The argument that God provides a basis for objective moral values is bad

[serp777]

I've been watching a lot of religious debates recently, and often times people like William Lane Craig and Frank Turek will argue that without God there are no moral "oughts"; they claim that objective moral values do not exist without God because death is final and everyone ends up in the same place. They assume that without God you can't say whether anything is right or wrong--its just particles in motion.

But this argument is awful for several reasons. For starters, this argument pretends that people aren't choosing a morality and that it is absolutely determined by what Christopher Hitchens would call a celestial dictatorship. But that just depends on your society, culture, interpretation, mood, etc. You select the God and interpretation that aligns with your moral values and so its really no different than an atheist selecting their moral values to work best in society. So you can't say whether anything is right or wrong either because you would have an entirely different morality in bronze age Palestine, or if you grew up in North Korea. If morality is relative anyways, then the concept of moral oughts are ultimately fallacious; its all a matter of perspective and interpretation regardless if you believe or dont which really means the difference is moot.

As WLC would ask, "How do you know rape is wrong?"

I would say its wrong because a society of empowered, free women is much more effective and pleasant, and rape is a sinister attack on that. WLC would reply, but how do you know that's wrong? You're just responding to societal pressures and laws as well as evolutionary changes. I would then rebuttal him by saying that he's also just responding to social pressures because if you lived in bronze age Palestine then its very possible you would think rape is okay since you'd fallaciously believe women are inferior. Morality is relative whether you believe in religion or not in conclusion, and therefore means objective morality doesn't exist. All that exists is a secular, utilitarian analysis of society that tells us how to create the most effective, pleasant society as possible. Most religious people adopt secular standards anyways because you certainly wouldn't want to take morals from Leviticus, or the old testament, and or exodus.

 

[SomeRandom]

As WLC would ask, "How do you know rape is wrong?"

I would say its wrong because a society of empowered, free women is much more effective and pleasant, and rape is a sinister attack on that. WLC would reply, but how do you know that's wrong? You're just responding to societal pressures and laws as well as evolutionary changes. I would then rebuttal him by saying that he's also just responding to social pressures because if you lived in bronze age Palestine then its very possible you would think rape is okay since you'd fallaciously believe women are inferior. Morality is relative whether you believe in religion or not in conclusion, and therefore means objective morality doesn't exist. All that exists is a secular, utilitarian analysis of society that tells us how to create the most effective, pleasant society as possible. Most religious people adopt secular standards anyways because you certainly wouldn't want to take morals from Leviticus, or the old testament, and or exodus.

Rape is wrong because we can see the effects it has on both men and women. (Yes men do get raped.) And those effects are known to be detrimental. It is a deeply traumatizing act, regardless of what society says about it. Hell regardless of what any Deity says about it. We can clearly demonstrate trust issues, psychological trauma, (sometimes physical) fear, PTSD, increase in chances of suicidal tendencies, increase in chances of depression and an increase in chances of developing very low self esteem inherent in survivors of rape (again BOTH men and women.) Thus we as human beings, regardless of society, regardless of religion, regardless of belief can say that raping someone is wrong and to say it is right is to completely disregard human experience, emotions and effects.

Sorry just had to say that. You may continue with your discussion about god and morality or whatever now.

 

[Glaurung]

I've been watching a lot of religious debates recently, and often times people like William Lane Craig and Frank Turek will argue that without God there are no moral "oughts"; they claim that objective moral values do not exist without God because death is final and everyone ends up in the same place.

I wouldn't say that there would be no foundation for moral behaviour, so long as you actually care about getting on in this life. But there would be no basis beyond consequentiality of this life for caring about that foundation.

They assume that without God you can't say whether anything is right or wrong

That depends on what system of moral thinking you take on. But without God, all moral thinking becomes inescapably relativistic. And relativists tend to slide into nihilism as time progresses.

For starters, this argument pretends that people aren't choosing a morality and that it is absolutely determined by what Christopher Hitchens would call a celestial dictatorship.

That dictator of course, is believed to to be by its inherent nature our best interest and our created end. It really does no one any service when the concept of God is trivialised so absurdly.

You select the God and interpretation that aligns with your moral values and so its really no different than an atheist selecting their moral values to work best in society.

Christianity poses that we will all stand before God and answer for our lives according to our conscience. It's not so much God demands absolute knowledge of his moral standards so much as we will be judged according to our knowledge of those standards. If you do something you know in the depths of your conscience to be wrong, you will answer for it without any hope of rationalisation.

God holds the objective moral standard because he is by his very nature that objective standard. The degrees of our knowledge of that standard are of course, relative. The point is that standard exists independently of us.

I would say its wrong because a society of empowered, free women is much more effective and pleasant, and rape is a sinister attack on that

But what if I, just don't care and I knew with certainty I would get away with it?

The fact remains I have nothing to answer for because there's no one to answer to. Or that those I would answer to, have no way of holding me to account because I ignore their judgement and they have no means of enforcing their moral opinions upon me.

Of course I agree that rape is horrible, but I believe it for a reason much more fundamental than because society says so.

Any responses I'll deal with later this week. I've got to go to bed.

 

[Laika]

The relationship between god's existence and the objective basis for morality is tenous, and to my knowledge only applies to forms of Atheism that specifically seek to prove God does not exist. Often these comes as part of emancipatory movements that are antireligious by definition because religion is thought of as oppressive and morality is part of that system of oppression, such as Anarchism or Communism, rather than the liberal, rational atheism which is sceptical of faith based cliams as is more common today.
In the case of the former, by denying god's existence you have to redefine what can exist. this can then affect the sense of what is real, what is true- and therefore what is right and wrong. If we argue that only man is the source of morals and still holds on to free will in determining those morals, it can have some nihilistic implications as ethics become a subjective preference (as happens in anarchism). Fredrick Nietzsche was popular amongst Anarchists who compared his ideas with that of Max Stiner, an egotist or indivdiualist anarchist, but I think Nietzsche is more extreme. In more deterministic systems, morality is determined and therefore has some objective basis (such as socio-economic organisation as in communism). Most Atheists are much more open and sceptical and so it does not apply.

 

[Sunstone]

It seems to me all morality is ultimately subjective since all of it must ultimately be arrived at through subjective means. For instance, nothing would tell us that a god sanctioned morality is god sanctioned or objective, even if there were such an improbable morality. That would instead be a conclusion some of us might reach through subjective means. Therefore to speak of knowing an objective morality, knowledge of which has been arrived at via some allegedly objective means, is to speak stupidly and without insight.

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

Yet again: see here

 

[LuisDantas]

Morality is objective, but certainly not because some deity validates it.

 

[Caligula]

As WLC would ask, "How do you know rape is wrong?"

By applying the same logic that allows me to compare between immoral acts.
It's the same logic that tells me, for example, that pedophilia is worse than stealing.

How would WLC or any Christian know what's worse between those two I've just mentioned?

 

[leibowde84]

I've been watching a lot of religious debates recently, and often times people like William Lane Craig and Frank Turek will argue that without God there are no moral "oughts"; they claim that objective moral values do not exist without God because death is final and everyone ends up in the same place. They assume that without God you can't say whether anything is right or wrong--its just particles in motion.

But this argument is awful for several reasons. For starters, this argument pretends that people aren't choosing a morality and that it is absolutely determined by what Christopher Hitchens would call a celestial dictatorship. But that just depends on your society, culture, interpretation, mood, etc. You select the God and interpretation that aligns with your moral values and so its really no different than an atheist selecting their moral values to work best in society. So you can't say whether anything is right or wrong either because you would have an entirely different morality in bronze age Palestine, or if you grew up in North Korea. If morality is relative anyways, then the concept of moral oughts are ultimately fallacious; its all a matter of perspective and interpretation regardless if you believe or dont which really means the difference is moot.

As WLC would ask, "How do you know rape is wrong?"

I would say its wrong because a society of empowered, free women is much more effective and pleasant, and rape is a sinister attack on that. WLC would reply, but how do you know that's wrong? You're just responding to societal pressures and laws as well as evolutionary changes. I would then rebuttal him by saying that he's also just responding to social pressures because if you lived in bronze age Palestine then its very possible you would think rape is okay since you'd fallaciously believe women are inferior. Morality is relative whether you believe in religion or not in conclusion, and therefore means objective morality doesn't exist. All that exists is a secular, utilitarian analysis of society that tells us how to create the most effective, pleasant society as possible. Most religious people adopt secular standards anyways because you certainly wouldn't want to take morals from Leviticus, or the old testament, and or exodus.

I aree. Objective morality seems to be an impossibility in general though. It isn't a bad thing, it just means that our morality is based on our own experience. We see the detriment to society that rape, murder, theft, cheaating, etc. causes, so our mind works to show us that these things are "wrong." Whether this realization is achieved through objective truths should not matter, as the feelings exist either way and so do the consequences.

 

[Ouroboros]

Morality is as natural as gravity.

Just as gravity as a collection of many particles producing mass, morality is something that arises from the collection of people. Outside of the mass of people, there is no absolute morality, just as there isn't any absolute gravity in space. Each group of things produce its own phenomenon. Also, like mind arises from many neurons together. This makes morality objective and still relative and not absolute.

Besides that, many good posts and points in this thread. Just wanted to add my crazy thoughts for a little bit too.

Oh, and if we consider nature to be God, then WLC and gang are right. Morality is natural in nature, and if nature is God, then morality comes from God... in that sense.

 

[Ouroboros]

I aree. Objective morality seems to be an impossibility in general though.

A mistake I make a lot is to conflate the concepts of "objective" and "absolute", so I try to avoid "objective" when I'm talking about "absolute". The concept of absolute is basically, in my view, the same as your phrase "general objective morality." Or in another way, universal morality, perhaps?

 

[leibowde84]

A mistake I make a lot is to conflate the concepts of "objective" and "absolute", so I try to avoid "objective" when I'm talking about "absolute". The concept of absolute is basically, in my view, the same as your phrase "general objective morality." Or in another way, universal morality, perhaps?

I would say that "absolute morality" is what society in general is working towards. Our subjective morality is evolving to reach some kind of absolute morality that has not been achieved as of yet. "Objective morality" would not necessarily exist at all because there is a chance that the "absolute morality" doesn't exist until we discover it. In other words, the idea of absolute morality might be a human invention occurring only when we figure everything out.

 

[Ouroboros]

As WLC would ask, "How do you know rape is wrong?"

If WLC had lived 200 years ago, he wouldn't have know with his God-morality that rape was wrong either, so something is fundamentally wrong in his reasoning.

Rape wasn't wrong in ancient times. No one made any argument against it in any religious book. Today, here's a list of thing we consider wrong but never was made a case against in the past: slavery, murdering based on religious views, pedophilia, dating someone much younger than you if you're old, and many other things. It's interesting that it was wrong to murder in the Bible, but okay to kill in God's name. Today, to kill in God's name is murder, and wrong. Oh, another thing we feel is wrong today, plagiarism. No one cared about that back then.

 

[LuisDantas]

A mistake I make a lot is to conflate the concepts of "objective" and "absolute", so I try to avoid "objective" when I'm talking about "absolute". The concept of absolute is basically, in my view, the same as your phrase "general objective morality." Or in another way, universal morality, perhaps?

Thanks, that is a common yet regrettable confusion.

 

[viole]

I've been watching a lot of religious debates recently, and often times people like William Lane Craig and Frank Turek will argue that without God there are no moral "oughts"; they claim that objective moral values do not exist without God because death is final and everyone ends up in the same place. They assume that without God you can't say whether anything is right or wrong--its just particles in motion.

But this argument is awful for several reasons. For starters, this argument pretends that people aren't choosing a morality and that it is absolutely determined by what Christopher Hitchens would call a celestial dictatorship. But that just depends on your society, culture, interpretation, mood, etc. You select the God and interpretation that aligns with your moral values and so its really no different than an atheist selecting their moral values to work best in society. So you can't say whether anything is right or wrong either because you would have an entirely different morality in bronze age Palestine, or if you grew up in North Korea. If morality is relative anyways, then the concept of moral oughts are ultimately fallacious; its all a matter of perspective and interpretation regardless if you believe or dont which really means the difference is moot.

As WLC would ask, "How do you know rape is wrong?"

I would say its wrong because a society of empowered, free women is much more effective and pleasant, and rape is a sinister attack on that. WLC would reply, but how do you know that's wrong? You're just responding to societal pressures and laws as well as evolutionary changes. I would then rebuttal him by saying that he's also just responding to social pressures because if you lived in bronze age Palestine then its very possible you would think rape is okay since you'd fallaciously believe women are inferior. Morality is relative whether you believe in religion or not in conclusion, and therefore means objective morality doesn't exist. All that exists is a secular, utilitarian analysis of society that tells us how to create the most effective, pleasant society as possible. Most religious people adopt secular standards anyways because you certainly wouldn't want to take morals from Leviticus, or the old testament, and or exodus.

It is bad because it is hopelessly circular when used to prove God's existence. Craig subscribes to the divine command theory which defines morality by what God approves. If that is true, the argument cannot be used to prove the existence of God from the existence of morality without begging the question...as he does.

The only way of not making it circular is to postulate that morality exists externally to God and He is Himself subject to it. Which would make it useless as an argument that He is the origin of it.

Ciao

- viole

 

[viole]

I would say that "absolute morality" is what society in general is working towards. Our subjective morality is evolving to reach some kind of absolute morality that has not been achieved as of yet. "Objective morality" would not necessarily exist at all because there is a chance that the "absolute morality" doesn't exist until we discover it. In other words, the idea of absolute morality might be a human invention occurring only when we figure everything out.

And how would you know that you discovered it or figured everything out?

Ciao

- viole

 

[leibowde84]

And how would you know that you discovered it or figured everything out?

Ciao

- viole

I don't think you would, but I can't see why that would be important apart from our spcies' own selfish will to understand. Beyond that, there would be no reason to recognize it.

 

[viole]

I don't think you would, but I can't see why that would be important apart from our spcies' own selfish will to understand. Beyond that, there would be no reason to recognize it.

That would work as long as we have money to buy food in a Supermarket.

Suppose we have neither money, nor supermarkets, to feed our children or ourselves. Do you think that would hinder our progress towards finding absolute morality?

Ciao

- viole

 

[serp777]

I wouldn't say that there would be no foundation for moral behaviour, so long as you actually care about getting on in this life. But there would be no basis beyond consequentiality of this life for caring about that foundation.


That depends on what system of moral thinking you take on. But without God, all moral thinking becomes inescapably relativistic. And relativists tend to slide into nihilism as time progresses.


That dictator of course, is believed to to be by its inherent nature our best interest and our created end. It really does no one any service when the concept of God is trivialised so absurdly.


Christianity poses that we will all stand before God and answer for our lives according to our conscience. It's not so much God demands absolute knowledge of his moral standards so much as we will be judged according to our knowledge of those standards. If you do something you know in the depths of your conscience to be wrong, you will answer for it without any hope of rationalisation.

God holds the objective moral standard because he is by his very nature that objective standard. The degrees of our knowledge of that standard are of course, relative. The point is that standard exists independently of us.


But what if I, just don't care and I knew with certainty I would get away with it?

The fact remains I have nothing to answer for because there's no one to answer to. Or that those I would answer to, have no way of holding me to account because I ignore their judgement and they have no means of enforcing their moral opinions upon me.

Of course I agree that rape is horrible, but I believe it for a reason much more fundamental than because society says so.

Any responses I'll deal with later this week. I've got to go to bed.

I wouldn't say that there would be no foundation for moral behaviour, so long as you actually care about getting on in this life. But there would be no basis beyond consequentiality of this life for caring about that foundation.

The basis for our morality comes from secular society and genetics. We couldn't have a stable or functioning society without morals, so its logical and works well when everyone follows basic moral laws. Therefore everyone should have morals. So the foundation, in my submission, is utilitarianism and our evolutionary history which has driven many of us to attain some moral standard. I don't think a solid foundation for moral behavior with religion either because you ultimately decide your interpretation and morals from some book, or from the society around you. So because of the fact that you select your moral foundation, it makes the consequences irrelevant

Christianity poses that we will all stand before God and answer for our lives according to our conscience.

This is cheating in many ways. Our conscience and experience may tell us that morality is irrelevant, in which case you've just been given a free pass to do whatever you want without consequences because there isn't a conscience. Such is the case with psychopaths or those who have been brought up in cultures with a vastly different standard of ethics such as the Aztecs, who thought they were saving the world by ripping out people's hearts. THis is like saying that if you don't feel guilty, then God won't judge us. That is garbage because everyone has a varying scale of moral objectivity that makes the entire concept moot and illogical in the first place.

That dictator of course, is believed to to be by its inherent nature our best interest and our created end. It really does no one any service when the concept of God is trivialised so absurdly.

Well it doesn't seem trivial to many, many people who believe they will stand in judgment for the actions they've committed. They will be judged by their intentions, like your implying, and therefore thought crimes. When thought crimes exist and you'll be punished in the next life by God for an apparently arbitrary moral standard which was very ambiguous and unclear, then you have a whimsical and sinister dictator by definition. A judge, jury, executioner, and a law maker. I can't think of any better definition of a totalitarian regime.

Its even worse though.God set us up to fail. He knew we were going to fail before we were created because he is all powerful and all knowing. Why should we be judged for something that was already determined? Its entrapment and a self fulfilling prophecy. God would have created us so we could sin. It tells me that if there is a God, he either doesn't care about petty human morality, or there isn't a such thing as divine punishment/reward, which also goes back to the "not caring" scenario you propose.

But what if I, just don't care and I knew with certainty I would get away with it?

You're still left with a similar problem too. What if I just interpret the bible or whatever to justify rape and or commit genocide or enslave people? Then I can do whatever I want with good moral conscience. I can be a good person and do horrible things anyways. This is totally what the suicide bombing community as well as the genital mutilation community use to make themselves feel moral and have good conscience. So you're essentially implying throughout your post that objective morality is entirely irrelevant since its just a function of your conscience, which can be changed to buy anything.

 

[leibowde84]

That would work as long as we have money to buy food in a Supermarket.

Suppose we have neither money, nor supermarkets, to feed our children or ourselves. Do you think that would hinder our progress towards finding absolute morality?

Ciao

- viole

Desperation is always a hinderance of moral development. And, of course, hunger can cause desperation. What does that have to do with this discussion though? There have been tons of constant struggles with hunger, but our general morality has, without a doubt, improved nontheless.