Morality without god

It seems to me that you want it both ways. You seem to ask that Christians come up with a definitive view of God and an objective answer to how he wants us to behave but then say that you would object to a Big Brother forcing us to be moral.It is obvious that Christians do have varying ideas on the nature of God and how we are to respond to Him. In a sense that is the point. As humans we make moral choices. Christ is quoted as saying that we are to love others with our heart, mind and soul. If we take that message on board, whether as a Christian or not, then we are then able to be used by God to alleviate suffering in the world. I believe however, that we have the free will to reject that message and focus on loving ourselves.It isn't about what we do, but about what it is in our hearts that drives us. God is not a Big Brother.Within Christianity God is often called Father just as Jesus did. I suggest that this isn't a bad metaphor to go with. A good human father raises his children to think independently and to choose right over wrong. I believe that God is very much like that.

Speaking as a Christian I would say that there is no objective standard as such and frankly I think that if we think about it that is a reasonable position to take.I was raised in a home where I was loved and valued. I was raised in a home where the hallmarks were honesty and generosity. If God exists and if there is some form of ultimate judgement I suggest that it would be unreasonable to judge some one who grew up in a home like mine to the same standard as some one who grew up in a cold unloving home.It is obvious that every person ever born has been subjected to their own unique combination of genes and circumstances. My contention is that even though we might behave badly as humans we can never tell what kind of person we are with all that has influenced our lives, (or maybe even mental illnesses), stripped away. Maybe at the very core of a mass murderer is a heart that hates what he is doing and desperately wants to live out a life characterized by unselfish love. As a Christian, I'm not prepared to say how God will ultimately judge anyone, (which Paul says as well by the way).I think that the best understanding of this is found in CS Lewis' book "The Great Divorce".So yes, you are right. There is no ultimate standard, but it seems to me that is what we should expect of a just god.Edited by GDR, : typo

I had to give your post a thumbs up just based on that statement alone. It is positively brilliant and I'm sure I'll use it many times in discussions. It is clear and concise and so encapsulates all of Jesus' teaching, and particularly His call to love our neighbour. I agree but I'd put a little different spin on it. If I live out the Golden Rule in my life then I think Christ's point is that yes my life will be better because my heart will be able to find joy in seeing joy in others. I completely agree that our moral behaviour evolved over time and for that matter continues to evolve. I understand your point about it happening naturally, but it is also consistent with a god who works through the hearts, minds and imaginations of people so that gradually over time our nature is to become more and more consistent with his. From our perspective we have no way of objectively knowing which case is correct. Certainly we all have a basic instinct for our own good but in spite of what you say I believe that we can rise above that. For example I imagine that most people on this forum have donated to third world causes. From a selfish North American point of view I would be better off if everyone in Africa were to just disappear leaving all of their resources to be used by the tribes that I relate to. Instead the western world often works at saving lives in Africa and providing resources for them which requires us to go against our self interest. (The point earlier is that we can find pleasure in going against our self interest which again is precisely what we should expect if their is a god who desires that we think and act that way.)

I don’t see that it is relevant to figure time into the equation. Time is just the way that we understand change and as we only have the one time dimension we are limited to viewing things in one way. For that matter mankind hasn’t been around all that long anyway. Of course I would ask the question the other way around. Would there be morality without God. It is my belief that there wouldn’t be but I can’t know that objectively. Either way I agree that the Bible is largely a result of our morality but it is also a result of man’s search for meaning in life. (Which is not to say that an atheists can’t find meaning in life.) It is a loop no matter what conclusion we come to.

I agree with separating the two. In the case of how we view what we do ourselves when it comes to things moral, it isn’t so much what we do it is what drives us to do it. A simple example is honesty. Is it important to us that we be truthful whether anyone else knows or not, or are we able to overcome our conscience when we tell a lie when we are confident that no one will know?In regards to our outsider-sense I think that it boils down to the fact that some things are more egregiously self-centred than others and so it is obvious. Much of how we view others though is based on the culture. I take it as a compliment. And yet as humans we have been able to justify and frequently, and in a some cases justified it by saying that god wanted it done. If God exists the question is discerning what His attributes are. I think that we would agree that mankind is evolving morally when we look over long periods of time. I think that if God exists it would be logical to assume that our morality would have a trajectory that pointed in the direction of His desired morality for us. Again, I just don’t see it as being absolute. Maybe in some rare instance a moral case can be made for killing a baby. I think it would matter, because if it was completely identifiable we would lose a lot of the ability to freely choose. If it isn’t an absolute then we are left with our hearts free to sort out our morality. I don’t have a problem with that. I believe it is from God but not that it’s an absolute. I think what you describe is pretty close to how I understand morality from a Christian perspective.

If humans had absolute knowledge of an all powerful God and absolute knowledge of a moral charter which was decreed by God then, even if we had the opportunity to reject that moral charter, it seems to me that it would probably be in our best interest to adhere to it.I see it as being about the heart that drives our sense of morality. Our heart is our essence after everything else is stripped away. If we have absolute knowledge then our heart is never really free to choose the unselfish path. I’d suggest that when an atheist gives a thousand dollar donation to a third world charity he is closer to the heart of God than is some Christian who believes that his thousand dollar donation is going to put him into God’s good books, everything else being equal. But there is a moral charter in the Bible. It is in my signature from the prophet Micah and it is also restated differently in Deuteronomy and in the Gospels. We are to humbly love kindness and mercy, and to act justly. That is the Christian moral charter. The thing is of course you can’t command someone to be humble and you can’t command someone to love. Again, it all comes from the heart. The laws of the OT are a fore-shadowing of what it looks like when people have hearts that freely choose love. Sure, we might retain the ability to reject God and accept the punishment but when we choose to accept the charter of either a good god or an evil god we know that it is in our best interest and so we have relinquished the ability to choose without a certainty of the self-interest involved. I’m saying that free will doesn’t eliminate the possibility of a moral charter but I would say that free will does eliminate the possibility of a moral charter that can be followed by the heart alone. A moral charter could give us a set of laws that we could follow like speed limits but that isn’t the point. The point is, do I not kill babies because I might go to prison or do I not kill babies because the idea is absolutely repugnant to me. It is all about the heart.

I agree that much of what individuals believe about God is made up in their own minds. We have a strong tendency to believe in a god made in our own image. My point was that if we were given a definitive moral standard by a god that was unquestionably known it would essentially make that god a big brother telling us how to behave. God as I understand him wants us to have hearts that freely choose to love unselfishly. I would argue as a Christian that we should use thought and reason in understanding the Bible. Yes, the Bible can be used to justify immoral acts. The thing is that the Bible is not a compilation of books dictated by God but it is the story of God interacting with His creation over a long time frame as told imperfectly by people with their personal and cultural biases. Invariably people have used religion, nationalism etc to justify a power grab. If it wasn’t religion people would just find something else.It is clear IMHO that the NT writers believed that Jesus had been bodily resurrected. We come to our own conclusions about the accuracy of their beliefs in that regard, but if they were right we can essentially at that one moment in human history God did speak to us directly in justifying Jesus and His ministry.You suggest that that we can find objectivity in morals through thought and reason and therefore have no need for God. It seems to me that if there is no god, and if there is no fundamental objective morality then all that we can do is subjectively come to moral conclusions, and who is to say who is right. There however does seem to be a fundamental morality built into us. I think that everyone essentially agrees that stealing is wrong. However people steal, and when they do they don’t try and say it is a good thing, but they either justify it or essentially say they just don’t care that what they did was wrong.We can come to moral conclusions by thought and reason but we cannot tell whether or not we are capable of that because of the nature of the way that God created us or not. We have to come to our own conclusions about whether intelligence and morality is more likely to have evolved from an intelligent and moral first cause or whether it evolved from a non-moral, non-intelligent collection of particles.I think this reply deals with the rest of your post that I didn't quote.Cheers

The point I had been making was for a moral prime mover and not specifically for the God of the Bible. We can take away our concept of God but that tells us nothing about whether God actually exists or not. If we take away our morals then it is probably safe to assume that there is no moral god, but who knows what other god might exist. I would suggest that moral behaviour only started because God planted the seed in the hearts and imaginations of humans. God has continued to nourish the seed and as a result our sense of morality has continued to grow and for that matter our understanding of the nature of God has continued to evolve. I make that claim as I am a theist. As an atheist you claim that the evolution of our morality is the result of the natural socialization of humans that came into existence from a non- intelligent, non-moral first cause. (At least I think you would put it something like that. )Our individual beliefs about the origins of morality flow from my theistic and your atheistic beliefs. In both cases our conclusions are circular, or a loop as you put it.

I should have explained more fully the statement of mine that I have quoted. I agree with your post. What I meant was that if there was an evil god then it would be in our individual selfish best interest to get ourselves on the right side of that god but it would still be the wrong thing to do, and it would be wrong for mankind in general. (If a god like that actually existed then I can’t see how we would exist at all in the first place.)I started a thread Do Christians Worship Different Gods? titled Do Christians Worship Different Gods?In that thread I made the point that I would not be interested in worshipping a god as depicted in parts of the OT where the writer says that God advocates the stoning to death of people for minor offences. For the sake of the argument I indicated that worshipping a god with different attributes in effect meant that we worshipped different gods. Here is an example. Message 21.Bottom line - I think we are in agreement. The trouble is that we don’t seem to have an argument as I agree with you. Actually the Biblical version is probably closer to your thinking when it says to love our neighbour, (others), as we love ourselves. I understand that to mean that we always want the best for ourselves, ergo we should always want the best for others as well.

Sorry about using the wrong quote. I had to go out in the middle of my reply and I was jumping back and forth to "word" and mixed up the posts.Just so we're clear the what I meant to reply to was this: Once again we seem to be in agreement. I think our sole area of disagreement is that it is my belief that all morality comes from God working in our hearts, minds and imaginations. I think you might have a problem with that. (I still think it's a stretch to believe that intelligence and morality can evolve from a non-intelligent non-moral first cause. )

We agree on this completely. I freely choose to follow and worship God because I believe that God is/was embodied in Jesus and that He is loving, kind, merciful and just. I am free to, and often, (If I tell the truth - usually) do, go against my beliefs and act out of self interest but Like everyone else, I'm a work in progress. This is a real quibble but I have a bit of a problem with the word honourable. I'm afraid that by thinking of it that way we can become self-congratulatory. (Boy I'm a great guy for spending the last hour serving in the soup kitchen.) I think I'd say that we choose morality, (as you and I understand it), because it is the desire of our heart.

It's not for to me to judge, but if I were to hazard a guess, I would think that you are in His good books.

My position does not require an assumption that non-intelligent non-moral particles can somehow combine without any intelligent interference to produce intelligent creatures capable of making moral decisions.

My position does not require that. My position only requires that there is an external moral intelligence that is responsible for our intelligence and our sense of morality. This isn’t about specifics. The question asks if God is necessary for us to be moral.However, to be more specific it does not require a creator who knows everything and can do everything. It requires a creator who knows enough and can do enough to give us an existence where intelligence and morality exists. The rest of your statement is strictly a strawman that I don’t believe either. Sure but so what? All of that tells us nothing but the underpinnings for the human intelligence that is able to conceive of the idea of altruistic behaviour. The Bible has nothing to do with this. We live in a world that has the appearance of design. We live in a world that gives us intelligence. We live in a world where we can make moral choices.We now have, at least by our terms, highly sophisticated computers that have a type of intelligence. They required an intelligent creator. Why do you think that intelligence could be the result of random combinations of particles forming intelligence at all, let alone an intelligence capable of understanding morality. How do you know God isn’t present all the time. We can’t see an idea or thought but it exists just the same. We only know things as we experience them. Science tells us that we only perceive 4 to 5 % of all that there is. I don’t know what else is out there. QM tells us that everything is made up of what are probably non-dimensional particles, which is certainly non-intuitive and not what we perceive. In other words as there is so much that we can’t perceive that we shouldn’t just rely on physical evidence to form our conclusions IMHO. I’m quite happy to accept the theory of evolution but that is not the same thing as the evolution of our morality. On the other hand I agree that we are evolving morally which is consistent with my belief that God continues to work through our hearts, minds and imaginations to be more loving, more forgiving, more just and less self-serving creatures.

In my view yes He is. Two points about that however. Firstly if we weren’t free to choose selfishness we would not be free to choose unselfishness and we could no longer be moral creatures. Without the free will to make those choices we become no more than what our computers are. Secondly, and this goes beyond basic theism I believe that what we are experiencing is only the first stage of life and that it only gets better from here on in.