This is a question for those among you who believe in God(s) and consider yourself moral people.
Let’s say you just wake up tomorrow morning and you don’t believe in God(s) anymore. Would your set of morals change? Would your behavior change? If so, how? Otherwise, why not?
That’s why I’m scared of religious people who claim that all morality and law stems from the Bible. What if they believe in a different book tomorrow that says rape, pillage and murder are OK.
I don’t think they would change significantly, because, for the most part, my morals are based on the idea of not unnecessarily making other people’s lives suck, just because that seems like the right thing to do, regardless of any instruction or otherwise from a higher authority.
In fact, I have often said (and perhaps indulging in hyperbole) that, if your only reason for not committing crimes or acts of harm against other people is that God told you not to, then what you actually are, is a psychopath who happens to be subject to the biggest bully in the playground.
No. If, for some reason, I find that I lost all my faith when I woke up, it really wouldn’t change my morals. I’d still go on being kind (or at least to the best of my ability). It’s my belief that God helps us with moral decisions, but evolutionary pressures have pretty much hardwired humans to have morals. Being kind to your neighbor helps the primate group, and thus your own genes, etc. etc.
In this I may not be the person your looking for. I’m a Christian, but not a fundamentalist or a creationist. I’m a bit leary of getting into this at all, because too many of these types of GD threads are started by atheists with an axe to grind. I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt, though.
If we want to use straight reasoning and logic on this question, then all we have to do is look at people who were religous, but then somehow lost their faith. I’m sure there are plenty of them on this board. I’d also wager that none of them have gone on crime sprees after they lost it. Hopefully the more sober minded ones will post here. I lost my faith once, but then I got it back. All I can say is that I think I’m a better man with it. Here’s my take on your question:
To me, it’s free will. God gives me free will. I choose to be good, not because He makes me be good or I fear retribution if I’m not, but because I like people. If I thought God didn’t exist, it wouldn’t stop me from liking people. God acts as a resource that I can draw on, but only if I use my free will correctly. I may be an ape that’s hard wired to help the group (i.e. be “moral”), but praying to God helps me do a better job.
Agreed.
Language definitions: I realize that English and Spanish are different languages, but in regards to “morals” and “ethics” I use the definitions from my Philosophy class, which was in Spanish.
“Moral” comes from Latin “more”, meaning “custom”; moral means “customary”. The jeans I’m wearing right now are perfectly “moral” for 21st century Spain but wearing man’s attire was the excuse to burn Joan of Arc - back then, it wasn’t moral for a woman to wear trousers (and she had the gall to wear metal ones!)
“Ethics” is the part of science/philosophy that studies absolute good and evil. “Thou shalt not kill, because when you guys start killing each other things get real messy real fast” is an ethical warning, at least if you consider that “good” is “what increases your probabilities of living longer and better, having descendants (either biological or spiritual ones) and of those descendants living longer and better”. When we start killing each other, the risk of no descendants increases bloody fast.
Neither my definition of “moral” nor of “ethical” depend on my beliefs.
I recall very clearly the point where I was very close to despair because I absolutely couldn’t believe in my parents’ God - and I said, “I refuse to believe that God is an asshole.” To me, faith has been partly a matter of choice: since I do have certain morals and ethics and beliefs that are compatible with a particular church’s own set, using their name to label myself is easier than giving everybody a detailed rundown. I don’t share every little thing, but I do share those I view as important. I’ve been known to inform a foremost theologian that I consider a specific book of his to be completely dickocentric… he was ok with it once he got over the initial shock.
Perhaps some day I’ll stop believing in God. But I sure do hope I never find myself believing in an asshole.
This is a difficult question to answer. Some religions have very specific rules that I would consider immoral to break. This includes a number of dietary, sexual, and other similar rules. I believe in many of these; however, even without the religious reasons to continue to follow them, I don’t even like most of the foods I’m not supposed to eat, and I find most of the sexual things that are forbidden rather repulsive. Many of the other behaviors that are debatably ammoral aside from religions which forbid them (drugs, excessive drinking, gambling, etc.) already have sufficient other reasons not to due them, so I doubt that would change for me either.
Of course, my beliefs are quite as strict as those of a jew, muslim, mormon, etc. What if this happened to an orthodox jew who has had kosher (ie, turkey) bacon, would he start eating more pork? Would the muslim drink booze? What would the mormon do? What might be even more interesting is someone who originally was no religious and converted so that he had to give up many of these vices; would he return to his “heathenous” ways?
Over all, were this to happen to me, I couldn’t imagine my behavior or morals/ethics changing significantly. However, I can’t really foresee how strongly it would affect me, because my entire philosophy on everything from the origins of the universe, my place and purpose, to possibly even my political views (though I think they’re largely not connected). Perhaps after reworking my philosophy, it would have a greater affect on my behavior than I could predict.
There would be certain behavioral changes, for me, because there are certain rules of my faith that I follow, just because they’re laid down in our Holy Book. These include a designated daily prayer and a period of fasting. However, I would still try my best, as I do now, to live by the Golden Rule. I would do that because it’s the right thing to do, not because God is watching me.
I really don’t think that my ethics would change a great deal if I suddenly woke up having lost my faith- I’ve already lost one faith (Christianity) and adopted another (Judaism), and I don’t think my morals have changed much.
I’ll speak as someone who converted from a faith that didn’t have dietary laws to one that does: I’m really not sure. People are really good at rationalizing whatever it is they do- be that keeping kosher, cheating on their spouse, not cheating on their spouse, what have you. So, probably like a lot of people who keep kosher, I’ve thought of reasons to do it other than “God said so”.
I don’t think I’d eat crab or lobster again, because cooking something alive seems pretty cruel. Or I might eat them, but not cook them myself or watch someone else doing so (which is pretty much what I used to do). I wouldn’t eat most pork products again, just because I don’t like them. And I’d probably still say my religion forbade me from eating them, just to get out of arguments with people who want me to try something I know I’m going to hate.
Well, by the same “logic” you display in this comment, I should be MORE scared of people that claim their morality and sense of law don’t come from an external source such as God. At least those who claim it comes from the Bible can point to a relatively stable and unchanging document. What if, tomorrow, you decide that rape and pillage and murder are OK?
Needless to say, both my analysis and the post I’m replying to suffer from similar flaws in reason.
Right, and the same argument that (presumably) atheists use to dismiss morality based on God can be used to dismiss all morality not based on God. If a basis for morality is faith-based, it is purely subjective and cannot be justified from any rational basis. The trouble being, all morality (assuming atheism is true) is equally faith-based, and therefore unjustifiable.
That is to say, all morality is subjective and based essentially on individual whim. Thus no morality can be justified or disproven - those who believed that the Holocaust was morally justified are on the same level as those who argue that it was not. Both judgements are equally based on a subjective standard that is meaningless when applied to anyone else.
We’ve gone around and around on this a time or two on the SDMB, and to date, no one has been able to produce a sustainable reason to accept or reject any moral action besides a subjective one. The Golden Rule is just as faith-based as a fundamentalist’s belief in the moral authority of the King James Bible.
In answer to the OP, since all of my morality is based on what I believe is God’s will, and since that basis is presumed to have disappeared, I would essentially do whatever I felt like. Or commit suicide. Not that any of these choices are any more or less valid than any other - there is no standard by which anyone else can judge them.
But, as Bricker mentions, which is more scary - the believer who acts morally because he believes it is God’s will, or the non-believer who acts morally even thought there is no reason to do so?
Regards,
Shodan
PS - the usual counter-argument from atheists is an attempt to change the subject to “prove that a God-based morality is valid”. Feel free to try it, but it is beside the point. I am assuming for the sake of the argument that God doesn’t exist. Ergo, all morality, to be valid, has to be based either on something objective, or on individual whim. If it is based on something objective, then by all means mention what it is. If it is based on subjective whim, then all statements addressed to anyone else that he or she “should” or “should not” do anything are meaningless.
My moral system is based on happiness. Now, that doesn’t appear to be an something objective, but it actually is. Certainly we know that people can be happy and sad. We also know that some things are capable of making someone happy or sad, though what does that for each person* is * subjective. And we have no happiness-meter, but we can still tell when someone is happy or not, even if we can’t quantify it into increments of happiness.
Does that count?
I’m not sure this necessarily follows; it’s not all that unusual for people to abandon received ideas (such as MLM, or their religion); it’s more unusual for people to abandon ideas they figured out for themselves and decided to embrace because of the (albeit subjective)merit of the actual ideas themselves, as opposed to the weight of the authority imposing them.
Unfortunately, no. The judgement that it is better to be happy than to be sad is just as subjective as the belief that the Bible is the basis for morality.
The distinction is between the objective observation of the results of a system of morality, which is objective, and the validity of the system itself, which is not.
In oher words, the Holocaust did not make the Jews happy (to say the least). It did (presumably) make the Nazis happy. On what objective standard can we base a judgement that it is better to make the Jews happy than the Nazis? Or why should anyone be happy?
Happiness (if materialism is true) is a pattern of electrical impulses in one part of the brain. Sadness is a different pattern in a different part. Why is electricity “good” if it is in one place, but “bad” if it is slightly above and to the left? It is like arguing that turning on a light bulb is “good” if it happens in the dining room, but “evil” if it happens in the hall.
Why is “happy” the summum bonum, in other words? You can say so arbitrarily, certainly, but that is an act of faith. Just like saying “the Bible” is the basis.
Regards,
Shodan
I knew an ex-Catholic nun who went on a hard-drinking, man eating frenzy for several years after leaving the order. So there’s one whose morals altered.
The problem with hypothetical questions like this one is that they don’t give enough information. Why did I stop believing in God? And do I believe in anything? Do I still believe in good, for instance? Or do I believe in a purely materialistic universe in which things like objective good and evil are illusions or matters of personal taste? Is the universe purely deterministic, in which free choice is illusory and nothing I or anyone else does could have been otherwise?
But, to answer as best I can: I believe my behavior would be much the same as it is now, but more selfish. I would be less likely to go out of my way to do things that don’t benefit me: anonymous charitable donations, for example. As a Christian, I try to keep in mind Jesus’s words that “whatever you do to the least of these, you do to me.” WIthout that perspective, “the least of these” might just be poor, probably undeserving, schmucks with no connection to me, so why not ignore them? If they’re no longer precious to God and made in his image, but just another biological entity that’s going to die sooner or later, it’s harder to care what happens to them now.
I’d still have the same basic ethical habits, temperament, sensibility. They wouldn’t change overnight, and would still bear the influence of my own faith and that of those around whom I grew up. It would still bother me to be evil or jerkish; I’d avoid doing things that made me feel bad or weighed on my conscience. But I’d find it even harder than it already is to overcome my natural laziness and inertia, to put myself out and do things that maybe only God would see and bless.
No, it’s not. We enjoy being happy - that’s objective. We know it occurs. If you’re happy, chances are high you’re liking it.
Well, here’s where i’m going to become tremendously unpopular. No one has any right to be happier than any other person; so it’s not better to make Jews happy than it is Nazis. Assuming a world of 1000 rabid Nazis and one Jew, discounting future changes in belief and population, i’m afraid i’d be in favour of letting the Nazis treat the Jew like shit. 1000 happy people is better than 1 unhappy person, even if I think it’s disgusting. (Taking the future into account, of course, the best action would be to try and get the Nazis to change their minds, with the aim of having 1001 (plus any kids) happy people.)
What makes one electricity good? We enjoy it. We like it. It’s fun. We are happier with that electricity over the other.
Because we like being happy. What makes “being happy” objectively better than “being sad”? We prefer the former.
Of course, in a world where most people preferred being sad, the opposite would be true. But it is an objective fact that the vast majority of people enjoy being happy.
Again, that is begging the question. Why is “liking it” The Good? Why does preference carry any moral weight?
And a feeling (of being happy, or feeling anything else) is pretty much the definition of “subjective”.
You are restating a position rather than establishing it.
Regards,
Shodan
Really?
How unusual are each of the cases, percentage-wise?
Objective morality would be based on what we understand of evolutionary theory. It would be whatever is best for the continued survival, diversity, and reproduction of the human species (both in total, and it’s constituent members.) Thou Shalt Not Murder, Rape, Steal, Lie ect. are logical ethical limitations on behaviour that have the effect of working generally toward the common good of the species. They help ensure that we survive to reproduce, that we remain diverse, and maintain the quality of our offspring.
I hardly think you have to be a creationist to think that god is the source of morals. In fact, if you believe in theistic evolution (God invisibly influencing the course of evolution) you could also believe that our hard wired morals come from God. If not, you’d need to explain why God allowed our morals to be hard wired (and I agree that many are) in conflict with his desires. Some of our hardwired sexual morality sure is. If he has, why is it fair for him to condemn us for them?
I do think you hit on the answer though. Or God is more or less a product of our hardwired morals, with some variation, not the source of them, and since removing god belief does not remove the hardwiring, it has little impact. Similarly, people with God belief have no trouble at all being immoral if their personal wiring is done that way.