Godless morality

[PipeBox]

Hmmm, I'm not  fan of post dissection because it usually involves the person doing the dissection detaching arguments from their supporting evidence and addressing each separately, but I'll tidy up my posts a bit and see if I can make my positions more clear.

But I do contend that an infinitely compassionate, omnipotent being could not be "made the fool of" by granting pre-forgiveness.  He already has the only thing he requires of you, and any Christian will tell you that further sins, no matter how ugly, will be forgiven so long as the they prayed something in line with Apostles' Creed (and were baptized, and whatever individual stipulation you like.  I think it's safe to assume you've done everything you take relevant to being 'saved').  So you are already forgiven, even for playing the system or testing God or yourself.  This is an argument of philosophy, not of theology, and though I'm asking you to violate a fundamental tenant of your beliefs, I don't see a problem with it since you are forgiven and this little test is important to my case.  I can't change your mind if you're unwilling to imagine my point of view or run these moral experiments.  This it somewhat a strawman, but it's as if I were singing "Imagine if there was no heaven, it's really easy if you try," and you're arguing that it isn't easy when you refuse to try.  I'll be honest, the fact remains you're forgiven for whatever you do, and I was saying the pre-forgiveness bit to try to coerce you into actually giving the experiment a run, because most Christians I've proceeded along similar lines with will discount the whole thing with a rationalization such as "That would be testing God!" and they make it sound as though this is unforgivably sinful.  I owe you far more than that, because you are going to see through such feeble tricks, but surely you know that I cannot prove something to you if you're unwilling to do the analysis, even if you believe the analysis to be "wrong."  Yeah, that opens up a whole other can of worms, like "what if someone wanted you to kill someone to prove a point," but my challenge was more in the realm of a thoughtcrime than inflicting harm on another sentient beings, which courtesy of empathy, sympathy, interest of self-preservation and progeny, and reason, we don't do.  If you choose to discard these, you've already created a monster that will never care about what God has to say, so it fails to this creature as a moral system.  And if you can't prove that the Bible IS an absolute system of morals, then it too appears to be only subjective, and to likewise have no governing power over this creature.  Our difference is that I admit my morality is subjective, and you believe yours isn't, but you can't offer me any proof otherwise, beyond a lack of atheistic reasoning and a feeling you have that all morality is descended of God, which is no proof.  Us not being able to adequately explain every facet of the human mind and our foundational gut instinct is not evidence of absolute morality.  At risk of giving you something stupidly-easy to dissect, I present you with these concepts:
[li]Man evolved to have empathy, sympathy, reasoning et al.
[li]Man, and many other creatures, evolved this way because that is most beneficial to life, which has no true goal except continuing to survive.
[li]Though I state this as a goal, it is not inherent, just the only possible outcome.  Life that evolved to die most efficiently would die, and that'd be it.
[li]All living life seeks to continue living and reproducing, given it isn't damaged or shortly to go extinct.
[li]Man helps out others because he posses this empathy, sympathy, desire to be treated in kind, etc.
[li]We derive our morality from these attributes, and as such they are subjective.  We may refine these morals based on interaction with others.
[li]Man, courtesy of this evolution, desires to continue the race as a whole due to these attributes.  Also due to these attributes, the people who disagree with our most common morals, or do not posses these attributes are removed from the society and evolution cannot continue in their direction under typical circumstances.
[li]The society has no special powers to it beyond that it is backed by many.  It can be wrong, and people may choose whether or not to participate in it.  Society is merely how we get together to achieve our base goals, which are as subjective as anything else, and where we derive our power from, rightly or wrongly.  You may call it as it stands tyrrany by the majority, as the will of the majority will be imposed on those who threaten it, for better or worse.
[li]Many of the Bible's morals are derived from the people that wrote it.  This is why some of them we find morally reprehensible today, such as slavery (I know, your other thread  

[Martian]

hey guys, just wondering if us atheists should believe in absolute morals ect or if morals are completely relative...
dawkins said in one of his books that "If the universe were just electrons and selfish genes, meaningless tragedies . . . are exactly what we should expect, along with equally meaningless good fortune. Such a universe would be neither evil nor good in intention . . . . The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind pitiless indifference"
now I take it that most atheists believe in temporary morals...however what should we base our morals on? should we write ourselves a moral code to live by? should we just follow societies moral laws? once I get a response I have a few more questions!
thanks!

Morals are inventions, not discoveries. The relativity or absolutity of morals is dependent on what you say they are. Every person (including atheists) will have their own morals based on what they like.

Also, "should" is a rhetorical word meant to pursuade people by treating commands as objective facts. "Should" is just code word for "I would want you to".

[Kyuuketsuki]

Morals are inventions, not discoveries. The relativity or absolutity of morals is dependent on what you say they are. Every person (including atheists) will have their own morals based on what they like.

I disagree ... I think morality has evolved in a cultural sense and is not an "invention" per se (to my mind that implies purpose). I also do not agree that morality is personal, I think morality is societal and we use our conscience to act against or within a given societies morals code.

It's a view

Kyu

[curiosityandthecat]

I disagree ... I think morality has evolved in a cultural sense and is not an "invention" per se (to my mind that implies purpose). I also do not agree that morality is personal, I think morality is societal and we use our conscience to act against or within a given societies morals code.

It's a view

Kyu

Agreed. It's my contention that morality has evolved as a combination of herd-protection, guilt and the ability to comprehend causation.

[Titan]

Hmmm, I'm not fan of post dissection because it usually involves the person doing the dissection detaching arguments from their supporting evidence and addressing each separately, but I'll tidy up my posts a bit and see if I can make my positions more clear.

Sorry, it just helps me address every aspect of the post.

But I do contend that an infinitely compassionate, omnipotent being could not be "made the fool of" by granting pre-forgiveness. He already has the only thing he requires of you

1. A perfect God, by definition, would not require anything of us.
2. As I previously stated, forgiveness actually requires you to be sorry, planning on doing the act or planning on saying your sorry after doing an act is more akin to treacherous manipulation than solemn religiosity.

and any Christian will tell you that further sins, no matter how ugly, will be forgiven so long as the they prayed something in line with Apostles' Creed (and were baptized, and whatever individual stipulation you like. I think it's safe to assume you've done everything you take relevant to being 'saved'). So you are already forgiven, even for playing the system or testing God or yourself.

Again, that is not the case. You are only forgiven if you TRULY repent. Asking for forgiveness prior to committing the act is akin to the illustration I provided earlier.

This is an argument of philosophy, not of theology, and though I'm asking you to violate a fundamental tenant of your beliefs, I don't see a problem with it since you are forgiven and this little test is important to my case. I can't change your mind if you're unwilling to imagine my point of view or run these moral experiments.

But the hypothetical situation demands a bastardization of Christianity. It would be like someone saying "I will prove to you that apple pie is disgusting" and then proceeding to dumb sewage water into the pie. Of course the pie is going to taste disgusting...it is not longer true pie (I love pie, you will learn this throughout our dialogues). To imagine the situation itself is to alter Christianity. I realize you would be annoyed with the prospect of me not letting this argument continue but it is simply not a valid interpretation of scripture.

I owe you far more than that, because you are going to see through such feeble tricks, but surely you know that I cannot prove something to you if you're unwilling to do the analysis, even if you believe the analysis to be "wrong." Yeah, that opens up a whole other can of worms, like "what if someone wanted you to kill someone to prove a point," but my challenge was more in the realm of a thoughtcrime than inflicting harm on another sentient beings, which courtesy of empathy, sympathy, interest of self-preservation and progeny, and reason, we don't do. If you choose to discard these, you've already created a monster that will never care about what God has to say, so it fails to this creature as a moral system.

Pipebox, your hypothetical situation is a clever one. Indeed, I can see exactly what would happen at the end, but to accept the situation would be to alter my conception of God, thus I would not provide a valid answer. I was in a debate with an atheist who demanded that I tell him whether the Bible should be taken literally or figuratively. When I  said that parts are taken literally and other parts are taken figuratively he grew annoyed, arguing that I had to make a distinction between the two. The truth is, the Bible has to be taken both otherwise we would either be literal sheep (fluffy and everything) according to the Bible, or bound by something that could be interpreted in infinite amount of directions. I knew he had a trap set, he was probably sitting there with two verses, one proving that the Bible could not be taken literally and one proving that the Bible could not be taken figuratively. But to accept his argument as a challenge, would be to alter the parameters of my faith, thus invalidating the discussion because I would no longer be defending what I believed.

Our difference is that I admit my morality is subjective, and you believe yours isn't, but you can't offer me any proof otherwise, beyond a lack of atheistic reasoning and a feeling you have that all morality is descended of God, which is no proof.

I am willing to argue that I cannot prove that my morality is absolute. I, however, am currently arguing against the inherent problem of moral subjectivity. We can begin a discussion that truly delves into the principle of a comparison of theistic morality and how they stack up but that would be another long winded exercise, one which would require another thread.

[li]Man evolved to have empathy, sympathy, reasoning et al.
[li]Man, and many other creatures, evolved this way because that is most beneficial to life, which has no true goal except continuing to survive.
[li]Though I state this as a goal, it is not inherent, just the only possible outcome. Life that evolved to die most efficiently would die, and that'd be it.
[li]All living life seeks to continue living and reproducing, given it isn't damaged or shortly to go extinct.
[li]Man helps out others because he posses this empathy, sympathy, desire to be treated in kind, etc.
[li]We derive our morality from these attributes, and as such they are subjective. We may refine these morals based on interaction with others.
[li]Man, courtesy of this evolution, desires to continue the race as a whole due to these attributes. Also due to these attributes, the people who disagree with our most common morals, or do not posses these attributes are removed from the society and evolution cannot continue in their direction under typical circumstances.
[li]The society has no special powers to it beyond that it is backed by many. It can be wrong, and people may choose whether or not to participate in it. Society is merely how we get together to achieve our base goals, which are as subjective as anything else, and where we derive our power from, rightly or wrongly. You may call it as it stands tyrrany by the majority, as the will of the majority will be imposed on those who threaten it, for better or worse.
[li]Many of the Bible's morals are derived from the people that wrote it. This is why some of them we find morally reprehensible today, such as slavery (I know, your other thread

Pipebox, you are extremely intelligent, and I believe you are getting close to the answer atheism offers. I am fervent in my desire to continue this debate because I believe that I can actually get an answer to my question from you. You seem to even be nudging me towards the answer and in my own blindness I'm having a hard time comprehending it. I merely ask that you answer some of my pitiful questions, I'm slow, I know, but some of these are plaguing me and have always kept me from an ideological switch towards atheism.

Martian

Morals are inventions, not discoveries. The relativity or absolutity of morals is dependent on what you say they are. Every person (including atheists) will have their own morals based on what they like.

So, as the rational person you are, understanding the completeness of your theory as it applies to the external subjectivity and internal objectivity of each person's moral stance, you would be forced to recognize that your stance on morality is no more valid than the next persons. Is that not true?

Kyuuketsuki

I disagree ... I think morality has evolved in a cultural sense and is not an "invention" per se (to my mind that implies purpose). I also do not agree that morality is personal, I think morality is societal and we use our conscience to act against or within a given societies morals code.

So there is nothing wrong with one society wanted to rip apart another society? Since morality has been limited to the beliefs of the organized few?

[Kyuuketsuki]

So there is nothing wrong with one society wanted to rip apart another society? Since morality has been limited to the beliefs of the organized few?

By whose morals?

Kyu

[PipeBox]

OK, I've been busy, and my mind is functioning in scattershot fashion at the moment.  Still, I'm in a good mood and I'll try elaborating.     But you get the gist of it.

The whole of morality a feedback loop, which makes it very hard to change.  The system determines what people may achieve power, those people have the ability to modify the system, evolution has effect on what those people are like, and the system has power over evolution (to the extent that it dictates who is more likely to reproduce, how they go about it, and perhaps even direct genetic engineering someday).  I'm sure I'm missing few more environmental effects, but morality extrapolated from these.  I'm not sure how I've gone back on my definition of morality, because I've stated it's a product of reasoning, empathy, etc, and that those are products of evolution, and that our evolution flows in the direction people let it.  This way of doing things still exists in nature because we haven't all killed ourselves yet.  I can't say that it's bloody brilliant, but evolved up to this point so it isn't circular reasoning.  It may not be the best way of doing things, but how should we know what's best.  Evolution only cares about what works.

I want to elaborate on the above more, but I feel fogged now.  There's more to be said on it, I just think I'm at the limits of my ability to explain it.  Not understand it, but explain how everything ties together without having to go through each individual concept.  But to give you your sensational answer, I can find no evidence that Stalin, or Hitler, or anyone else was ever wrong in any objective sense.  But they repulse me to the core by being so at odds with my morality.
 
I hope the answers suffice, I think I'm near or at my limits of my ability to explain this.  My brain functions a great deal on a parity level, where I don't memorize each and every underlying concept, and instead I'm left with "Does this interfere with underlying concept C?  No," where I once knew what C was, but after checking if the upper concept checked with the lower one, I let my knowledge of C slip except for the parity check.  So, much to my disadvantage, I do not have easy mental access to all the underlying concepts for my argument, where my knowledge turns into a very shaky "this works because I know it does."  Naturally, if you or anyone can demonstrate something to be at odds with my more detailed knowledge, a more base principle that clashes with my reasoning, I'll adopt that, because I know my reasoning can't be perfect.  Anyway, this is why I'm I going to start struggling to answer further questions along the lines of "where do we derive subjective morality from and why does it appear so universal?" so it is my hope I have explained the topic well.

[Martian]

I disagree ... I think morality has evolved in a cultural sense and is not an "invention" per se (to my mind that implies purpose). I also do not agree that morality is personal, I think morality is societal and we use our conscience to act against or within a given societies morals code.

It's a view

Kyu

Agreed. It's my contention that morality has evolved as a combination of herd-protection, guilt and the ability to comprehend causation.

People accept the rules that they like or the rules they are conditioned to like. But because those rules stem from what people like, that means that those rules are man-made/artificial. There are an infinite amount of possible rules for human action, but humans select the ones they like and call them morality, often disagreeing with each other. That is what I meant by "invention". An invention doesn't neccessarily have to be something new, but it has to be artificial: a creation by human choice. Sure, some rules are popular and have been around for a while, but describing what other people do is just descriptive ethics. It merely describes what's going on. Really what's going on is at the personal level of choice based on preferences.

It was moral to kill the jews in Nazi Germany, but people in other societies would contend that that wasn't moral. Slavery in the USA was moral by popularity, but similarily it is called immoral by other societies. The label "moral" is something that is independent of what is popular, or else it's pretty meaningless.

Saying that popular rules are what is moral doesn't neccessarily tell me what moral is. If everyone did that (try to discover morality by what was popular), then there would be no morality because people are the creators. Rules about human action are decided based on what people's preferences are, and in aggregation, some become popular. Those preferences can be natural or conditioned (most likely different degrees of both), but they still are human creations.

Also, because what humans make is always for some purpose coupled with the fact that morality is a human creation, morality is made with purpose.

[LARA]

The hypotheticals you're coming up with to test the limits of LARA's moral philosophy are crude. I don't see how you could expect anything beyond an apathetic answer for anyone that wanted to carry on living in these situations. If you had to live through the conditions you suggest I doubt you'd be very happy with your god, if you could still find reason to think it was looking out for you at all.

Thank you, Pipebox.

Titan, let me try to create a realistic situation to test morality, one that humanity faces time and time again.  I'm going to make a supposition for this argument, that morality is based on survival.  What keeps the most members of a population alive for the longest time is the most moral action.  Now, since the subject of genocide keeps rearing it's ugly head, let's take the hypothetical situation that a superior human leader convinces a population that in order to continue living a certain race of people has to be exterminated because resources are becoming scarce.  

Here is the problem with this in an evolutionary, atheist perspective.  One human determining what type of person should live and die based on human opinions about superior genetics through violence creates an ever dwindling human population because of the following reasons:

Genocide eliminates certain people from the population that humans see as unfit.  It is done violently and therefore ultimately eliminates not only the humans the genocidal maniac sees as unfit, but any compassionate members who try to oppose this leader.

Now purged of these members of society we can see a simple result.   Resources are again plentiful.  But genetic diversity, the crux of the survival of a species has been reduced.  Additionally, the number of compassionate members in society have been reduced.

The population goes on living, but, as is the way of nature, resources once again become scarce.

A new genocidal maniac comes along and the process is repeated.  There are less people and the resource problem has been solved.  Unfortunately, genetic diversity is reduced and compassion is reduced.

If this process continues on, the population of humans will become genetically constrained.  Without genetic diversity in the population, disease becomes harder to fight.  Without compassion in the population, violence becomes more and more of a problem.

This violent, diseased, genetically narrow population eventually exterminates itself.

Now let's take a situation in which resources are scarce, but instead of turning to the genocidal maniac, the population holds fast together, and extends compassion to other members regardless of their differences.  Resources are allocated as best as possible to get as many through the resource shortage as possible. Some even choose to give their rations to others, such as an ill mother to her child, an elderly man to his son, a sister to her sister.  This is a very compassionate population mind you, a population we as humans would claim aren't acting like the humans we know.

A good number of people starve to death and die on these short rations, but only nature is allowed to take life, not other humans.  The population is smaller, but genetic diversity is retained by natural forces, only those who are infirm, elderly or have an illness succumb to the environment.  It isn't pretty, but in the end this type of population that tries to preserve as many members of it's population and it's genetic diversity comes out stronger than the population that tries to take matters into it's own hands, appoints itself God and has the hubris to declare itself above the processes of natural selection.

This is why genocide is wrong from an atheistic, evolutionary perspective.

Now realistically, I do think that the violent population is more similar to us.   But from an atheistic, evolutionary perspective I can see that there are other populations on earth that are like this in the animal world.  We tend to regard animals as stupid and violent while forgetting our own stupidity and violence.  We place ourselves at the pinnacle of creation and forget that other populations are still developing, and under the forces of evolution they will be selected for their intelligence and compassion because it's these qualities that allow life to continue.

And supposing that we genocidal, hubristic creatures who have given ourselves dominion over the earth through a man-made supernatural creator manage to destroy every last living thing on the planet, life will evolve on worlds orbiting stars too far away for us to destroy.

Life will continue.  It will develop intelligence and compassion.  It just might not end up being human.

Now please, Titan if you really do have further questions you think we can answer, can we all stop dissecting posts and just ask them?

[Kyuuketsuki]

People accept the rules that they like or the rules they are conditioned to like. But because those rules stem from what people like, that means that those rules are man-made/artificial. There are an infinite amount of possible rules for human action, but humans select the ones they like and call them morality, often disagreeing with each other. That is what I meant by "invention". An invention doesn't neccessarily have to be something new, but it has to be artificial: a creation by human choice. Sure, some rules are popular and have been around for a while, but describing what other people do is just descriptive ethics. It merely describes what's going on. Really what's going on is at the personal level of choice based on preferences.

I wouldn't say that we have a choice in what morality to adopt, that's why I think it's cultural evolution, slow and below the level of what I see as active choice.

It was moral to kill the jews in Nazi Germany, but people in other societies would contend that that wasn't moral. Slavery in the USA was moral by popularity, but similarily it is called immoral by other societies. The label "moral" is something that is independent of what is popular, or else it's pretty meaningless

Probably true about the Nazi's but I'm not so sure on the slavery one inasmuch as I am not sure that many other societies opposed US slavery at the time ... sure Britain did but historians seem to be saying that they took their anti-slavery position as much for convenience reasons as anything and human rights had little to do with it (IOW not a moral position).

Also, because what humans make is always for some purpose coupled with the fact that morality is a human creation, morality is made with purpose.

Yes there's an element of human influence but I just wouldn't go as far as saying it's an active choice or that a given society's morality is in some way purposefully designed.

Kyu

[LARA]

Hi Martian  from your posts I'm getting the impression that your position is that all morality is absolutely relative and defined by the society the individual lives in.  Please correct me if I'm wrong.

My questions to you are :  Are there any moral values that are concrete and do not change?  I can see situations in which there are conflicting values that make moral relativity necessary, but I am curious if you ever allow any absolutes into your moral viewpoint.

What base supposition do you lay down as the beginning point of your moral code?  Is this base supposition the same as what you see in society?

For me my basic premise for my morality is that human life is good and should continue for as long as possible.  I am assuming this position and trying to build a fundamental moral code from this.  Now there may be events that occur in life that make me question this basic premise, but for the purposes of survival, I have to assume it to be true.

[Tom62]

My 2cts. I believe that morals are not absolute. Many people think that there is a clear distinction between good and right, but most of the time it is not black or white but a gray zone. Also every action causes a reaction, particularly so with morals. Many times a moral deed could result in an immoral effect. For example, people donate money to feed the Third World countries in Africa. Might sound morally correct, but it creates a long dependency of those countries on foreign aid. You have now farmers in Ethiopia who don't care whether their crops fail (due to bad and outdated agricultural knowledge), because the white man will help him out anyway. Not to mention of course that a lot of the money that we give find their way in the pockets of the corrupt officials of that country. So basically people are dying in those countries, because we give them food. Another effect is that people in the West get used to all this graven images of children dying from hunger in Africa. After seeing the same thing year in year out their morals shift from "We've got to help these poor bastards" to "Why can't they just get their act together".

[Kyuuketsuki]

My 2cts. I believe that morals are not absolute.

Agreed ... one man's ceiling is another man's floor

Kyu

[DennisK]

I disagree ... I think morality has evolved in a cultural sense and is not an "invention" per se (to my mind that implies purpose). I also do not agree that morality is personal, I think morality is societal and we use our conscience to act against or within a given societies morals code.

It's a view

Kyu

Agreed.  You are a direct result, morally speaking, of the environment in which you were raised.  Similar to the fact that you are likely to be the same religion as your parents or culture in which you were born.  Morals are constantly evolving throughout the world.  For most they are directly linked to their religious belief of the time.  There are many factors manipulating morals and imposition is probably the main sculptor.  "What I know to be right and wrong is what everyone should believe".  

Using Christianity's views of morality (I was formerly a catholic), the OT morals were drastically different to the values in the NT.  Now look at how the morals have changed in the last 2000 years, or the last 100 years.  To be a 'moral' Christian in this day and age you must discard much of the teachings of the bible.  The same can be said for other religions.  In the OT era, you were doing your moral duty by killing infidels, blasphemers, adulterers, sodomites, etc.  It's hard for most of us to imagine this was not only tolerated, but encouraged.  You are considered fundamentalist and immoral if you follow the OT or Qoran verbatim.

[Martian]

Someone define morality.