Help! Can ethics be mandated without religion or other assumptions?

[MHand]

*from blowero *
You have me at a loss here. I’m not familiar with this “Oral Law” thing. Could you explain it please? It sounds to me like a simple case of humans deciding right and wrong, and then using some tortured logic to justify that it is the objective word of God. But I will give you the benefit of the doubt and allow you to explain how it is that you know Oral Law is the objective word of God.

When God gave the Torah to Moses, he also taught him the Oral Law. This was taught from Moses to Joshua to … to my father to me.

Defending that my particular knowledge of the Oral Law is in fact exactly what God told Moses won’t fit in a paragraph or two, and will not convince you of anything. You don’t believe God exists, so surely nothing I say will convince you that I know what words he spoke.

With that said, I hope I can convince you that if no sound, my beliefs are at least consistant (valid). God gave the Torah and the Oral Law together. Both were transmited through about 120 generations to me and I have accurate copies of both.

Taking part of the written law out of context, assuming that you accurately know the meanings of the Hebrew words (though they were also transmited orally through 120 generations), but ignoring the orally transmitted meanings of the phrases and paragraphs, leaves you with only half a lawbook.

The oral law is quite clear about the rules concerning capital punishment. A situation requiring capital punishment hasn’t come up in 2000 years.

[blowero]

*Originally posted by MHand *
Blowero. You seem to think that I think atheists are immoral. I do not believe that; Please don’t take insult.

O.K. - thanks for clearing that up. Because in your previous posts it sounded like you were saying atheists can’t ever be ethical people. Like this one:

This reminds me of a business course I was taking. We spent a few weeks on business ethics, even though the teacher was an atheist.

The way you phrased it, saying “even though the teacher was an atheist” - it sounded like you were implying that it would be contradictory for an atheist to know about ethics.

Sorry if I misinterpreted your posts. It sounded to me like you were saying that morality is inconsistent with atheism.

Since it wasn’t clear, I’ll say explicitly, that I believe:

God exists, defines what is right and wrong, revealed his system to us, and mandates that we follow it.
Most atheists follow most of God’s rules.

Or, from MY perspective - most atheists AND theists basically follow the same moral tenets, which mostly boil down to “don’t hurt other people”. Atheists realize that these ideas are simply part of human nature, and were around long before the Bible was written, while theists incorrectly attribute them to God.

I’m not saying atheists are immoral. I’m simply saying that in some imaginary world where God didn’t exist, morality could not be mandated.

Understood.

Now, to get back to the O.P. (oh, yeah- that). Wasn’t he talking about animal rights? I’m curious, does your God even say anything about how we should treat animals? (I mean, besides burning them in sacrifice?)

[Nightime]

Saying that “don’t hurt other people” is simply a part of human nature is itself an assumption. Of course you need some kind of assumption or religion to mandate ethics… that doesn’t mean athiests can’t mandate ethics for everyone, it just means they have to come up with some assumption that allows them to. The problem for the OP is that they have NO assumption that allows a mandate. Otherwise they could just write that “don’t hurt animals” is simply a part of human nature.

How can I take a stance on the ethics of animal exploitation when I believe there is no right or wrong in the matter? If I do not believe there is religious mandate for morals, and, if I attribute my own sense of right/wrong to childhood conditioning, (which does not carry authority outside of the stimulus response system of my own brain), how can I write 7 pages on the right 'n wrong of the matter?

You can’t. Or, you could just write it based on your own ethics, even if they are a result of conditioning, and put a disclaimer stating that your views are not necessarily mandatory for everyone.

[Apos]

—They, by definition of being atheistic, must admit that there is no consequence to breaking the rules.—
—Now – what’s wrong with breaking the rules? If there’s no consquence, in what way are the rules mandated.—

You seem to have missed the entire point of a “morality.” It is not about having consequences for breaking rules- it is about what actions are right and what are wrong. Period. The fact that a hypothetical god exists to punish people for certain conduct makes 0 difference to what is and is not actually moral to do or not.

—God exists, defines what is right and wrong, revealed his system to us, and mandates that we follow it.—

You seemed to have missed the entire point of my criticism, which is this: to claim that morals ar “mandated” at all is to express a contradiction. To say that morals are decided by ANYONE, including a god, is nonsensical: destructive to the very concept of “morals.”
Whether a god exists or not, it makes no difference to what is moral or not. If killing really is wrong, then it must be wrong whether or not a god thinks so. To say that killing is wrong because god thinks so is merely to base a moral system on an arbitrary opinion. Maybe killing pisses off god: but it is in no meaningful way immoral. Pissing off god would be just that: it’s not morally wrong, just imprudent. There is no MORAL argument anyone could make about why it is wrong to piss off god, because any such argument would simply beg the question (seeing as it’s all based on the opinion of the use of particular definition anyway).

I don’t know about you, but to me, such a theory of morality just seems to boil down to moral nihilism.

—Surely, if God exists and mandated rules, people should follow them. So defining “good” to be “following God’s rules” is logical.—

But this is simply a definition: it is not a demonstration of absolute moral right and wrong! We might as well define “good” as “doing what MHand wants you to do.” That would equally as empty.

The fact that a god might exist, and might mandate rules, is not enough to make those mandates moral. In fact, they can ONLY sensibly be defined as moral IF there exists some external standard to judge their content. Otherwise, they would simply be completely arbitrary. They could not themselves be called “good” or “bad.”

—Because theistic morality is arbitrary, doesn’t mean its “not an absolute system”. It is absolute because the same set of rules are mandated to all people at all times.—

But this is true of ANY case in which there is simply a “definition” of what is moral! If I define following the moral advice of Hitler as moral, then his advice is mandated to all people at all times in exactly the same way: simply by definition. Why you think such an empty foundation is impressive is beyond me.

—Atheistic based morality is also abitrary because whatever axioms the system uses to define its rules are arbitrary.—

First of all, you are simply dishonest to refer to “atheistic based” morality. Atheism is not a philosophy: no morality is “based” on “atheism.” It is correct to refer to moralities that do not include accounts of god’s involvement as “atheistic,” which means exactly what I said: those without reference to a god.

However, many atheistic moralities have one important advantage over all divine command theories: they are based in accounts of actual VALUE of the actual things involved. That is, they attempt to establish the wrongness of, say, rape, in the context of the fact that people do not want to be raped. They refer to actual violations of actual values, rather than utterly arbitrary commands of a being not directly involved as either the moral chooser or the potential victim.

Divine command morality has no capacity to do this, because it would by definition limit god to some external standard. To actually base a moral sense in VALUING anyone or anything would bestow moral obligations on the god itself: which is exactly what cannot be done if the reputation of the diety is to be salvaged. As long as god is said to “define” morality, then it can simply be begged off the hook for ANYTHING it does, no matter how horrendous. It’s a cute way to bypass criticism, but the downside is that it simply fails the smell test of a meaningful “morality.”

This is one of the reasons I find the OT moral codes, and most of the Bible, to be fairly morally empty. There is rarely, if ever, any sense that things are wrong because they hurt people. Adultery is never condemned because it hurts anyone’s feelings, breaks anyone’s trust. It’s comdemned because it is offensive to the tribe’s diety (and presumably brings ruin on the tribe). In fact, most of the TC laws are based not out of actual value for anything, but on practical superstition (if you do this, bad stuff will happen to you or your tribe). This sort of thinking is characteristic of many ancient peoples. But it is, at best, only proto-moral.

—The argument that “God can change his mind and say X is right and Y is wrong therefore the system is as arbitrary as listening to anyone else (Bush)” doesn’t hold.—

Of course it does: because moral arguments are arguments of generalized theory. The point is that, by your own defintion, there is simply no moral reason why god couldn’t have mandated that rape was good (and, of course, he seems to think it’s good when it serves his interests in the OT). If you truly think that morality is simply whatever god commands, then you MUST be commited, in theory at least, to the proposition that rape could have been good.

Worse, your argument about “god doesn’t change” simply doesn’t hold water. If there is the sort of god you claim, then you have absolutely no ability to judge whether god can change his “moral” mandates or not, or even what has ultimately happened. Perhaps its all part of some greater plan beyond your comprehension, as Jesus, and the revisions of morality he represented, was supposed to have been beyond the understanding of the Jews.

—But, the God-based morality is mandated. Whether you like it or not, if God exists—

Sorry, but you have not made a ghost of a case for tying the mandate to the morality. The fact that a violent, bossy, all powerful being exists, and wants certain things, does not automatically make its wants moral. There is simply no logical connection there. Following them may be prudent to avoid suffering: but threats and bribes do not make any sort of legitimate morality. Acting purely out of prudent self-interest is not moral.

Worse, you are caught in a trap of your own devising, as Plato pointed out. You cannot have things both ways. If God mandates morality, then it becomes nonsense to claim that god is good, or that god’s mandates are good: this begs the question (since ANYTHING God mandated would have been, by definition only, good). But if you can say that god is good, then you require an external standard not based upon any presumptive about god.

So, either your god and its commands cannot meaningfully be said to be “good” in any sense (in which case, why laud him at all?), or what is and is not good is not a question to which any story about “god” is a relevant answer.

[Nightime]

Most of MHand’s posts in this thread have been using the argument from my first post, though I greatly disagree with how he is using that argument. I was trying to answer the OP by proving that ethics cannot be mandated without religion or other assumptions, but he used it to say that God himself mandates ethics.

Whether a god exists or not, it makes no difference to what is moral or not. If killing really is wrong, then it must be wrong whether or not a god thinks so. To say that killing is wrong because god thinks so is merely to base a moral system on an arbitrary opinion.

The problem with this statement is that you can’t separate people, morals, and God! You can’t complain that God is imposing morals on a world which you do not admit was created by him! IF God exists, if he created the world and created us in his image, OF COURSE that makes a huge difference as to what is moral or not. Not because he says so, but because we ourselves are different beings. The world and every living thing on it is very different.

In fact, they can ONLY sensibly be defined as moral IF there exists some external standard to judge their content.

I agree, for the most part. But what you don’t understand is that the “content” is different if there is a God, than in a world which was not created by God. Therefore it is possible to have a set of morals, based on judging the content of the people and the actions and consequences, without resorting to arbitrary opinion, and get different morals depending on if there is a God or not.

Your comment about the content of the mandates if very helpful. But how do you know what the content is? How do you know what we are? You must agree that there are many things we don’t know. Right or wrong, religion tells us what we are. And if it is true, then we are not the same as we would be if there was no God. So we can have morals because we know and can judge the content.

However, many atheistic moralities have one important advantage over all divine command theories: they are based in accounts of actual VALUE of the actual things involved.

Just because MHand says things are right or wrong because God commands it does not mean that is what religion says. Things are always right or wrong based on their actual value. But you have to know what the things and their values are. Religion is one way. But an athiest could come up with some assumptions of the nature of the world and what we are that would allow them to mandate morals too. But still, some religion or assumption is needed, in order to determine the content of a moral mandate so you can judge it.

[Hoopy_Frood]

The great thing about being the only species that makes a distinction between right and wrong is that we can make up the rules for ourselves as we go along. — Douglas Adams, Last Chance to See

*Originally posted by Apos *
**However, many atheistic moralities have one important advantage over all divine command theories: they are based in accounts of actual VALUE of the actual things involved. That is, they attempt to establish the wrongness of, say, rape, in the context of the fact that people do not want to be raped. They refer to actual violations of actual values, rather than utterly arbitrary commands of a being not directly involved as either the moral chooser or the potential victim.
**

If one assumes that God’s morality is completely arbitrary, then yes. But why does God’s morality have to be arbitrary?

All the moralistic commandments in the OT involve actions that are forbidden (as a general rule, sometimes it’s okay to lie, sometimes it’s okay to murder, but the cases where it becomes acceptable are small in number compared to the cases where it isn’t; e.g. self-defense) due to the fact that they will in the long run hurt the individual or other people.

Jesus said that all commandments are derived from two main principles: Thou shalt have no other god’s before the Judeo-Christian God, and Love thy neighbor as thyself. One involves mankind’s relationship to God, the other involves our relationship to each other.

Paul echoes this when he says that the law as written is largely irrelevant (I forget the passage where it is mentioned, I want to say Ephesians, but I’m not sure). It is the spirit of the law that is the important part. The OT laws were explicit due to the fact that the ancient Israeli’s lived in very chaotic times. Who cares about spirit of the law when one is doing all one can just to survive. Compare it to an adult that tells his child not to do something. Often times the reasons are beyond the capability of the child to comprehend, so “because I said so” is the easiest way to get the child to do the right thing. However, over time as the child matures, the child begins to realize the full consequences of his actions. Now the parent can explain the “why” of the rules. The child is able to grasp the nuances that were beyond his capability when he was younger. As the child gets even older, the “whys” become even more nuanced, suddenly the “because I said so” ends up making sense when viewed in its spirit, but the parent had to start somewhere. The nice thing about the Roman Republic/Empire is that it brought stability to the regions it conquered. Jesus came when he did because God figured it was time for humans to make the next leap in sociological evolution into embracing the laws from a spiritual and sociological truth, not a literal truth.

All the moralistic commandments can lead to breakdown in society if ignored all the time. There is very little that is arbitrary about this.

[Apos]

—IF God exists, if he created the world and created us in his image, OF COURSE that makes a huge difference as to what is moral or not.—

Nope. Think about what you are saying. We know that we have a particular world, this one. You seem to all but admit here that morality must at some point be a function of the sort of world this is, and the sort of beings we are. But, if that’s so, then it doesn’t matter whether it was created by a god or not. It is what it is: and so are people’s moral obligations.

—Things are always right or wrong based on their actual value. But you have to know what the things and their values are. Religion is one way. But an athiest could come up with some assumptions of the nature of the world and what we are that would allow them to mandate morals too.—

No no no: not mandate: tell. Big difference. I don’t disagree that, if there is a god, it might well have great insight into WHAT is moral and what is not. But that still doesn’t make morality a special function of god: or the existence of god at all necessary for people to be moral, or make sense of what is moral.

—But still, some religion or assumption is needed, in order to determine the content of a moral mandate so you can judge it.—

Sure, I buy that. Morals without an “if/then” assumption don’t seem particularly meaningful. However, there is nothing particularly religious about the idea of the sort of moral values that are the real foundation of most people’s moral senses.

—HoopyFrood: But why does God’s morality have to be arbitrary?—

If morality is simply decided by a being, then it is by definition.

The problem with your story is that it is simply special pleading. If it makes sense to you to explain why it was suddenly immoral one day to stone unruly children to death, and then suddenly not, go for it. But without seeking to defend an ideology, the facts look more like this, simply: moral philosophy developed over time, as it continued to afterwards, as most human philosophies develop over time. Nothing about Jesus’ rather scanty moral philosophy was original: it was rather part of an ongoing development, started by both the Greeks and more mystically based cultures from the East.

And, of course, there’s the problem that Jesus single original contribution to human thought was probably the most morally offensive concept imaginable: eternal torment for unbelief.

[blowero]

*Originally posted by Hoopy Frood *
If one assumes that God’s morality is completely arbitrary, then yes. But why does God’s morality have to be arbitrary?

But you can’t have it both ways. The way I understood Apos’s point (and not to be a suck-up, but I thought it was an excellent point) was that if God’s morality is NOT arbitrary, then there must exist a concept of morality that is greater than God. Otherwise, it is morality by definition only, which WOULD be arbitrary. If God is good, there must be a standard of good and bad against which to judge God. With no external standard, God is simply good because He says so, which is arbitrary.

[Hoopy_Frood]

First of all the whole thing of eternal torment has been debated multiple times over in these forums. Many Christians do not believe in an everlasting Hell, and many don’t believe in a suffering Hell, and these concepts aren’t mutually exclusive, so many don’t believe in either concept.

About the only thing people seem to agree on with Hell (as it is though of today) is it is a state of separation from God. If you don’t believe in God, if you don’t follow God, why would you want to spend the afterlife with him anyway? God’s not going to force you to follow him.

And as far as God’s morals by necessity being arbitrary, well, I guess it depends on how you want to look at it.

If something created the world and its beings, and one of those types of beings happened to be a very rational and socially oriented species, might not the creator want to infrom these same beings of some constructs that would allow them to realize the full potential of their social natures? Sure, they might have the ability to discover for themselves how certain actions should be avoided because they end up ultimately self-defeating or society-defeating, but it doesn’t seem to stop them anyway. Maybe having them written down somewhere might serve as a reminder as to what these beings should be striving for.

I still don’t see how this makes it arbitrary any more that the fact that life exists is arbitrary. But I really don’t want to start getting into metaphysics.

[Apos]

—First of all the whole thing of eternal torment has been debated multiple times over in these forums. Many Christians do not believe in an everlasting Hell, and many don’t believe in a suffering Hell, and these concepts aren’t mutually exclusive, so many don’t believe in either concept.—

What you believe is entirely beside the point.

—About the only thing people seem to agree on with Hell (as it is though of today) is it is a state of separation from God. If you don’t believe in God, if you don’t follow God, why would you want to spend the afterlife with him anyway? God’s not going to force you to follow him.—

This is exactly the sort of basic dishonesty that’s so frustrating about this doctrine. I have no idea what my opinions on God or an afterlife would be, because I have no honest basis on which to form any such opinions, not having any evidence of the existence of either. To conflate a lack of knowledge with a conscious rejection (which seems to be the core of Christian doctrine with regards to unbelief) is flatly dishonest.

—And as far as God’s morals by necessity being arbitrary, well, I guess it depends on how you want to look at it.—

The problem comes when you, as MHand did, forget what we’re talking about. In discussing this matter, we don’t necessarily take for granted THAT God exists. What we are discussing is the consequence for morality of god either existing or not. And the fact of the matter is that if you, like Nightime did, basically implicitly concede to the fact that morality is ultimately a subset of the particular state of reality, then God’s existence or non-existence doesn’t make any difference to morality. Whether god created it or not, this reality is as it is, and so to morality.

—I still don’t see how this makes it arbitrary any more that the fact that life exists is arbitrary.—

Ultimately, something is going to be arbitrary. I’ve always failed to see exactly why positing an utterly arbitrary god was so morally superior to positing an utterly arbitrary universe. Aside from the fact that it’s a reflection of human ego, what’s the percieved advantage for an account of morality?

—But I really don’t want to start getting into metaphysics.—

Me too, since most of metaphysics seems to involve tossing about completely unintelligible nonsense as angrily as possible.

[Spiritus_Mundi]

Hmm – well, since you have made no response to my previous post, I shall assume that you understand that your claim was unfounded yet you lack whatever chgaracter traits might impel a person to acknowledge such a thing publicly.

On the issue of “mandate”, since your definition requires an extrahuman agency to “enforce” moral standards against the will of human beings I have no troubling agreeing that atheism lacks any “built-in” agency for such superhuman coersion. Nothing in atheism prohibits such superhuman enforcement by outside agency, of course, so long as that agent is not “God”. Atheism is not necessarily contradictory, for instance, to belief in reincarnation or karma or space aliens with a penchant for moral sherriffing.

[Hoopy_Frood]

*Originally posted by Apos *
**What you believe is entirely beside the point.

**

Give me a break! You mentioned Jesus sole original contribution was the idea of eternal torment for disbelief. Can you cite where he says this? (And mentions of Gehenna don’t count, since Gehenna really existed, and I believe there is no indication in the original Greek texts that Jesus was referring to Gehenna in any sort of analogy context, though anyone who is more familiar with the Greek can feel free to correct me on this.) If you can’t provide a cite, I’m going to assume it’s your belief, so why are yours any more relevant than mine?

**This is exactly the sort of basic dishonesty that’s so frustrating about this doctrine. I have no idea what my opinions on God or an afterlife would be, because I have no honest basis on which to form any such opinions, not having any evidence of the existence of either. To conflate a lack of knowledge with a conscious rejection (which seems to be the core of Christian doctrine with regards to unbelief) is flatly dishonest.

**

First of all, I do not equate the two. I see it from the following stanpoint of would you want to spend your afterlife with a being that didn’t exist. I know I wouldn’t. This is not a judgement of not forming an opinion = rejection, this is simple logic. I see a bridge spanning a chasm in front of me, you don’t. I choose to cross the bridge, you don’t. Maybe the bridge is there and you don’t see it, or maybe its not there at all. Either way, I think its there so I go to cross. If the bridge is indeed there and I’m not merely hallucinating, I cross safely. If the bridge isn’t there, my altitude suddenly changes dramatically. Either way, your situation is not affected by my choice, though you may change your mind if you see that I made it safely across. But, there’s nothing forcing you to do so. Unless you want to enter your “belief” of eternal torment being the result of your decision not to cross that bridge the first time into the situation, what have you lost by not crossing the bridge the first time?

**The problem comes when you, as MHand did, forget what we’re talking about. In discussing this matter, we don’t necessarily take for granted THAT God exists. What we are discussing is the consequence for morality of god either existing or not. And the fact of the matter is that if you, like Nightime did, basically implicitly concede to the fact that morality is ultimately a subset of the particular state of reality, then God’s existence or non-existence doesn’t make any difference to morality. Whether god created it or not, this reality is as it is, and so to morality.

**

I don’t think I ever disputed that, though, I’m not quite sure I understand the point your getting at. Personally I was just adding more feul what was already a hijack. I don’t believe that God is required for there to be a moral system. However, I do believe that there is a God who made us moral and social beings. We have the ability to percieve morals on our own without the aid of of a supreme being. This is where I disagree with what I think MHand is saying. But I do propose that we as humans have the ability to reform our moral code based on the situation at hand, even to the point where we benefit ourselves (seemingly) but hurt the society we live in. We can even rationalize this change and make it seem to ourselves as being the right thing. I see God as someone who is there to remind of the dangers and ultimately self-destroying results of a purely “me” based morality.

[Nightime]

In discussing this matter, we don’t necessarily take for granted THAT God exists. What we are discussing is the consequence for morality of god either existing or not. And the fact of the matter is that if you, like Nightime did, basically implicitly concede to the fact that morality is ultimately a subset of the particular state of reality, then God’s existence or non-existence doesn’t make any difference to morality. Whether god created it or not, this reality is as it is, and so to morality.

First of all, I didn’t “implicitly concede” that morality is based on the state of reality, I said it. It was one of my main points. It does not mean that God’s existence makes no difference. You say that we can’t take for granted that God exists in this discussion, but you are taking for granted that God does not exist. The problem is, one of the two must be true. Therefore we have to look at the discussion from both starting points, not ignore the starting point altogether. You can’t discuss the consequence of God existing on a world in which he does not exist! You seem to have great difficulty understanding this. Of course this reality is as it is, and so to morality. But that is not the starting point. The starting point is how this reality came to be in the first place.

Assume God exists and created the world and us in his image. Now we know about our reality and ourselves. We can judge what is right and wrong because we know their real content, not just an arbitrary opinion of their content. In this world even the good in human nature comes from God. In this world it is a logical conclusion that if there could be an imaginary world in which God did not exist, morals would not be the same because the world would be very different.

Now assume God does not exist. We do not know about our reality or what we are. We can come up with assumptions that will allow us to judge what is right or wrong. One of these assumptions could even be true, so we could come up with a moral mandate every bit as valid as the one from God’s world. In this world it would be logical to conclude that in an imaginary world where there was a God, morals would not be the same as here, because the world would be very different.

Do you see your mistake? One of these worlds must be true, and in BOTH of these worlds it is obvious that the existence or non-existence of God makes a huge difference as to morality. To put it simply, certain things are moral in our reality. If God exists then these morals are the morals that would result from his existence, and would be different if He did not exist. If God does not exist then these morals are the morals that result from some other view of reality, and would be different if God did exist. Either way God’s existence or nonexistence pertains to the creation of, and the very nature of reality, and is very important as to morality. You just can’t bypass the first step and try to blink God on and off in a world that is very definitely one way or the other.

[Czarcasm]

“One of these worlds must be true…”?!? How myopic can you get? This may come as a complete surprise to you, but there are actually other religions out there other than your particular sect of Christianity.

[Nightime]

“One of these worlds must be true…”?!? How myopic can you get? This may come as a complete surprise to you, but there are actually other religions out there other than your particular sect of Christianity.

Do you just enjoy going around wilfully misinterpreting peoples’ posts? I doubt you even bothered to read almost any of this thread, and your post is entirely unconstructive in the context of this thread, but I guess I can spare a reply. First of all, I haven’t said anything about me being a christian, and I have no idea where you came up with that. Yes, I was talking about a generalized christian God who created us in his image. This God either exists, or doesn’t. What does that have to do with there being other religions? If the christian God does not exist then some other religion could still be true. I never denied that. Maybe you should actually read a thread before you post…

[Czarcasm]

If the Christian god does not exist, we then have to consider the morals created by the Roman gods. If the Roman gods do not exist, we then have to consider the morals created by the Greek gods. If the Greek gods do not exist, we then have to consider the morals created by the IPU, and so on and so on ad nauseum ad infinitum. Either the existence or non-existence of each of the god-pantheons must make a difference, or we must consider the possibility that the gods do not matter at all. Man must take responsibility for the creation of morals, since all evidence points to man as the creator of morals.
By “your particular sect of Christianity” I was refering to the Christianity you refered to in your post, not your particular beliefs, and I apologize if I didn’t make that clear.

[JustWondering]

im no philosipher or exceptionally smart person, but why could’t someone hold their morality based on what is good for their soul and how their outlook on life is?- and this is not in the religious sense.

[Czarcasm]

Sort of a “If it feels good, do it” morality, but in a positive light? That’s pretty much how my morality works. I like the feeling I get when I help others, and I feel bad for others if I harm them because I can identifiy with them. I don’t steal from others because I wouldn’t want something stolen from me, and because if I am caught, I could be ostracised, and I am a social creature.

[Apos]

—Give me a break! You mentioned Jesus sole original contribution was the idea of eternal torment for disbelief. Can you cite where he says this? (And mentions of Gehenna don’t count, since Gehenna really existed, and I believe there is no indication in the original Greek texts that Jesus was referring to Gehenna in any sort of analogy context, though anyone who is more familiar with the Greek can feel free to correct me on this.) If you can’t provide a cite, I’m going to assume it’s your belief, so why are yours any more relevant than mine?—

Jesus several times refers to the eternal torment (worm dieth not) of those who will not believe. But I think you’ve missed the point. Whether that was what he meant, or whether he even ever existed, the idea of eternal torment for unbelief originated with his sect, taken straight from the earliest understanding of things we know of, and it was a relatively original idea to human thought. I’m not trying to slander Jesus here, because I have no idea if there ever was a such a person and if so, what he said, and if the Bible records some of his thoughts, exactly what he meant. When we talk about “Jesus” we are talking about an amalgamation of different ideas, not for sure a singular person who’s thoughts we know for sure.

—I see it from the following stanpoint of would you want to spend your afterlife with a being that didn’t exist.—

Come on, that sentance is linguistic nonsense. “With a being that doesn’t exist” Look at me: I’m hanging with commander not here! Far from holding that any potential god does not exist, I hold no opinion as to whether a god exists or not. I have no idea.

—Maybe the bridge is there and you don’t see it, or maybe its not there at all.—

Of maybe the Muslim god is going to get right pissed at you dissing HIS bridge. Whatever. Pascal’s Wager isn’t going to impress anyone. The fact is, the bible tells me that because I do not believe, I reject (and I’m a fool, can do no good, etc.). This is a lie about me. End of story. It is nonsense to talk about god “not forcing” me to do anything: I have no knowledge of a god existing telling me to do anything in the first place. Maybe if it was interested in offering things to me, it could do so in a way that wouldn’t involve me making myself a dishonest and morally nihilistic man to believe without good cause (which, in my mind, would be highly immoral, no worse than lying to someone about a car’s brakes having been fixed when I actually have no idea if tey were or not).

If you’re nice about it where the bible is not, great. You’re then moraly superior to it, in my estimation.

—I see God as someone who is there to remind of the dangers and ultimately self-destroying results of a purely “me” based morality.—

As I noted, I don’t see any problem with this view. And there cannot be such a thing as a “me” based morality: it wouldn’t BE a morality if it had special conditions for one particular person.

[Apos]

—You say that we can’t take for granted that God exists in this discussion, but you are taking for granted that God does not exist.—

No, I’m not. The whole point is that we are discussing whether, in addition to the world we see around us, god’s existing or not existing could make a difference to what was and was not moral. We aren’t assuming any particular state of god.

—You can’t discuss the consequence of God existing on a world in which he does not exist! You seem to have great difficulty understanding this.—

Look, next time, before you insult me, try not to make accusations that are demonstrably wrong. You’re the one confused about the subject here, not I.

We are here. Looking at this reality. We assert that there are valid and ultimate morals (and grant this assumption). Given this, does it matter to WHAT those morals are, that God created the world or not? No. End of story.

—Assume God exists and created the world and us in his image.—

Whatever THAT means.

—Do you see your mistake? One of these worlds must be true, and in BOTH of these worlds it is obvious that the existence or non- existence of God makes a huge difference as to morality.—

What mistake? In both your examples you changed things OTHER THAN THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. Essentially, you argued: oh, the world where things are radically different… it would be… uh… different… and uh…therefore it’s the existence of god that made all the difference.

But that’s not the situation we face as moral beings considering why killing is wrong. I would argue that the reason we can meaningfully say “it’s wrong” and get universal agreement has to do , ultimately, somehow with the fact that humans don’t like being killed.

Now, yes, a god could have created people, created them with the ability to kill and be killed, and created them with the feeling of not liking it very much. In this sense, god determines what is and is not moral. But once made in a certain way, it is not god’s existence or will that MAKES things moral: it is the nature of the moral beings themselves.

Originally, what we were discussing is whether things are right and wrong JUST BECAUSE GOD SAYS SO. Now, you seem to agree with me that this is not the case (do you agree with me that it’s actually not just wrong, but unintelligible nonsense?). In this case, the question we have confronted is whether or not our moral senses and beliefs mandate or require the existence of a god to explain them. And again, my answer is no.

Those seem to be the major issues of interest here.

You seem to want to argue that god’s existence would be important to what is and is not moral… but you can’t seem to ground this argument on anything but the subterfuge of two DIFFERENT hypothetical realities, when the plain fact of the matter is that we are considering the potential hypothetical contribution of god, not the character of moral beings in this reality. If all you want to do is argue that in different realities, things would be different… well I leave you to your empty tautologies.