Can morality be based off of lies?

[e2ekiel]

I would think honesty, to others and especially to oneself, would be a fundamental aspect of being moral. That lies and deception could inadvertently skew judgment on what was the more moral path. What do you think?

Morality based on truth is a world we can all hope to live in. an analogy is building a brickwall. If at the base you are 1cm off vertical, by the time your wall in 10metres high it's going to be 1metre off plumb and eventually, if you keep building it will topple over.

Likewise morality, if it's based on a known lie you will have to continue to skew your "mis-truth" on which you base your morality to the point where you have to swallow your pride and say that you were wrong or,if one is belligerent enough, follow the "mis-truth" to it's logical outcome and morality topples over and becomes amorality.

 

[McBell]

But can morality itself be predicated on a falsehood? I am pretty sure that the question borders on nonsense.

I wonder if you would be able to suspend your beliefs long enough to honestly entertain a scenario?

Can you suspend your beliefs and entertain the scenario that the Bible and all the Scriptures the Bible is based upon are nothing more than blatant lies created for no other reason than to control the masses?

If you can, you should be able to see how the question does not border on nonsense.


Note:
I am NOT claiming that the Bible and all the scriptures the Bible are based upon are blatant lies.
I am merely attempting to show that the question is not nonsense.

 

[Tellurian]

The morals of Christians, Jews, and Muslims come from the teachings in the NT, the Torah, and the Koran, and those moral teachings supposedly came from an alleged god of the Semitic peoples, but the existence of that god is a lie, therefore, the supposed source of the morals is a lie. Telling people the moral teachings came from a god would have been a way of intimidating the people into following those teachings.

 

[ManTimeForgot]

I wonder if you would be able to suspend your beliefs long enough to honestly entertain a scenario?

Can you suspend your beliefs and entertain the scenario that the Bible and all the Scriptures the Bible is based upon are nothing more than blatant lies created for no other reason than to control the masses?

If you can, you should be able to see how the question does not border on nonsense.


Note:
I am NOT claiming that the Bible and all the scriptures the Bible are based upon are blatant lies.
I am merely attempting to show that the question is not nonsense.

Actually it is (also note I said borders on, not the same as actually being). IF, and that is a huge if, the entire foundation for the scriptures in the Bible were to control the masses, then there would be whole sections of the Bible that are there now which would never have been allowed in to the work. The sermon on the mount essentially preaches going against authority. A rich man can never get into heaven? Well there goes the leadership of every denomination on the planet.

The point being is that if a system begins with a false premise, then you can't ever get to truth if the system is consistent.

"What happens if the system isn't consistent?" You get cognitive dissonance and times/situations where the dogma will conflict with itself.


You can interject lies all you like, and that is precisely what you are asking me to do. I am fairly confidant you cannot have a foundation of falsehood, but you can and will find falsehood interjected all the time. If the foundation of your morality system is that it is okay to kill people whenever you feel like, then you might get some people to follow you at first. People can be mistaken. But such a system does not survive any tests that it undergoes.


Say what you will about the Bible, but its code of morality is sufficiently indistinct (whether that is due to multiple interpretations or multiple messages) that trying to isolate a foundational falsehood would be extremely difficult. And its core moral tenets (ten commandments) are shared with a great many other religions (if you remove the commandment regarding "God" then it becomes close to universal; especially if you are willing to equate keeping the sabbath with rest enough that you don't overdo it). Judaism did not invent the ten commandments out of nowhere, and societies would not invent moral foundations which lead to societal disruption (or if they did, then those societies lost out in competitive struggle).


To put this into perspective: If a society adopts a tenet because they are working under an assumption that is actually counter (or not a part of) human nature, then the tenet is going to fail to produce whatever its intended effect is. In which case the society will either drop the tenet or be forced to try and compete against other societies whilst being handicapped by this improper tenet.

MTF

 

[rusra02]

I would think honesty, to others and especially to oneself, would be a fundamental aspect of being moral. That lies and deception could inadvertently skew judgment on what was the more moral path. What do you think?

For those who believe the Bible, the answer is clear. "Now that you have put away falsehood, speak truth each one of you with his neighbor." (Ephesians 4:25) John 8:44 tells us that the Devil is "a liar and the father of the lie." Satan's lie to Eve brought suffering and death to mankind, and Satan is still "misleading the entire inhabited earth." (Revelation 12:9) God, by contrast, is called "the God of truth" and the Bible assures us "God.. cannot lie". (Psalm 31:5, (Titus 1:2)
Revelation 21:8 assures us that "all the liars, their portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulphur. This means the second death." Second death represents eternal destruction as if burned up in a symbolic lake of fire and sulphur.

 

[McBell]

Actually it is (also note I said borders on, not the same as actually being). IF, and that is a huge if, the entire foundation for the scriptures in the Bible were to control the masses, then there would be whole sections of the Bible that are there now which would never have been allowed in to the work. The sermon on the mount essentially preaches going against authority. A rich man can never get into heaven? Well there goes the leadership of every denomination on the planet.

The point being is that if a system begins with a false premise, then you can't ever get to truth if the system is consistent.

"What happens if the system isn't consistent?" You get cognitive dissonance and times/situations where the dogma will conflict with itself.


You can interject lies all you like, and that is precisely what you are asking me to do. I am fairly confidant you cannot have a foundation of falsehood, but you can and will find falsehood interjected all the time. If the foundation of your morality system is that it is okay to kill people whenever you feel like, then you might get some people to follow you at first. People can be mistaken. But such a system does not survive any tests that it undergoes.


Say what you will about the Bible, but its code of morality is sufficiently indistinct (whether that is due to multiple interpretations or multiple messages) that trying to isolate a foundational falsehood would be extremely difficult. And its core moral tenets (ten commandments) are shared with a great many other religions (if you remove the commandment regarding "God" then it becomes close to universal; especially if you are willing to equate keeping the sabbath with rest enough that you don't overdo it). Judaism did not invent the ten commandments out of nowhere, and societies would not invent moral foundations which lead to societal disruption (or if they did, then those societies lost out in competitive struggle).


To put this into perspective: If a society adopts a tenet because they are working under an assumption that is actually counter (or not a part of) human nature, then the tenet is going to fail to produce whatever its intended effect is. In which case the society will either drop the tenet or be forced to try and compete against other societies whilst being handicapped by this improper tenet.

MTF

I see you are not able to put aside your beliefs...

 

[ManTimeForgot]

I see you are not able to put aside your beliefs...

You are asking me to set aside which beliefs? I will gladly set aside a specific premise if you can tell me which one I should set aside. That said when I re-examined how I arrived at my conclusions I failed to note any premises that were less probable than any others.

You asked me if I thought it were possible that Christianity right from the start was a conspiracy to defraud the masses of their decision making and investigation into the world around them. So in order to arrive at this conclusion you must either assert that Judaism is based on lies that were designed explicitly in order to control the masses, since Christianity was derived from Judaism or that Christianity was designed as a specific form of Judaism with that specific intention.

Examining Judaism we have no records that go back far enough to be able to make any strong claims about the nature of its inception. So to suggest that Judaism is purely a malevolent duplicitous control mechanism is prima facie slanderous.

So then you would have to suppose that it was the figure "Jesus of Nazareth" that specifically intended to create a malevolent duplicitous form of Judaism with the specific intention of controlling the masses. We do not have sufficient evidence to support such a claim, and the phrases attributed to Jesus do not support this in the slightest.


So I will ask again; what exactly is it that you think I need to be able to consider? Can I conceive of the possibility that someone would try to conceive an ideology with the specifically malevolent intention that was purely false? Sure I can conceive of such a thing, but do I think it would survive any measures of its worth? Almost assuredly not, and history tends to support me. You can get people to deceive themselves about a lot of things, but if you try and tell them a certain behavior is for their own good and it doesn't work or support some societal need, then it is a losing proposition. Every ideology and behavior needs to be understood within the context of a competitive social and biological structure.

Survival is indeed of the fittest, whether that is an idea, a behavior, or a gene.

MTF