Sounds a bit tendentious to me. In the 20th century, non-religious morality proved much more dangerous and deadly than all the religion in history - just ask the six millions Jews that Hilter murdered,
""Hence today I believe that I am acting in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator: by defending myself against the Jew, I am fighting for the work of the Lord."--Adolf Hitler, "Mein Kampf"
What you need to do is stop arguing emotionally, and start arguing philosophically. I know all about how to argue philosophically coz when I was ten I watched a program on TV about Socrates.
Then you should read up on Euthyphro's Dilemma that was discussed by Socrates. He asked whether something was pious because the gods commanded it, or if the gods commanded it because it was pious.
The problem with "it is moral because God says so" is that it is entirely arbitrary, especially when you consider what other gods find moral which can be contradictory to what other gods find moral. What you are calling for is obedience to the commands of a deity as written by men. That isn't morality.
I'm not required to prove the points you suggested because I put myself in the same boat as everyone else - ie, I can't prove that my code of morality is any more correct than anyone else's.
Then, by your own terms, your God derived absolute morality is unfounded and dispensable.
My point is that non-absolute subjective, non-God,derived morality is, if anything, more rational and able to be explained than that which you are proposing.
Dredge writes:
No, I don't think you can - because such facts would be nigh on impossible to get.
We can compare the religiosity of different societies and the respective crime rates and violent crime rates in those societies. I am not sure why you are saying we can't?
Dredge writes:
You are equating morality with survival.
Not really. I am saying that subjective moral tendencies have their roots in genetic propagation. There are plenty of evolutionary explanations for altruism and self-sacrifice. You just need to learn about them.
Kinship theory, non-zero sum game theory etc. I suggest the books of Robert Wright as an introduction to such ideas.
Dredge writes:
If a decrease in morality results in a decrease in the survival chances of humans, so what? Humans don't need to survive, so there is no need for morality.
Define "need" in this context....?
The idea that humans "need" to survive and that there will be a tendency towards moral imperatives that aid human survival (previous caveats implicit) is not the same thing.
As for the "need" for morality - Well, in evolutionary terms anything that enhances survival (more accurately gene propagation) will flourish. I am not sure of which part of that you are disagreeing with?
We practice and enforce morality because we realise that doing so is directly beneficial to ourselves.
... or beneficial to society, as well, I would say. Consider Hitler, who believed murdering 6 million Jews would offer a direct benefit to society. Also consider the Khmer Rouge, who believed murdering 5 million Cambodians would offer a direct benefit to society. Then there's ISIS, who thinking slaughtering infidels offers a direct benefit to society.
Also consider the Khmer Rouge, who believed murdering 5 million Cambodians would offer a direct benefit to society. Then there's ISIS, who thinking slaughtering infidels offers a direct benefit to society.
Individuals and groups frequently attempt to devise their own ideas about how lives should be lived. Your religion is one of these groupings. Morally good ideas are often hi-jacked by morally corrupt people, Christianity has seen this several times, communism is another example. Hitler may or may not have been a 'true' beliving Christian, but he used some of the of Christianity and corrupted them to justify his actions. Pol Pot was just a psychopath.
The point is though, that these malignancies have eventually been overturned by more beneficial ways of living together. Immoral societies harm people and eventually collapse.
By picking out a few moral aberrations perpetrated by genocidal mass murderers, you ignore the general trends of increasing moral behavious across the history of our civilisation.
So, show us your objective morality.
Je suis Charlie. Je suis Ahmed. Je suis Juif. Je suis Parisien.
"Life, don't talk to me about life" - Marvin the Paranoid Android
"Science adjusts it's views based on what's observed. Faith is the denial of observation so that Belief can be preserved." - Tim Minchin, in his beat poem, Storm.
... or beneficial to society, as well, I would say. Consider Hitler, who believed murdering 6 million Jews would offer a direct benefit to society. Also consider the Khmer Rouge, who believed murdering 5 million Cambodians would offer a direct benefit to society. Then there's ISIS, who thinking slaughtering infidels offers a direct benefit to society.
Actually, there's an interesting question there. Are such people immoral or merely ill-informed?
Perhaps you have read the great popular Christian apologist C.S. Lewis --- if not, you should. Here's what he had to say about witch-hunts:
Three hundred years ago people in England were putting witches to death. [...] But surely the reason we do not execute witches is that we do not believe there are such things. If we did—if we really thought that there were people going about who had sold themselves to the devil and received supernatural powers from him in return and were using these powers to kill their neighbours or drive them mad or bring bad weather — surely we would all agree that if anyone deserved the death penalty, then these filthy quislings did? There is no difference of moral principle here: the difference is simply about matter of fact. It may be a great advance in knowledge not to believe in witches: there is no moral advance in not executing them when you do not think they are there. You would not call a man humane for ceasing to set mousetraps if he did so because he believed there were no mice in the house.
No similarly one might argue --- I am not saying this is certain, but it is something to think about --- one might argue that Hitler was simply wrong about a matter of fact: Jews are not what Hitler thought they were.
I would argue that he was still culpable, but when you think about it in this light the question does at least become more subtle.
You seem to have repeated yourself. Can you elaborate, please? Why is survival of the group important?
Generally, being dead is considered to be bad for things.
Je suis Charlie. Je suis Ahmed. Je suis Juif. Je suis Parisien.
"Life, don't talk to me about life" - Marvin the Paranoid Android
"Science adjusts it's views based on what's observed. Faith is the denial of observation so that Belief can be preserved." - Tim Minchin, in his beat poem, Storm.
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