Morality without God

Hello again Mammuthus,
Um, yeah. Pretty much, I'm saying humans, bad. God, good. Of course humans can do good things, but, as a whole, we're pretty bad creatures. As to minds being controlled by God, um....the idea is that of choice. We chose to follow what God has commanded, or we chose not to. Is He sitting up in Heaven with a remote control, moving around followers bodies? No. Do we (believers) want to follow Him as best we can? Yes. But, of course, being human, I will get it wrong much of the time.

Nope, you claimed that if GOD told you to do something that was contrary to what He previously said that you'd have to conclude that GOD wasn't actually GOD. You implied that GOD was incapable of change, I never said that made Him imperfect, just not all powerfull and not like He's been represented to be. Why couldn't He tell us everytime He changed His mind? What's stopping him from releasing The Bible Part IV: This Time its Personal the next time he changes his position on genocide? Who said that He ordered you to do this on a whim? Maybe He has a very very good reason for you to kill and rape your mother, who are you to question Him? Doesn't He work in mysterious ways?And "He cannot" are you limiting Him again? is this another example of him being incapable of change and therefore not all powerfull? I'll rephrase the question so that its less innapropriate: If all morality comes from GOD, would a currently immoral act become a moral one if GOD told you to commit it? It's a simple yes/no answer.As for the "dr" if you're trying to make fun of me or imply that I'm full of myself for having the Dr in my name read my sig. I put that disclaimer in my sig because there are many people here with way more knowledge/degress than myself and I didn't want to imply that I have anywhere near their level of knowledge/education. And lighten up a bit, its an internet screen name that comes from one of my favorite TV/Movie characters and thats all that it is. I'm trying to have an honest conversation not put down your religion, I haven't made a single derogatory statement towards your beliefs. I haven't even mentioned my religious beliefs as they are irrelevant to this conversation.You agreed to Schraf's statement that morality comes from GOD. Going from that I asked you that if GOD told you to do something we currently consider to be an immoral act would it then suddenly be a moral act? You then tried to dodge the question. If you want to have an honest conversation please answer the above question with a yes or no answer.

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*not an actual doctor

Wow, I'm honored that my very first post is answerd by the great crash frog. (I've read a great deal on most of the threads before desiding to post my own thoughts and have always admiered your debating skills).When I say that there is an argument for a universal moral code I DON'T mean that I think that we nessesaraly follow that code even most of the time. Instead what I mean is that sentinat beings can agree that there are fundimental concepts of right and wrong.I state a beleif in a universal moral code becase a universal moral code answers to it's own athority. We (provided we have anything beoyond a child like fear of retribution) don't prevent ourselves from doing immoral things becase we might get caught, we prevent ourselves from doing immoral things because we beleve they are immoral, meaning that we recognise that such and such an action would cause somone harm, and that it is wrong to cause someone harm etc.I wouldn't commit an immoral act JUST because I thought I could get away with it and from the disgust you express reagarding abu grabe and those obediance experiments I don't think you would either. I COULD see myself commiting an immoral act if:1) I though I could "get away with it"
and
2)There was some kind of heavy pressure on me to commit the act. i.e. an athority figure telling me that it was alright etc.I hope that i still wouldn't do it but it's entirely possible to imagine, as humans commit immoral acts all the time.Human cultures DO have different moral codes but ALL human cultures still have a sense of right and wrong. I challenge you to find a completley immoral socioty.

But how can that be said if nobody can agree on what those concepts are? The much more reasonable explanation is that we invent the systems of morality that service our society best, and deem them "universal". Of course, they never are. No, we pretty much don't do them because we might get caught. The evidence for this is that almost every human being immediately abandons their morals when its clear that they won't be "caught", and when no one they know (or recognize as "kin") will be hurt. Well, I'd like to think that was true, but better men than I have fallen prey to temptation. It's an arrogance bordering on hubris to assert such confidence in one's moral fortitude. (Funny story - my dad, a professor of theatre, taught me about hubris when I was 6. Other dads teach their kids baseball; mine, hubris. Oh, well.)I'd like to think that I have some protection from knowledge of the obedience experiments I mentioned; that I'm forarmed by the knowledge of my own weakness. Hopefully, I'll never know. Oh, sure. Absolutely. But that's simply explained by the fact that we're social animals; we need certain rules (which tend to be predictable from game theory) in order to "play nice" with each other. Moral systems benefit everybody, especially the cheaters, until everyone becomes a cheater. Then nobody benefits. Therefore, there's a considerable natural advantage in a society for it to develop rules and enforcement mechanisms to keep cheating down.It's not just humans. Research suggests that all social animals develop moral codes; even chimpanzees develop rules about fair trades and will react negatively to unfairness. Such a society doesn't last long; hence, the reason all societies we observe have moral codes. It really requires nothing more than natural selection to explain moral codes; certainly nothing as complicated as a supernatural universal moral code (that nobody can agree on, anyway.)

Perhaps I should have said that whether you beleve in a God or not your sense of right and wrong should extend beyond responding to an athority. If you only follow an athority reagrding questions of right and wrong you could wind up making big mistakes if that athority tells you to do something that IS wrong (or if you beleve that it is telling you that).So the correct respponse to somone who says that morality comes from God is to say, (as Dr. Jones did) "well what if God tells you to (insert horribly awful thing that is transparently immoral)"?And the correct response to an athest who says "We act moraly because society rewards moral behavior" or a similar statement, is to ask "Well what if society rewarded (insert horibly awful thing usualy oblequely referencing the holocuast)"?Both questions are used to illistrate the point that a better morality is one that can make it's own consistant choices regardless of the presence or absince of an athority.

Ok, I can agree with that. From my atheist perspective, I can recognize that it all works better if we view morality as a construct that exists above any particular implementation of it; in particular, it works best of lawgivers don't consider themselves the source of the law (and therefore above it), but rather, the conduit of law.

I agree with you 100% about the materialistic origin for our sense of morality. You keep implying that I'm imagining some mystical moral force that automaticly gives us a sense of right and wrong.Look, hubris or not, if you belive that it would be wrong to commit an immoral act even under pressure from athority then you are agreeing with me.

You said,"Ok, I can agree with that. From my atheist perspective, I can recognize that it all works better if we view morality as a construct that exists above any particular implementation of it; in particular, it works best of lawgivers don't consider themselves the source of the law (and therefore above it), but rather, the conduit of law."Right! and the phrase "conduit of the law" implies some concept of a universal law.Incedentaly my central moral law on whitch I base all other ethical decitions is:It is "bad" to Harm, Coerce, Distroy, or Deceve sentienat beings.I use Good and Bad to define morally relvant aspects of a desiton. Though It is always bad to kill It is sometimes the right choice.So good and bad= moral relevant aspects
Right and wrong= whether the choice composed of those aspects is the correct one.

I do apologize if I misrepresented you, but that's the impression I get when one says "universal morality." That is, some moral force that applies not just to the scope of human experience, but to all doings in the universe.

You said,"I do apologize if I misrepresented you, but that's the impression I get when one says "universal morality." That is, some moral force that applies not just to the scope of human experience, but to all doings in the universe."Think nothing of it.But now this brings up an intersting question. Though we seem to agree that their is no moral "force" that compels us to do the right thing, do we beleive that there is a universal moral code? Meaning, are some things right and wrong good and bad universaly? I think so, but I wonder what other interpretainons there are.This message has been edited by The Dread Dormammu, 10-26-2004 08:15 PM

Across every culture, you mean?Even within a culture, we can't establish a single moral precept without an almost infinite number of qualifications: "Stealing is wrong - but the government gets to tax you." or "Killing is wrong - except in self-defense."Even within a culture, nobody can come up with a single moral precept that is universally true, in every situation. Fat chance trying to come up with precepts that are universal across cultures.

That is why I drew the distiction between good and bad, and right and wrong (Though there are probably some better terms out there). Killing is always BAD but it is sometimes the "right" desicion.Imagine somone is about to shoot you, it would be "Bad" (meaning regrettable) to shoot him in self defence, but if it was the only way to defend yourself, then it would be the "right" choice (meaning the best possible). If however it wasn't the best possible choice, say you had the power to instantly and temporaraly paralize the person, then shooting him would be the "Wrong" choice because you had an option avalable with fewer "bad" aspects.

You said,"Across every culture, you mean?"No I meant across everyTHING. It is immaterial that cultures can't agree on what is right and wrong since we have already agreed that these are mearly "conduits" to a larger morality.You can even apply this to animals or inanmate obects (good luck trying to talk to them about it though) for example it is wrong for a snake to bite a child that was only playing near it and meant it no harm.You can make an argument that the snake thought it was being threatend but the snake had incomplete and inaccurate information. The snake made the wrong choice even though, it thought it was the right choice. Our goal then is not to change the snakes mind (again good luck) but to have animal control move the snake to some place where it is't likely to cause harm anymore.The same sort of rules apply to humans. If a human beleved that his life was in danger and killed someone, in what they thought was self defence, that may or may not have been the "right" choice. If we have strong evedence that this person wasn't in any danger then we might imprison them, make sure that they take there medication, etc. If we have strong evedence that they were in danger then we might do nothing.

Hi achesst,
Thank you for your answer. I still have a few questions though

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Of course humans can do good things, but, as a whole, we're pretty bad creatures. As to minds being controlled by God, um....the idea is that of choice.

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but I don't see how humans can do good things based on what you are saying. When humans do good things it is only under the direct control of god. So they only have a free choice to do bad. It suggests that everyone is a crazed murderous maniac and that only direct intervention by a supreme being allows for society to even minimally function. We can only choose one of two outcomes (ignoring situations which may be morally ambigious) in other words, we have no choice. We only do bad things and only direct intervention by mind control do we behave. Do you disagree?
Cheers,
M

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For Him to tell me to do something directly against what He has already said to be moral would merely show that whomever is talking to me is not Him.

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But you said that God is the source of morality.This means that he is not bound by it and can change it at any time.Therefore, if God said it was moral to do X (even if it is immoral by the old moral standard), it would be a moral thing to do, yes?