Does God make sense?

Great Debates
1

Given the solipsistic, immoral, anarchic nihilism endemic to a world (universe?) without God, does it (would it) make sense to invent a God?

I’ve done some cursory searches and I tried to read this thread, though I couldn’t wade through the glurge. I don’t think this was brought up specifically and, since I’m not going through a six page train wreck to be sure, I’m starting a new thread.

I have three premises. They are not major and minor parts of a syllogism, just a framework for this thread.

Premise One, assume all of the negative consequences of atheism implied by the OP linked above are valid and unavoidable.

Premise Two, someone trying to invent a new window cleaner accidentally disproved the existence of God.

This premise is the most difficult for me, because I do not believe that God can be disproved. I’m sure that for others, the problem might lie in assuming the role of an atheist. What is important is that the deleterious effects of atheism should be presumed to be real for you in considering this thread

Premise Three, you have the ability to influence the religious concepts in the world around you.
Basically, the question is based on Voltaire’s quote regarding the need to create God.

Given the solipsistic, immoral, anarchic nihilism endemic to a world (universe?) without God, does it (would it) make sense to invent a God?

What if the negative consequences implied by mswas OP were not endemic, but still influenced a majority of people?

Would it make any difference if you were a President, Prime Minister or State leader?

What if you had been a religious leader until your conversion to atheism or realization that God’s existence had been disproved?

Would you be able to fabricate a God that you yourself did not believe in or knew did not exist?

2

If humanity was that evil and crazy, I’d be pretty much indifferent to it’s fate. And as an atheist, by the terms of your OP I’d be a sociopathic monster, and wouldn’t do a thing to help humanity anyway.

Not really. Such a species of sociopaths wouldn’t care about the welfare of society or humanity anyway. And giving religion to sociopaths doesn’t improve them anyway.

No. I’m a rotten liar.

As I see it, the problem is you are postulating a version of humanity that the universe would be better without. Amoral monsters who can only function as a society if they are all delusional. If disbelief in God destroys them, perhaps a better species will evolve. And if there are any aliens out there, I’d hardly want to unleash these creatures upon them.

3

Let me assume that sociopath is a psychological term and that the people suffering under the yoke of the scenario I’m describing are as diverse in their psychology as people are in the real world.
If these imaginary people would benefit from religion, i.e. have a reason to abide by laws and experience love, despite the way that sociopaths respond to religion (BTW, have a cite for the claim that sociopaths do not improve when exposed to religion?) would the imaginaries be worth saving?

4

The supposed people in this are made out of far too much straw. Der Trihs is right, those people would be better off left to extinguish themselves for the good of the universe. If they’re not as bad as OP stated, then the rest of the OP is pointless.

-Eben

5

That simply doesn’t work. If they were that diverse, then they wouldn’t all fall apart without religion. I’d just let the truth out, and let the sane ones handle it.

First, as said, they would be too dangerous to anything else that might exist in the universe. Second, I wouldn’t regard that as “saving” them anyway; I regard religion as a delusion, and I can’t see a delusional species with the ability to destroy itself surviving all that long. And third, I can’t work up any empathy for such a repellent species.

Unless someone’s come up with a treatment or drug I haven’t heard of, there isn’t really anything that improves sociopaths.

6

I’m not sure the straw man argument works here. I don’t think I’m distorting or misrepresenting anyone’s position. I agree that it an unrealistic scenario, but so is imagining that one is riding on a beam of light.

In reality, is it better to let sociopaths extinguish themselves? Would you consider it to be the moral high ground to simply let those who have questionable morals to extinguish themselves for the “Good of the Universe?” How is the good of the universe any different than God? Who decides what is in the best interest of the Universe?

I have reread the OP from mswas’s thread and I can’t really see how these people are bad. At any rate, that’s not the point. The question is not, are these good people or bad people. The question is, given the negative consequences implied by mswas OP, does it make sense to attempt to avoid those consequences by creating God?

Assigning the label, sociopath, doesn’t really make any difference. Sociopath is a psychological diagnosis. Violent behavior and anti-social behavior are not necessarily indicative of a diagnosis of Sociopath.

7

It would be better to let them learn actual morality, like normal atheists do. There is no need to employ a lie at all.

8

<nitpick>Sociopath is not a psychological diagnosis. And violent behavior and anti-social behavior are necessarily indicative of a sociopath.</nitpick>

9

While sidestepping the issue of what a ‘normal’ atheists is, let me quote from the linked OP, from the section on Morality:

Ignoring for the moment the missing ‘or’ clause, isn’t there a need for some type of centralized power to disseminate this actual morality? Am I letting people learn actual morality just by sitting here doing nothing? I’m not stopping them?

If there were a way to address social ills through the use of religion — true or otherwise — wouldn’t actual morality teach that we should minimize those social ills using the tools at our disposal?

The idea of the social contract might say that the people themselves would grant “some social authority” to someone so that they would address those ills.

10

That’s a good point. Wikipedia states that it is loosely used to refer to one of three different conditions, all of which are represented in either the DSM-IV or the ICD-10. As such it is a label and nothing more.

Sociopaths… comprise only 3-4% of the male population and less than 1% of the female population. cite

Considering that sociopaths are rare and that violence and anti-social behavior arguably are not, I cannot see how common behavior should necessarily indicate an uncommon condition. (When you hear hoof beats…)

11

Sure, and I would charge people big bucks to get tested and to train for higher levels of God-understanding.

[sub]Whaddya mean “it’s been done?!”[/sub]

12

To be entirely honest, the linked OP is pretty tortured in its thinking. For example, the presumption that the US president draws his power and authority from religion is silly on the face of it.

And in real life, yeah, people do develop moralities in real life, even when left to their own devices. Even faster when they have access to good reading material or good secular examples. But then, that’s talking about real life.

I’d like to apologize for not properly mentally incorporating Premise 1. I see now that it literally disallows atheists to be moral creatures. They are defined that they must be either deluded, or evil. The quoted OP defines its atheists as being so short-sighted and selfish that I can’t see them ever working to construct a government except as a vehicle to oppress others; and even then it would only last until one of these idiots got the idea that it would be to his benefit to assassinate their government.

Given that, I say shoot the lot of them. They’re not worth me wasting a lie on.

13

Generally I agree with your posts. I would submit that a religion need not be based on immortality at all - and some aren’t. Or some of the subsets of major religions aren’t.

14

My usage of the word ‘bad’ was abiguous and I apologize for that. I meant that the people as portrayed that in real life I would not feel the need to spend any resources on whatsoever. So no moral judgement there, just the feeling that they are dissimilar to myself that I have no compassion for them.

If one truly believes people are as hypotheticaly portrayed (and surely some people believe that), then it would make sense to find some way to control those people. Given that authority from another person is only as strong as the other person, it would make sense to claim that one’s authority for control came from some “person” that was unnassailable, and not in communication with the people being controlled directly.

On that point, I feel that a religion demanding, or even asking for, part of my resources (usualy cash money yo) is sure proof that it’s about control and not about love, peace, morality, or whatever.

-Eben

15

Can I just say that a bunch of sociopaths would find an equilibrium point?

At some point fear would be enough to mitigate the desire to take advantage. Who wants to suffer the punishments of a sociopath. Societies find homeostasis. It’s up to their instincts for revenge, justice, amity, etc to determine that place.

I would, in that scenario, favor the invention of a form of spirituality that accorded with naturalism. “A soft god. Well defined and with scriptures that pin down narrowly the scope and role of the god - the uncaused cause, benign, but uninvolved. Loving, but unable to stop the unkindness of humanity - it’s our lesson to ourselves. Humanized, but again… uninvolved. Hoping for communion - but you have to search your mortal soul to find that place of peace god placed in all of us for us to find when we are more and more in tune with those around us.”

16

The universe, unlike God, is real. And in this case, I decide, since by your OP I’m the one in a position to do so.

No. Creating God is a negative thing in itself, and preserving the creatures you describe is also a bad thing.

I have my doubts. We think that way, but that’s because we aren’t a species of sociopaths. I think they’d never get above the tribal village level, at best, without slaughtering themselves. More power, more organization would never be seen as anything other than a weapon, and no organization would last longer than it took for someone to find a way to destroy it for an advantage.

17

They’d live to the age of reproduction. The most egregious offenders would end up ostracized or dead. Eventually the least offensive would tend to rise in number, imo.

Going to that whole altruistic models are more stable than the more “selfish” ones point - perhaps in a different thread.

18

I don’t mean to change the meaning of your post. I added the [AND?] because I think there should be some conjunction between the two ideas. If the appropriate conjunction is [SO] it is an indication of a lack of empathy. If [AND] is the appropriate word, it is most definitely a moral judgment. (Because they are dissimilar, I do not need to feel compassion for them.)

As such, I’m not really sure what to say to that. Given a known cause for a pernicious condition (atheigenic sociopathic nihilism?), is the attempt to control that condition tantamount to fascism?

You are talented with the Red Herrings! However, if the authority you refer to comes from Premise Three, you’ll see that your power is limited to influencing religious concepts.

Are you saying that you would create a new religion, sans God, and simply define morality in terms of a nebulously delineated Universe and that what is ‘good’ for that Universe is what you say is good; ironicly casting yourself as God?

19

You say that like it’s a good thing…

or am I misreading?

20

If he won’t, can I? Sounds cool.

Though if I actually had the opportunity to found a new religion, it would be the Religion of Science, where Newton and Einstein are prophets and God is revealed through repeatable experimenation. Intelligence and wisdow are the noblest characteristics, not piety or martyrdom or any of that crap. The deadly sins become Duplicity, Willful Ignorance, Thuggery, Smoking, etc.

So, where are my female converts that I can outrageously exploit sexually already?