Does morality require a god?

[EricE]

@bytebear Interesting take, given that no one on this thread has related morality to the existence of a god yet. But hey, have fun over there with your straw man while the adults talk. 

[bytebear]

There are people who want to discuss and learn, and those who want to be condescending.  I guess I know which type you are.  Seriously, grow up.

[bytebear]

" no one on this thread has related morality to the existence of a god "

Except, that this is your entire argument.

[EricE]

It's not condescending to disregard someone who makes false claims about you. This discussion is about god's morality. Please point out to me where I claimed that if I don't agree with god's morality, that proves the god doesn't exist. 

[Jane_Doe]

1 hour ago, EricE said:

There's evidence? What is it?

Example A: have you not read Moroni?

 

 

[LeSellers]

23 minutes ago, EricE said:

no one on this thread has related morality to the existence of a god yet.

I beg to differ. I wrote this (and others have posted similar thoughts):

On 8/10/2016 at 11:24 AM, LeSellers said:

This goes back to your original query: can you be good without God? The answer is no because you do not know what "good" is without God.

How do you know what is moral?

Atheists cannot know that anything is moral. You may imagine you do, but you do not.

Why not murder if the only thing that matters is your personal survival? Why not steal if the only thing that matters is your personal comfort? Why not rape if the only thing that matters is propagating your DNA?

The only thing that matters to an atheist is this life. Honor, courtesy, honesty, unless they advance one's personal life/comfort/progeny, they are of no value at all.

You can claim you wouldn't want to harm anyone, but why not? What about another person makes not harming him to enrich yourself valuable to you?

You can choose to be moral, but why? How is acting morally "better", because it may very well be that your "morality" is not objectively better than anyone else's.

Lehi

 

Edited August 11, 2016 by LeSellers

[EricE]

15 minutes ago, Jane_Doe said:

Example A: have you not read Moroni?

 

 

I have. What in Moroni do you think counts as evidence for god's existence?

[EricE]

16 minutes ago, LeSellers said:

I beg to differ. I wrote this (and others have posted similar thoughts):

How do you know what is moral?

Atheists cannot know that anything is moral. You may imagine you do, but you do not.

Why not murder if the only thing that matters is your personal survival? Why not steal if the only thing that matters is your personal comfort? Why not rape if the only thing that matters is propagating your DNA?

The only thing that matters to an atheist is this life. Honor, courtesy, honesty, unless they advance one's personal life/comfort/progeny, they are of no value at all.

You can claim you wouldn't want to harm anyone, but why not? What about another person makes not harming him to enrich yourself valuable to you?

You can choose to be moral, but why? How is acting morally "better", because it may very well be that your "morality" is not objectively better than anyone else's.

Lehi

 

Not that I don't appreciate the sweeping generalization that you know the minds of ALL atheists, but I would refer you to my post a bit up the thread where I laid out the difference between religious and secular morality. If you would like to respond to that, I'll take a look. 

[omegaseamaster75]

1 hour ago, EricE said:

We're not talking about free will, or a god who just allowed slavery to happen. We're talking about a god who actually condoned slavery and laid out instructions for how to keep and beat your slaves. 

 

I fall into the camp where God allowed it to happen and provided rules to regulate it. I don't think that God ever encouraged it. In fact I challenge you to find a passage of scripture where God encouraged one of his followers to own slaves

[bytebear]

35 minutes ago, EricE said:

It's not condescending to disregard someone who makes false claims about you. This discussion is about god's morality. Please point out to me where I claimed that if I don't agree with god's morality, that proves the god doesn't exist. 

Quote

have fun over there with your straw man while the adults talk

Perhaps you should learn basic definitions of words like "condescension" before moving into deeper topics.  To reply overtly lacks logic.

Edited August 11, 2016 by bytebear

[LeSellers]

14 hours ago, EricE said:

My mind is made up that slavery is immoral, because I have never seen any evidence that it is good for the people who are enslaved. 

Then you disagree with Walter E. Williams and Thomas Sowell. They both recognize that had their ancestors not been sold by Muslims to Dutch traders*, and brought to what would become USA, they could not have become anything like what they are. One of them (Williams, I believe) said that, while slavery wasn't great for his ancestors, it was still a step up from their abysmal state in Africa, and that he, whichever it was, blessed the ship that brought them here.
* If they had gone east, rather than west, those same people would have been lucky to survive the trip. The boys were castrated without anesthesia or any antiseptic, the girls raped and their children killed. Life was far better for USA-bound slaves than for those going from Muslim to Muslim. This is not to justify slavery in USA or anywhere else. It's just a comparison that many, especially here, ignore completely.

I agree that slavery isn't good, but to say that it never had any positive effects on the enslaved misses the history of slavery and poverty and of despair.

Lehi

[NightSG]

1 hour ago, LeSellers said:

Why not murder if the only thing that matters is your personal survival? Why not steal if the only thing that matters is your personal comfort? Why not rape if the only thing that matters is propagating your DNA?

Simple direct consequences, both immediate (any of the above can get you killed) and delayed. (You might need to trade with a given individual lately, and as yet, the Supreme Court hasn't ruled that a business owner cannot discriminate against a person who has raped or stolen from them...I'd only give them until the end of the year on that, though.)

[LeSellers]

1 hour ago, EricE said:

This discussion is about god's morality.

No, it is not.

Your topic question is, "Does Morality Require a God?"

55 minutes ago, EricE said:

I would refer you to my post a bit up the thread where I laid out the difference between religious and secular morality.

I haven't found it. Please point us there.

Lehi

[LeSellers]

6 minutes ago, NightSG said:

Simple direct consequences, both immediate (any of the above can get you killed) and delayed.

That has nothing to do with "morality".

Lehi

[NightSG]

26 minutes ago, LeSellers said:

That has nothing to do with "morality".

How many people who do claim a religion avoid sin only because of the eternal consequences, and not simply because it's wrong?

[Guest]

15 hours ago, EricE said:

Yes. My mind is made up that slavery is immoral, because I have never seen any evidence that it is good for the people who are enslaved. 

Then you must also agree that God was right to allow those children to be burned.

Let that simmer for a while and see if you can make the connection.  If you can't, go ahead and ask and I'll explain it to you.

Bottom line, what is it that you consider the source or even the definition of good and evil?

 

[rpframe]

I'm 5 pages behind in this topic, and have not read all the posts. But looking primarily at the original post...

Morality:  principles concerning the distinction between right and wrong or good and bad behavior.

Now.. without going too deeply into principles of ethics, there are many bases on which to base your morality, whether it be utilitarian or otherwise.

I could theoretically say that Morality is defined by the population of rabbits on the earth. That which helps rabbits thrive and reproduce is good, and that which kills rabbits is bad.

Feeding rabbits good... Killing wolves good... Rabbit skinning bad.

Is this the way morality SHOULD be defined? Probably not, but I COULD define it that way.

We believe that God IS Good. Or that is to say, that morality is DEFINED by God. Or in other words, God's will is good. That which is against God's will is bad.

Therefore, if you accept God as the basis of morality, then YES... Morality REQUIRES a God.

Now, since we are not always certain of God's exact and precise will... We tend to use other things as makeshift bases for our morality. We may say that killing people is always wrong. And that holds true most of the time. God commands us not to kill. But God has commanded people on more than one occasion to kill people. Does this make God a liar? No. It just means that he as our creator is master of our lives. He is the only one who has the right to decide who lives and who dies. If he decides that someone is to die (Laban), and that one of us is to kill them (Nephi), then that is within God's will, and is therefore RIGHT.

If something that is within God's will seems immoral to you, it is likely due to your limited frame of reference. God allowed those people in Alma to be killed, and the reasoning given may not make sense to us. We may say that the deaths of those people seems immoral by another standard. But death is not the end. Those people are with God now. Their pain is over. Their life's mission complete. God knows more than us.

Now... you are completely welcome to reject God as the basis of morality. And in that case your morality does not require a God. But our theology uses God as the basis of our morality. Therefore in this context, morality requires a God, because GOD IS MORALITY.

[LeSellers]

28 minutes ago, NightSG said:

How many people who do claim a religion avoid sin only because of the eternal consequences, and not simply because it's wrong?

Still has nothing to do with defining whether we need God to establish "morality".

Lehi

[Guest Godless]

19 hours ago, LeSellers said:

"Our morality" has nothing to do with true morality.

Morality serves the purpose of advancing the human situation. but as long as anyone looks at "the human situation" as though this life alone is it, he will miss important insights into how God sees morality.

You (and @Godless) seem hung up on, e.g., the Amorites, so let's explore the situation. It goes back at least 400 years, and, as best I can tell, more than a millennium.

Noah's ark landed on Ararat, and his descendants set out to all points of the compass. But his son, Shem and his family and followers went only as far as what we know as Israel, or, better, the Land of Jerusalem. He founded a city he called "Peace", "Salem" in what would become Hebrew. (Later, the prefix "Jeru-" made it "the City of Peace".) His name (or perhaps his son's, but the chronology doesn't work well if so) or name-title was "Melchizedek", "King of Righteousness"; and, coupled with the name of his city, he was the prince or king of peace. (Obviously an anti-type of Jesus Christ). He lived 800+ years after the flood of Noah, and it was to him that Abraham paid tithes on the spoils of the war he undertook to rescue his nephew Lot from the kings of those people who would become the Amorites, Hittites, etc.

The next chapter of Genesis ends with God's making the covenant of a promised land to Abraham for his descendants. But it would not yet be, because, in the words of God:

These people, the Amorites, had been part of the original, post-Noachin, covenant, offspring of Noah and Shem. But, even in Abram's day, they were evil, and they had broken the covenant, but not so fully that they were ripe, ready to be swept off the land. It would take at least 400 years for them to reach that point, and when they did, the new covenant people, under Joshua and later, Saul, would fulfill the curse of a people who live in a promised land but fail to keep that covenant: they would be annihilated.

It was not caprice, it was not immorality that caused God, through Saul and Samuel, to destroy them. It was their having broken the covenant. The covenant would have allowed them "to prosper in the land", but there is a curse attached, too, and it was "to be swept off the land". They chose, they paid. That's what contracts are all about.

What is true of the Amorites was also true of the Hittites and all the other peoples of the area: keep the covenant, gain the blessing; break it, pay the price.

You also seem to be aghast that God would slay the Egyptians' first born. Again, we must study the history of the enslavement of the Israelites, which I assume you know. After Joseph saved the Egyptians, there arose a Pharaoh who knew him not. And, fearing an uprising (not basis for the phobia), they forced them to build cities of brick. The chronology is not clear, either it was for four generations (as in the prophecy above), or for four hundred years. Either way, the Israelites were long  in slavery, and when God commanded them to release the slaves, Pharaoh refused again and again, until God slew the children of the Egyptians. Had Pharaoh given them their freedom earlier, there would ahve been no cause for killing the first-born. So, in effect, it was their choice.

You also charge God with condoning and even commanding slavery. The only slavery you are likely familiar with is chattel slavery, but this was not the slavery the Israelites practiced under the Law of Moses. Slavery under the Law was not for life (unless the slave himself chose to remain with his master), but ended after, at most, seven years. Further, the conditions of Israelite slavery were far different from chattel slavery: the slaves were treated well, and the point of Israelite slavery was to take someone who'd broken the Law into a household where the Law was revered: it was an on-the-job training program in worship.

Your charges are spurious: God is quintessentially moral. His application of His own laws is predictable, and it serves a purpose beyond this world.

Lehi

What I'm seeing here is 1) Amorites being punished (via genocide) for breaking covenants that were made by their ancestors, and 2) the slaughter of Egyptians because of the defiance of a single man (the Pharaoh). In both instances, I have a hard time connecting the people being punished with the people who directly sinned against God. 

Yes, I understand the "contract" that was made. This raises a whole new moral issue in my mind. Is it moral for a God to bind his followers to covenants as a condition for their very survival? Not only does this put the notion of free will under question, but it also assumes the responsibility of children for the sins of their fathers. I'm well familiar with the term "born under the covenant", but is it fair (moral) to put that burden on a child who had no say on the matter? 

 

3 hours ago, bytebear said:

You know, this debate is funny.  The argument I am hearing is "God doesn't exist because the God (or Gods) described do not fit my moral standards, and therefore He cannot exist." 

I never saw this as the point of the discussion. The point, as I see it, is that morality in the absence of God is not only possible, but it may be preferable to theist morality. I have yet to see the matter of God's very existence turned into a major point of discussion by anyone other than yourself (though admittedly, I fell behind and kind of breezed through the two most recent pages of this discussion). It seems to me that Eric has actually been quite generous in entertaining the theoretical possibility of God's existence for the sake of this discussion.

3 hours ago, bytebear said:

" no one on this thread has related morality to the existence of a god "

Except, that this is your entire argument.

No, his argument is that morality can exist without God. From what I've seen, he hasn't made any statements to suggest that his views on morality disprove God's existence. See the difference?

[EricE]

@omegaseamaster75 "I fall into the camp where God allowed it to happen and provided rules to regulate it. I don't think that God ever encouraged it. In fact I challenge you to find a passage of scripture where God encouraged one of his followers to own slaves"

I have not claimed god encouraged slavery, I said that god condoned it (both old and new testaments).

So what is the explanation for why a moral god would condone slavery?

[LeSellers]

10 minutes ago, Godless said:

What I'm seeing here is 1) Amorites being punished (via genocide) for breaking covenants that were made by their ancestors, and 2) the slaughter of Egyptians because of the defiance of a single man (the Pharaoh). In both instances, I have a hard time connecting the people being punished with the people who directly sinned against God. 

Yes, I understand the "contract" that was made. This raises a whole new moral issue in my mind. Is it moral for a God to bind his followers to covenants as a condition for their very survival? Not only does this put the notion of free will under question, but it also assumes the responsibility of children for the sins of their fathers. I'm well familiar with the term "born under the covenant", but is it fair (moral) to put that burden on a child who had no say on the matter? 

Those who were sinning at the time the punishment was administered were sinning on their own: it wasn't their fathers who condemned them.

It is moral to offer a covenant, no matter the conditions. Those who enter into the covenant make the choice to observe it or not. They get to choose whether to accept it and bind themselves to it.

Lehi

[LeSellers]

21 hours ago, Godless said:

his argument is that morality can exist without God. From what I've seen, he hasn't made any statements to suggest that his views on morality disprove God's existence

If so, he hasn't made the point. He continues to attack the morality of God, not whether morality can exist without God. If God establishes a morality for us (love thy neighbor), and applies it in ways we do not understand, or even establishes a different morality for Himself (which is not a claim, just a hypothesis) makes no difference to the announced position, i.e., that morality can exist without God.

He claims to have written an explanation of how the two moralities differ, but I haven't seen it (not looked at each post all that carefully, mind, but then, I have had five eye operations, and sometimes miss things).

But he has not, nor has anyone else, established how anyone knows what "morality" is without an outside power that defines it.

Lehi

Edited August 12, 2016 by LeSellers

[EricE]

1 hour ago, rpframe said:

I'm 5 pages behind in this topic, and have not read all the posts. But looking primarily at the original post...

Morality:  principles concerning the distinction between right and wrong or good and bad behavior.

Now.. without going too deeply into principles of ethics, there are many bases on which to base your morality, whether it be utilitarian or otherwise.

I could theoretically say that Morality is defined by the population of rabbits on the earth. That which helps rabbits thrive and reproduce is good, and that which kills rabbits is bad.

Feeding rabbits good... Killing wolves good... Rabbit skinning bad.

Is this the way morality SHOULD be defined? Probably not, but I COULD define it that way.

We believe that God IS Good. Or that is to say, that morality is DEFINED by God. Or in other words, God's will is good. That which is against God's will is bad.

Therefore, if you accept God as the basis of morality, then YES... Morality REQUIRES a God.

Now, since we are not always certain of God's exact and precise will... We tend to use other things as makeshift bases for our morality. We may say that killing people is always wrong. And that holds true most of the time. God commands us not to kill. But God has commanded people on more than one occasion to kill people. Does this make God a liar? No. It just means that he as our creator is master of our lives. He is the only one who has the right to decide who lives and who dies. If he decides that someone is to die (Laban), and that one of us is to kill them (Nephi), then that is within God's will, and is therefore RIGHT.

If something that is within God's will seems immoral to you, it is likely due to your limited frame of reference. God allowed those people in Alma to be killed, and the reasoning given may not make sense to us. We may say that the deaths of those people seems immoral by another standard. But death is not the end. Those people are with God now. Their pain is over. Their life's mission complete. God knows more than us.

Now... you are completely welcome to reject God as the basis of morality. And in that case your morality does not require a God. But our theology uses God as the basis of our morality. Therefore in this context, morality requires a God, because GOD IS MORALITY.

I don't agree, and don't have time to fully respond at the moment (hopefully will later tonight), but wanted to give props for being one of the first to provide a some

 

8 minutes ago, LeSellers said:

Those who were sinning at the time the punishment was administered were sinning on their own: it wasn't their fathers who condemned them.

It is moral to offer a covenant, no matter the conditions. Those who enter into the covenant make the choice to observe it or not. They get to choose whether to accept it and bind themselves to it.

Lehi

That ignores the supposed facts surrounding the killing of the first born in Egypt. What did those children do? The god of the bible was not upset at them, he was upset at Pharoah for not letting the Hebrews leave. And because of pharoah's actions, god killed thousands of others who were entirely innocent to the question. 

[Guest Godless]

3 hours ago, LeSellers said:

I beg to differ. I wrote this (and others have posted similar thoughts):

How do you know what is moral?

Atheists cannot know that anything is moral. You may imagine you do, but you do not.

Why not murder if the only thing that matters is your personal survival? Why not steal if the only thing that matters is your personal comfort? Why not rape if the only thing that matters is propagating your DNA?

The only thing that matters to an atheist is this life. Honor, courtesy, honesty, unless they advance one's personal life/comfort/progeny, they are of no value at all.

You can claim you wouldn't want to harm anyone, but why not? What about another person makes not harming him to enrich yourself valuable to you?

You can choose to be moral, but why? How is acting morally "better", because it may very well be that your "morality" is not objectively better than anyone else's.

Lehi

 

Secular morality is based on the fact that we as humans are social animals and require social structure and stability to continue our existence as a species. A purely self-serving individual is a detriment to the species, and therefore immoral. Without this sense of morality, the only destiny we have as a species is chaos and extinction. This fact is ultimately the "outside power" that defines our morality, and it can absolutely exist in the absence of God. Religion shares many moral concepts with this secular morality, but it also builds upon it to account for the idea of immortality. This expanded sense of dogmatic morality isn't objectively better or worse than secular morality, but at the same time it in no way trumps secular morality. 

[LeSellers]

3 minutes ago, EricE said:

9 minutes ago, LeSellers said:

Those who were sinning at the time the punishment was administered were sinning on their own: it wasn't their fathers who condemned them.

It is moral to offer a covenant, no matter the conditions. Those who enter into the covenant make the choice to observe it or not. They get to choose whether to accept it and bind themselves to it.

That ignores the supposed facts surrounding the killing of the first born in Egypt. What did those children do? The god of the bible was not upset at them, he was upset at Pharoah for not letting the Hebrews leave. And because of pharoah's actions, god killed thousands of others who were entirely innocent to the question. 

Not all "first-born" were "children", incapable of sinning, so rein in your outrage a bit. Even De Mille's adaptation (and bowdlerizing) of the Exodus account shows one of Pharaoh's officer's son's dying in full armor.

It was not just Pharaoh who benefited from the Israelite slavery: all of Egypt did, from the taskmasters to the others who were employed in building the cities (it wasn't all Israelites making bricks and mortaring them with slime). De Mille shows a young (8 or so) crown prince kicking Moses in the shin. We can imagine quite easily that youngsters in Egypt were quite capable of hating their slaves right along with their elders and priests (who also weighed in on the matter of letting the Israelites go). We should add the entire court of Pharaoh to the list of people who actively resisted letting the slaves go. It was not one man, it was a nation. Not everyone, possibly, probably, but far from the unilateral decision you portray.

So a fraction, a tiny fraction of the dead first born were "children", not the rosy picture your paint of millions of infants dying. Most of those infants who did die (assuming there were any, the record is not exactly clear*) would have died anyway, given the high infant mortality of the ancient world, and it is conceivable that their deaths were more merciful than dying of the measles or cholera. And, as you have intimated earlier, we Saints do not look on the deaths of infants and young children the same way you must, given your lakc of faith in a life after death wherein these innocents are received in Celestial glory.
* We might look to the "massacre of the innocents" in Bethlehem. Most people imagine that hundreds of children were killed, but, in reality, it was probably fewer than a half dozen.

Lehi