I was stopped by a religious fanatic today.
Moderators: Tunnelcat, Jeff250
Re: I was stopped by a religious fanatic today.
BfDiDDy wrote: I was informed that, without god there are no values.
This is true. Why? Because if there is no god then we are the creation of mishap of physics. Right and wrong is irrelevent. There is no basis for "morals". At all. There is no real consequence for actions. There can't be. It simply doesn't matter. Life was formed by a random accident without purpose. Reguardless of what "value" we put on it. It was never intended. Laws would be nessecary to maintain order and preserve "life" so that it might propetuate; and for this reason only. Good and evil, right and wrong would not exist without God. physics could care less about these things.
Now, Derick, I know this was not what was stated in the sentence from which I extracted it. No, prayer, as an action is not a value, but should be valued.
God and moral law
BfDiDDy -
I haven't studied Kant, no. I hear some people are quite smitten with his ideas. I myself am thorougly unimpressed with modern philosophy as a whole--or at least what little bits I've read--so I haven't studied it much. Perhaps I have read all the wrong books, but I find philosophy full of naive logic where sophisticated intuition is called for, and fuzzy intuition where logical subtlety is required. Altogether, I find it stuffy, lifeless, and frustratingly error-prone. Suffice it to say, I have little patience with the subject. It's a gap in my background, I know, but one I simply haven't had the intestinal fortitude to close. (Is that not the most arrogant paragraph you've ever read? Ah well, I'm a DarnedArrogantMathematician, what can I say?
)
Anyway, it seems to me that what you said was entirely beside the point of what I said, so I think you may have misunderstood me (or else I misunderstood you). It's hardly your fault, I compressed some complicated ideas into a tiny post that I made before breakfast; in this post, I shall take more time and attempt to make my ideas unmistakable. After that, if after all I was the one who misunderstood you, you can do the same.
There are two logically subtle differences between what I said and what you seemed to perceive me saying.
First, I am not saying that there are no morals without scripture; rather, I am saying there are no morals without God. That is, I am not saying we cannot have morals without an authoritative set of laws, I am saying we cannot have them without an authoritative entity. I am not saying morals have to be told to us rather than reasoned to or discovered; I am saying we need God as a firm foundation for that reasoning.
More importantly, though, I am not saying that moral systems cannot be made without reference to God--certainly they can. I am saying that without reference to God, nobody can claim a moral system is right.
That is, you seem to be arguing with the idea that one cannot create a personal ethical system without reference to the Bible. This is obviously false--many people construct ethics without reference to scripture or God. What I was saying is that there cannot exist an absolute ethical system without a God.
I did not always believe this. The fact that I do now stems from my ruminations on what morals *are* and where they come from, so let me bore you with a bit of background. (These observations are so simple that I am sure the ideas are well known, though as far as I know they are original to me.)
Many people--and apparently Kant, too, from the quotes--seem to view moral laws as atomic. A principle like, "Thou shalt not murder" is supposed to be a self-evident law that stands for all time. Building a moral system for people who believe this is all about what laws you do and don't include. The quote you gave from Kant suggests that he is reasoning to universal laws and moral principles. He reasons to a law like "you shouldn't steal." How and why he gets there isn't important for the moment--my main observation is that the final product, and evidently for him the atomic moral element, is a universal law.
In my view, this is a naive view of morals. There are few--if any--moral laws that hold across time and culture. Virtually every moral law has context. Within internet culture, there's a moral law that you shouldn't spam newsgroups and boards; that law isn't necessarily relevant at, say, an AOL chatroom or the bulliten board at the local grocery store. On the DBB five years ago, we were morally expected to avoid inflammatory subjects; on the DBB today, explosive debate is encouraged. One could hardly expect that all of the moral laws that make sense in modern urban society would make sense in an ancient nomadic desert-dwelling culture. And vice versa. This hints that laws are not the basic substance of morals.
A second hint comes from the fact that interesting ethical dilemmas never come down to simple application of laws. Dilemmas are always things like, "If you could save a life by telling a vile lie and ruining a reputation, would you do it?" Obviously we have laws like, "you shouldn't lie" and "you shouldn't allow people to be murdered." The moral dilemma is interesting because it illuminates the laws with conflict--you realize that you don't actually believe "you shouldn't like", you rather believe that "you shouldn't tell self-serving lies." And you furthermore realize that certain laws are more important to you than others in certain situations. There exist interesting moral dilemmas precisely because you can manufacture situtations in which moral laws will conflict. The fact that you modify or abandon laws in response to such dilemmas--and feel morally compelled to do so!--hints that moral laws have a deeper foundation.
My own answer--and I believe it to be a good and valid observation--is that moral reasoning is not about laws at all. It's about values. Laws come from values.
We have a moral law about "no spam," not because of some arbitrary moral property of spam--not because floating somewhere out in cosmic space is an arbitrary yet absolute inscription that reads authoritatively "spam is evil"--but because we value a society in which there is productive discussion, and spam threatens that. The law exists to promote and protect the thing we value.
Kant seems to have an inkling of this when he says that an act is moral if, if everyone were to do it... the world would be a place he would like. He seems to be saying, I would like to lie, but I would not like a world in which everyone lied, so lying is immoral for me as well. This is a good ethical principle--in fact a biblical one, it is equivalent to the golden rule.
Nonetheless, Kant seems to be saying that he can not only demand honesty from himself, but from strangers as well, simply because he would not like a world in which everyone lied. (The law--no lying--comes from the value--an honest world.)
Well, who is Kant to say that an honest world is a good thing? Isn't that just an opinion, a personal preference on his part? If he met an Extremist Darwinist Philosopher, who believed that lying was a good thing, as it gave social advantage to those with the mental wit to see through lies, and would prefer a world in which lying was allowed and encouraged... what could Kant say to this man?
Nothing. The differing laws come from differing values--differing preferences about the way the world should be, and they are both merely personal values. Neither Kant nor the EDP can make any fair claim that the other should prefer the world his way.
That is the problem with moral reasoning without God. You can construct systems all day long, but when it comes to the basis of those systems, you can make no claim that yours is correct. Your moral reasoning may be careful and correct, but you have no guarantee of the soundness of your axioms. Perhaps you can build a beautiful moral system by correctly applying "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." But on what authority do you get that statement? How do you know it shouldn't be "Do unto others what they have done to you?" or "Demand from others what they demand from you" or even "Do whatever the heck you want so long as you don't badly hurt anyone"? Who says one is right and the other is not?
We here in the United States cherish our principle of equality before the law; any person, no matter what their economic, racial, or cultural background, is considered equal before the law. To us, this is self-evidently morally correct. But there are cultures in which it wasn't that way--there were cultures in which the rich or important got off easy for a crime that a slave would be killed for. Obviously the equality we highly prize was of no consequence to them. Who are we to say we are right--isn't a value like that just a taste, like a taste for mint ice cream? Isn't it just an expression of, "I would like the world to be a certain way?" Who says others can't prefer the world other ways?
You can't derive a moral system from logic alone. Logic is a support, connecting foundation to pinnicle; it is not the foundation itself, but rather it builds on a foundation of your choosing. And those foundations have a tendency to move! As long as moral laws are derived from personal values, and those personal values are mere preferences, there can be no such thing as an absolute moral. Ultimately they are derived from tastes and opinions, so they are no more than opinions; nobody is right.
We can agree on values and moral laws--typically we do, on the important ones. We all agree human life is valuable, so we agree murder is wrong. But if someone came along who disagreed, and who honestly would prefer a world in which murder was allowed... what could we say to him? We could tell him the majority of us disagreed with him, but that is all. We could not tell him he is wrong. When it comes to personal taste, there is no such thing as wrong.
Kant's law that you should not lie is derived, through logic, from his preference for a world in which everyone is honest to each other, and his assumption that you are morally obliged to do what you would like everyone else to do. But who is he to say that those two things ought to be universally accepted?
When you realize that moral laws come from values--values about the way the world should be, and things in it that ought to be cherished and protected--it is patently obvious that there can be no true "right" in an atheistic universe. A group of people might commonly value something, but there is no guarantee that another group wouldn't value it. And the universe doesn't value anything--it doesn't think or care, it's just a universe. Morals can be, at best, due to commonly held values, but those values--however prevalent--remain local preferences and tastes, not absolutes and truths. In an atheistic universe, morals are, however popular, ultimately arbitrary.
The advantage a theist has is that he has a higher entity than even the universe, and a personal one with the authority to decree that certain things are valuable. Even if it is only God's opinion, as the creator of the world, he has the right to say what it should be like. God provides a foundation for morals, and allows a universal moral standard to exist. Whether or not you think the world would be a cool place if you killed somebody, God doesn't think so, and ultimately it's him you'll be accountable to. Ultimately he is the one that makes the rules for the universe--it's his universe.
Usually this argument stops here, and the theist looks over at the atheist with a superior expression and says, "there, I can believe in absolute morals, and you can't," and that is all the farther it goes.
I have actually heard an odd twist on this, turning it into an argument for the existence of God. It is due to Christian philsopher and apologist William Lane Craig (as far as I know, anyway) and goes like this: If you believe in absolute morals, you have to believe in God, since absolute morals are impossible without God. In essence, if you believe that morals have some force beyond simply the dictates of society--if you can say "I am right" and "you are wrong" and think you're talking sense, there has to be a higher source of morality than you and your friend to which you appeal, and it furthermore has to be universally authoritative (it has to have the authority to make universal laws) and personal (it has to be able to care about the values those laws come from). That sounds dangerously like a God. If it isn't necessarily the Christian God, it's certainly an entity big enough that it ought to make -any- atheist nervous!
Overall, then, what I am saying is this: If morals were ultimately derived from laws, perhaps they could exist in an impersonal universe, and perhaps they couldn't--I don't know. But since they are derived from values, in order to claim that there is a universal moral law--in order to claim that something is *right* in an absolute sense (as opposed to right in a popular sense)--you need to assume an authoritative source of values. And values only make sense if someone is valuing them--it has to be an entity capable of caring and valuing. For the atheist, no such entity can exist; the highest possible source of values is humanity as a whole. For the theist, God provides the values and laws by which we all have to abide. Therein lies the difference--for the theist, there is such a thing as right and wrong in the universe; God provides it. For the atheist, morals -- however popular -- must ultimately be a matter of opinion. However rationally moral laws are supported, for the atheist, they must ultimately derive from values that are mere human opinion.
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I don't know how logically correct that all is, but I believe it is good. In my study of this argument about God and ethics, I have flip flopped several times--for the longest time, I thought the argument didn't work, but these days I tend to think it does. (For what it's worth, I don't buy all Christian apologetic arguements, even the serious and popular ones. For example, I think First Cause is junk, and always have--and I love to harass fellow Christians apologists about it.) It has taken several years of thought, but in the end, I do think this argument about God and absolute morals has some merit--even though it takes the form of a dilemma (God or no absolute morals) where many find "no absolute morals" to not be all that painful of a conclusion, especially when they realize what I mean by it.
Anyway, I doubt the theists you ran into had quite *that* sophisticated of a version of the argument in mind, but I know it is a popular apologetic argument to say that without God there are no absolute morals--and to mean by it more or less the same thing as I just did. It is unfortunate that most popular atheistic responses I have heard to the argument assume the same thing BfDiDDy seems to have--that the writer means that a personal ethical system cannot be developed without God. That is a misunderstanding of even the popular argument as I understand it.
-Drak
I haven't studied Kant, no. I hear some people are quite smitten with his ideas. I myself am thorougly unimpressed with modern philosophy as a whole--or at least what little bits I've read--so I haven't studied it much. Perhaps I have read all the wrong books, but I find philosophy full of naive logic where sophisticated intuition is called for, and fuzzy intuition where logical subtlety is required. Altogether, I find it stuffy, lifeless, and frustratingly error-prone. Suffice it to say, I have little patience with the subject. It's a gap in my background, I know, but one I simply haven't had the intestinal fortitude to close. (Is that not the most arrogant paragraph you've ever read? Ah well, I'm a DarnedArrogantMathematician, what can I say?
)Anyway, it seems to me that what you said was entirely beside the point of what I said, so I think you may have misunderstood me (or else I misunderstood you). It's hardly your fault, I compressed some complicated ideas into a tiny post that I made before breakfast; in this post, I shall take more time and attempt to make my ideas unmistakable. After that, if after all I was the one who misunderstood you, you can do the same.
There are two logically subtle differences between what I said and what you seemed to perceive me saying.
First, I am not saying that there are no morals without scripture; rather, I am saying there are no morals without God. That is, I am not saying we cannot have morals without an authoritative set of laws, I am saying we cannot have them without an authoritative entity. I am not saying morals have to be told to us rather than reasoned to or discovered; I am saying we need God as a firm foundation for that reasoning.
More importantly, though, I am not saying that moral systems cannot be made without reference to God--certainly they can. I am saying that without reference to God, nobody can claim a moral system is right.
That is, you seem to be arguing with the idea that one cannot create a personal ethical system without reference to the Bible. This is obviously false--many people construct ethics without reference to scripture or God. What I was saying is that there cannot exist an absolute ethical system without a God.
I did not always believe this. The fact that I do now stems from my ruminations on what morals *are* and where they come from, so let me bore you with a bit of background. (These observations are so simple that I am sure the ideas are well known, though as far as I know they are original to me.)
Many people--and apparently Kant, too, from the quotes--seem to view moral laws as atomic. A principle like, "Thou shalt not murder" is supposed to be a self-evident law that stands for all time. Building a moral system for people who believe this is all about what laws you do and don't include. The quote you gave from Kant suggests that he is reasoning to universal laws and moral principles. He reasons to a law like "you shouldn't steal." How and why he gets there isn't important for the moment--my main observation is that the final product, and evidently for him the atomic moral element, is a universal law.
In my view, this is a naive view of morals. There are few--if any--moral laws that hold across time and culture. Virtually every moral law has context. Within internet culture, there's a moral law that you shouldn't spam newsgroups and boards; that law isn't necessarily relevant at, say, an AOL chatroom or the bulliten board at the local grocery store. On the DBB five years ago, we were morally expected to avoid inflammatory subjects; on the DBB today, explosive debate is encouraged. One could hardly expect that all of the moral laws that make sense in modern urban society would make sense in an ancient nomadic desert-dwelling culture. And vice versa. This hints that laws are not the basic substance of morals.
A second hint comes from the fact that interesting ethical dilemmas never come down to simple application of laws. Dilemmas are always things like, "If you could save a life by telling a vile lie and ruining a reputation, would you do it?" Obviously we have laws like, "you shouldn't lie" and "you shouldn't allow people to be murdered." The moral dilemma is interesting because it illuminates the laws with conflict--you realize that you don't actually believe "you shouldn't like", you rather believe that "you shouldn't tell self-serving lies." And you furthermore realize that certain laws are more important to you than others in certain situations. There exist interesting moral dilemmas precisely because you can manufacture situtations in which moral laws will conflict. The fact that you modify or abandon laws in response to such dilemmas--and feel morally compelled to do so!--hints that moral laws have a deeper foundation.
My own answer--and I believe it to be a good and valid observation--is that moral reasoning is not about laws at all. It's about values. Laws come from values.
We have a moral law about "no spam," not because of some arbitrary moral property of spam--not because floating somewhere out in cosmic space is an arbitrary yet absolute inscription that reads authoritatively "spam is evil"--but because we value a society in which there is productive discussion, and spam threatens that. The law exists to promote and protect the thing we value.
Kant seems to have an inkling of this when he says that an act is moral if, if everyone were to do it... the world would be a place he would like. He seems to be saying, I would like to lie, but I would not like a world in which everyone lied, so lying is immoral for me as well. This is a good ethical principle--in fact a biblical one, it is equivalent to the golden rule.
Nonetheless, Kant seems to be saying that he can not only demand honesty from himself, but from strangers as well, simply because he would not like a world in which everyone lied. (The law--no lying--comes from the value--an honest world.)
Well, who is Kant to say that an honest world is a good thing? Isn't that just an opinion, a personal preference on his part? If he met an Extremist Darwinist Philosopher, who believed that lying was a good thing, as it gave social advantage to those with the mental wit to see through lies, and would prefer a world in which lying was allowed and encouraged... what could Kant say to this man?
Nothing. The differing laws come from differing values--differing preferences about the way the world should be, and they are both merely personal values. Neither Kant nor the EDP can make any fair claim that the other should prefer the world his way.
That is the problem with moral reasoning without God. You can construct systems all day long, but when it comes to the basis of those systems, you can make no claim that yours is correct. Your moral reasoning may be careful and correct, but you have no guarantee of the soundness of your axioms. Perhaps you can build a beautiful moral system by correctly applying "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." But on what authority do you get that statement? How do you know it shouldn't be "Do unto others what they have done to you?" or "Demand from others what they demand from you" or even "Do whatever the heck you want so long as you don't badly hurt anyone"? Who says one is right and the other is not?
We here in the United States cherish our principle of equality before the law; any person, no matter what their economic, racial, or cultural background, is considered equal before the law. To us, this is self-evidently morally correct. But there are cultures in which it wasn't that way--there were cultures in which the rich or important got off easy for a crime that a slave would be killed for. Obviously the equality we highly prize was of no consequence to them. Who are we to say we are right--isn't a value like that just a taste, like a taste for mint ice cream? Isn't it just an expression of, "I would like the world to be a certain way?" Who says others can't prefer the world other ways?
You can't derive a moral system from logic alone. Logic is a support, connecting foundation to pinnicle; it is not the foundation itself, but rather it builds on a foundation of your choosing. And those foundations have a tendency to move! As long as moral laws are derived from personal values, and those personal values are mere preferences, there can be no such thing as an absolute moral. Ultimately they are derived from tastes and opinions, so they are no more than opinions; nobody is right.
We can agree on values and moral laws--typically we do, on the important ones. We all agree human life is valuable, so we agree murder is wrong. But if someone came along who disagreed, and who honestly would prefer a world in which murder was allowed... what could we say to him? We could tell him the majority of us disagreed with him, but that is all. We could not tell him he is wrong. When it comes to personal taste, there is no such thing as wrong.
Kant's law that you should not lie is derived, through logic, from his preference for a world in which everyone is honest to each other, and his assumption that you are morally obliged to do what you would like everyone else to do. But who is he to say that those two things ought to be universally accepted?
When you realize that moral laws come from values--values about the way the world should be, and things in it that ought to be cherished and protected--it is patently obvious that there can be no true "right" in an atheistic universe. A group of people might commonly value something, but there is no guarantee that another group wouldn't value it. And the universe doesn't value anything--it doesn't think or care, it's just a universe. Morals can be, at best, due to commonly held values, but those values--however prevalent--remain local preferences and tastes, not absolutes and truths. In an atheistic universe, morals are, however popular, ultimately arbitrary.
The advantage a theist has is that he has a higher entity than even the universe, and a personal one with the authority to decree that certain things are valuable. Even if it is only God's opinion, as the creator of the world, he has the right to say what it should be like. God provides a foundation for morals, and allows a universal moral standard to exist. Whether or not you think the world would be a cool place if you killed somebody, God doesn't think so, and ultimately it's him you'll be accountable to. Ultimately he is the one that makes the rules for the universe--it's his universe.
Usually this argument stops here, and the theist looks over at the atheist with a superior expression and says, "there, I can believe in absolute morals, and you can't," and that is all the farther it goes.
I have actually heard an odd twist on this, turning it into an argument for the existence of God. It is due to Christian philsopher and apologist William Lane Craig (as far as I know, anyway) and goes like this: If you believe in absolute morals, you have to believe in God, since absolute morals are impossible without God. In essence, if you believe that morals have some force beyond simply the dictates of society--if you can say "I am right" and "you are wrong" and think you're talking sense, there has to be a higher source of morality than you and your friend to which you appeal, and it furthermore has to be universally authoritative (it has to have the authority to make universal laws) and personal (it has to be able to care about the values those laws come from). That sounds dangerously like a God. If it isn't necessarily the Christian God, it's certainly an entity big enough that it ought to make -any- atheist nervous!
Overall, then, what I am saying is this: If morals were ultimately derived from laws, perhaps they could exist in an impersonal universe, and perhaps they couldn't--I don't know. But since they are derived from values, in order to claim that there is a universal moral law--in order to claim that something is *right* in an absolute sense (as opposed to right in a popular sense)--you need to assume an authoritative source of values. And values only make sense if someone is valuing them--it has to be an entity capable of caring and valuing. For the atheist, no such entity can exist; the highest possible source of values is humanity as a whole. For the theist, God provides the values and laws by which we all have to abide. Therein lies the difference--for the theist, there is such a thing as right and wrong in the universe; God provides it. For the atheist, morals -- however popular -- must ultimately be a matter of opinion. However rationally moral laws are supported, for the atheist, they must ultimately derive from values that are mere human opinion.
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I don't know how logically correct that all is, but I believe it is good. In my study of this argument about God and ethics, I have flip flopped several times--for the longest time, I thought the argument didn't work, but these days I tend to think it does. (For what it's worth, I don't buy all Christian apologetic arguements, even the serious and popular ones. For example, I think First Cause is junk, and always have--and I love to harass fellow Christians apologists about it.) It has taken several years of thought, but in the end, I do think this argument about God and absolute morals has some merit--even though it takes the form of a dilemma (God or no absolute morals) where many find "no absolute morals" to not be all that painful of a conclusion, especially when they realize what I mean by it.
Anyway, I doubt the theists you ran into had quite *that* sophisticated of a version of the argument in mind, but I know it is a popular apologetic argument to say that without God there are no absolute morals--and to mean by it more or less the same thing as I just did. It is unfortunate that most popular atheistic responses I have heard to the argument assume the same thing BfDiDDy seems to have--that the writer means that a personal ethical system cannot be developed without God. That is a misunderstanding of even the popular argument as I understand it.
-Drak
Re: God and moral law
.Drakona wrote:For the atheist, morals -- however popular -- must ultimately be a matter of opinion. However rationally moral laws are supported, for the atheist, they must ultimately derive from values that are mere human opinion.
That's all fine and dandy, except when you consider your audience here -- atheists see your "supreme morality" as "opinion" as well.
So in essence -- to me -- there is no fundamental difference in the way you present your morals to the way I do mine. The distinction is only valid for theists, and simply a way for you to circularly support your own opinion.
Why? Why does God have the right to say this is the way it should be? It seems to me that all the counter arguments you gave to BFDD apply here to you. My parents created me, they don't always know whatâ??s best for me.Even if it is only God's opinion, as the creator of the world, he has the right to say what it should be like. God provides a foundation for morals, and allows a universal moral standard to exist.
Why do you think God is the greatest Good? You asked, (paraphrased) "what can Kant say to people with opposing views." Well, what can you say of Islamic fundamentalists? What if God told you to kill the innocent? Most Islamic Fundamentalists are theists in the strongest since of the word.
Where does the connection come that since God created the universe therefore he is the highest good? I didn't vote for him.
What about Satan worshipers, they disagree with you completely. I didn't vote for that guy either. Since God gave us all free will, you are still using your reason, to make the judgment that â??I choose the big guy up there as my moral foundation.â?
Re: God and moral law
The difference is a bit more subtle than that. It's not that I can claim divine and universal authority for my morals (though authority that only holds for theists) and thus circularly reinforce my opinion. It's quite a bit weaker that that--I just get to believe there is such a thing as universal "right" to argue about in the first place.Tetrad wrote:.Drakona wrote:For the atheist, morals -- however popular -- must ultimately be a matter of opinion. However rationally moral laws are supported, for the atheist, they must ultimately derive from values that are mere human opinion.
That's all fine and dandy, except when you consider your audience here -- atheists see your "supreme morality" as "opinion" as well.
So in essence -- to me -- there is no fundamental difference in the way you present your morals to the way I do mine. The distinction is only valid for theists, and simply a way for you to circularly support your own opinion.
From your perspective, it is only an opinion of mine that God exists, and so by extension, only an opinion of mine that there is such a thing as universal right and wrong. From my perspective, though, since I believe in God, right and wrong can be fact and not opinion. My perspective is not one you have to share--you're by no means required to recognize my moral ideas as anything other than opinion.
The difference is that I can self-consistently believe there are moral absolutes. I may not know what they are, and certainly nobody else may know what they are, but I can at least believe they're there. I may not be able to say that I know what the right decision is, but I can at least believe that the phrase "right decision" means something universal.
It's sort of like... on the DBB, we had an absentee admin for a while. If, in his absence, some people started to believe that he wasn't coming back--that in fact there *was* no admin, they would begin to believe the board had no rules. They might argue with each other about what they think the rules should be, but the fact remains that none of them is the admin and none can make the rules. We might make our own rules as a community, in his absence, and then the community rules would overrule individual opinions, but the fact remains that we made those rules--they will never reflect more than popular agreement of the board members--that is, opinions that are not authoritative but have become popular. On the other hand, if I believe the admin still exists and might come back, I am free to believe there are absolute rules for the board. I may not know what they are, but make no mistake: when the admin returns, his are the rules that stand.
It's like that. Because I believe in God, I get to believe there are real rules to the universe. Because you don't, the best you can do is construct your own--they'll never mean more than that they are popular opinion (or your own opinion, or whatever).
Really, I think many atheists are comfortable with the idea that morals are human constructs--or even evolutionary constructs. I find it unsettling, but humanists find it inspiring. So this argument shouldn't bother you unless you have some sentimental attachment to moral decisions having transcendant meaning. (And you didn't give any indication that it bothered you, so... cool.)
But yeah, it's definitely not a way to give weight to the moral opinions of theists in mixed groups--for that to be true, the theists would have to be able to claim they also have access to knowledge of what's right. I don't claim that in anything other than a very limited sense.
Ahh, I thought somebody might bring that up. I was trying to cut it off with this...Gooberman wrote:In short: Who is God to say that an honest world is a good thing?
That's my off-the-cuff answer. God has the right and the authority to make law for the universe by virtue of being creator and lord. I know you're driving at something deeper here, though: am I saying morals are no more than God's opinions? That is, could they have been different, had God been different? And doesn't that take me back to square one? Intuitively, I think the question is spurious rather than deep--an annoyance rather than a disturbance; epistemologically and theologically, I am satisfied to let the root of morality be in God; philosophically, though, I suspect you may have a point and my view may be naive--natural law may play more of a role here than I am allowing it to. Let me take a day and really contemplate it, then I may be able to give you a better answer.Drakona wrote:Whether or not you think the world would be a cool place if you killed somebody, God doesn't think so, and ultimately it's him you'll be accountable to. Ultimately he is the one that makes the rules for the universe--it's his universe.
Between you and me, I'm not quite convinced of them either. Very nearly, but not quite. It seems logically solid, but it just doesn't quite feel forceful--but then writing and arguing like this is one of the best ways to put an argument to the test and make it stronger, so thank you.Gooberman wrote:Iâ??m just not yet convinced of your arguments
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Drakon wrote:
Well put. I don't find it unsettling at all, inspiring...well maybe not, just good logical sense.Really, I think many atheists are comfortable with the idea that morals are human constructs--or even evolutionary constructs. I find it unsettling, but humanists find it inspiring. So this argument shouldn't bother you unless you have some sentimental attachment to moral decisions having transcendant meaning.
Re: God and moral law
Unsettling? Sounds like typical christian masochism to me. Let me explain...Drakona wrote:Really, I think many atheists are comfortable with the idea that morals are human constructs--or even evolutionary constructs. I find it unsettling, but humanists find it inspiring.
Morals, to me, simply contain what is best for society as a whole. And, as we've already established, that comes from various logic games and whatever, but what it basically boils down to people act the way they do for whatever reason, and there are good ways and bad ways to use that general behavior to promote the good of yourself, and usually the public. Now to find such a viewpoint unsettling seems to me like you would prefer to look elsewhere other than around you to find the right and wrong way to go about doing certain things, almost to the point where you'd prefer something other than what seems most natural.
And yes, I knew it was more subtle than that, that's why the smilie was there.
As long as I'm making overdue responses, I feel like I owe one to this thread as well. Tetrad thinks that my unsettlement about human constructed morals is masochism. I don't exactly know what he means by that, but let me say why I feel that way and you can judge.
You can go a long way with human constructed morals. It's not as though all law breaks down--a society can make laws and moral codes based on the common values of its people. You could even go so far as to make absolute laws based on the common values of humanity. That'll take you a long way, but not far enough for me.
On a small scale, I think there are morals beyond what society sets. I think I shouldn't be a jerk to people--I shouldn't insult them, act as though I'm more important than they are, and so forth. And I think people shouldn't be jerks to each other. But if I think that, who can I appeal to? I can't pretend it's a social law--the US doesn't care if you're a jerk to anyone. It might be a smaller cultural law--people in the same family shouldn't be jerks to each other, it hurts the family. But there is no general society I can turn to--every society big enough to have the authority to say people shouldn't be jerks to each other also doesn't care whether or not they are. The best I can say is to follow Kant and say, "I'd rather live in a world in which people weren't jerks to each other." But many are likely to disagree with me--they like being jerks to people, and don't mind the world being that way.
From the atheistic perspective, there can be no real content to the statement, "I think it's wrong for people to be jerks." Society doesn't think so. I don't have the authority to say so. The statement is meaningless. But I know God values people, and encourages kindness and gentleness toward them, and that he in fact expects us to treat others with love. He has the authority to make a rule like that, and he's totally moral. God provides a base for all the morals too high for society to expect.
On a large scale, God provides a base for judging societies.
Consider the inquisition, and the society it was in. In that world, the church was the common thread that ran through society, and what held society together. It's hard for us to appreciate that--back then, the church was a superior authority to the government--the church punished countries that were out of line. A threat to the church was a threat to the very fabric of that society. The inquisition squashed at least one or two potentially devastating religious movements. When one finally got through, and the reformation happened, and the universal church ceased to be universal, that society decended into chaos and bloodshed for decades before it found a way to be civilized again. We can look back at history and know that the idea of tolerence developed, and see it all worked out for the best. But in the middle ages, they didn't know that was going to happen--all they knew was that the threat of religious revolution was a threat to the thing that held society together. Is it justified to torture and kill in the interest of preserving society?
I don't think so.
But who am I to say? I don't have the authority to judge the actions of a whole society. Obviously they valued the rule of the church, and I sure don't. Obviously I value unrestricted discussion and scholarship, and they sure didn't. They were doing what was best for their society, with their common values. Who has the right to say that's wrong? The best we can say is that we don't do things that way, that our society, with our values, is the one we prefer. Does it just come down to preference? Can we say the inquisition would be monstrously wrong if it happened in the modern United States, but we are not allowed to have an opinion on whether it was wrong in medieval europe?
I can't accept that. But the only authority I can appeal to is God. I know he valued the people who went through that, and their honesty and conviction. I know he values people more than societies. I know he'll ultimately judge all those who lived in the middle ages for what they did--and though he'll justly take account of what they did and didn't know about his laws, and though he fully understands the society in which they did things and why they did them, his laws still stand supreme and real justice will prevail.
That matches my intuition much better. I have a powerful intuition that the inquisition was wrong, but I think it's unjustifiable without God. I can't accept that.
That's why it's so unsettling to think that morals are human constructs. Some of them are, and that's no problem for me. The moral that says I shouldn't whine in Descent games is a Descent community construct. The moral that says I shouldn't go over 35 on an arterial is a Seattle city construct. But some morals--things like an expectation of kindness, generosity, or even decency--have to go beyond society to have any meaning. Are those arbitrary? Are those ancient barbaric societies as justified in their way of living as we are? I find that a profoundly terrifying and unacceptable notion.
-Drak
You can go a long way with human constructed morals. It's not as though all law breaks down--a society can make laws and moral codes based on the common values of its people. You could even go so far as to make absolute laws based on the common values of humanity. That'll take you a long way, but not far enough for me.
On a small scale, I think there are morals beyond what society sets. I think I shouldn't be a jerk to people--I shouldn't insult them, act as though I'm more important than they are, and so forth. And I think people shouldn't be jerks to each other. But if I think that, who can I appeal to? I can't pretend it's a social law--the US doesn't care if you're a jerk to anyone. It might be a smaller cultural law--people in the same family shouldn't be jerks to each other, it hurts the family. But there is no general society I can turn to--every society big enough to have the authority to say people shouldn't be jerks to each other also doesn't care whether or not they are. The best I can say is to follow Kant and say, "I'd rather live in a world in which people weren't jerks to each other." But many are likely to disagree with me--they like being jerks to people, and don't mind the world being that way.
From the atheistic perspective, there can be no real content to the statement, "I think it's wrong for people to be jerks." Society doesn't think so. I don't have the authority to say so. The statement is meaningless. But I know God values people, and encourages kindness and gentleness toward them, and that he in fact expects us to treat others with love. He has the authority to make a rule like that, and he's totally moral. God provides a base for all the morals too high for society to expect.
On a large scale, God provides a base for judging societies.
Consider the inquisition, and the society it was in. In that world, the church was the common thread that ran through society, and what held society together. It's hard for us to appreciate that--back then, the church was a superior authority to the government--the church punished countries that were out of line. A threat to the church was a threat to the very fabric of that society. The inquisition squashed at least one or two potentially devastating religious movements. When one finally got through, and the reformation happened, and the universal church ceased to be universal, that society decended into chaos and bloodshed for decades before it found a way to be civilized again. We can look back at history and know that the idea of tolerence developed, and see it all worked out for the best. But in the middle ages, they didn't know that was going to happen--all they knew was that the threat of religious revolution was a threat to the thing that held society together. Is it justified to torture and kill in the interest of preserving society?
I don't think so.
But who am I to say? I don't have the authority to judge the actions of a whole society. Obviously they valued the rule of the church, and I sure don't. Obviously I value unrestricted discussion and scholarship, and they sure didn't. They were doing what was best for their society, with their common values. Who has the right to say that's wrong? The best we can say is that we don't do things that way, that our society, with our values, is the one we prefer. Does it just come down to preference? Can we say the inquisition would be monstrously wrong if it happened in the modern United States, but we are not allowed to have an opinion on whether it was wrong in medieval europe?
I can't accept that. But the only authority I can appeal to is God. I know he valued the people who went through that, and their honesty and conviction. I know he values people more than societies. I know he'll ultimately judge all those who lived in the middle ages for what they did--and though he'll justly take account of what they did and didn't know about his laws, and though he fully understands the society in which they did things and why they did them, his laws still stand supreme and real justice will prevail.
That matches my intuition much better. I have a powerful intuition that the inquisition was wrong, but I think it's unjustifiable without God. I can't accept that.
That's why it's so unsettling to think that morals are human constructs. Some of them are, and that's no problem for me. The moral that says I shouldn't whine in Descent games is a Descent community construct. The moral that says I shouldn't go over 35 on an arterial is a Seattle city construct. But some morals--things like an expectation of kindness, generosity, or even decency--have to go beyond society to have any meaning. Are those arbitrary? Are those ancient barbaric societies as justified in their way of living as we are? I find that a profoundly terrifying and unacceptable notion.
-Drak
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Of course those ancients are justified. Their morals were about on-par for the limit of their intelligence. They didn't have much of that, so the only morals were those that more closely apply to animals. Our morals have improved with improved living conditions and higher intelligence. You want to see some morals dropped like rocks? Just you wait until this economy collapses, or anyone elses, really, and food becomes a lil scarce. Morals will never stand a chance against instincts.
If this were the case, indeed your god could be any number of personalities. That's pretty logical to assume. God thinks this way, so you think this way. If a god thought that way, you would think that way, and never know the difference.
My lost my thoughts while trying to make sentences. I'm sure others will express what I mean anyway. (None of my English teachers ever saw more than three paragraphs out of me in school, My name on the paper, and then..::blank:: ..sigh)
No difference. I feel the same, but I don't feel the need for an authority to weigh it against. Your morals, and my morals, are the same. I just don't need to have a god to make me adhere to them. I decide to adhere to them on my own. I formulated them through positive feedback, while growing up. Borrowed others I thought admirable.The difference is that I can self-consistently believe there are moral absolutes. I may not know what they are, and certainly nobody else may know what they are, but I can at least believe they're there. I may not be able to say that I know what the right decision is, but I can at least believe that the phrase "right decision" means something universal.
(I didn't want to take it out of context)God has the right and the authority to make law for the universe by virtue of being creator and lord. I know you're driving at something deeper here, though: am I saying morals are no more than God's opinions? That is, could they have been different, had God been different? And doesn't that take me back to square one? Intuitively, I think the question is spurious rather than deep--an annoyance rather than a disturbance...
If this were the case, indeed your god could be any number of personalities. That's pretty logical to assume. God thinks this way, so you think this way. If a god thought that way, you would think that way, and never know the difference.
My lost my thoughts while trying to make sentences. I'm sure others will express what I mean anyway.
(None of my English teachers ever saw more than three paragraphs out of me in school, My name on the paper, and then..::blank:: ..sigh)
Re: I was stopped by a religious fanatic today.
I'm valuable to me. Infinitely so, no less. I can also presume that everybody is valuable to themselves in the same amount.Tetrad wrote:Drakona wrote:Who has the right to say a human being is valuable?
quote]
Works for me.
Who cares? Honestly now, it doesn't make any difference to me at all if you think something that happened a long time ago was moral or whatever you want to think. Again, your masochism is showing through again with your constant pondering of whether things that really don't effect you in a direct way were right or wrong.Drakona wrote:Can we say the inquisition would be monstrously wrong if it happened in the modern United States, but we are not allowed to have an opinion on whether it was wrong in medieval europe?
Of course not. All of those help keep society running smoothly, hence "moral". You can try to argue it however you want to, but I simply see those types of things as making my life easier on a day to day basis, and far down the road, simply because of other people's reaction to them.But some morals--things like an expectation of kindness, generosity, or even decency--have to go beyond society to have any meaning. Are those arbitrary?
These morals may seem arbitrary just at a first glance, but I have to repeat myself from a long time ago that a lot of so-called arbitrary things actually have very logical roots in culture. Anthropology is a very interesting subject, at least if you follow that particular line of thinking.