Why Does Morality Come From God Alone?

[Antlerman]

*bump*, I have been pretty busy, Antlerman. I'm still in this discussion.

That's cool. I've been enjoying this discussion with you. Thanks.

[EdwardAbbey]

This was spurred by a debate in the Ex-Christians forum, so I thought I'd take up the topic here.

 

Why can't humans be moral without a god?

 

 

 

If people can't be moral without belief in a god, then, they have a problem.

 

My sincere advice to them would be to keep right on believing in such an imaginary Deity if that's what it takes to keep them out of trouble.

[Asimov]

Where I have difficulty with this is that I hear stated that morality “might” exist objectively as a possibility, but then everything that follows is based on that possibility as being established. How is this different than someone saying God might exist, so therefore we must act upon this and become a follower of Him? Should we act on the idea of God because one day he might be discovered through some scientific or logical means?

 

I'm going to drop this part of the discussion because it's confusing you. We can carry on a diff thread about objective moral thought.

 

You just said in point 1 that it is a possibility, now it is being stated as a fact: “There is an objective standard for morality”. I appreciate what you are saying as far as starting with a basic premise from which to try to establish a sense of reality, “I think therefore I am,” or in how you state it, “The standard for morality is life”. But what these are really starting points, not absolutes.

 

I wasn't speaking of objective in the absolute sense. Objectivism, using an ultimate value of reason, seeks to render intrinsic and subjective qualities of morality invalid.

 

The standard for morality is a starting point, an objective starting point.

 

"not influenced by personal feelings, interpretations, or prejudice; based on facts; unbiased:"[/b]

 

Cultural in fact very directly teaches children and individual notions of right or wrong. There is no way that you or I can claim complete and utter automony and individuality in our values.

 

I claim utter autonomy in the choice of my values, Antlerman. Simple surrendering of my "upbringing" (which is very different from my belief system) is surrendering my ability to reason.

 

Now you and I no doubt find this to be despicable! This is a violation of everything that you and I hold as sacred: the freedom of individual choice and action. But yet there is this inescapable question: how is it that the family members who can do this – as part of a culture – are not prevented from such a basic violation of the sacredness of human value? What you are seeing here speaks to the power of culture to create notions of morality .

 

Very true, I don't think I was denying this power of collective individuals to create notions of morality. What I was trying to say is that morality based on these collective notions and irrational ideas are invalid.

 

Culture in fact is ironically, very much like an organism. We need it. We can’t survive without it. We feed it, it feeds us. This is why I have always said we create God, feed God with our ideas and values, so He can feed us.

 

Hm...I don't think we need culture, Antlerman. I can't survive without other people, sure, but I can readily abandon my beliefs and ideas if they don't fit with reality. I think many people create it because they think they need it.

 

We accept these things by choice out of a need for the society to accept us and protect us so we can survive. It’s that simple.

 

Unfortunately, it isn't that simple, because if I don't accept something I seek to change it. Others who see that something is wrong will speak out against it and act to change. I accept certain things by choice because they make sense to me, others I resist.