Morals without God or Darwin, just Empathy

We have a conscience, and the ability to act upon what it tells us. This is as close as we get to having 'our own good will'. You may say the conscience is the voice of God, or you may say it is just a survival mechanism. Sacrificing oneself for survival is no big deal, to me. It happens constantly in the animal kingdom, with no trace of the heroic.We recognize heroes because they did something beyond natural. They did something not many will do. We do not say the hero was made to be a hero, but that he chose to be a hero. I have not heard of person who has done great deeds from fear, but only, from love. I say, if we are heroic for our own gain, we are not heroic. No one sees heroism in a person who sacrifices themselves for fame or fortune. That is just not sacrifice.My point again was that morality without God, for me, is heroism with no more motive than survival. It is too bland. It has nothing to do with fear of God, and I have not seen love of God breed cowardice, It is not similar. If you want to make a hero out of a tree, that is fine. You are applying the concept of 'choice' to the tree, as if it had an option to be less noble. What did it do but survive? I tell you, the tree that will willingly die to save another is my hero. Ahuman who has survived as well as the tree, is most likely only selfish. I tell you, selfish is easy. Sacrifice is noble.

I feel that we are dualist in nature. We have two voices, one human, one divine. The only experience I need to lead me to this feeling, is my own. I hear the voice of desire, drawing me to what I want. I hear the voice of reason, telling me what I know I must do. I contend that my 'knowledge' of what I must do, of what is right in any situation, is not knowledge of the 'learned' variety, but of the imnparted.For sure I have learned what is 'right' by the standards of society and of religion, but I have not learned why I MUST do right, or what is driving me towards this. It is not the fear of hell, or jail, or of any torture excepting that of my own conscience. It is a fear of breaking an invisible law, for I have no fear of the consequences of breaking a civil law, or a natural law, but only an eternal law. It is not even a fear that has punishment, only a sense of creating chaos where there should be harmony.We have our own views on harmony, whether we ourselves can create this, or whether we need divine guidance. They are all the different rules with which we play the game. I do not believe we are all learning the rules perfectly, from culture to culture. I do believe there is one 'right' and that we have yet to learn it. I only deny that 'right' is a product of our own invention.

That is merely YOUR belief, is it not? Or have you proof of this assertion?Your belief that this is true, does not in any way make it true.

Find me a study of a human being who has been kept alone for all of his life, and prove to me that he shows nothing of what we consider 'morality'. Then, I may believe that morals are learned. Specific moral codes are learned, morality itself is not.

There is no one to thank for my blessings except nature. Thankfulness without a benefactor is called vanity.There is no default. Given a total lack of evidence I may choose to believe that I will die a natural death, or to believe that I will die suddenly and violently. Why is it so hard to understand? You do not have no belief. You have a belief in nothing. You belief 'nothing' exists, in spite of the lack of evidence that there is no God. I believe that 'something' exists, in spite of the lack of evidence that there is a God. We all have a belief. Yours is that there is nothing more than what we see, mine is that there is.

Oh, no. We don't share the same morals, but we certainly share morality. Our morals amount to our individual and collective best-guesses at what is 'right'. We can limit this to love for ourself, our family, and our tribe. You and Iceage have shown that morality did indeed exist amoung primitive and civilied ancient cultures, but a limited moral system which included only those toward whom we felt a kinship.The first efforts at 'civiling' the savage, were often those of the christian missionaries. History has come to despise the forced recognition of higher morals through religious leadership. Yet, that same moral system taught in the Bible and elsewhere in religious text, is the same 'love of enemies' and respect for those outside of our immediate 'tribe'. Morals have definitely come a long way, evolved, etc. We have been able to see past survival of the fittest, and have enjoyed prosperity long enough to begin to focus on the larger picture. If there is no God, where will our picture end? We are all striving for better, we are confident that better is possible, but we often fail to realize that better existed before we had even understood it. There will always be a better way, and more to learn. The only real difference is that I believe there is a 'best' a God/force perfection which is external to us and which we tap into, teaching what we have learned about it to the next generation. The onus is still on us; we need to LOOK for better, but we can't look for 'natural'. We look to ourselves and find a fight between nature, and 'better'. Sure, it is a learning process for a society, as a society is a reflection of a middle ground between the worst and the best. Our efforts at morality are not limited to what society has taught us. A single person is capable of tapping into a higher 'force' while the rest of society remains mediocre. To be concrete in terms, a saint or a hero has reached a stage of greater union with 'better' than the average member of a society. This shows me that something exists to be utilized which is greater than us, but can be found internally in great perfection while the 'tribe' is still far behind in moral developement.

This thread is about whether or not morality has meaning when empathy is considered its main driver. Survival is not part of the OP either. We have seen that empathy does not produce morality, it can just as easily produce immorality. The conversation evolved to include 'learned behavior'. Again, merely learning about moral laws does not make a person moral.What makes a person choose to do good things?
There must be some driving force behind the actions. I do good things because I believe there IS a right way. I believe that right is REAL. Why do you do 'good' things? Why do some people do bad things? Oh, I forgot...they mal-functioned. That means there WAS a right way, and they weren't good enough.

Human beings are incredible. No prob. Now, why are some human beings so much more incredible than others? I am telling you, again, that a person you consider to be a hero, is a hero because he is just like you, and he did something better than you did. Not more complex or biological or 'natural'. Better.Now tell me, if most of us are naturally inferior to the saints, heroes, geniuses, poets, etc. of the world, how can we even recognize them for what they are? Our admiration leads us to desire emulation, not to cold acceptance of our inferior genetics.P.S. There is not a human moral or ethical system existing which needs to utilize Machiavelli.P.P.S. Belief in God is not vanity. It is the great equalizer amoung men, the realization that whatever you are, you are not better than anyone else by nature or by education. Edited by anastasia, : No reason given.Edited by anastasia, : No reason given.

There is not one single shred of evidence that tells me why people do good things. There is not even one shred of evidence that 'good' exists outside of our little minds. Therefore, nothing I do is good or bad, I have just been taught to think it is.Please, I will explain one more time how I feel.There is a right way to live, and a wrong way. Right brings harmony, wrong brings chaos. No one tribe or society has all of the right answers, and we definitely have to learn and teach each other what we have so far understood. Again, certain individuals, Jesus, Buddha, saints, anyone who we may admire for their example...they by leaps and bounds surpassed what society had so far learned. This tells me that there is always something better which we could be doing.It is useless to keep giving examples of how morality has changed. Of course it has. Any society can assume that it has reached the best standard. We know now that many societies are wrong in that assumption, and we constantly are driven to find something better. The only thing which is so overwhelmingly different between people who believe in God and people who don't, is that I will say that there really IS something better which we are aiming for, and others will tell you that morality is a revolving door where things come and go in fashion, and 'good' is just an invention.I can't ask anyone to believe in God, just to consider that possibility that heros are real, that they have found something better than what anyone has taught, or anyone has been born with. Or consider that the next person whom you admire had no choice but to be admirable, that you and I have no choice but to be mediocre. We are either equal, or we are not. Nature has certainly not made us all equal, nor has education.

Thank you Larni! Human beings infer causality. Beautiful. Wonder what the hell we evolved that for. There is schraf here telling me that humans are so wonderful and complex, and then you telling me we are a pile of mush that infers causes when there are none. If you know better, why not be done with this charade of thankfulness and hodge-podge of antiquated 'feelings'? And here you were telling me that feelings are nothing to base an argument on, yet admittig that feelings exist without visible causes. Hm.Again, you need to substantiate the fact that YOU have no cause. Your morality is useless, contradictory, and is nothing more than a survival instinct...which is exactly what the OP denied. It has been proven that humans are not driven by a survival instinct. Yet, any time that an example appears which shows that we are behaving in a way that causes destruction, you palm the pea and claim that this same action is ANOTHER form of survival.

Au contraire, ma souer, I have handwaved nothing and have debated every suggestion from every party. I am sorry that either my eloquence or your comprehension is faulty. Perhaps we have not the complexity for this interaction.

Let's not forget, religion is a big source of influence. Because 'better' becomes subjective and relative. Not real. Because this is not an interrogation session. I never said morality was not 'natural'...we have a conscience, remember?What I have said is that making moral choices is not natural. We have a choice whether we want to act morally or not. We do not naturally do 'good'.I have no idea what is vain about saying that God gave us a conscience. I am quite sure that we have one, whether we put it in scientific terms or not. In fact, there is no need for science for you to tell me why you believe that something is right.I believe that there is a right way to do things. I believe that we have skills and emotions which make up a 'conscience' and which help us to figure out what the right things for us are. We learn from our experiences and those of others. Sometimes we just have to wing it.I believe that our conscience goes far beyond mere survival of the species. If it does not, it can most certainly be used for more.You are welcome to tell me what you believe.

I am not looking for 'evidence'. I am looking for people like you to tell me simply why you choose to do good actions over bad actions. I am looking for your motivation. I don't care what you have learned is good, I only care why you choose to do that good thing, especially when it would be more convenient or worth your while to do bad. I don't need a scientific answer; I have confidence in your ability to tell me this from your own experience.

We learn that bad things are not good for us and we constantly repeat them. We need a lot of motivation to keep us from repeating mistakes. I am looking for sources of motivation which those who do not believe in God may have when they choose to do moral actions. What if the future will be better for you or someone else if you do a bad action? I understand, and I think that everyone else would be satisfied if they would not assume that I have some idea that people can not be moral without belief in God. The opposite is true, and I am sure that people can be moral without belief or even knowledge of God. I was looking more for motivations to do 'good' besides of course, survival, because I don't think one of us consciously thinks about survival when we act. On the other hand, I do consciously think about God when I act, and even if something seems 'good' for me or my family, I know that it might not be truly good.I would say that for me to be a hero or a saint, I would have to do the right thing much more often and even when it is bad for me or my family. My question is not about how we learn to do right, or how we figure out what is right (intellect) etc, but mostly of motivations for doing. Curiousity if you will.

Of course not. Agreed, in a way. Doing bad feels good for awhile. It is something similar to a job-well-done, it gives satisfaction. We don't really need God to feel satsifaction, but its odd; Most of our satisfaction comes from results, and successes. In the world of morality, the results are not always visible. There are private battles where we tally up an invisible 'score' which feels good in the same way passing a test does. But the only test is our own Mr Hyde. We are satisfied with ourselves for beating him. In religion, almost all religion, there is a 'better-half' which must beat the other half into submission. I know everyone goes through this, but perhaps it is confusing to me what they would think it means.