Do Morals Come From God?

[Imagist]

Well, first we would have to get down to the business of proving whether God exists or not, before the question of whether or not morals come from God can be answered, so I'm still going with no, proof is not possible.

Agreed. Existence is a more salient attribute than source-ness.

 

[mohammed_beiruti]

and yet religious people murder as well.

suppose a driver was driving a perfect car , yet he made an accident ?

do you blame the driver or the car ? )(

people who might murder know that it is against the law and the general morality and they still do it.. seems that you are using a straw man here.

relegion consist of four parts
1. tenet
2. worshipping (rituals)
3. morals
4. The laws which control people's dealings

point No. 4 will solve the problem, that it explains what is allowed, and what is forbidden, and what is the penalty.

as much as the penalty is effective the ratio of crimes will decrease

 

[Rolling_Stone]

Well, first we would have to get down to the business of proving whether God exists or not, before the question of whether or not morals come from God can be answered, so I'm still going with no, proof is not possible.

In principle I agree, but if inductive reason claims the privilege of basing theorems on unproved inductive principles such as we see in geometry, called axioms, it cannot consistently object to theism's use of deductive axioms, i.e., the a priori assumption of God's existence. Theism is entirely within its rights to take the existence of God for granted and proceed from there.

Effectively, this means the theist has nothing to prove and the atheist has nothing to say in regards to the question, "Do morals come from God?"

 

[rojse]

How could anyone prove morals come from God?

If you say that some popular moral behaviour comes from God, who's going to disagree?

 

[Imagist]

suppose a driver was driving a perfect car , yet he made an accident ?

do you blame the driver or the car ?

No. But let's say that thousands of people drive this perfect car, and thousands of people drive another car that isn't perfect. You would expect the people driving the perfect car to make fewer accidents, right?

The fact is, the people driving your perfect car don't make fewer accidents; religious people commit as many murders as nonreligious people. So either the "perfect car" isn't perfect, or the other car is just as perfect.

 

[mohammed_beiruti]

No. But let's say that thousands of people drive this perfect car, and thousands of people drive another car that isn't perfect. You would expect the people driving the perfect car to make fewer accidents, right?

The fact is, the people driving your perfect car don't make fewer accidents; religious people commit as many murders as nonreligious people. So either the "perfect car" isn't perfect, or the other car is just as perfect.

and i still need the answer ?

Do you blame the driver or the perfect car ?

 

[Imagist]

Do you blame the driver or the perfect car ?

The driver. But let's say that thousands of people drive this perfect car, and thousands of people drive another car that isn't perfect. You would expect the people driving the perfect car to make fewer accidents, right?

The fact is, the people driving your perfect car don't make fewer accidents; religious people commit as many murders as nonreligious people. So either the "perfect car" isn't perfect, or the other car is just as perfect.

 

[Rolling_Stone]

The driver. But let's say that thousands of people drive this perfect car, and thousands of people drive another car that isn't perfect. You would expect the people driving the perfect car to make fewer accidents, right?

Not necessarily. You should look into religion before criticizing it. You wouldn't sound so foolish.

 

[Imagist]

Not necessarily. You should look into religion before criticizing it. You wouldn't sound so foolish.

Oh, that's just priceless. You couldn't have picked a better personal attack. For your information, I spent about the first 15 years of my life as a devout Christian, the next two as an unsure theist, and up until recently as an agnostic. I missed fewer than one Sunday church service per year up until about three months ago. I used to read three chapters of the bible every day and in this manner completed the bible from cover to cover more than five times. As for other holy books, I have also read the Bhagavad Gita and about half the Koran. Since I began to have some doubts about Christianity at a young age, I spent years struggling with my beliefs and trying to prove to myself that there was a god. As a result, I have read thousands of pages of material that attempts to prove or disprove the existence of god, and have researched the beliefs of a wide variety of religions including (but not limited to) Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, and Taoism. I have extensively read on related topics such as ethics, evolution, psychology, ancient history, and sociology in order to gain a better understanding of the implications of religion. I am confident that I have "looked into" religion more than you have "looked into" atheism, and I have probably even "looked into" religion more than you have.

Oh, and that's only the "looking into" that I did actively. Since my father is a professor of history of religions, I grew up discussing religion with him. While he was working on his Ph.D. my family lived in Israel for a year, where I experienced Judaism, and, to a lesser extent, Islam, firsthand (granted, I was a bit young to appreciate this fully). I have also taken ethics, history, and psychology classes in college.

You should look into my background before assuming that I have not looked into religion. You wouldn't sound so foolish.

 

[mohammed_beiruti]

The driver. But let's say that thousands of people drive this perfect car, and thousands of people drive another car that isn't perfect. You would expect the people driving the perfect car to make fewer accidents, right?

The fact is, the people driving your perfect car don't make fewer accidents; religious people commit as many murders as nonreligious people. So either the "perfect car" isn't perfect, or the other car is just as perfect.

After you had blamed the driver,-either he drove perfect or not perfect car- he will continue making accedints.

surah Iron 57
25 We verily sent Our messengers with clear proofs, and revealed with them the Scripture and the Balance, that mankind may observe right measure; and He revealed iron, wherein is mighty power and (many) uses for mankind, and that Allah may know him who helpeth Him and His messengers, though unseen. Lo! Allah is Strong, Almighty.

GOd revealed scripture some extremist use it to kill others and to dispute with others, although they are reading the same scripture!

God revealed Iron (from meteor) some People use it for war purposes and make weapons from it,

can you be positive and tell me do people use the scripture revealed by God to love each others, and use the Iron for Good purpose ?

it depends on your heart

 

[Imagist]

Agreed, it depends on the heart of the person taking the action. It does not depend on the religion of the person taking the action.

 

[methylatedghosts]

Hmmm... last year I did a paper on Moral Philosophy and we covered the workes of Hobbes and... err... others.

Basically, I did an assignment on a specific philosophical stance on morality, and I came to the conclusion that morality does not come from God, as was one hypothesis, but that it came from each individual simply deciding for their selves whether they agreed or disagreed with a certain situation, and then labelling them "good" or "bad" or "evil". Now, these can be influenced by outside things, such as parents telling you something is good or bad, and by their response, you form your own reasons as to why to disagree or agree with a certain situation. But in all, it is agreement that says "Yes, I agree with that, it is good" and a "bad" situation is simply "No, I do not agree with that, it is bad".

 

[The Voice of Reason]

Agreed. Existence is a more salient attribute than source-ness.

That's it. You and Hyzenthlay are now on the official "tautology" watch list, along with me.

 

[The Voice of Reason]

Not necessarily. You should look into religion before criticizing it. You wouldn't sound so foolish.

Perhaps you should look into atheism or agnosticism before criticizing them. You wouldn't sound so pompous.

 

[painted wolf]

IF chimps ride perfect scooters, monkeys ride perfect bicycles and hosts of other animals have perfect wheeled transport... then one wonders about the origin of the perfect car.

Doubly so as we all seem to be terrible drivers.

wa:do

 

[autonomous1one1]

Do Morals Come From God? How could anyone prove morals come from God?

Greetings. Many good ideas already have been presented but let me offer that from my perspective the answer is a non-issue. For one who believes God is within each human and in all, the answer is of course 'yes.' The proof that God is within each is a different issue.
Regards, a..1

 

[Storm]

Do Morals Come From God?

In a sense. I believe the human struggle with and for morality is a manifestation of God's selfsame struggle. The questions come from God, as do the imperfect answers.

How could anyone prove morals come from God?

Well, if my theology is correct, and humanity is an aspect of God, my answer strikes me as the most rational conclusion. That's not proof, of course.

 

[Mr Spinkles]

Dunemeister,

So far, people have ignored what I've had to say ...

You must have missed posts #10 and #15.

Post #10

Morality/ethics, defined as the construction of principles which increase individual and collective happiness and decrease suffering, is an objective enterprise. It is objective because certain courses of action are objectively better at reducing suffering and increasing happiness than others, in spite of the fact that morality varies among cultures.

Defining morality/ethics in this way captures the existence of culturally-transcendent intuitions of right and wrong which are fundamental to human beings as social animals. (For an example of a culturally-transcendent moral intuition, wiki the 'Trolley problem'.) Such a definition also allows us to take a more "scientific" approach to ethics (quotes emphasized): it allows rational, informed, sane scholars to come to a consensus on general principles (e.g. human rights are good, cocaine is bad, the Golden Rule is good) which increase individual/collective happiness, while allowing for exceptions to be made in special circumstances and alterations as knowledge increases.

I would add that such a definition does not deny that human beings have a fundamental dark side as well. While most of us agree stealing is wrong, if we were starving, most of us would give in to the temptation to steal, cheat, or murder in order to feed ourselves. Part of the enterprise of ethics, then, is to provide people with the basic necessities of life so they are not put in these impossible situations, and to rationally set up legal and social institutions which make it disadvantageous to be immoral and advantageous to be moral. There is also probably a part of us all that would derive happiness from inflicting harm on those we perceive as the "other" (the other tribe, the other race, etc.) This is an artifact of our evolutionary heritage, and it is not difficult to see why we will be happier if we restrict this impulse (e.g. through education and culture).

Of course, this is one person's opinion. There is a rich and voluminous tradition of philosophy, from Aristotle to Hume to Kant, which addresses ethics. On the other hand, appeals to divine authority are little help to us, particularly when they constrain our moral reasoning to one particular, unalterable strand of Bronze-Age myth.

Such closed-mindedness leads to what I believe to be indefensible moral claims: that, at one time, it was immoral NOT to collectively throw stones at adulterers or gays until they are dead; that everyone--even selfless, compassionate, good people--who disagrees that certain historical events (e.g. the Resurrection) occurred will be cast into eternal fire, and that this constitutes the ultimate expression of "love"; that we are forgiven for our misdeeds by a human sacrifice which occurred thousands of years ago in an obscure part of the world, rather than by admitting our wrongs and seeking forgiveness from the people whom we have wronged in this life.

Such closed-mindedness is further, in my opinion, the only way to explain the immoral (but tragically well-intentioned) behavior of the pious men and women who stoned adulterers and burned witches; or those who today are more concerned with the well-being of a blastocyst (a cluster of 100 cells from which embryonic stem cells are derived) than the well-being of every burn victim or child in need of an organ transplant; or those who were outraged when the lightning rod was invented, or who today deny their children a blood transfusion or encourage AIDS - riddled Africa not to use condoms, for fear of interfering with what they imagine to be God's plan.

Post #15

That's a different issue. The issue in this thread is what makes a moral statement moral, and is it possible to account for morality apart from God. Atheists may have morals, but I'd argue that it's not possible to account for morality from a naturalistic point of view.

That's a good distinction. As far as your argument that it's not possible to account for morality from a naturalistic point of view, I'd be interested in your thoughts on the following items:

- Psychopathy - the psychological temperament associated with people who see nothing wrong with murder, rape, etc., is strongly correlated with physical defects of the brain ( Sabbatini, RME: The Psychopath's Brain. Tormented Souls, Diseased Brains )

- The ethics that cross all human cultures are ones such as disgust of incest, which has obvious evolutionary/genetic advantages

- Many social mammals, especially chimps and our other close cousins, exhibit a sense of fairness, justice, loyalty, etc. that we associate with ethical behavior (e.g. one chimp will risk its life to save another drowning chimp)

- Recent studies on such brain structures as mirror neurons indicate that we tend to experience things that we infer other people to be having

 

[Mr Spinkles]

You don't need to assume the existence of God. What's assumed in this discussion is the existence of morality. The question is how to account for moral truths. God does the trick nicely. For those who'd like to suggest alternative sources of morality, I'm all ears, although I doubt they'll hear anything particularly helpful....

God does not do the trick nicely at all, i.m.o. Killing a man because he made a graven image would be unethical, as is the militaristic conquest of other peoples' lands, and no amount of other-worldly power could make it otherwise. Similarly, there's nothing profoundly ethical about not doing work on a particular day of the week--even if an almighty power orders it.

Here's a simple outline of how morality can be accounted for through a naturalistic worldview: By nature, and by definition, we want to be happy and avoid pain and suffering (people with normal brains, that is). Ethics is just the quest to establish guidelines of behavior that will promote happiness and mitigate suffering for everyone. It is not necessarily an easy task, given how complicated happiness and suffering have turned out to be via the study of such subjects as psychology, anthropology, economics, political science, all medicine and the natural sciences and especially history. (Despite popular misconceptions, doing lots of drugs and hoarding money and backstabbing will likely make you less happy, not more.) But it is possible in principle to establish things as objectively more or less ethical (or neither) insofar as they objectively make us more or less happy. And I think that there are a lot of things which we know are unethical and which *seem* at first glance to be advantageous to one's happiness; and there are similarly many things that are ethical which *seem* to cause pain and suffering. But I suspect that in all of these cases, fully accounting for all the likely consequences / realistic constraints shows that those things which we think of as unethical will make us, on the whole, less happy. And in those cases where our biological or cultural intuitions about ethics cannot be resolved with the best interests of human happiness--for example, every culture reviles incest, but what about a special case where the couple is infertile? --human happiness ought to take precedent, and the old intuition rejected as a misguided taboo.

And it is possible, through education and thoughtful reflection, to derive greater happiness from the happiness of those around you. That's a desirable situation for everyone: your happiness makes me happier, and my happiness makes you happier. Seeking out such positive-feedback loops with others is both rational and enjoyable. Seeking positive expressions (e.g. team sports) for some of our fundamental negative impulses (tribalism) is also rational and enjoyable.

Of course, there are people who don't derive any satisfaction from the happiness of those around them, and don't feel pain when they inflict it on others. We call them psychopaths. Their brains are abnormal, and why Heaven would create them without the mental faculties for compassion and then command them to have compassion is for the theologian to explain. For the scientist and the ethicist, it is enough to note that such people exist, and that they are not "evil" (at least in the naive sense of the word). Although the pious throughout the centuries righteously took revenge on such people, today we think it enough protect them from themselves and others.

And of course, there are situations where (virtually) everyone will resort to violence, a mob mentality, stealing, etc. Those tend to be situations where resources are scarce or the sense of fairness of the masses has been outraged. What we would like to do, then, is avoid such situations by doing our best to provide everyone with basic "human rights".

 

[Dunemeister]

Dunemeister,

You must have missed posts #10 and #15.

Post #10


Post #15

Yep. Missed those. Thanks for bringing them to my attention.