Atheist Morality

[Beeto]

After reading these posts I wondered how each of you would act in the “Heinz Dilemma” (SP?) (Insert corny condiment joke here)

If you haven’t heard of this it goes like this.

Your significant other has come down with a rare disease. There is one man who has invented a cure but his price for this cure is above what you could possibly pay. There is no way you can earn enough money to pay before your significant other dies. What would you do and more inportantly why? Would you steal the cure? If he closely guarded it would you kill him for it?

[David_B]

Beeto said:

Your significant other has come down with a rare disease. There is one man who has invented a cure but his price for this cure is above what you could possibly pay. There is no way you can earn enough money to pay before your significant other dies. What would you do and more inportantly why? Would you steal the cure? If he closely guarded it would you kill him for it?

This is the problem with hypotheticals – there are too many ways around it.

For example, what if I say my grandmother has money – lots more than she could ever use before she dies. I have no doubt that she would pay for the cure.

Or I could point out that it is highly unlikely that this situation would ever occur, because in order to prove that his cure worked, it would have to go through extensive testing, allowing others to find out what the cure is. Or I could point out that it would do little good for this man to have a cure that he prices so high he can’t sell it to anybody. Or…

The point is that hypotheticals don’t work.

Or, as SingleDad has said, as long as we’re just saying, can I be taller?

[Liberal]

David

The reason I do not steal is not because God said not to steal. The reason I do not steal is because not stealing is being like God. All that is good is like God. He is the Eternal Life. Surely, it is in my self-interest to be like Him in every way that I can.

I choose, of my own free will, to worship Him, and to be as like Him as I am capable. I adore Him. I love Him, and He loves me — perfectly. He loves you as well, as is plainly obvious. Likewise, I choose, of my own free will, to be like Him another way, that is, to leave you free to make your own decision about how you will respond to His love. Like Him, I do not believe you ought to be forced to worship Him against your own will.

When you say, “[even] if that somebody happens to be your god,” you convey a wonderful child-like naivité with respect to comprehending the nature of God, not unlike Gaudere’s. And both of you are beautiful people.

Gaudere

When you have found the Love that transcends your loin and your instincts, you will have found the Love that is He. Yes, It is Alive!

Harkenbane

Thank you for your kindnesses. What most breaks my heart is the common notion that God is represented to us by religion politicians.

[pldennison]

It is in our self-interest to be merciful because those who are merciful receive mercy.

Unless your name is “Jesus,” in which case you get executed. Ooh, “Paul” isn’t so hot, either.

I’m not dropping anthing that is necessary. Entities that are unnecessary ought to be dropped.

Indeed. I start with magical, invisible people who live in alternate dimenstions. The complications which ensue from introducing such people are mind-boggling.

But neither the Easter Bunny, nor Santa, nor Invisible Pink Unicorns exist.

Santa is Joy. Joy exists. Therefore, Santa exists.

The Invisible Pink Unicorn is pink. Pink exists. Therefore, the Invisible Pink Unicorn exists.

See, if we begin by simply setting up identities, we can prove the anything exists:

Dracula is evil. Evil exists. Therefore, Dracula exists.

. You do not love because you rationalize in this way or that way. You love because God lives in you. If God did not live in you, you would not — and could not — love.

THat’s a rather facile (and insulting) way of stating, “You believe in God, you just don’t know you do.” It’s somewhat unbecoming, in the midst of an ongoing debate with an unsettled question, to claim that you’ve won.

[Gaudere]

Harkenbane: Welcome to the SDMB. Now, as to your post:

You claim only egotism and greed as motivations for moral behavior. That completely misses the fact that many of us atheists claim our morality comes from empathy and love of our fellow humans. Also, I must question where you think theist morality comes from: Why do they choose to do God’s will? So they can feel good about themselves (egotism)? So they will be rewarded (greed)? Out of love of God? If egotism and greed are the motivators for theists, aren’t they “immature and self-deceiving, as a person with such morals isn’t truly moral but is simply seeking to cover up psychological weaknesses”? And if love of God can motivate thiests to moral behavior, I think it reasonable to accept that love of fellow humans can motivate atheists to better behavior too.

The only final answer to the question “What is good?” come from religion. Only religion possesses absolute and final answers to questions such as this.

Yes, but each religion can have varying answers. It doesn’t do much good to have an absolute answer if you’ve got the wrong answer. It is entirely possible that no religion, despite their absolute answers, has the right one.

If God is absolutely good, then God’s Will is absolutely good, and if God’s Will is absolutely good, then to do God’s Will is to do good. In the absense of God to provide this, there cannot be true morality.

Why not? Say you are a person who does God’s will, which is absolutely good. Then God dies. You continue to act the same way you did before. Are your once-absolutely good actions now somehow no longer absolutely good because God is not around anymore? If your actions are still absolutely good, then you can still do absolute good even if God does not exist.

You seem to be arguing that therre must be a perfect morality existing in fact for morality to exist at all. To me, that is like saying a perfect circle must exist somewhere for there to be circles. I don’t believe that; we have tons of circles, but the perfect circle exists only as a concept. We have lots of moral codes, but if the perfect one exists only as a concept, morality still exists.

because of the fact that no religion I know of propagates the worship of a god who is not clearly stated to be absolutely good.

What, never heard of Satanism? Actually, the Satan that Satanists worship isn’t supposed to be a bad guy, but I don’t think he’s claimed to be pure Good like some other Gods. A lot of the Gods worshipped by the pagans weren’t all good either.

But then again, I don’t give a damn about society, I concern myself only with the truth.

Wow, wonderful example of moral behavior there. “Heck with all those people and what they suffer; I care only about the TRUTH!” I think I can safely accuse you of egotism here… (Yes, I realize you probably just wanted a zinger to end your essay.)
PS–Lib, when you refer to the generative organs or the pubic region, it should be “loins”, not “loin”. Otherwise, I guess you’re referring to a single ovary or something.

[Derleth]

Religion has nothing to do with God.
-Liberatarian

Main Entry: re·li·gion
Pronunciation: ri-'li-j&n
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English religioun, from Latin religion-, religio supernatural constraint, sanction, religious practice, perhaps from religare to restrain, tie back – more at RELY
Date: 13th century
1 a : the state of a religious <a nun in her 20th year of religion> b (1) : the service and worship of God or the supernatural (2) : commitment or devotion to religious faith or observance
-Merriam-Webster Dictionary

Definition 1 b(1) is suitable for our discussion, as it defines the essential nature of religion as most people percieve it. Religion is very much based around the worship of the supernatural, mainly a group of deities. (And no, there are no ‘monotheistic’ faiths. All faiths have at least two deities [the main one and the main one’s adversary {incidentally, the word satan comes from a Hebrew word meaning ‘adversary’}], and I’m certain that they all have the demigod concept [angels, spirits that were once humans, etc.] tied into their afterlife beliefs.)

[HorseloverFat]

**

All faiths have at least two deities

**

There are many flavors of Buddhism that are arguable atheistic, with no creator god or whatever western counterpart you want to compare to.

[David_B]

Lib said:

He loves you as well, as is plainly obvious.

Not plainly obvious at all – or else nobody would doubt God’s existence, which a number of us plainly do.

In response to your larger point, yes, the way you describe it does make it different than the “he said so” example. However, others have already admitted that they are moral because God said so (one has in this thread, and I know one reg did in a much earlier thread). So apply what I said to them instead.

[matt_mcl]

no religion I know of propagates the worship of a god who is not clearly stated to be absolutely good.

I’m a Pagan, and the gods I worship, at least as how I and my friends conceive them, include, compose, and are composed of everything that exists, including what’s good and bad.

Pagans don’t have a very Christian view of morality - we usually tend to associate good/evil with balance/imbalance, rather than light/darkness. But a lot of non-Pagans would probably think of the Crone/Destroyer/Sacred Whore aspect of the Goddess, Whom I worship at Samhain, to be ‘evil’ or at least not ‘absolutely good’.

[sdimbert]

Gaudere:

**
…genes that make an effort to protect related genes are more likely to survive to be procreated. In small tribes people were all related to each other, so caring for others protected your genes. Empathy is most certainly useful for promoting a healthy, successful human society; there is no evidence that it actually is “unnatural”, given its great benefits to the gene pool as a whole.

**

When I say “unnatural,” I refer to the fact that nature seems to demonstrate that self-preservation is the most effective motivation an organism can have. I understand that, in the above excerpt, you’ve extended the human organism to the level of community, but surely you can’t argue that the idea of putting another’s needs before your own runs contrary to human nature?

**If I have only one chance to send something on beyond me, I think I should make it a good thing, something that makes mankind better and greater than it was before I came along. What greater immortality can you ask for than to have been a part of making the world better? Of course, I do not think this every time I make a moral choice; generally my question is, “Does this hurt someone? Does this help someone?” But the root of my decision is there.
**

Here also, you’re assuming that the needs of the community are akin to your own sense of worth. I have trouble seeing that as a concept that we, as evolved creatured, stumbled onto on our own.

(BTW, I realize that I may have stated my own moral motivation a bit steeply to make my last point - I have no idea how I would behave in a definitely Godless world.)

In any case - you state that a wish to provide for those who come after you drives you to do good - to leave a positive legacy. But certainly we could construct a hypothetical (and I am taller ) in which the wish to provide for others drives a well-intentioned man to behave immorally?

A fictional example springs to mind:

Brutus’ motivation in joining in the assassination of Caesar (in the play, not the history) was noble - he acted in the best interests of Rome; but certainly murder is immoral!

Comments?

DavidB,

you posted:

**
Atheists behave morally because it is the right thing to do.

**
To use http://www.m-w.com for a definition:

Main Entry: mor·al
1 a : of or relating to principles of right and wrong in behavior
b : expressing or teaching a conception of right behavior
c : conforming to a standard of right behavior

-(emphasis mine)

Isn’t your comment circular?

[Harkenbane]

Gaudere Said:

**
You claim only egotism and greed as motivations for moral behavior. That completely misses the fact that many of us atheists claim our morality comes from empathy and love of our fellow humans.
**

I missed nothing–the essay was written in response to that very claim. Gaudere, you are yourself missing my first statement. Look again at the way I defined morality. I restate that you can be perfectly “good” without having any morality whatsoever. As a self described atheist, you should be willing and happy to accept that you do “good” because you are a social being (you are, after all, a mammal) and it makes you happy. This is not the same as the morality I define.

All too frequently atheists such as yourself feel defensive when told they are amoral. This is silly. You are "a"theistic, and you talk about that without shame, so whence arises this refusal to accept "a"morality? How is morality necessarily a positive trait? I think that I have pointed out how psychotic morality is for the most part. The sooner you divest yourself of the idea that you must carry this burden to “be a man,” the sooner you will be able to reason as a logical and self accepting being.

**
Also, I must question where you think theist morality comes from: Why do they choose to do God’s will? So they can feel good about themselves (egotism)? So they will be rewarded (greed)? Out of love of God?
**

All too frequently. The last answer, love of God, could actually be claimed as a “sane” motivator of morality, as Libertarian convinced me in his various postings. But for the most part morality is really one drawn out psychosis.

“Good and Evil” are absolute concepts. The only ultimate, absolute answer to what is Good must therefore come from an ultimate, absolute source. A living God defines what is good, and He gets to do this by virtue of the fact that He is God. In the absence of such an absolute source, there are no final answers. (And no, God cannot “die;” if he could, then he wouldn’t be absolute, and in this case he has no right to define such absolutes.)

People are quick to decry me as evil because I claim that human life is of no necessarily inherent worth. Each person values their own life, but why should we value the lives of those we have never and will never meet? I defy you (and anyone) to come up with a single reason the objective viewer should value anyone’s life unless there be a God. And in the absence of a human’s inherent worth, there is no reason why his feelings have any inherent worth. Do you care what I am saying to you, what my feelings towards your responses are, or what anyone’s feelings are? That is your prerogative. Care, or do not care, as you will. That is your right (because it is within your power).

**
“Heck with all those people and what they suffer; I care only about the TRUTH!” I think I can safely accuse you of egotism here… (Yes, I realize you probably just wanted a zinger to end your essay.)
**

Egotism? We’re moving a little deeper into the semantic battlefield than I had hoped. I was using the word “egoism” (note the absence of any “t”) in the sense that it is the dishonest bolstering of a weak psyche. But if you wish to accuse me of coldness or hauteur, you will find me unlikely to argue. I genuinely do not care if you or, for the most part, if anyone should suffer. But rhetoric and debate interest me greatly, so I am happy to post my views and curious to hear your responses.

matt_mcl: While it would be premature of me to make any final statement from such a small glance at your philosophy, it seems at first glance that you have a much healthier “morality” than most (because you do not seem to have one at all as I defined it).

[Gaudere]

. Gaudere, you are yourself missing my first statement. Look again at the way I defined morality. I restate that you can be perfectly “good” without having any morality whatsoever.

Ok, I did: “morality is defined as the exertion of will over the desire for self aggrandizement.” When I choose to do a thing out of love for my fellow humans, even if it harms me, how is this not “moral” by your definition?

“Good and Evil” are absolute concepts. The only ultimate, absolute answer to what is Good must therefore come from an ultimate, absolute source. A living God defines what is good, and He gets to do this by virtue of the fact that He is God.

So if God said rape and murder were good, they would be?

The last answer, love of God, could actually be claimed as a “sane” motivator of morality, as Libertarian convinced me in his various postings. But for the most part morality is really one drawn out psychosis.

Love of God is a sane motivator for morality, but love of man is not? Please explain.

I defy you (and anyone) to come up with a single reason the objective viewer should value anyone’s life unless there be a God.

I defy you to come up for a reason to obey God’s will and value another human if you do not love God–a subjective reason to be moral. I value humans because I care about them. You value humans (or at least a moral code that says you should) because you care about God, and you think He cares about them.

I genuinely do not care if you or, for the most part, if anyone should suffer.

Well, that sucks. I do care. Please explain to me why you act morally if it is not out of a desire to please God (apparently you do not care about Him, or anyone else), or the “dishonest bolstering of a weak psyche” of egoism or greed.

[Harkenbane]

Ok, I did: “morality is defined as the exertion of will over the desire for self aggrandizement.” When I choose to do a thing out of love for my fellow humans, even if it harms me, how is this not “moral” by your definition?

That would be perfectly moral. Just not sane. I was giving you the benefit of the doubt by assuming that you were doing society’s good because it pleased you to do so on some basic level, rather than assuming that you really were a moral (and therefore harrowed) atheist.

So if God said rape and murder were good, they would be?

What sort of question is this meant to be? Am I to gasp in horror at the realization that God’s Will could contraduct my own will as one of his puny creations and force me to accept something I thought of as loathsome to be good? Obviously if God said rape and murder were good, they would be good. Our ephemeral, finite, and subjective views are subservient to those of any hypothetically absolute God.

Love of God is a sane motivator for morality, but love of man is not? Please explain.

I’m surprised that I should be asked to explain. If I love God, I love an absolute. By doing as Libertarian says, and imitating him, I transcend my mortal bounds. If I love a human, I love something as small and otherwise meaningless as myself. If I am not a source for any absolute morality, how can any of my peers be?

I myself do not do many things simply because my friends and loved ones would disapprove. But this is hardly “morality.” It would make me feel unhappy to risk their displeasure, so I do not. Overall, it behooves me to be “good” in their eyes; this is self aggrandizement because it is in my own interests to please them.

I defy you to come up for a reason to obey God’s will and value another human if you do not love God–a subjective reason to be moral.

This is of little consequence. Love God or do not love God; you can always choose to do evil. But an absolute God still defines good and evil, irrespective of any love one may bear him.

Now, I have answered your question, answer mine. I still defy you to come up with a single reason the objective viewer should value anyone’s life unless there be a God. You claim to care about humans. So be it, but an “objective viewer” has no reason to share this sentiment. Let me put it another way–Do you personally care about cats and dogs? Snails? Plants? Fungi? Bacteria? Viruses? Rocks? You have a subjective attachment to humans because you are one, but you can be much more objective in dealing with “lesser beings.”

Well, that sucks. I do care. Please explain to me why you act morally if it is not out of a desire to please God (apparently you do not care about Him, or anyone else), or the “dishonest bolstering of a weak psyche” of egoism or greed.

You still give me the impression that you are not understanding me. Whether I believe in God or not, I doubt that I ever suggested that I did not care about such a being. And more importantly, where did you get the idea that I act morally? It’s true that I haven’t killed anyone, stolen anything of consequence, or otherwise done anything “bad” in my life, but the only reason I will give you for this right now, I have already given: It does not serve me to displease my friends and loved ones, about whom I most certainly do care. Once again, this is not morality.

[Liberal]

David

Not plainly obvious at all [that God loves me] – or else nobody would doubt God’s existence, which a number of us plainly do.

When I was a child, I did not comprehend that all my provisions (meager though they were) came from my loving parents. You are a child in the Spirit. God is Love — Living Love — the Source of all that is good. You would not be capable of love (not eros, not philos, but agape) were He not dwelling in your heart.

Whether you believe in Him intellectually is irrelevant. He believes in you nevertheless. And it is no wonder you do not believe. God has been presented to you as a tomato plant with super-hero powers.

Your brain can lead you only to a realization that you must open your heart. It is when you open your heart that you will know Him. And when you do, you will find that He is not a tomato plant at all — He is, in fact, you.

All who behave morally, atheist and theist alike, do so because they love goodness. The theist calls this goodness “God”. The atheist calls it something else. The label is irrelevant. Likewise, all who behave immorally, atheist and theist alike, do so because they love evil. It is nothing to believe with the intellect.

Intellectually, even the Devil believes in God.

In response to your larger point, yes, the way you describe it does make it different than the “he said so” example. However, others have already admitted that they are moral because God said so (one has in this thread, and I know one reg did in a much earlier thread). So apply what I said to them instead.

Sorry. It is difficult enough for me to read my own mind.

[Liberal]

Derleth

I’m afraid the pocket dictionaries are talking about a tomato plant, owned and cultivated by the religion politicians. They then present the benefits of this tomato plant to you to con you into sacrificing yourself for their own sake. I recall a preacher, who upon receiving that day’s collection, tossed the loot into the air. “Whatever stays up,” he proclaimed, “is God’s. Whatever falls back down is mine!”

I am not talking about a tomato plant. I am talking about God. God despises all that is evil, including religion.

[Harkenbane]

**
All who behave morally, atheist and theist alike, do so because they love goodness.
**

Libertarian–You are beginning to lose me, particularly with that statement. Is it so impossible for a person to behave morally by accident, or by coercion? Perhaps you mean by your statement that “All who espouse morality, atheist and theist alike, do so because they love goodness,” but in this case it seems to me that if you love doing good, then you are not moral, since morality means overriding your own desires; you are simply behaving in a way that makes you happy. Do you not believe in free will?

Of course all of this may be your terminology and the way we define your concepts differently. I frankly have no idea what you’re talking about when you say things like “God is you.” Hopefully you will elaborate.

[Liberal]

Harkenbane

I’m sorry to have confused you. You’re right that my terminology is atypical, but necessary to convey meaning that is not polluted by common connotations. When I speak of God, for example, I am speaking of the Living Love that created us for the purpose of establishing love among free moral agents, and not the common concept of a god who is a whimsical (and often maniacal) ruler.

God could have made us pre-programmed to love Him (as He did the angels), but then what good is that? I can write a computer program that will proclaim “I love you” each time I start it. Big deal.

God made us in His image; that is, He made us as free moral agents, free to love Him (and one another) OR NOT. Love that is freely given by volition is the same kind of Love that He is. He placed man into an amoral universe, where morality is played out, not by the atoms in that universe, but by the Spirit that is in man. The atoms merely provide an amoral stage. It is man that provides the moral context.

A moral act cannot be accidental; it must be volitional. If a man accidentally gives a ten dollar bill to a homeless man when he intended to give a dollar, then his moral act is the giving of a dollar, not ten dollars.

Morality comes from our hearts, where our treasure is, where our spirit resides. This is where God resides in you. “The Father is in me. I am in you. You are in me. The Father and I are One.” — Jesus. The Spirit of Love is One. God is One. The God that is in you is the same as the God that created the universe. Perfect morality, therefore, is when we love perfectly, as He does, whereby we become One with Him.

The essence of morality is not in any particular action, but rather in the motivation of our hearts. “It is not what goes into a man that makes him unclean, but what comes out of his heart.” — Jesus. If, for example, you lie to a serial killer inquiring as to the whereabouts of your sister, your lie is not an immoral act, but a moral act, driven by the love you have for your sister.

In short, a loving spirit will ALWAYS commit moral acts, no matter what those actions are. A spirit that does not love CANNOT commit a moral act, no matter what that action is. That is because morality comes from Love.

How can a bottle that contains wine dispense vinegar? And how can a bottle that contains vinegar dispense wine?

[Gaudere]

Me: When I choose to do a thing out of love for my fellow humans, even if it harms me, how is this not “moral” by your definition?

Harkenbane: That would be perfectly moral. Just not sane.

How am I insane? I think you are arguing that people who are moral do things that do not please them, which is insane to you. However, if you were to analyze a person’s motives, you would see that what they chose is always the thing that they perceive to be having the greatest benefit to them. If they do not steal because they love God, obviously they have determined that the best decision for them is to not steal. However, I would still consider their decision moral, even though it makes them happy. I like Spiritus’ desciption of morality: “Finding value in self is easy. Finding value in all is suicidal. Finding value in others without destroying your self is discovering a personal morality.” It does not give absolute answers, no. But as I pointed out, what good are absolute answers if they’re wrong? Why should we praise and worship God for His Goodness, if even if he raped and murdered it would be Good?

Even you mention motivators for why people should obey God and therefore be moral; they can “transcend [their] mortal bounds”. But if they have a motivation, they must desire to do so, and therefore by your definition they would not be moral, right?

Now, I have answered your question, answer mine. I still defy you to come up with a single reason the objective viewer should value anyone’s life unless there be a God.

Please explain to me how God existing gives people objective value. If people truly had objective value, they would have it whether Somebody or somebody thought they did, right? If people can have objective value because God values them, why can they not have objective value because another person values them? Actually, I think that “objective value” is a misnomer because of the very nature of value itself; in order for a thing to have value, it must be valuable to someone. Therefore how can anything have objective value if it is dependent on another person’s perceptions? How can humans have objective value if they have value only if God values them?

[Glitch]

Good luck, Gaudere. The term “futility” comes to mind.

[Glitch]

All too frequently atheists such as yourself feel defensive when told they are amoral. This is silly. You are "a"theistic, and you talk about that without shame,

Why shouldn’t an atheist speak about atheism without shame? What is shameful about atheism in the first place? Personally, I often wonder how theists can speak so proudly of their delusions.

so whence arises this refusal to accept "a"morality? How is morality necessarily a positive trait?[

You’re joking right.

amoral: 1: (a) Being neither moral or immoral (i.e. science is completely amoral). (b) lacking moral sensibility.

Seeing as how (a) applies to things, and (b) applies to people, I trust you might be able to fathom who calling somebody amoral might be taken somewhat insultingly.

I think that I have pointed out how psychotic morality is for the most part.

No, you have managed to demonstrate how to somebody with a God-centric view they might not understand how somebody else can have a moral basis which for Gaudere is the love of her fellow man and that such is equally as subjective as the God-centric view. Thankfully reasonable people can learn, as demonstrated by Libertarian in the “Atheist Religions” part 1 and 2 threads.