enforce the punishment.

Not so. Read Dante Aligheiri’s The Divine Comedy (in English, of course). There is a place called purgatory. That is where sinners might go, for a while.

jd

 

[Oreoracle]

Because they have embraced evil all the way to their deaths. Because they have no remorse for their evil acts all the way to their deaths. Because their evil acts were heinous.

Not only is the punishment gratuitous, they can’t even use what they may learn from it later.

 

[JDaniel]

I was, as I said earlier, speaking of the “lake of fire” idea of Hell. Which seems pretty self-explanatory to me.

I know that some say Hell is merely the state of being separated from God. But tell me: do you think God should be at all exclusive with whom he brings to Heaven?

Yes: it’s His club. Not ours.

jd

 

[JDaniel]

Ah, but there’s a reason for that (most of the time). Grades are representative of a student’s mastery of the subject. Cushioning a student’s grades would convey the idea that they know the subject better than they actually do, which is harmful (and only harmful) when it becomes the time where they’re expected to apply it skillfully in their career.

Moral character is useful (and only useful) when it influences actions. However, since God can snap his fingers and stop an evil action, moral character is useless if he applies his ability. Thus, he could accept heartless murderers into Heaven, make them happy, and make it so that they don’t make others suffer. Sounds ideal to me.

Not so. What would be the purpose of Free Will, then? Why that Gift? Snapping His fingers would effectively remove it. I prefer life with Free Will. Calling myself, “I, Robot” has no appeal to me whatsoever.

Now, God certainly does not have a moral duty to entertain my happiness; he is not morally required to do good. He should not cause others suffering without regard to the consequences though, which is why I oppose the traditional idea of Hell.

Neither you nor I (nor anyone, for that matter) can grasp the slightest iota of an idea of what God wanted or what were the situations surrounding the historical accounts from the scriptures. That would be akin to walking into court and sitting on a jury after the trial portion of a trial is over, and having the audacity to pass judgment.

jd

 

[Leela]

Do you really think pleasurable “happiness” is enough to fulfill us?

It seems important to me as well to distinguish happiness from pleasure and suffering from pain. Pain and pleasure are biological in nature while happiness and suffering are psychological (read spiritual as well if you like).