Do Athiests have morals?

[Augustus]

I don't think the ancient Greeks were burning heretics at the stake if that's what you meant. They didn't have a particularly secular society, they were still looking for signs and portents from the gods, but so far as I know, they weren't out killing the non-religious or the otherly-religious among them.

The Greeks and the Romans killed people for offences against the Gods. Socrates, Christians, etc.

 

[1robin]

How do we determine who is objectively right, using your method for discovering this objective morality you are talking about?

If God exists he is by necessity right. If he does not, no one is. If you mean that if God exists and we disagree then who is right that is only potentially possible in many cases but also easy in others. Which are you asking?

We can reason our way to them.

If God does not exist there is no moral fact of the matter to reason to. We can only prefer a goal, not find one that is not there. This is no "should" without God.

Okay, I’ll try this again. Because I don’t think morality is merely an illusion. Actions have consequences that are not illusions.

It was not consequences he referred to as illusion. It was the idea they idea that our moral rules were morally true. It was Michael ruse who said that. Heck I will just quote him.

Morality, or more strictly our belief in morality, is merely an adaptation put in place to further our reproductive ends. Hence the basis of ethics does not lie in God's will ...In an important sense, ethics as we understand it is an illusion fobbed off on us by our genes to get us to cooperate. It is without external grounding... Ethics is illusory inasmuch as it persuades us that it has an objective reference. This is the crux of the biological position. Once it is grasped, everything falls into place."
Michael Ruse

Nietzsche and Dawkins are far more emphatic.

Once we determine that the goal of morality is the well-being of thinking creatures, and that it is in our best interest to care about morality, then we can analyze the consequences of various actions in regards to whether or not they achieve that goal. And that’s what we are doing when we declare that we care about morality in the first place. Nature is the objective reality to which we are confined. There are truths about nature that cannot be changed. That is the objective standard against which we judge the actions of our consequences. If the goal of morality is well-being, then murdering another person just for the fun of it, works against that goal. If I murder a person I cannot bring them back to life, no matter what I do. Nature deems it so. I have removed that person’s well-being in terminating them and therefore I have committed a wrong or bad action. Going back to the chess analogy again: Life is the game. Nature makes the rules of the game. The moves we make in that game depend on the goals of the game. There can be objectively good and bad, or right and wrong moves that can be made and can be declared so based on the parameters of the game. So yes, I think there are some truths to be found. So that’s the objective part of my claim I’ve mentioned before.

I hate it when people get off on the wrong foot and spend so much time responding to the wrong thing. I was not saying morality is illusory in all respects. It can be as real as gravity but being real does not make it morally right. That is what is illusory. Our evolutionary byproducts are not good or bad. They just are.

But again, there are certainly subjective aspects to morality. There is personal morality where everyone individual differs to a certain extent. It’s also subjective in the sense that a lot of moral issues have to be analyzed on a situation-to-situation basis. It differs among people of different religious faiths and also among people of the same religious faiths. Even people who put their faith in the truth of religious texts are still viewing it through the lens of their own biases and preferences. I don’t see how there’s any escaping that. Then there’s the fact that morality changes over time and across populations, as we learn and grow and increase our knowledge base. I think all of this contradicts your point of view on morality and corroborates my point of view.

In this case it is a multiplicative equation. No matter how many fact you have any variable that is subjective makes the end result subjective. It may be fact that not killing increases survival, it is subjective that survival is good.

So this makes my point that your system of morality is not actually a system at all. It’s merely a collection of moral dictates that are to be obeyed without question. In other words, nobody is actually exercising any morality at all. We’re simply following orders and having to assume that an invisible being knows what it is doing and will work everything out for us.

I partially agree. It's principles are merely objective facts. It's application is a system. The principles are not dictates, the dictates are based on principles. It is like gravity as a principle and don't jump off a Clift is a dictate.

I mean, this view makes absolutely no sense to me. You’ve said before that god has written morality on our hearts (or something to that effect), but you’re also telling me that anything we have to say about justice is just our personal preference and therefore meaningless, and no matter what some invisible deity says we have to follow it, even if the morality in our hearts disagrees with it. I personally think Stalin being rewarded with any kind of afterlife is completely unjust, because that’s what my personal sense of morality tells me (the same one this deity supposedly gave me) but that is completely meaningless because only the deity can actually tell anyone what is just. So did your god write the wrong morality on our hearts?

I either propose something assuming God or denying God. If you make a point I assume no God. If no God exists nothing is written on our hearts that is objectively moral. And if your referring to a hybrid where your heart contradicts an existing God then you are by necessity wrong. I did not say that the only thing in our hearts was moral truth. We are free moral agents and con completely distort and defy our God given conscience until it is no longer even recognizable. The bible calls this singing our conscience. However even without ruining ourselves we can have all kinds of conflicts. Some are right and some are wrong. I would agree with you about Stalin but it is not that simple. You do not simply wake up one day and think well I have been bad, save me God. It is a slippery slope. The more destruction you reap the harder to admit you have done so. It is like the longer your in the dark the more intolerant to light you are. Thinking that God would refuse to save anyone is the most hopeless thing I can imagine but it is not as simple as Pascal's wager suggests. I am virtually certain Stalin will not ever pass judgment. So you can't judge on hypotheticals especially ones that are almost certainly false.

 

[Midnight Rain]

No, we have established that I place statistics in their proper context instead of the one they come in.

If by proper you mean incorrectly then yes.

You said war is more fair. Not that international politics has become less violent. I do not even admit that it is but that is a different issue. Again I am placing things in their proper context. Warfare is concerned with making things as unequal as possible. We do not spend trillions trying to arm nation inferior to us but to increase our military superiority.

I am saying that war for example has had developed rules and laws. This isn't particularly new but we do have a globilization where if one wishes to maintain relations with other nations one has to be held to a certain standard. Though I wonder how true this really is in retrospect in respect to America's recent transgressions. Though even this exception does not actually hold to your model of a moral power vs immoral weak military.

Not in any permanent sense, because I know this all gets rectified in the end. Those who killed off human life on an industrial scale will be held accountable and those killed will be justified. If your not sickened by our inhumanity then that proves the point.

I believe that it comes back on them in this life or they will have it reflected on them when they die as well before they are reborn. But it really isn't the problem here.

I have previously posted hundreds of these statistics, given links to thousands, and recently posted a few examples. I am trying to avoid a statistics war I have already won but will have fight over and over. I will give a few more and differing statistics but for every one I could post hundreds just like them.

A new cultural-values survey of 2,000 American adults performed by the polling firm of Fabrizio, McLaughlin & Associates for the Culture and Media Institute reveals a strong majority, 74 percent, believes moral values in America are weaker than they were 20 years ago. Almost half, 48 percent, agree that values are much weaker than they were 20 years ago.
The Numbers on Moral Decline by L. Brent Bozell on Creators.com - A Syndicate Of Talent

In 1970, the number of unmarried-couple households with children was under 200,000. That figure now has soared to 1.7 million and climbing.

Most alarming, out-of-wedlock births in the United States have climbed to an all-time high. Indeed, 37% of the babies born last year—nearly 4 in 10—were born to unmarried parents.

12 Signs Of Extreme Social Decay In America That Are Almost Too Horrible To Talk About

I just do not want to spend too much time proving what I already have in exhaustive detail but if you want what to me is absolutely undeniable proof just compare any weeks TV programming from the 50s to today. I don't know a greater moral barometer than that. We have gone from Little House on the prairie and leave it to beaver to sex and the city and Texas chain saw massacre.

So an opinion poll about people who more than likely hold out dated moral concerns rather than based on hard evidence.

One must also understand that it is not a distinctly or universally held moral duty to be married before having children. This isn't a moral degradation but rather a change in the social acceptance of marriage in and of itself.

So no I haven't seen any stats saying that we are eroding morally. We are changing morally. There is no denying that. But the old idea that we can shoot black people for fun because they are animals has changed and I hope that you can agree that that isn't morally wrong. The public acceptance of homosexuality to me is a huge win in the fight for moral standards in the United states but I doubt you would agree with that either.

They removed it to eliminate competition, but how they rationalized it is irrelevant. It was horrific. Hitler courted the Church when he was on the rise to power, when he did not get his way he instantly shed his veneer of religiosity and turned on Christianity and the Church with a vengeance. I have posted his later and personal testimonies hating anything and everything Christian or Jewish time after time. It gets futile having to properly explain history over and over. Read his diaries or the great work called "table talk". It has his personal testimonies in his later years after he abandoned his false pretexts and his primary motivation was evolution as taught by Darwin's Bulldog (Huxley).

I agree that it was horrific and how it was rationalized doesn't matter. I also understand that it isn't evidence that secularism destroys morality. Hitler used religion regardless if you want to believe it was his primary motivator. Secularism wasn't his primary motivator either. It was his racism that was his primary motivator. The way he rationalized that also doesn't matter. I am growing tired of this same old argument back and forth about secularism vs religion. A religiously dictated morality has shown to be detremental in any kind of pluralistic society. It hasn't done a good job of stoping tragedies from taking place. Secularism in and of itself isn't a moral system to begin with but the idea that we don't do things with respect to any one religion seems like a fair game plan. Especially for people like me who are religious but not in any of the major religions of the day.

Whatever it's real or imagined disadvantages, forcing others to spare life, is in every conceivable way more virtuous than forcing death on others.

Are you for or against the death penalty?

I will take everyone who has done wrong in the name of my religion. The crusades, the witch trials, all 400 years of the inquisition, the hundred years war, the 30 years war, etc........ and it still will not touch the death toll per time frame that secularism has wrought. I think abortion alone is the greatest amount of human life exterminated per time period in history. The worst genocide was Islam in Indian but it took hundreds of years, next is the great atheist utopias, next imperialism and Hitler's strange Tibetan mysticism, social Darwinism, insanity, then some where down the list are those who used God to justify defying him, then way way down the list are those Christians and Jews who properly justified their violence by the bible.

Well for starters zero people have died in the name of secularism. A lot of people have died in the name of Christianity.

Stalin removed religion for his own personal reasons. Those reason were not religiously motivated so one can say that his reasons were secular in that regard. But he did not kill people in the name of secularism. All secularism means is that they do not invoke god or religion as motivations. Stalin could have created his own religion and killed them in the name of that. Same with Communist china.

Many people were killed in the name of Stalin and his regime. Not in secularism. So if you choose to take the lives of 100's of thousands over 0 then that is your choice.

 

[Cephus]

The Greeks and the Romans killed people for offences against the Gods. Socrates, Christians, etc.

Offenses, not just for existing.

 

[Monk Of Reason]

Offenses, not just for existing.

Its also important to note that they didn't do this because it was "right" or "wrong" but because they felt if they didn't do this they would fall out of favor of the gods. It was important, right or wrong to please the gods because if you didn't who knows what would happen to you.

So this wasn't a moral issue but rather a plea to the gods in a type of self interest motivation.

 

[lewisnotmiller]

@1robin - I have a left of centre sense of humour, so I do get misunderstood from time to time, and I can readily accept that my explanations can be confusing. However, I made no personal commentaries, and took no moral outrage position. At worst, I could be accused of trying to be pithy. Let me try and clarify below, but honestly, I don't do the personal attack thing.

If you have 750,000 words in a text that can be evaluated then maybe it beats the bible. However comparing the bible to every other moral code man has ever invented, especially modern ones and the bible is by far the best.

Well, I actually think the 750000 word thing is a negative, since it become overly prescriptive in parts, yet remains open to interpretation in others. But no need to argue on this point, I understand your position. I would be far more likely to cherry pick what I thought was of value, and ignore or even denounce what I thought wasn't. In other words, I'd treat it in much the same way as other moralistic texts.

Ok that is the one and only time I will respond unnecessary sarcastic personal commentaries. I do not care enough to be offended but I am not wasting my time debating some false moral outrage position.

Okay, so mentioned above, but not attacking you, nor outraged (false or otherwise). I'll repost my point below these quotes, and more clearly articulate my meaning.

Evidence and reason have no effect against emotion and preference.

God I hope that's not true. It often is though.

I am suggesting we make laws to limit man's inhumanity to man and by some bizarre rip in the fabric of the contrived secular universe you think that is treating people less than human (which is an absurd and meaningless tautology to begin with).

No, no...not what I meant AT ALL

How did you at failure and get worse? I hope you can do better than this, I can't justifying spending time on posts this absurd.

Don't knock absurd posts. They sometimes allow us to look at the world in a different way. But more specifically, here is what I was aiming for;

Rather than the 750000 words of the Bible, we could simply live our lives by the following

1) Don't be an assclown, take responsibility, and use contraception.
2) People are people, and each time you treat them as less than this, you rob yourself of your own humanity.

My point wasn't that you were an assclown. My point was that this would be a good thing for all people to live by. Don't do petty **** to others. Don't throw your rubbish in someone's yard, or cut in line, or treat service staff like slaves.
When you stuff up, which everyone does, take responsibility. Own it, learn from it, get better. Contraception is kinda implicit in that, but I was going for effect, so added it explicitly.
And the 'people are people' part, whilst trite, is an honest belief of mine. No person is objectively worth more than another. A rich man is not worth more than a poor. A white man is not worth more than a black woman. Whatever.

So, to reiterate, absolutely no personal attack. As I happily read and cherry picked the bible without seeing it as divine, so would I cherry pick other sources of moral wisdom. But in the end, overly simplistically, the 2 rules I put down are pretty much what I live by.

 

[corynski]

Indeed, have you not observed that the prisons are filled with christians, not atheists? Atheists must assume the position that 'I am all that I have. Therefore I must have a morality that keeps me alive for my family. If I treat my friends right, they will treat me right ........ so how difficult is that?' Humans have been through thousands of years of living in small groups, and having to deal with other groups nearby, so morality has existed from long before religions.

 

[ArtieE]

@1robin

Sometimes we find in stores cheap clothes that we are pretty sure are made by underpaid child laborers in third world countries. Is it objectively moral or immoral of us to buy these clothes? Tell us why it is objectively moral or immoral.

 

[1robin]

@1robin - I have a left of centre sense of humour, so I do get misunderstood from time to time, and I can readily accept that my explanations can be confusing. However, I made no personal commentaries, and took no moral outrage position. At worst, I could be accused of trying to be pithy. Let me try and clarify below, but honestly, I don't do the personal attack thing.

Forget it, I can't remember what it was anyway.

Well, I actually think the 750000 word thing is a negative, since it become overly prescriptive in parts, yet remains open to interpretation in others. But no need to argue on this point, I understand your position. I would be far more likely to cherry pick what I thought was of value, and ignore or even denounce what I thought wasn't. In other words, I'd treat it in much the same way as other moralistic texts.

1. If we are dealing with the most profound and important subjects even theoretically possible the more descriptive the better.
2. It depends on what the words cover. If they cover baseball it is probably too many. If the cover the divine, the history of the universes, the history of man, and moral duty it probably is not.

God I hope that's not true. It often is though.

Tw subjects in my opinion have more emotional defense than any other. Abortion and homosexuality. I am in about 6 theological thread but they are more technical, but for every technical post I get from all six of those I will get 6 from any one abortion or homosexual thread I am in and they are almost always emotional. Reason does not have any effect on preference and as soon as I determine that is what I am facing I try and slink out at some point.

Don't knock absurd posts. They sometimes allow us to look at the world in a different way. But more specifically, here is what I was aiming for;

It depends on the time I have and the level of absurdity. Some of these are like watching a guy yell at the traffic.

Rather than the 750000 words of the Bible, we could simply live our lives by the following

1) Don't be an assclown, take responsibility, and use contraception.

The first one is a euphemism, the second an opinion, the last one does not stop all the problem of just a single behavior. Since the first two almost meaningless I will only comment on the last one. Using contraception does not rectify the psychological damage of adultery, the broken homes of infidelity, the sexual violence and physical damage of homosexuality. It is like saying lets stop the flood by throwing a pebble in the Tiber river.

2) People are people, and each time you treat them as less than this, you rob yourself of your own humanity.

Without God nothing in nature has any inherent value, no atom a moral property, and no entity entitled to be treated in anyway. How is it exactly people who are merely biological anomalies without God "supposed" to be treated? How do you know? Even kids understand the problem with morality. When told to do X they respond oh yeah who says? Exactly who's opinion or preference determines who people should be treated? Hitler's, a cannibal's, Billy Graham's, Stalin's?

My point wasn't that you were an assclown. My point was that this would be a good thing for all people to live by. Don't do petty **** to others. Don't throw your rubbish in someone's yard, or cut in line, or treat service staff like slaves.

Ok now I have some colorful language use as to what you prefer. Now I want to know why what you prefer is right or binding on anyone else?

When you stuff up, which everyone does, take responsibility. Own it, learn from it, get better. Contraception is kinda implicit in that, but I was going for effect, so added it explicitly.
And the 'people are people' part, whilst trite, is an honest belief of mine. No person is objectively worth more than another. A rich man is not worth more than a poor. A white man is not worth more than a black woman. Whatever.

No man is worth anything without God. There is no basis for equality in nature, no basis for rights without God, no moral properties in matter, no natural law that can tell anyone what they should do. You can give me a list of things you like based on goals you prefer. What you can't do is tell me why they are true?

So, to reiterate, absolutely no personal attack. As I happily read and cherry picked the bible without seeing it as divine, so would I cherry pick other sources of moral wisdom. But in the end, overly simplistically, the 2 rules I put down are pretty much what I live by.

So you mention two sources there.

1. The bible you can pick from but it is at least possible your picking from objective facts. If God exists that are objective moral values and duties.
2. If you pick any thing other than God then there exists no objective moral facts to even find. NO matter what you look at, what language you use, or what goal you have it bears no relationship to any objective moral fact because they do not exist. All your left with is 6 billon moral opinions and no transcendent truth of the matter.

 

[1robin]

@1robin

Sometimes we find in stores cheap clothes that we are pretty sure are made by underpaid child laborers in third world countries. Is it objectively moral or immoral of us to buy these clothes? Tell us why it is objectively moral or immoral.

I do not know. If God exists it at least can be one or the other. If he does not then it cannot be one or the other. If nature is all there is there is not one action we should or should not do. Nature does not contain a single moral property or "should'.

This is also the absolutely unavoidable epistemological response to an ontological claim. It is a joke among theists that even if you explain up front why epistemological responses have no relevance to ontologically claims we still get them anyway. I have even tried to stop them and without fail could not. The nature of morality has nothing to do with how we come to know it. I said morality is objective if God exists. I did not say I can list every single moral fact possible.

Even if no one on earth knew a single moral truth morality would be just as true if God exists any way.
That being said I could attempt to answer your question but answer or not my original point is just as true.

God said we are to be good stewards of our money. He said all human life has dignity and sanctity. I can easily suggest that using our money to promote child slavery is not being a good steward.

 

[ArtieE]

I do not know. If God exists it at least can be one or the other. If he does not then it cannot be one or the other.

But then what is the point of all your posts claiming that if god exists objective morals exist when we can't ask this god and get a definitive objective answer whether something is moral or not? If we have to figure it out for ourselves anyway what's the point?

 

[lewisnotmiller]

Awwww.... @1robin , I deliberately stay away from your posts (of late) since we're simply too far apart to make much ground on certain topics, and they're the ones you've posted about most recently (objective morality and homosexuality as prime examples). I drop in here to make a stupid joke, and now I find myself sucked in. *sighs* I don't think you're a big fan of a light-hearted approach to these topics, so I'll reluctantly put on my serious face.

But these exchanges in the past have gotten unwieldly quick, so I'll try a different approach.

1. Are there any other books on the planet you would judge based on their word count, in terms of value or wisdom?

2. Never argued contraception fixed broken homes. Nor does the Bible. However, if I was to offer something, the whole 'take responsibility' thing is about as near as you're going to get. I'm not going to touch the linkage of sexual violence, physical damage and homosexuality, since it would be a wormhole given our views. Oh, and I'm well aware 'assclown' is a euphamism. People commonly make basic decency harder than it needs to be, though.

3. Without God, you commonly submit, people are without inherent value. It's roughly similar, I suppose, to your views on objective morality. What you are saying, I believe, is that a value assigned by an external party (ie. God) or a moral determinant made by an external party (ie. God) is real, whilst a value assigned by a human is not.
Is that because God is the Creator (to your mind)? Is it because God is more powerful? Is it because God is unique whilst we are not? What is the point of these moral rules, to your mind?

I guess what I am suggesting is that simply flagging them as coming from an external party, and declaring them therefore objective doesn't fit with how my brain works.

4. Assuming God is real, and assuming objective morality and the inherent value of things determined by God is real, why is the method of transmission of these morals and values done in an imperfect fashion? I can understand (from a logical sense) a God who does not make thing easy, if life is effectively a test. But I cannot understand a God who allows transmission of his method via a book sullied by human intervention, nor a book that is, frankly, open to different interpretations. Please note, I'm not talking about how I interpret the Bible...I have made an honest fist of this in my past, but I am talking about people who are believers, and have spent large tracts of time attempting to honestly understand and interpret the message contained within, all the while hoping medieval scholars knew what they were about.

Long story short, even assuming there is a God, and even assuming objective morality and value, you would THEN need to assume your interpretation of the message is accurate and complete, despite not only your human falibility, but the falibility of those who've come before you. You would also need to assert that God, who has spoken to a debateable number of prophets, didn't communicate an update message to any after Jesus.

5. Why is what I think is right binding on anyone else? It's not. They need to make their own decisions. But my way of life has proven very effective. No violence. No STDs. No depresssion. I would humbly submit the evidence of my own life and let people judge for themselves. Yes, my tongue is kinda in my cheek at this point, but actually, it's true. By what standard do you suggest to me that your Bible is binding?

6. To close, consider your statement that by picking from the bible it is at least possible that one is picking from an objective truth. I get what you mean. But I could insert 'Quran' instead of Bible. Or I could insert 'Torah', although most Jews I have discussed this with would probably suggest I'm missing the point if I did that. Pascal's Wager, no matter the form, is a cynical bet. You follow the Bible because you think it is true. I follow my own morals because I think they are...well..true is not really the right word. Effective, let's say. To follow the laws of a Bible I don't believe in, to switch off the brain you believe your God designed and trust in a message I don't agree with, simply because it MIGHT be right...*shrugs*
It equates to me suggesting you should become a Muslim because there is a chance they are right.

 

[SkepticThinker]

If God exists he is by necessity right. If he does not, no one is. If you mean that if God exists and we disagree then who is right that is only potentially possible in many cases but also easy in others. Which are you asking?

I’m talking about the latter. You assert that only with god are there objective morals and truths to be found. Okay. So how do we find out what they are, if we’re not arriving at them by the reasoned analysis I suggest we all use anyway? You can assert that there are objective truths all day long but if we can’t figure out what they are, what good is it doing anybody? You’re just in the same boat as everyone else.

If God does not exist there is no moral fact of the matter to reason to. We can only prefer a goal, not find one that is not there. This is no "should" without God.

If we care about morality, then we have a goal in mind. If we don’t care about morality, then there is no goal and we probably wouldn’t be here very long.

We are beings who care about morality because we realize that are own best interests are shared by most everyone else on the planet and if we want to live together, we have to make distinctions between good and bad or right and wrong behaviors to maximize those best interests and increase overall well-being for the most amount of people because those people include ourselves, our family members and other people we care about. In that way, there can be a “should” without god(s). And indeed, we do have a lot of “shoulds” that most of us can agree upon – we shouldn’t murder people on a whim, we shouldn’t steal people’s things just because we want them, we shouldn’t abuse children, we shouldn’t own human beings, etc. We’re not just talking about personal preferences here – we’re talking about the collective well-being of thinking creatures. All of these actions have consequences that do not maximize the well-being of those involved, and on any given day those involved could be ourselves, our family members or people we care about. I think this is just about the best we can do, and I think we are all in the same boat on this – regardless of whether or not we believe in god(s).

If we don’t care about living together with other people in this world we’re stuck in, then we don’t care about morality. Societies that do so don’t last very long though. But in the societies that do care about morality, those that don’t care to exercise it for whatever reason, are labelled, treated as abnormal and pushed out of the group.

It was not consequences he referred to as illusion. It was the idea they idea that our moral rules were morally true. It was Michael ruse who said that. Heck I will just quote him.

Morality, or more strictly our belief in morality, is merely an adaptation put in place to further our reproductive ends. Hence the basis of ethics does not lie in God's will ...In an important sense, ethics as we understand it is an illusion fobbed off on us by our genes to get us to cooperate. It is without external grounding... Ethics is illusory inasmuch as it persuades us that it has an objective reference. This is the crux of the biological position. Once it is grasped, everything falls into place."

Michael Ruse

Nietzsche and Dawkins are far more emphatic.

Let’s try a more complete quotation, because he seems to be saying more than that. He seems to be saying something along the lines of what I’m saying:

“It used to be thought, in the bad old days of social Darwinism when evolution was poorly understood, that life is an uninterrupted struggle – ‘nature red in tooth and claw.’ But this is only one side of natural selection. What we have just seen is that the same process also leads to altruism and reciprocity in highly social groups. Thus the human species has evolved genuine sentiments of obligation, of the duty to be loving and kind. In no way does this materialist explanation imply that we are hypocrites, consciously trying to further our biological ends and pay lip-service to ethics. We function better because we believe. In this sense, evolution is consistent with conventional views of morality.

On the other hand, the question of ultimate foundations requires a different and more subtle answer. As evolutionists, we see that no justification of the traditional kind is possible. Morality, or more strictly our belief in morality, is merely an adaptation put in place to further our reproductive ends. Hence the basis of ethics does not lie in God’s will – or in the metaphorical roots of evolution or any other part of the framework of the Universe. In an important sense, ethics as we understand it is an illusion fobbed off on us by our genes to get us to cooperate. It is without external grounding. Ethics is produced by evolution but not justified by it, because, like Macbeth’s dagger, it serves a powerful purpose without existing in substance.

In speaking thus of illusion, we are not saying that ethics is nothing, and should now be thought of as purely dreamlike. Unlike Macbeth’s dagger, ethics is a shared illusion of the human race. If it were not so, it would not work. The moral ones among us would be outbred by the immoral. For this reason, since all human beings are dependent on the ‘ethics game,’ evolutionary reasoning emphatically does not lead to moral relativism. Human minds develop according to epigenetic rules that distinguish between proper moral claims like ‘Be kind to children’ and crazy imperatives like ‘Treat cabbages with the respect you show your mother.’

Ethical codes work because they drive us to go against our selfish day-to-day impulses in favour long-term group survival and harmony and thus, over our lifetimes, the multiplication of our genes many times. Furthermore, the way our biology enforces its ends is by making us think that there is an objective higher code, to which we are all subject. If we thought ethics to be no more than a question of personal desires, we would tend to ignore it. Why should we base our life’s plan on your love of French cuisine? Because we think that ethics is objectively based, we are inclined to obey moral rules. We help small children because it is right, even though it is personally inconvenient to us.

If this perception of human evolution is correct, it provides a new basis for moral reasoning. Ethics is seen to have a solid foundation, not in divine guidance or pure moral imperatives, but in the shared qualities of human nature and the desperate need for reciprocity. The key is the deeper, more objective study of human nature, and for this reason we need to turn ethical philosophy into an applied science.”

Religion and the Natural Sciences: The Range of Engagement - Google Books

I hate it when people get off on the wrong foot and spend so much time responding to the wrong thing. I was not saying morality is illusory in all respects. It can be as real as gravity but being real does not make it morally right. That is what is illusory. Our evolutionary byproducts are not good or bad. They just are.

I was addressing your assertion that there are absolutely no moral truths at all to be found without god(s). Evolutionary by-products have made us what we are. It has made the world around us the way it is – we are bound by the laws of nature. We are the ones collectively experiencing this world we live in and so we are the ones who set the goals and make moral determinations based on the limitations of nature and the flourishing of thinking creatures. In that way, morality is a very real thing. Consequences of actions are real things. If you’re not following the rules, you’re not playing the game of morality.

In this case it is a multiplicative equation. No matter how many fact you have any variable that is subjective makes the end result subjective. It may be fact that not killing increases survival, it is subjective that survival is good.

The end result is not dependent on a single mind, and so is not purely subjective in that sense. The end result is our collective experience of the world we live in and the collective experiences of those who came before us. We have clearly evolved and grown over our time on this planet, and incorporated newer and more effective views of morality over that time. I don’t see how that reflects your view of morality.

You seem to think we cannot have value or assign value without some external source, and that any values we have without such a source are basically meaningless. We’re the ones sharing and experiencing life on this planet together, are we not best suited to determine what our values should be in light of some common goals? Why must it come from something outside of, and removed from ourselves?

I partially agree. It's principles are merely objective facts. It's application is a system. The principles are not dictates, the dictates are based on principles. It is like gravity as a principle and don't jump off a Clift is a dictate.

They are dictates because we cannot analyze them for efficacy, or question them – we must obey them to gain favor with the god you believe is dictating them. Why is it immoral for me to jump off a cliff? Somebody said so, that’s why.

How can it be considered a moral system when those involved are not actually exercising morality but simply following orders?

I either propose something assuming God or denying God. If you make a point I assume no God. If no God exists nothing is written on our hearts that is objectively moral. And if your referring to a hybrid where your heart contradicts an existing God then you are by necessity wrong. I did not say that the only thing in our hearts was moral truth. We are free moral agents and con completely distort and defy our God given conscience until it is no longer even recognizable. The bible calls this singing our conscience. However even without ruining ourselves we can have all kinds of conflicts. Some are right and some are wrong. I would agree with you about Stalin but it is not that simple. You do not simply wake up one day and think well I have been bad, save me God. It is a slippery slope. The more destruction you reap the harder to admit you have done so. It is like the longer your in the dark the more intolerant to light you are. Thinking that God would refuse to save anyone is the most hopeless thing I can imagine but it is not as simple as Pascal's wager suggests. I am virtually certain Stalin will not ever pass judgment. So you can't judge on hypotheticals especially ones that are almost certainly false.

Obviously I’m talking about your view where some god exists. But you keep trying to turn the table back to me on this one.

You say that if my heart contradicts something your god dictates then I am necessarily wrong. But you say this at the same time you assert that your god wrote some moral code on our hearts. Those two things stand in contradiction to each other, from where I’m standing. I can use this god-given conscience I supposedly have and still be wrong? Sounds like my god-given conscience is faulty then.

Stalin could very easily have been saved and you would actually have NO IDEA whatsoever. He could have been absolutely sincere and called out to Jesus in repentance for the terrible actions he had carried out during his lifetime. Any number of terrible people living in this world could have done this and been completely sincere in doing so and could have attained eternal life . That’s really the point here, since we’re talking about ultimate justice. Asserting that you don’t think that could have happened is basically meaningless in this discussion and doesn’t help you avoid the very real implications of such a thing at all. All you’re doing here is avoiding the question. And it seems to me that you are doing so because you know that there is no justice in sending terrible mass murderers to heaven but can’t actually just come out and say so. Instead, you have to defend the apparent injustice that exists in such a scenario because your god deems it moral and so it must be.

 

[1robin]

I’m talking about the latter. You assert that only with god are there objective morals and truths to be found. Okay. So how do we find out what they are, if we’re not arriving at them by the reasoned analysis I suggest we all use anyway? You can assert that there are objective truths all day long but if we can’t figure out what they are, what good is it doing anybody? You’re just in the same boat as everyone else.

That is a whole other issue. I claim that if two moral opinions exists then with God there is an ultimate moral truth which one may be consistent with. I can't very well list every moral possibility and suggest who would be right in every case. The point is this. Many specific moral right and wrong are emphatically stated in the bible, and most of the moral principles exist to ground very reliable estimations of what is right in other cases. Neither of those exists in atheism. So however hard it may or may not be to identify and apply and specific moral duty from the bible it still holds every advantage over a world view that has no ultimate moral truths to find or principles that are objectively true available for moral foundations.

If we care about morality, then we have a goal in mind. If we don’t care about morality, then there is no goal and we probably wouldn’t be here very long.

Yes, but without God your goals are unrelated to any goals we objectively should have. You can pick some by preference but why should I lose my life because my opinion of what goals we should have differs from yours? With God there are objective goals we should have.

We are beings who care about morality because we realize that are own best interests are shared by most everyone else on the planet and if we want to live together, we have to make distinctions between good and bad or right and wrong behaviors to maximize those best interests and increase overall well-being for the most amount of people because those people include ourselves, our family members and other people we care about. In that way, there can be a “should” without god(s). And indeed, we do have a lot of “shoulds” that most of us can agree upon – we shouldn’t murder people on a whim, we shouldn’t steal people’s things just because we want them, we shouldn’t abuse children, we shouldn’t own human beings, etc. We’re not just talking about personal preferences here – we’re talking about the collective well-being of thinking creatures. All of these actions have consequences that do not maximize the well-being of those involved, and on any given day those involved could be ourselves, our family members or people we care about. I think this is just about the best we can do, and I think we are all in the same boat on this – regardless of whether or not we believe in god(s).

We do not have the same goals. My goal for morality is to please God and make it to heave, Islam's is to make the everyone a Muslim, US liberals goal is to spend us into oblivion to buy votes, the Roman's to conquer everything that would put up a fight, Britain's to take over the resource of any nation they could, Japan's to make everyone worship the emperor as a God, Hitler's to exterminate anything weak to make the strong stronger, etc........ WE are in desperate need of a goal that does not depend on our preferences.

If we don’t care about living together with other people in this world we’re stuck in, then we don’t care about morality. Societies that do so don’t last very long though. But in the societies that do care about morality, those that don’t care to exercise it for whatever reason, are labelled, treated as abnormal and pushed out of the group.

Much of our history has been spent in either forcing others to live as we do or to stop living. You may have a social contract you think good, but most of history would not sign it.

Let’s try a more complete quotation, because he seems to be saying more than that. He seems to be saying something along the lines of what I’m saying:

He is saying our morality is not true but merely a amoral by product of genetics so I think he does agree with you.

“It used to be thought, in the bad old days of social Darwinism when evolution was poorly understood, that life is an uninterrupted struggle – ‘nature red in tooth and claw.’ But this is only one side of natural selection. What we have just seen is that the same process also leads to altruism and reciprocity in highly social groups. Thus the human species has evolved genuine sentiments of obligation, of the duty to be loving and kind. In no way does this materialist explanation imply that we are hypocrites, consciously trying to further our biological ends and pay lip-service to ethics. We function better because we believe. In this sense, evolution is consistent with conventional views of morality.

I have repeatedly said that any use of nature for morality will produce a lot of red in tooth and claw and also some altruism. However as awful as the ration of the two we have without using evolution for morality doing so would be even worse. It is hypocritical to claim to use evolution as a pattern but instead only use the parts you prefer. It would have been as hypocritical as Jefferson who simply cut out the scriptures he did not like to claim to follow the bible, but he was honest enough not to do so.

On the other hand, the question of ultimate foundations requires a different and more subtle answer. As evolutionists, we see that no justification of the traditional kind is possible. Morality, or more strictly our belief in morality, is merely an adaptation put in place to further our reproductive ends. Hence the basis of ethics does not lie in God’s will – or in the metaphorical roots of evolution or any other part of the framework of the Universe. In an important sense, ethics as we understand it is an illusion fobbed off on us by our genes to get us to cooperate. It is without external grounding. Ethics is produced by evolution but not justified by it, because, like Macbeth’s dagger, it serves a powerful purpose without existing in substance.

That was well stated but I don't see any advantage to it. It would simply mean we should not make any rules because whatever evolution produces is justified because it produced it. So If I kill a thousand people and I am a product of evolution which is the producer of moral behavior then I am moral in doing so.

In speaking thus of illusion, we are not saying that ethics is nothing, and should now be thought of as purely dreamlike. Unlike Macbeth’s dagger, ethics is a shared illusion of the human race. If it were not so, it would not work. The moral ones among us would be outbred by the immoral. For this reason, since all human beings are dependent on the ‘ethics game,’ evolutionary reasoning emphatically does not lead to moral relativism. Human minds develop according to epigenetic rules that distinguish between proper moral claims like ‘Be kind to children’ and crazy imperatives like ‘Treat cabbages with the respect you show your mother.’

I have always said ethics can exist (and so is not nothing), and I did not intend to suggest ruse was. It is juts ethics is merely opinion or a byproduct and not actually moral in an ultimate sense. It is as amoral as gravity which is a byproduct of mass.

Ethical codes work because they drive us to go against our selfish day-to-day impulses in favour long-term group survival and harmony and thus, over our lifetimes, the multiplication of our genes many times. Furthermore, the way our biology enforces its ends is by making us think that there is an objective higher code, to which we are all subject. If we thought ethics to be no more than a question of personal desires, we would tend to ignore it. Why should we base our life’s plan on your love of French cuisine? Because we think that ethics is objectively based, we are inclined to obey moral rules. We help small children because it is right, even though it is personally inconvenient to us.

What do you mean they work. If you mean they meet a goal then yes, if you mean they meet a goal that should be met then no. It is like saying dynamite works to construct things, if a pile of rubble is the goal.

If this perception of human evolution is correct, it provides a new basis for moral reasoning. Ethics is seen to have a solid foundation, not in divine guidance or pure moral imperatives, but in the shared qualities of human nature and the desperate need for reciprocity. The key is the deeper, more objective study of human nature, and for this reason we need to turn ethical philosophy into an applied science.”

Religion and the Natural Sciences: The Range of Engagement - Google Books

I don't know about new but it does produce a basis. An amoral and bad one.

I was addressing your assertion that there are absolutely no moral truths at all to be found without god(s). Evolutionary by-products have made us what we are. It has made the world around us the way it is – we are bound by the laws of nature. We are the ones collectively experiencing this world we live in and so we are the ones who set the goals and make moral determinations based on the limitations of nature and the flourishing of thinking creatures. In that way, morality is a very real thing. Consequences of actions are real things. If you’re not following the rules, you’re not playing the game of morality.

Why would you call the survival byproduct of blind forces moral but not call gravity a moral? Instead of the semantic shell game with the label moral, and instead of my making it impossible for you by defining it objective lets define morals as something we should do. Whatever behavior unconscious mechanisms simply generate is not something can ground what morally conscious beings should do..

The end result is not dependent on a single mind, and so is not purely subjective in that sense. The end result is our collective experience of the world we live in and the collective experiences of those who came before us. We have clearly evolved and grown over our time on this planet, and incorporated newer and more effective views of morality over that time. I don’t see how that reflects your view of morality.

It is even worse, the end product would be the result of unintelligent, unintentional, and amoral physics. Who is it I have a duty to, Darwin, natural selection, physics?

BTW are you a determinist?

You seem to think we cannot have value or assign value without some external source, and that any values we have without such a source are basically meaningless. We’re the ones sharing and experiencing life on this planet together, are we not best suited to determine what our values should be in light of some common goals? Why must it come from something outside of, and removed from ourselves?

No I don't, and I have repeatedly said the opposite. We can assign personal values but those values are not inherent to the object. Our laws assume inherent value. I can value something but by doing so I don't give it inherent value. All right are based on inherent value.

Continued:

 

[SkepticThinker]

That is a whole other issue. I claim that if two moral opinions exists then with God there is an ultimate moral truth which one may be consistent with. I can't very well list every moral possibility and suggest who would be right in every case. The point is this. Many specific moral right and wrong are emphatically stated in the bible, and most of the moral principles exist to ground very reliable estimations of what is right in other cases. Neither of those exists in atheism. So however hard it may or may not be to identify and apply and specific moral duty from the bible it still holds every advantage over a world view that has no ultimate moral truths to find or principles that are objectively true available for moral foundations.

It’s the same issue. What good is your “system” of objective morality if we can’t figure out what those objective morals are? It’s useless then.


Under my system, we can at least attempt to reason our way to the most moral answer, whereas with yours, we’re supposed to take an order from some divine authority but we have no way to determine what the resulting “objective truth” should actually be. Which is obvious from the fact that there are thousands of different Christian denominations that all differ slightly from each other on what these “objective moral truths” are.


How exactly do you think you’re in a different boat than the rest of us then?

Yes, but without God your goals are unrelated to any goals we objectively should have. You can pick some by preference but why should I lose my life because my opinion of what goals we should have differs from yours? With God there are objective goals we should have.

How so? Without god we can definitely care about morality, and we do. Anyone who cares about morality shares basically the same goals, or they wouldn’t care about morality.


And again, if we can’t even figure out what those objective goals we’re supposed to have if god exists, then what good does it do us? You’re still stuck reasoning your way through, like the rest of us.


Who says you’re losing your life??

We do not have the same goals. My goal for morality is to please God and make it to heave, Islam's is to make the everyone a Muslim, US liberals goal is to spend us into oblivion to buy votes, the Roman's to conquer everything that would put up a fight, Britain's to take over the resource of any nation they could, Japan's to make everyone worship the emperor as a God, Hitler's to exterminate anything weak to make the strong stronger, etc........ WE are in desperate need of a goal that does not depend on our preferences.

Sure we do. I just mentioned some of them. Is it in your best interest to be murdered?


Are you telling me that the only reason you care about morality at all is to please god? Really?

Much of our history has been spent in either forcing others to live as we do or to stop living. You may have a social contract you think good, but most of history would not sign it.

Like I said, human beings have evolved and grown throughout our history as new knowledge came our way, which is reflected in the fact that our sense of morality has actually changed over time, although with some constants remaining in place. I find this much more beneficial to mankind than remaining stuck with some ancient and unchanging moral code that is far removed from the times we currently live in. I don’t know about you, but I don’t think it’s beneficial to mankind to burn witches, to stone adulterers, unruly children and gay people, or to keep human beings as slaves.


Humans care about morality because it’s in our best interest to do so. This is why we make any attempt at all in coming up with systems of morality.

He is saying our morality is not true but merely a amoral by product of genetics so I think he does agree with you.


I have repeatedly said that any use of nature for morality will produce a lot of red in tooth and claw and also some altruism. However as awful as the ration of the two we have without using evolution for morality doing so would be even worse. It is hypocritical to claim to use evolution as a pattern but instead only use the parts you prefer. It would have been as hypocritical as Jefferson who simply cut out the scriptures he did not like to claim to follow the bible, but he was honest enough not to do so.

The only part of evolution being used is the part where it produced us – social beings who care about morality because we really have no choice but to care about it if we want to live together in any kind of harmony with each other. Evolution could have produced beings that don’t care about it and so we wouldn’t. We also probably wouldn’t be around for very long.


Some people are born who do not care about morality. They are in the vast minority and are treated as abnormal by those of us who care about morality. Why do you think that is?

That was well stated but I don't see any advantage to it. It would simply mean we should not make any rules because whatever evolution produces is justified because it produced it. So If I kill a thousand people and I am a product of evolution which is the producer of moral behavior then I am moral in doing so.

Ethics does serve a powerful purpose. We have ethics because we care about moral principles.


If you kill a thousand people, you are not acting in the best interest of those people or yourself. Those of us who care about morality will not tolerate such immoral behavior. You like to reference Hitler all the time … what happened to him?


What if we examine your scenario in light of Biblical teachings or god’s “objective morality” as you would call it. How do I determine whether murdering a thousand people is objectively moral or not? What if I read in the Bible that god told his people to kill a murdering tribe and so I decided it would be morally right to kill a thousand people because I think it’s something god would want from me. How do I know if I am objectively right or wrong in doing so?

I have always said ethics can exist (and so is not nothing), and I did not intend to suggest ruse was. It is juts ethics is merely opinion or a byproduct and not actually moral in an ultimate sense. It is as amoral as gravity which is a byproduct of mass.

But you think we should go with the opinion of some deity whose life is so far removed from the lives us human beings have to muddle through here on earth?


In my opinion the only people qualified to be determining moral truths or the closest thing to it, are those of us who have to live our lives in this world we find ourselves in.

What do you mean they work. If you mean they meet a goal then yes, if you mean they meet a goal that should be met then no. It is like saying dynamite works to construct things, if a pile of rubble is the goal.

What? Then dynamite doesn’t produce the goal of constructing a thing.


They work for the reasons Ruse mentioned in that paragraph.


Again, the fact that people talk about morality at all means we care about the well-being of thinking creatures.

I don't know about new but it does produce a basis. An amoral and bad one.

It produces a basis that is unconcerned with the rightness or wrongness of something? How so?

Why would you call the survival byproduct of blind forces moral but not call gravity a moral? Instead of the semantic shell game with the label moral, and instead of my making it impossible for you by defining it objective lets define morals as something we should do. Whatever behavior unconscious mechanisms simply generate is not something can ground what morally conscious beings should do..

Gravity isn’t moral because it doesn’t care about the rightness or wrongness of an action. Human beings do.

It is even worse, the end product would be the result of unintelligent, unintentional, and amoral physics. Who is it I have a duty to, Darwin, natural selection, physics?

What? How do you get that?

BTW are you a determinist?

I don’t know enough about it to comment.

No I don't, and I have repeatedly said the opposite. We can assign personal values but those values are not inherent to the object. Our laws assume inherent value. I can value something but by doing so I don't give it inherent value. All right are based on inherent value.


Continued:

You’ve repeatedly said that values don’t have to come from god(s)? When?

Why must any value come from an external source?

 

[Marsh]

When someone claims that he/she is irreligious, does it give them justifications to negate teachings of religious communities. For example, thou not steal. Does it give someone who claims to be irreligious the right to steal?

Why did you choose that particular commandment and not the following one: “You shall not boil a kid in its mother's milk.” (Exodus 23:19). Clearly this is bad. So, the question is, do atheists feel free to boil lambs in their mother’s milk as opposed to using a cow’s milk? Well, honestly, there does seem to be something perverse with the act of boiling a mother’s infant in her own milk, wouldn’t you say? Yet, God made this a commandment, so it must have been something the Hebrews sometimes felt compelled to do, and there must have been a reason God didn’t want them to do it. Would I, an atheist, do it? No. I think it is perverse. How about your original question: would I steal? No. I did once as a child, but I was still a Christian at the time. As an atheist I have not stolen.

As an atheist I do not feel compelled to follow the regulations set forth by the followers of any god. Some of those rules, even from the New Testament, are perverse (the commandment for slaves to obey their masters, for instance). I do, however, feel compelled to observe most of societies’ norms. Indeed, it is in my own best interest to observe the laws of the land, as it is for everyone.

We all possess a sense of what is right and wrong, what is fair. I am currently reading the book, Our Inner Ape, by Frans de Waal, and contrary to what you might think studies have shown that apes too, even monkeys, possess this same awareness. It is not unique to us, and I would guess that it is simply part of our make-up, handed to us through the course of evolution. So it is not something atheists lack, but rather it is something we all share as part of our very nature.

 

[Marsh]

If I treat my friends right, they will treat me right ........ so how difficult is that?' Humans have been through thousands of years of living in small groups, and having to deal with other groups nearby, so morality has existed from long before religions.

I am reading Our Inner Ape, by Frans de Waal, and it has become clear that chimps follow the same proscription of treating their friends well in expectation of reciprocal support. This behaviour is not unique to humans.

 

[Marsh]

If God exists he is by necessity right.

That's assuming he possess certain attributes. I would question whether we can always claim God is right in the face of the brutality so evident in parts of the Old Testament. Granted those were different times, but I think the equivalent today would be God ordering the slaughter of all supporters of the Islamic State: man, woman, and child. We have standards of right and wrong that prohibit us from conducting ourselves this way. Does this mean we are wrong now, or that God was wrong then?

 

[J0stories]

Where did your morals come from

IMO, and in the opinion of most scientists, morals are learned behaviors and while they can be derived from religion, they do not have to be. In your first post, you asked if an atheist, or rather intimated, that atheists are amoral. Nothing could be further from the truth, my father was a life- long atheist while my mother is a devout Christian. Made for an Interesting upbringing. Most morals developed over time from ancient civilizations learning how to coexist. Perhaps an historical anthropology course might illuminate you in this.

 

[J0stories]

Where did your morals come from

Once again, learned behaviors. A civilization would learn that stealing led to war and death, and therefore, a barter system was more in keeping with peace and coexistence. It's interesting that the advent of religion led to more death than any other belief system on the planet, save the actions of Pol Pot and a few others more interested in power and greed.