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Author Topic:   Morality and God
JustinC
Member (Idle past 4843 days)
Posts: 624
From: Pittsburgh, PA, USA
Joined: 07-21-2003


Message 1 of 46 (73949)
12-17-2003 11:28 PM


Morality and God
There seems to be a lot of assertions on this site with regard to God explaining the existance of morality. I would like someone (e.g. grace2u)to defend this claim, if they can.
What does one mean when they talk about objective or universal morality? What do they mean by right and wrong?
It is to my understanding that if one asserts Divine Command Theory, it suffers from Euthyphro's Dilemma. I have seen no one defend DCT. I have seen some, i.e. W.L. Craig, try and get around the dilemma by supposing that morality is a reflection of God's nature. First off, he has never (or I've never read, it's not like I've exhaustively read everything he's written) clarified what he means by this. Is it metaphorical or supposed to be an actual description? What does it mean to reflect truths? Can anything reflect truths? Also, why would we want to act according to this beings nature? Is it good? No, that would be circular. So it seems this moral theory has to involve axioms, as every other moral theory does. So how is it a better explanation?
It seems anything that describes how we should act can only be defended with an if statement. That is, we should act a certain way if we follow certain principles or have a particular objective.
[This message has been edited by JustinCy, 12-17-2003]

Replies to this message:
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PaulK
Member
Posts: 17822
Joined: 01-10-2003
Member Rating: 2.3


Message 2 of 46 (74002)
12-18-2003 4:32 AM
Reply to: Message 1 by JustinC
12-17-2003 11:28 PM


Re: Morality and God
Usually the attempt to get around the Euthyphro dilemna is to appeal to God's nature as being the basis for His morality ansd therefore insistign that morality is not arbitrary.
Such a response suffers from two serious flaws. Firstly that God's decisions are dependant on His nature is a given - all decisions are dependant on the nature of the being making them. Moreover according to DCT the only possible moral asis for any of Gods decisions is a previous command from God (and even that could presumably be set aside). Therefore it does not address the point that morality is based on aritrary decisions.
The second and more serious flaw is that for such an argument to make sense it is necessary to insist that God's nature is good. But this requires denying DCT to avoid a circularity - instead God's nature must be set up as the basis for morality. But this immediately falls prey to a variant of the Euthyphro dilemma - is God's nature inherently good because it *is* God's nature or is it the case that God has the nature He does becuase it is good.

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Prometheus
Inactive Member


Message 3 of 46 (74051)
12-18-2003 8:31 AM


Morality as far as i know is a set of Morals that one learns from thoes around them and from there parents ????? is this wrong

  
Chiroptera
Inactive Member


Message 4 of 46 (74147)
12-18-2003 4:45 PM
Reply to: Message 1 by JustinC
12-17-2003 11:28 PM


Re: Morality and God
Actually, there seems to be two different arguments that creationists use:
The fact that people have moral feelings is evidence that God exists.
People who do not believe in God cannot behave morally.
These two are different arguments since the first is based on the assumption that feelings of morality are somehow natural to humans and this needs explaining, while in the second feelings of morality are not natural and only comes about because of a belief in God.
But most discussions I have seen with conservative theists have mixed the two together.

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shadowdragon
Member (Idle past 7288 days)
Posts: 13
From: Pensacola, Florida USA
Joined: 11-08-2003


Message 5 of 46 (74417)
12-20-2003 6:36 AM
Reply to: Message 4 by Chiroptera
12-18-2003 4:45 PM


Re: Morality and God
I posted this response in A New Religion thread and feel that it also applies here.
I think common sense (which is not common), logic and reason should be used as guidelines for moral conduct. Religions generally set exclusionary rules which are not in and of themselves moral. Islam considers those not Islamic to be infidels and deserving of death, Christianity considers unbelievers separate from God and going to hell. How are these attitudes moral except within their own groupings?
I teach my children that stealing is wrong, that lying is wrong, that being physically abusive is wrong, that murder is wrong, etc.... not because of religion but because it is logically and philosophically wrong.
I read and educate myself to the best of my ability and try to instill that into my children through example and discussion. I take part in my children’s lives and tell them about mine. I do my best to expose them to everything possible and the things that they are able to understand at that time in their lives.
Good values and morals come from education, family interaction and communication, willingness to listen to another even when you disagree with them, being involved in your children’s lives, etc ad nauseum.... i.e. common sense and reasoning.
This is just my opinion of course but I do not see how religion can be the great standard for morals when there is much about them that is immoral when examined with an open mind.

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Peter
Member (Idle past 1478 days)
Posts: 2161
From: Cambridgeshire, UK.
Joined: 02-05-2002


Message 6 of 46 (74663)
12-22-2003 10:02 AM
Reply to: Message 5 by shadowdragon
12-20-2003 6:36 AM


Re: Morality and God
I think the question here is relating to whether or
not morality exists objectively, and derives from
God.
Anything could be considered 'right' if it were enacted
in a society where the activity is considered right.
Or
Would it be wrong to act in an 'immoral' way if either:
i) It was not considered immoral in your society (only some-one elses)
or
ii) One had never been taught any moral concepts.
...and how/who is to judge the morality of any one act?

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Flamingo Chavez
Inactive Member


Message 7 of 46 (76282)
01-02-2004 4:37 PM


The whole concept of morality seems to be a slippery one. If I were an atheist I would do the most logical thing and jetison it, in favor for an evolutionary sociology aproach. I think that Dawkins has made a good case for this. As I do believe in God I am forced to describe what morality is and how to determine what is moral and what is not. I think that my sense of morality breaks down to intutions and experience.
However, I do believe my sense of morality to be as equally rational as anything else on the market. I don't claim any philisophical advantage over a non-believer. If any non-believer tells me that they believe in morality, I would argue that their systems of thought break down in a similar manner as mine.

"Science without religion is lame; religion without science is blind." - Albert Einstein

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WILL
Inactive Member


Message 8 of 46 (80040)
01-22-2004 10:44 AM
Reply to: Message 7 by Flamingo Chavez
01-02-2004 4:37 PM


God and Morality
The question is - Which comes first, Morality or God? To me, it is the former.
The fact that consequences of our acts have far-reaching outcomes. But by the limitation of the human mind we cannot think of all the outcomes, hence to be in the safer side we choose to behave morally (i.e. to abandon calculation) ruling out immediate gains in favor of building trust among each other favoring healthy and efficient functioning of the society which in turn favors better prospects of survival for individual. So we relinquish our (quick) gains due to our faith and not through calculation, there comes a faith-factor as a property of mind. Due to this very faith factor, we tend to interpret the unknown facts of nature in terms of God. Once the notion of all powerful God is created, it becomes easy to correlate schemes of punishment and rewards for individual acts in order to further bolster the ethical standard. The free riders in the society are those who seek quick gains due to their calculative mind. So if such people claim to be religious, it may be just to take advantage, but in reality they are hypocrite. Eventually they are caught because the consequences of their acts are so profound that it is virtually impossible to ponder about every outcome and something unexpected happens. Furthermore, during the course of evolution, we also develop the instinctive ways to judge each other's ethical standard by judging their nature, ideas, and acts in order to know the charlatans in advance to preclude their undesirable acts favoring better survival of the society and hence individuals. On the other hand, people with morality get more support from society and hence chances of their success will be more than that of a even more intelligent but calculating individual. So if a society is surviving independently (and not as a blood-sucking parasite of other society) then moral people are most likely to be found there. And as this is the case with us too, the moral people are found to be in good number, and hence morality can be defined objectively. Faithfulness is an inherent virtue of mind and hence morality, so it should be by the genes. So, the question is - whether we can teach morality?
As far as religion is concerned, it is just a collection arbitrary set of morals, rituals and stories around (the notion of) God created differently by different people at different parts of the world. So religion san rituals, stories and prescribed moral values leaves just the concept of God, which is explained above. So Einstein's quote ("Science without religion...") perhaps looses its significance. But the religion of love, compassion and honesty is the de-facto religion which most of us follow tacitly and that is why the society is still functioning today.
Here is a link of a book review in this subject written by Peter Singer who is a renowned professor of Bio-ethics at Princeton-
http://www.amazon.com/...
{Shortened display form or URL, to restore page width to normal - Adminnemooseus}
Find more about Peter Singer:

If there is no doubt, there are no thoughts,
no thoughts, no truth only prejudices,
no truth no light only darkness. - A famous saint< !--UE-->
[This message has been edited by Adminnemooseus, 01-22-2004]

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crashfrog
Member (Idle past 1466 days)
Posts: 19762
From: Silver Spring, MD
Joined: 03-20-2003


Message 9 of 46 (80105)
01-22-2004 3:32 PM
Reply to: Message 8 by WILL
01-22-2004 10:44 AM


Here is a link of a book review in this subject written by Peter Singer who is a renowned professor of Bio-ethics at Princeton-
Doesn't Peter Singer eat babies or something? from the way Christians talk about him, one gets the impression they think so...

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Abshalom
Inactive Member


Message 10 of 46 (80161)
01-22-2004 6:40 PM
Reply to: Message 6 by Peter
12-22-2003 10:02 AM


Morality Is Learned Response
Morality in secular society is taught like table manners pure and simple. You learn it over a bowl of soup not a communion wafer. You don't need a god or a belief in a god in order to figure out that table manners, traffic laws, and courteous behaviour are required components of civilized society. Get a grip.
Peace is a human custom not a devine fiat.

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Loudmouth
Inactive Member


Message 11 of 46 (80176)
01-22-2004 7:11 PM
Reply to: Message 10 by Abshalom
01-22-2004 6:40 PM


Re: Morality Is Learned Response
quote:
You don't need a god or a belief in a god in order to figure out that table manners, traffic laws, and courteous behaviour are required components of civilized society.
Hehe, I was just thinking that you could argue for the existence of God through traffic laws. As in, "Without God as our guide we would not have reduced speed around school zones. If it were left to athiests they would let people drive past schools at 75 mph hoping that their precious fairy tale evolutionism would weed out the kids stupid enough to play in the street."

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Abshalom
Inactive Member


Message 12 of 46 (80280)
01-23-2004 10:00 AM
Reply to: Message 11 by Loudmouth
01-22-2004 7:11 PM


Re: Morality Is Learned Response
Exactly, Loudmouth.

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:æ: 
Suspended Member (Idle past 7184 days)
Posts: 423
Joined: 07-23-2003


Message 13 of 46 (80311)
01-23-2004 12:32 PM
Reply to: Message 6 by Peter
12-22-2003 10:02 AM


Re: Morality and God
Peter writes:
I think the question here is relating to whether or
not morality exists objectively, and derives from
God.
If morality exists objectively, I would think it wouldn't "derive" from anything. Objective things simply are as they are, not subject to the properties of some other entity.
Anything could be considered 'right' if it were enacted
in a society where the activity is considered right.
The important phrase being "could be." Yes, anything could be considered right, but in practice it isn't, so that fact is rather irrelevant.
Would it be wrong to act in an 'immoral' way if either:
i) It was not considered immoral in your society (only some-one elses)
Depends on a lot of things. Large segments of my society think certain things are immoral that I in fact do not.
or
ii) One had never been taught any moral concepts.
Moral concepts don't need to be taught, per se. Moral norms do.
...and how/who is to judge the morality of any one act?
Regarding the how question, I've found the best way to judge the morality of an act is to imagine that act done unto yourself. If you would not like it so done unto you, then you think the act is wrong.
Regarding the who question, I am myself, a sentient being capable of making value judgements. Others are free to align their values more closely with mine if it serves their purposes. I am free to modify mine in closer alignment with theirs if doing so serves my purposes, and what a wonderful game we all play!

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WILL
Inactive Member


Message 14 of 46 (80445)
01-24-2004 8:23 AM
Reply to: Message 9 by crashfrog
01-22-2004 3:32 PM


crashfrog wrote: Doesn't Peter Singer eat babies or something? from the way Christians talk about him, one gets the impression they think so...
How can you say that Peter Singer is a Christian?__Here are some Einstein's quotes:
"I cannot imagine a God who rewards and punishes the objects of his
creation, whose purposes are modeled after our own -- a God, in short, who
is but a reflection of human frailty. Neither can I believe that the
individual survives the death of his body, although feeble souls harbor such
thoughts through fear or ridiculous egotisms."
" We thus arrive at a conception of the relation of science to religion very different from the usual one. When one views the matter historically, one is inclined to look upon science and religion as irreconcilable antagonists, and for a very obvious reason. The man who is thoroughly convinced of the universal operation of the law of causation cannot for a moment entertain the idea of a being who interferes in the course of events - provided, of course, that he takes the hypothesis of causality really seriously. He has no use for the religion of fear and equally little for social or moral religion. A God who rewards and punishes is inconceivable to him for the simple reason that a man's actions are determined by necessity, external and internal, so that in God's eyes he cannot be responsible, any more than an inanimate object is responsible for the motions it undergoes. Science has therefore been charged with undermining morality, but the charge is unjust. A man's ethical behavior should be based
effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties and needs; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hopes of reward after death."
Source: http://www.geocities.com/HotSprings/6072/1einstein.html
[This message has been edited by Will, 01-24-2004]

This message is a reply to:
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crashfrog
Member (Idle past 1466 days)
Posts: 19762
From: Silver Spring, MD
Joined: 03-20-2003


Message 15 of 46 (80572)
01-24-2004 11:05 PM
Reply to: Message 14 by WILL
01-24-2004 8:23 AM


How can you say that Peter Singer is a Christian?
Where did I say he was?

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