You seem determined to exclude the possibility that people can create viable moralities. Even if someone's personal experience of human-created moralities does not go well, it doesn't follow that all human-created moralities are worthless.
"You seem" to start a lot of your posts with "you seem". It seems to me like a form of Bulverism, and ultimately an ad hominem.
A more concerning worry would be that if someone is creating a human-created morality in the relevant sense (*) then ipso facto they aren't creating it in response to moral reasons since they haven't created any moral reasons yet. It follows that they're creating it for extra-moral reasons. I suppose it's possible that they're doing so for aesthetic reasons, but it's most likely that they're doing so to further their own interests.
From which it follows that,as Thrasymachus in the Republic says, in any human created morality justice is the interests of the strongest.
(*) the sense in which languages or aesthetic conventions are human creations not the sense in which physics is a human creation.
Going back the the original question: the fact that there are people who would consider life not worth living if God didn't exist seems to me a good reason to keep the proof under wraps.
Going back the the original question: the fact that there are people who would consider life not worth living if God didn't exist seems to me a good reason to keep the proof under wraps.
There are also people living in terror because of their belief in God - that he is or will be tormenting them or their loved ones in Hell. I've seen people in tears concluding their parent or child is "not of the elect" and thus without hope.
Then there are the millions living in regimes that are hostile to their beliefs - why should they continue to suffer for a pipedream?
Who gets priority?
Truth would be my guiding principle. If God doesn’t exist I can give up trying to find him, and by letting it be known I can free other people from that hopeless mission too.
I really do think truth is the only decent thing to steer by. You can find utilitarian/pragmatic arguments for both sides, and yet it's pretty much impossible to know just how much of an impact a proposal might have on people. I mean, how would you know if it set people free emotionally vs. causing others to give up hope? And how do you quantify the benefit--by counting heads, or do you take into account the depth of anguish in various cases... Ugh.
Plus truth is not going to end up biting you in the butt when a decision to hide or lie comes undone...
Kinda makes one re-evalueate John 8:32 a little: "and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free"
It's kind of a paradox. Once you know the right way to do something, then there's only one way to do it, and that feels kinda like a yoke. At the same time, it saves you the trouble of struggling with the wrong ways to do things.
As I get older, I realize "free" can be a dangerously tricky concept. You know when you don't have it, for sure, but it can be hard to discern on some margins.
You seem determined to exclude the possibility that people can create viable moralities. Even if someone's personal experience of human-created moralities does not go well, it doesn't follow that all human-created moralities are worthless.
"You seem" to start a lot of your posts with "you seem". It seems to me like a form of Bulverism, and ultimately an ad hominem.
A more concerning worry would be that if someone is creating a human-created morality in the relevant sense (*) then ipso facto they aren't creating it in response to moral reasons since they haven't created any moral reasons yet. It follows that they're creating it for extra-moral reasons. I suppose it's possible that they're doing so for aesthetic reasons, but it's most likely that they're doing so to further their own interests.
From which it follows that,as Thrasymachus in the Republic says, in any human created morality justice is the interests of the strongest.
(*) the sense in which languages or aesthetic conventions are human creations not the sense in which physics is a human creation.
I can think of other reasons.
The scenario is that God no longer exists - God's adherents are left without a moral compass. Is that reason enough for responsible people to get together and create a replacement?
KarlLB's post suggests another reason why someone might need a replacement for their morality.
I really do think truth is the only decent thing to steer by. You can find utilitarian/pragmatic arguments for both sides, and yet it's pretty much impossible to know just how much of an impact a proposal might have on people. I mean, how would you know if it set people free emotionally vs. causing others to give up hope? And how do you quantify the benefit--by counting heads, or do you take into account the depth of anguish in various cases... Ugh.
Plus truth is not going to end up biting you in the butt when a decision to hide or lie comes undone...
It's pretty much impossible to predict the outcome of your proposals, but it's also pretty much impossible to determine what is truth. It's hard enough in a secular sense (not talking math or science of course), outwith religion. But if you add in religous figures, especially ones trying to mine truth from a very imperfect book, you get epistemological gridlock.
A more concerning worry would be that if someone is creating a human-created morality in the relevant sense (*) then ipso facto they aren't creating it in response to moral reasons since they haven't created any moral reasons yet. It follows that they're creating it for extra-moral reasons. I suppose it's possible that they're doing so for aesthetic reasons, but it's most likely that they're doing so to further their own interests.
From which it follows that,as Thrasymachus in the Republic says, in any human created morality justice is the interests of the strongest.
I can think of other reasons.
The scenario is that God no longer exists - God's adherents are left without a moral compass. Is that reason enough for responsible people to get together and create a replacement?
Firstly, lots of people who don't believe in God do believe that morality is not a human creation. God may be the best explanation that there is such a morality - which is what I believe - but there are many other competing explanations (Kantianism, Buddhism, intuitionism, etc).
But why would it be a problem that people don't have a moral compass if there is no morality for a compass to point at? It can't be morally desirable that they have a moral compass if there's no morality. You could say that without morality people's lives would be nasty, brutish, and short - but that is just to say that it's in their interests that there be a widely accepted moral code.
With current events, I'm already seeing lots of Christians showing a complete lack of moral compass. So I'm not sure that God's non-existence would change them all that much. They'd just keep rationalizing their own short-sighted self interest like they always did. Humans gonna human.
Is the behaviour of some Christians the proof that their God does not exist?
Aside from what @Lamb Chopped said, that might, at most, be considered some evidence that their God doesn’t exist. But I don’t see how, standing alone, it is proof of anything.
A more concerning worry would be that if someone is creating a human-created morality in the relevant sense (*) then ipso facto they aren't creating it in response to moral reasons since they haven't created any moral reasons yet. It follows that they're creating it for extra-moral reasons. I suppose it's possible that they're doing so for aesthetic reasons, but it's most likely that they're doing so to further their own interests.
From which it follows that,as Thrasymachus in the Republic says, in any human created morality justice is the interests of the strongest.
I can think of other reasons.
The scenario is that God no longer exists - God's adherents are left without a moral compass. Is that reason enough for responsible people to get together and create a replacement?
Firstly, lots of people who don't believe in God do believe that morality is not a human creation. God may be the best explanation that there is such a morality - which is what I believe - but there are many other competing explanations (Kantianism, Buddhism, intuitionism, etc).
But why would it be a problem that people don't have a moral compass if there is no morality for a compass to point at? It can't be morally desirable that they have a moral compass if there's no morality. You could say that without morality people's lives would be nasty, brutish, and short - but that is just to say that it's in their interests that there be a widely accepted moral code.
I think we're back at what I see as a distinction between normative morality and descriptive morality, and what I believe you see as a more fundamental difference.
Recasting the question: if the death of God eliminated the normative morality to which you adhere, would you adopt an alternative normative morality in its place? And if you were not able to do so, would you be prepared to adopt a descriptive morality - or would that seem pointless/meaningless?
Firstly, lots of people who don't believe in God do believe that morality is not a human creation. God may be the best explanation that there is such a morality - which is what I believe - but there are many other competing explanations (Kantianism, Buddhism, intuitionism, etc).
But why would it be a problem that people don't have a moral compass if there is no morality for a compass to point at? It can't be morally desirable that they have a moral compass if there's no morality. You could say that without morality people's lives would be nasty, brutish, and short - but that is just to say that it's in their interests that there be a widely accepted moral code.
I think we're back at what I see as a distinction between normative morality and descriptive morality, and what I believe you see as a more fundamental difference.
Recasting the question: if the death of God eliminated the normative morality to which you adhere, would you adopt an alternative normative morality in its place? And if you were not able to do so, would you be prepared to adopt a descriptive morality - or would that seem pointless/meaningless?
That would rather depend on my reasons for no longer believing in God.
But as I said last time you started talking about 'descriptive morality' it does not seem to me that you understand what 'descriptive morality' means. A descriptive morality is a description of someone else's morality that the speaker/writer neither rejects nor endorses. If someone adopts a descriptive morality it ceases to be descriptive for that person and becomes normative for that person.
As I not only failed to convince you of that point, but it seems you failed to remember that I was even trying to convince you of that point, perhap you could try to rephrase your question without using the words 'normative' and 'descriptive'?
You will no doubt be reassured to learn that I not only recall your failure to persuade me of your position, but also that I was fully expecting you to request that I rephrase the question omitting the terms "normative" and "descriptive". An attempt at such a phrasing follows.
The scenario is that you are convinced that God no longer exists. In that scenario, would you still adhere to a God-based morality? If not, would you adhere to a morality with a different basis? If not, would you adhere to a human-created code of conduct, or throw in the towel?
You will no doubt be reassured to learn that I not only recall your failure to persuade me of your position, but also that I was fully expecting you to request that I rephrase the question omitting the terms "normative" and "descriptive".
Given that you were fully expecting me to ask you to rephrase the question why on earth didn't you just rephrase the question to begin with?
An attempt at such a phrasing follows.
The scenario is that you are convinced that God no longer exists. In that scenario, would you still adhere to a God-based morality? If not, would you adhere to a morality with a different basis? If not, would you adhere to a human-created code of conduct, or throw in the towel?
I already gave as good an answer as I am able to give.
Now enough about me.
Why don't you say what you think? You could start by answer some of the questions you've been asked.
You will no doubt be reassured to learn that I not only recall your failure to persuade me of your position, but also that I was fully expecting you to request that I rephrase the question omitting the terms "normative" and "descriptive".
Given that you were fully expecting me to ask you to rephrase the question why on earth didn't you just rephrase the question to begin with?
For one thing, to confirm what your position is regarding morality. For another, to illustrate the extent to which morality is a contested concept.
An attempt at such a phrasing follows.
The scenario is that you are convinced that God no longer exists. In that scenario, would you still adhere to a God-based morality? If not, would you adhere to a morality with a different basis? If not, would you adhere to a human-created code of conduct, or throw in the towel?
I already gave as good an answer as I am able to give.
Which is fair enough. (And not entirely unexpected).
Now enough about me.
Enough is too much!
Why don't you say what you think?
In case you missed it the first time, I think the elimination of God-based morality would present an opportunity to construct a human-created morality that should be embraced.
You could start by answer some of the questions you've been asked.
As far as I can see, the only question of yours that I haven't answered is this:
But why would it be a problem that people don't have a moral compass if there is no morality for a compass to point at?
I'm intrigued by the idea that a compass is defined by the thing it points at. In my conception, a compass is a thing that reliably continues to point in a given direction, primarily as an aid to navigation. The phrase "moral compass" can be used in both senses:
To every sane man in all climes and ages the great Creator has given a moral compass to enable him to avoid the wrong and follow the right.
He steered by the guidance of his own peculiar moral compass, regardless of the rough waters through which it led him.
A magnetic compass relies on the existence of a stable external magnetic field. If a planet's magnetic field is eliminated, a magnetic compass ceases to be of use, other than to demonstrate that the thing it pointed at is no longer there.
A gyrocompass doesn't require an external reference - it continues pointing at an arbitrary fixed point in (outer) space. On a spinning planet such as Earth, its interaction with the planet's rotation can be used to locate true north (that is, the imaginary point where the axis of rotation meets the surface of the Earth).
Meanwhile, an Inertial Navigation System is entirely self-contained - it requires no external references for its operation.
It's quite useful if you want to avoid going round in circles. Or, for that matter, if you do want to walk in a circle, or a figure-of-eight, or any other path.
... Though I'm not at all sure a morality system that is wholly self-contained and self-originated would do anything. I mean, it's not like we're on a journey with right and wrong. We are more or less staying in one place and attempting to regulate behavior there...
If one DID create a new system of morality, ostensibly not based on anything outside--would that allow us to call white black, or vice versa--or even purple with orange stripes? Is it even possible to create a whole system of morality that is not self-contradictory, with the exception of the one we have now (the broad strokes, I mean)? I think you'd need some axioms to build on. But those tend to be derived from "I just feel it" right now. Not sure you could create something that simply "floats in the air" without that instinctual, gut-reaction grounding.
I wouldn't think so. Hypocrites exist in every segment of the human race.
The question I would ask is, by and large, are Christians more moral than non-Christians, vice versa, or it's a tie? If there is no gain to be made via Christianity, if it doesn't really make people better human beings, then it's really only fire insurance.
I wouldn't think so. Hypocrites exist in every segment of the human race.
The question I would ask is, by and large, are Christians more moral than non-Christians, vice versa, or it's a tie? If there is no gain to be made via Christianity, if it doesn't really make people better human beings, then it's really only fire insurance.
And flood! 😉
But it's a good point. It's only a small snapshot of Christian morality, but pornography use seems to be roughly as high amongst Christians as non-Christians.
I wouldn't think so. Hypocrites exist in every segment of the human race.
The question I would ask is, by and large, are Christians more moral than non-Christians, vice versa, or it's a tie? If there is no gain to be made via Christianity, if it doesn't really make people better human beings, then it's really only fire insurance.
This is true.
It’s also going to be a hard thing to measure, given that converts don’t all start at the same place, morally speaking, and so one person might have made a great deal of progress and still be hugely behind someone else, or a non-convert. As for people “born” into it, I’m not at all clear on how we’d distinguish between what is “natural” to them and what is the result of Christianity—because there are bodily conditions that impact observed morality, with addiction (and tendencies that way) various mental troubles, including the sub-clinical, and chronic pain, just for starters. To measure moral progress, you’d need similar baselines. And how you’d establish these—IMHO we’d be looking at a truly huge lifetime study across zillions of people. We’d also have to take into account differences in gender and culture. It would be a nightmare—though possibly manageable.
But that’s not all. Is moral improvement the only measure of a religion? I think we’d at least need to consider issues like happiness. A religion which led to a mild increase in morality (however measured) but a major decrease in happiness would be problematic.
And of course there’s truth. we may not be able to prove the truth of a given religion, but for some we can disprove it, or come close—I’m thinking here of the whole Dianetics thing, and also the historical evidence against Mormonism. Does truth matter? I wouldn’t be happy recommending a provably fake (human-invented) religion simply because it produced an increase in morality—that seems rather like benefiting myself (through the increase in a safer environment) at their expense.
... Though I'm not at all sure a morality system that is wholly self-contained and self-originated would do anything. I mean, it's not like we're on a journey with right and wrong. We are more or less staying in one place and attempting to regulate behavior there...
Umm ... I think the analogy might have been side-tracked by the reference to the meaning of navigation.
Our metaphorical moral compass helps us navigate our metaphorical journey of life (which involves right and wrong). With regard to BroJames's question, I would say it is the traveller, not the compass, who imbues the journey with meaning.
If one DID create a new system of morality, ostensibly not based on anything outside--would that allow us to call white black, or vice versa--or even purple with orange stripes? Is it even possible to create a whole system of morality that is not self-contradictory, with the exception of the one we have now (the broad strokes, I mean)? I think you'd need some axioms to build on. But those tend to be derived from "I just feel it" right now. Not sure you could create something that simply "floats in the air" without that instinctual, gut-reaction grounding.
That's a colourful, phantasmagoric spectre you project onto the backdrop.
In my experience of people describing the rightness of their judgments, one person's instinctual gut-reaction turns out to be indistinguishable from another person's "I just feel it". The claim of having a grounded morality seems often to relate more to the feeling of guilt regarding wrong judgments. And maybe that's the point.
In that regard, creating a new system of morality isn't a question of avoiding guilt, as such, but of avoiding feeling guilty for things that aren't considered to be wrong.
I think my point is that such feelings form the basis for the current system of morality and tend (for many people) to be regarded as coming from God.) In a new, human-designed, presumably different system of morality, those very feelings are going to pose a challenge to the new system whenever and wherever they are not integrated with it as effectively as with the old.
You will no doubt be reassured to learn that I not only recall your failure to persuade me of your position, but also that I was fully expecting you to request that I rephrase the question omitting the terms "normative" and "descriptive".
Given that you were fully expecting me to ask you to rephrase the question why on earth didn't you just rephrase the question to begin with?
For one thing, to confirm what your position is regarding morality. For another, to illustrate the extent to which morality is a contested concept.
If you want to confirm what someone's position is regarding morality, you could say, can you remind me of your position regarding morality, please? or If I remember correctly, your position regarding morality is xyz - is that right? - taking care in the latter case to be faithful to what they said and to avoid straw men.
If you want to illustrate that morality is a contested concept you say morality is a contested concept and give examples.
Why don't you say what you think?
In case you missed it the first time, I think the elimination of God-based morality would present an opportunity to construct a human-created morality that should be embraced.
In case you missed it the first time, I think a human-created morality would inevitably end up asserting that justice is the interests of the stronger.
But assuming that what should be embraced is the opportunity - "should be" is a normative phrase. In what sense is there a normative requirement to embrace the opportunity? It implies that constructing a human-created morality would be a good thing - why? Consider: if God-based morality can be eliminated that would imply that God-based morality is an example of a human-created morality. Therefore, being human-created is no guarantee of superiority over God-based morality in whatever sense is relevant here. If all humans wanted to create the same morality, there would be no need for a morality, since morality is in general a response to conflicting interests. It follows that whatever advantages a human-created morality is supposed to have are in no way logical or necessary outcomes of having a human-created morality.
If someone were to say that the elimination of a God-based legal system would present the opportunity to construct a human-created legal system, they'd be saying something that makes reasonable sense. You are talking as if creating a morality is just the same as creating a legal system. But a legal system can be evaluated in accord with pre-legal notions of fairness. One can't evaluate a moral system in accord with pre-moral notions of fairness.
But why would it be a problem that people don't have a moral compass if there is no morality for a compass to point at?
I'm intrigued by the idea that a compass is defined by the thing it points at. In my conception, a compass is a thing that reliably continues to point in a given direction, primarily as an aid to navigation. The phrase "moral compass" can be used in both senses.
Yes - in my conception too. The 'thing' the compass points at is a direction. But like any metaphor the metaphor breaks down if pushed too far. It seems to me that the differences you describe between types of compass only apply well beyond the stage that is too far.
In any case, while you have quibbled with my framing of the question, you have not actually answered the question which was why do you think God's people being left without a moral compass would be a problem giving "responsible people" a reason to create a replacement?
Is the behaviour of some Christians the proof that their God does not exist?
I don't think so. But it raises questions about how they're affected by God's existence.
And even if you choose to say that God may not be as ethical as - to be blunt - my personal hermeneutic has led me to believe - then you have the problem that there are multitudes of Christians with multitudes of ethical frameworks that are all supposedly based on the same source.
I really don't know what God's existence would change for people. I think they'd just adopt a new rationalization. Or simply ignore the evidence and keep going about their lives like they always did.
Heck, I once heard a sermon at our church that mentioned a famous pastor in DC. A big call story of his was that he'd served as a chaplain during WWII, working with soldiers on D-Day. This gentleman had know these men and talked to them all, quite aware that the anticipated survival rate for this mission would be below 50%. They should all expect to die.
And his big insight was that church attendance did not make a difference in predicting any soldier's ability to face their own mortality.
I really think the influence of God's existence, conceptually, is overstated, and many of the people who crow most loudly about it might indeed be the least affected.
And his big insight was that church attendance did not make a difference in predicting any soldier's ability to face their own mortality.
To be honest, that doesn’t surprise me, and I suspect it’s really not related to belief in God, at least not in most cases. One can believe in God (thinking here of the specifically Christian conception of God) and trust in “going to heaven,” but still not be ready to die. A wife, maybe a kid, at home? Or a girlfriend waiting for you to get home so you can get married? Or you haven’t even had a girlfriend yet? Or whatever/whoever else it might be that you were waiting for once you grew up?
Life hadn’t really begun for most of those guys. I can see the typical late-teens/early-twenties soldier not being able to face that there’s a better than 50% those things are never going to happen, that life is going to be over before it’s really started. That nothing they’ve dreamed about and hoped for will even get a chance.
Yeah, I’d gone to church all my life and believed in God and the hereafter, and I’d have had a really hard time facing the prospect of my mortality at 21—the age my father was when he was a soldier in Germany at the war’s end. But that hard time would have largely been about it being too soon, not fear of death per se.
Is the behaviour of some Christians the proof that their God does not exist?
I don't think so. But it raises questions about how they're affected by God's existence.
And even if you choose to say that God may not be as ethical as - to be blunt - my personal hermeneutic has led me to believe - then you have the problem that there are multitudes of Christians with multitudes of ethical frameworks that are all supposedly based on the same source.
I really don't know what God's existence would change for people. I think they'd just adopt a new rationalization. Or simply ignore the evidence and keep going about their lives like they always did.
Heck, I once heard a sermon at our church that mentioned a famous pastor in DC. A big call story of his was that he'd served as a chaplain during WWII, working with soldiers on D-Day. This gentleman had know these men and talked to them all, quite aware that the anticipated survival rate for this mission would be below 50%. They should all expect to die.
And his big insight was that church attendance did not make a difference in predicting any soldier's ability to face their own mortality.
I really think the influence of God's existence, conceptually, is overstated, and many of the people who crow most loudly about it might indeed be the least affected.
I'm sure that was true for that time; but I begin to wonder if it's still true, given the shift in churchgoing habits. It's now entirely respectable never to darken a church door once in your lifetime. So maybe now, there might be a difference in how churchgoers react to some things vs. nonchurchgoers...
That's all valid. I just think that people's religious views are a lot more complicated and messy than the admittedly not simple question of God's mere existence.
I think my point is that such feelings form the basis for the current system of morality and tend (for many people) to be regarded as coming from God.
Really? I find that quite intriguing. It's long seemed to me that such feelings are the result of nurture, rather than nature.
In a new, human-designed, presumably different system of morality, those very feelings are going to pose a challenge to the new system whenever and wherever they are not integrated with it as effectively as with the old.
Very true. I suppose there's an argument for making a new system backward-compatible, as far as possible (although this might not be very far in certain areas).
There's not a 0% chance that what some of you are crediting God with are simply very longstanding human creations. The thought experiment becomes much more interesting when the question is one of manmade religious moral codes vs. manmade extra-religious moral codes. I think it's helpful to get one's self out from under the shadow of the God assumption.
The thought experiment becomes much more interesting when the question is one of manmade religious moral codes vs. manmade extra-religious moral codes.
When you say man-made do you mean human-made like physics is or human-made like abstract painting is?
The thought experiment becomes much more interesting when the question is one of manmade religious moral codes vs. manmade extra-religious moral codes.
When you say man-made do you mean human-made like physics is or human-made like abstract painting is?
The painting. Take all of the assumptions of the supernatural out of the equation.
When you say man-made do you mean human-made like physics is or human-made like abstract painting is?
The painting. Take all of the assumptions of the supernatural out of the equation.
You're assuming that a realist morality has to be supernatural. I don't personally think a purely naturalistic morality is sufficient but many people do.
(I'd instance Kant: it's questionable whether his conception of reason is natural - but I think there are Kantian ethicists who don't espouse his metaphysics. Bentham certainly is purely naturalistic. There are atheist virtue ethicists.)
But going back to a non-realist view of morality: It seems to me that like a lot of people who talk about human-made moral codes you're thinking of creating a moral code like the people who drafted the new Constitution for South Africa after the fall of apartheid. But one can create a Constitution with reference to what one thinks is morally fairer and more just. One would no such reference in place if creating a new moral code.
I'd find it interesting if someone who does not believe in a god of any sort were to undertake to start constructing just such an alternative morality, right here. What would you use for your axioms--your basis for all the rest of it? What would a few of the guidelines be, and why?
Well I didn't mean to assume that, and I don't think that's what I think. And you're out of my depth re: Kant and Bentham, so I'll apologize that I can't add anything to your thoughts on them.
The assumption I was pointing to is the one that God him/her/itself created, or at least codified, a superseding moral code for humanity. If a secular humanist posits that humans have always created their gods, then the same is true for anything credited to those gods, yea, lo..., even YHWH. So from that position religious moral codes have a human, not a divinely supernatural, origin. SO, perhaps it's not so much a matter of re-creating a moral code as it is editing, which of course we've already done many times over, at least as far as the ancient Jewish or distant Christian modalities are concerned.
I'd find it interesting if someone who does not believe in a god of any sort were to undertake to start constructing just such an alternative morality, right here. What would you use for your axioms--your basis for all the rest of it? What would a few of the guidelines be, and why?
I remember visiting a small, low-key collection of cold war artefacts in the ruins of a former Soviet garrison town in Poland with my Polish mate when we were touring with our kids. He's been there before, and was keen to point out to me a torn poster in Cyrillic script which he told me were Soviet axioms for living a 'good' life. He was scornful that there happened to be ten of them. I have found it worth speaking to former inhabitants of the eastern-bloc when discussing this kind of thing, as they lived in it. That's not to say that other dystopias are not available, of course :-) I know your fella was interned - were the N.Vietnamese particularly atheist and keen on a new start from a 'clean' (I know, that's obscene) slate?
I'd find it interesting if someone who does not believe in a god of any sort were to undertake to start constructing just such an alternative morality, right here. What would you use for your axioms--your basis for all the rest of it? What would a few of the guidelines be, and why?
Empathy is a good start. Honestly, I think I knew that I hated watching people suffer before I had a good grip on Christian theology.
And I've watched people use Christian "theology" to undermine their own natural empathy, taken to historical extremes like "Kill them all, God knows His own."
I'm a devout Christian, but I have no illusions about the church's track record of producing ethical behavior. It's very mixed, at best. You can always find political explanations, you can say the "true Christians" weren't the ones enmeshed in the bloody politics, but it's a simple fact that there are lots and lots of very ethical atheists out there. And there have been some truly monstrous wannabe theologians.
The logical reason to be ethical is simple fair play and "treat others as you'd like to be treated." If I don't want to be murdered, I shouldn't murder people. If I don't want to be robbed, I shouldn't encourage robbery. We should all strive to get along for the common good that we all partake of. This principle seems to have evolved on its own across lots of cultures, though every single one of them seems to find it equally challenging through history.
I know your fella was interned - were the N.Vietnamese particularly atheist and keen on a new start from a 'clean' (I know, that's obscene) slate?
@Lamb Chopped can certainly say more, but does a theist/atheist framework really fit in the context of a Southeast Asian culture heavily influenced by Buddhism, or are we trying to force a square Western peg into a round hole?
...
If you want to confirm what someone's position is regarding morality, you could say, can you remind me of your position regarding morality, please? or If I remember correctly, your position regarding morality is xyz - is that right? - taking care in the latter case to be faithful to what they said and to avoid straw men.
If you want to illustrate that morality is a contested concept you say morality is a contested concept and give examples.
In case you missed it the first time, I think the elimination of God-based morality would present an opportunity to construct a human-created morality that should be embraced.
In case you missed it the first time, I think a human-created morality would inevitably end up asserting that justice is the interests of the stronger.
You also mentioned that it's possible to do so for aesthetic reasons, which inspired me to start thinking more broadly.
But assuming that what should be embraced is the opportunity - "should be" is a normative phrase. In what sense is there a normative requirement to embrace the opportunity?
I suggest that while "should be" can be normative, the vagaries of the English language mean that it's not definitively or invariably so - "we should be there in 10 minutes", for example. In my answer quoted above, what I had in mind was creation as an expressive act - an outworking of the creative impulse. To me, that looks more motivational than normative.
...In any case, while you have quibbled with my framing of the question, you have not actually answered the question which was why do you think God's people being left without a moral compass would be a problem giving "responsible people" a reason to create a replacement?
The short answer would be because people tend to find abrupt change disturbing and destabilising. It would create a messy and chaotic situation, which quite a lot of people find distasteful.
I know your fella was interned - were the N.Vietnamese particularly atheist and keen on a new start from a 'clean' (I know, that's obscene) slate?
@Lamb Chopped can certainly say more, but does a theist/atheist framework really fit in the context of a Southeast Asian culture heavily influenced by Buddhism, or are we trying to force a square Western peg into a round hole?
I'd find it interesting if someone who does not believe in a god of any sort were to undertake to start constructing just such an alternative morality, right here. What would you use for your axioms--your basis for all the rest of it? What would a few of the guidelines be, and why?
I remember visiting a small, low-key collection of cold war artefacts in the ruins of a former Soviet garrison town in Poland with my Polish mate when we were touring with our kids. He's been there before, and was keen to point out to me a torn poster in Cyrillic script which he told me were Soviet axioms for living a 'good' life. He was scornful that there happened to be ten of them. I have found it worth speaking to former inhabitants of the eastern-bloc when discussing this kind of thing, as they lived in it. That's not to say that other dystopias are not available, of course :-) I know your fella was interned - were the N.Vietnamese particularly atheist and keen on a new start from a 'clean' (I know, that's obscene) slate?
I'm afraid I don't know, but I rather doubt it--what they were teaching him, and the other Air Force pilots et al, was such wisdom as "The North Vietnamese are smart; they save fuel by parking on clouds till the enemy flies by!" and "We saved bullets by waiting till several enemy planes were all flying in formation, and then we shot all seven pilots at once using a single bullet, because they were lined up." I'm told it was a real struggle for the pilots to keep a straight face as they discussed these new insights.
I know your fella was interned - were the N.Vietnamese particularly atheist and keen on a new start from a 'clean' (I know, that's obscene) slate?
@Lamb Chopped can certainly say more, but does a theist/atheist framework really fit in the context of a Southeast Asian culture heavily influenced by Buddhism, or are we trying to force a square Western peg into a round hole?
The Vietnamese culture as a whole (not the subcultures, which I can't speak to) is at root animist and ancestor-worshipping, with an overlay of Buddhism. So the things that matter the most to most people seem to be avoiding illness and bad luck/catastrophes by following a whole long list of don't's--don't praise a child, don't give a child a pretty name, call your eldest "number two," dress firstborn boys as girls, don't allow virgins to touch babies, after being hospitalized, get a buzz cut (even when female!) so you're too ugly for the evil spirits to recognize, moving to a new home is a viable strategy if you think spirits are haunting you. You must also keep an ancestral shrine and make offerings, because if they are angry at you, they may curse you--and their love for you in this life is no guarantee of the next. There are specialists you pay to set your wedding date and other dates, like a funeral, and if they tell you it's during your finals week or on Christmas, sucks to be you, you have to do it anyway. People can get barred from their own parents' funeral for being of another faith, for fear of somehow "sending Mom to hell." New mothers must stay indoors and even in bed for long periods of time--up to a month--and must avoid a great many foods, including basically everything with vitamin C! They are not allowed to bathe or shower. I haven't yet come across a superstition that is other than a burden, and new Christians are greatly relieved to be free of the various prohibitions and requirements--as well as the financial burdens.
Buddhism is fairly remote for most people I know--if someone gets keen on religion, they might go be a nun or something, but most stick to the above-mentioned beliefs. However, at major life events (funerals, mainly), the Buddhist priest or monk gets a look in, saying or playing tapes of chants by the deathbed for hours. This usually requires a very substantial cost in the thousands of dollars, in our experience. They may also lead prayers.
There is a God known as Thuong De, but as far as I can determine, he is identical to the distant "God" so many of us non-Christians heard about in childhood--someone powerful and to be respected, but distant from our everyday lives, unlike the evil spirits who are a constant worry. I suspect this is the Vietnamese cultural version of the "high god" you find in so many cultures around the world. Among Lutherans, we identify the Christian God with this name, and work to help people know him better.
I don't think I've ever met a first-generation Vietnamese who identified as an atheist, though plenty who would say "I don't know," and probably the vast majority do what they do because they figure it's safer--but not out of a religious commitment, if you see what I mean. It's rather like living with tigers or cobras you can't see. You take precautions, but that's about it. Anyone with a religious turn of mind probably investigates either Buddhism or Christianity. The rest seem to be, I don't know, a bit sad. Not angry, not militant, not convinced. But then, given the hell on earth they've been through, I can totally see that.
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A more concerning worry would be that if someone is creating a human-created morality in the relevant sense (*) then ipso facto they aren't creating it in response to moral reasons since they haven't created any moral reasons yet. It follows that they're creating it for extra-moral reasons. I suppose it's possible that they're doing so for aesthetic reasons, but it's most likely that they're doing so to further their own interests.
From which it follows that,as Thrasymachus in the Republic says, in any human created morality justice is the interests of the strongest.
(*) the sense in which languages or aesthetic conventions are human creations not the sense in which physics is a human creation.
There are also people living in terror because of their belief in God - that he is or will be tormenting them or their loved ones in Hell. I've seen people in tears concluding their parent or child is "not of the elect" and thus without hope.
Then there are the millions living in regimes that are hostile to their beliefs - why should they continue to suffer for a pipedream?
Who gets priority?
Truth would be my guiding principle. If God doesn’t exist I can give up trying to find him, and by letting it be known I can free other people from that hopeless mission too.
Plus truth is not going to end up biting you in the butt when a decision to hide or lie comes undone...
It's kind of a paradox. Once you know the right way to do something, then there's only one way to do it, and that feels kinda like a yoke. At the same time, it saves you the trouble of struggling with the wrong ways to do things.
As I get older, I realize "free" can be a dangerously tricky concept. You know when you don't have it, for sure, but it can be hard to discern on some margins.
The scenario is that God no longer exists - God's adherents are left without a moral compass. Is that reason enough for responsible people to get together and create a replacement?
KarlLB's post suggests another reason why someone might need a replacement for their morality.
It's pretty much impossible to predict the outcome of your proposals, but it's also pretty much impossible to determine what is truth. It's hard enough in a secular sense (not talking math or science of course), outwith religion. But if you add in religous figures, especially ones trying to mine truth from a very imperfect book, you get epistemological gridlock.
But why would it be a problem that people don't have a moral compass if there is no morality for a compass to point at? It can't be morally desirable that they have a moral compass if there's no morality. You could say that without morality people's lives would be nasty, brutish, and short - but that is just to say that it's in their interests that there be a widely accepted moral code.
Recasting the question: if the death of God eliminated the normative morality to which you adhere, would you adopt an alternative normative morality in its place? And if you were not able to do so, would you be prepared to adopt a descriptive morality - or would that seem pointless/meaningless?
But as I said last time you started talking about 'descriptive morality' it does not seem to me that you understand what 'descriptive morality' means. A descriptive morality is a description of someone else's morality that the speaker/writer neither rejects nor endorses. If someone adopts a descriptive morality it ceases to be descriptive for that person and becomes normative for that person.
As I not only failed to convince you of that point, but it seems you failed to remember that I was even trying to convince you of that point, perhap you could try to rephrase your question without using the words 'normative' and 'descriptive'?
The scenario is that you are convinced that God no longer exists. In that scenario, would you still adhere to a God-based morality? If not, would you adhere to a morality with a different basis? If not, would you adhere to a human-created code of conduct, or throw in the towel?
I already gave as good an answer as I am able to give.
Now enough about me.
Why don't you say what you think? You could start by answer some of the questions you've been asked.
Which is fair enough. (And not entirely unexpected). Enough is too much!
In case you missed it the first time, I think the elimination of God-based morality would present an opportunity to construct a human-created morality that should be embraced.
As far as I can see, the only question of yours that I haven't answered is this:
I'm intrigued by the idea that a compass is defined by the thing it points at. In my conception, a compass is a thing that reliably continues to point in a given direction, primarily as an aid to navigation. The phrase "moral compass" can be used in both senses: A magnetic compass relies on the existence of a stable external magnetic field. If a planet's magnetic field is eliminated, a magnetic compass ceases to be of use, other than to demonstrate that the thing it pointed at is no longer there.
A gyrocompass doesn't require an external reference - it continues pointing at an arbitrary fixed point in (outer) space. On a spinning planet such as Earth, its interaction with the planet's rotation can be used to locate true north (that is, the imaginary point where the axis of rotation meets the surface of the Earth).
Meanwhile, an Inertial Navigation System is entirely self-contained - it requires no external references for its operation.
If one DID create a new system of morality, ostensibly not based on anything outside--would that allow us to call white black, or vice versa--or even purple with orange stripes? Is it even possible to create a whole system of morality that is not self-contradictory, with the exception of the one we have now (the broad strokes, I mean)? I think you'd need some axioms to build on. But those tend to be derived from "I just feel it" right now. Not sure you could create something that simply "floats in the air" without that instinctual, gut-reaction grounding.
The question I would ask is, by and large, are Christians more moral than non-Christians, vice versa, or it's a tie? If there is no gain to be made via Christianity, if it doesn't really make people better human beings, then it's really only fire insurance.
And flood! 😉
But it's a good point. It's only a small snapshot of Christian morality, but pornography use seems to be roughly as high amongst Christians as non-Christians.
This is true.
It’s also going to be a hard thing to measure, given that converts don’t all start at the same place, morally speaking, and so one person might have made a great deal of progress and still be hugely behind someone else, or a non-convert. As for people “born” into it, I’m not at all clear on how we’d distinguish between what is “natural” to them and what is the result of Christianity—because there are bodily conditions that impact observed morality, with addiction (and tendencies that way) various mental troubles, including the sub-clinical, and chronic pain, just for starters. To measure moral progress, you’d need similar baselines. And how you’d establish these—IMHO we’d be looking at a truly huge lifetime study across zillions of people. We’d also have to take into account differences in gender and culture. It would be a nightmare—though possibly manageable.
But that’s not all. Is moral improvement the only measure of a religion? I think we’d at least need to consider issues like happiness. A religion which led to a mild increase in morality (however measured) but a major decrease in happiness would be problematic.
And of course there’s truth. we may not be able to prove the truth of a given religion, but for some we can disprove it, or come close—I’m thinking here of the whole Dianetics thing, and also the historical evidence against Mormonism. Does truth matter? I wouldn’t be happy recommending a provably fake (human-invented) religion simply because it produced an increase in morality—that seems rather like benefiting myself (through the increase in a safer environment) at their expense.
Our metaphorical moral compass helps us navigate our metaphorical journey of life (which involves right and wrong). With regard to BroJames's question, I would say it is the traveller, not the compass, who imbues the journey with meaning.
That's a colourful, phantasmagoric spectre you project onto the backdrop.
In my experience of people describing the rightness of their judgments, one person's instinctual gut-reaction turns out to be indistinguishable from another person's "I just feel it". The claim of having a grounded morality seems often to relate more to the feeling of guilt regarding wrong judgments. And maybe that's the point.
In that regard, creating a new system of morality isn't a question of avoiding guilt, as such, but of avoiding feeling guilty for things that aren't considered to be wrong.
If you want to illustrate that morality is a contested concept you say morality is a contested concept and give examples.
In case you missed it the first time, I think a human-created morality would inevitably end up asserting that justice is the interests of the stronger.
But assuming that what should be embraced is the opportunity - "should be" is a normative phrase. In what sense is there a normative requirement to embrace the opportunity? It implies that constructing a human-created morality would be a good thing - why? Consider: if God-based morality can be eliminated that would imply that God-based morality is an example of a human-created morality. Therefore, being human-created is no guarantee of superiority over God-based morality in whatever sense is relevant here. If all humans wanted to create the same morality, there would be no need for a morality, since morality is in general a response to conflicting interests. It follows that whatever advantages a human-created morality is supposed to have are in no way logical or necessary outcomes of having a human-created morality.
If someone were to say that the elimination of a God-based legal system would present the opportunity to construct a human-created legal system, they'd be saying something that makes reasonable sense. You are talking as if creating a morality is just the same as creating a legal system. But a legal system can be evaluated in accord with pre-legal notions of fairness. One can't evaluate a moral system in accord with pre-moral notions of fairness.
Yes - in my conception too. The 'thing' the compass points at is a direction. But like any metaphor the metaphor breaks down if pushed too far. It seems to me that the differences you describe between types of compass only apply well beyond the stage that is too far.
In any case, while you have quibbled with my framing of the question, you have not actually answered the question which was why do you think God's people being left without a moral compass would be a problem giving "responsible people" a reason to create a replacement?
I don't think so. But it raises questions about how they're affected by God's existence.
And even if you choose to say that God may not be as ethical as - to be blunt - my personal hermeneutic has led me to believe - then you have the problem that there are multitudes of Christians with multitudes of ethical frameworks that are all supposedly based on the same source.
I really don't know what God's existence would change for people. I think they'd just adopt a new rationalization. Or simply ignore the evidence and keep going about their lives like they always did.
Heck, I once heard a sermon at our church that mentioned a famous pastor in DC. A big call story of his was that he'd served as a chaplain during WWII, working with soldiers on D-Day. This gentleman had know these men and talked to them all, quite aware that the anticipated survival rate for this mission would be below 50%. They should all expect to die.
And his big insight was that church attendance did not make a difference in predicting any soldier's ability to face their own mortality.
I really think the influence of God's existence, conceptually, is overstated, and many of the people who crow most loudly about it might indeed be the least affected.
Life hadn’t really begun for most of those guys. I can see the typical late-teens/early-twenties soldier not being able to face that there’s a better than 50% those things are never going to happen, that life is going to be over before it’s really started. That nothing they’ve dreamed about and hoped for will even get a chance.
Yeah, I’d gone to church all my life and believed in God and the hereafter, and I’d have had a really hard time facing the prospect of my mortality at 21—the age my father was when he was a soldier in Germany at the war’s end. But that hard time would have largely been about it being too soon, not fear of death per se.
I'm sure that was true for that time; but I begin to wonder if it's still true, given the shift in churchgoing habits. It's now entirely respectable never to darken a church door once in your lifetime. So maybe now, there might be a difference in how churchgoers react to some things vs. nonchurchgoers...
Or, of course, maybe not.
Very true. I suppose there's an argument for making a new system backward-compatible, as far as possible (although this might not be very far in certain areas).
The painting. Take all of the assumptions of the supernatural out of the equation.
(I'd instance Kant: it's questionable whether his conception of reason is natural - but I think there are Kantian ethicists who don't espouse his metaphysics. Bentham certainly is purely naturalistic. There are atheist virtue ethicists.)
But going back to a non-realist view of morality: It seems to me that like a lot of people who talk about human-made moral codes you're thinking of creating a moral code like the people who drafted the new Constitution for South Africa after the fall of apartheid. But one can create a Constitution with reference to what one thinks is morally fairer and more just. One would no such reference in place if creating a new moral code.
The assumption I was pointing to is the one that God him/her/itself created, or at least codified, a superseding moral code for humanity. If a secular humanist posits that humans have always created their gods, then the same is true for anything credited to those gods, yea, lo..., even YHWH. So from that position religious moral codes have a human, not a divinely supernatural, origin. SO, perhaps it's not so much a matter of re-creating a moral code as it is editing, which of course we've already done many times over, at least as far as the ancient Jewish or distant Christian modalities are concerned.
I remember visiting a small, low-key collection of cold war artefacts in the ruins of a former Soviet garrison town in Poland with my Polish mate when we were touring with our kids. He's been there before, and was keen to point out to me a torn poster in Cyrillic script which he told me were Soviet axioms for living a 'good' life. He was scornful that there happened to be ten of them. I have found it worth speaking to former inhabitants of the eastern-bloc when discussing this kind of thing, as they lived in it. That's not to say that other dystopias are not available, of course :-) I know your fella was interned - were the N.Vietnamese particularly atheist and keen on a new start from a 'clean' (I know, that's obscene) slate?
Empathy is a good start. Honestly, I think I knew that I hated watching people suffer before I had a good grip on Christian theology.
And I've watched people use Christian "theology" to undermine their own natural empathy, taken to historical extremes like "Kill them all, God knows His own."
I'm a devout Christian, but I have no illusions about the church's track record of producing ethical behavior. It's very mixed, at best. You can always find political explanations, you can say the "true Christians" weren't the ones enmeshed in the bloody politics, but it's a simple fact that there are lots and lots of very ethical atheists out there. And there have been some truly monstrous wannabe theologians.
The logical reason to be ethical is simple fair play and "treat others as you'd like to be treated." If I don't want to be murdered, I shouldn't murder people. If I don't want to be robbed, I shouldn't encourage robbery. We should all strive to get along for the common good that we all partake of. This principle seems to have evolved on its own across lots of cultures, though every single one of them seems to find it equally challenging through history.
You also mentioned that it's possible to do so for aesthetic reasons, which inspired me to start thinking more broadly.
I suggest that while "should be" can be normative, the vagaries of the English language mean that it's not definitively or invariably so - "we should be there in 10 minutes", for example. In my answer quoted above, what I had in mind was creation as an expressive act - an outworking of the creative impulse. To me, that looks more motivational than normative.
The short answer would be because people tend to find abrupt change disturbing and destabilising. It would create a messy and chaotic situation, which quite a lot of people find distasteful.
I take your point. I'm an engineer :-)
I'm afraid I don't know, but I rather doubt it--what they were teaching him, and the other Air Force pilots et al, was such wisdom as "The North Vietnamese are smart; they save fuel by parking on clouds till the enemy flies by!" and "We saved bullets by waiting till several enemy planes were all flying in formation, and then we shot all seven pilots at once using a single bullet, because they were lined up." I'm told it was a real struggle for the pilots to keep a straight face as they discussed these new insights.
The Vietnamese culture as a whole (not the subcultures, which I can't speak to) is at root animist and ancestor-worshipping, with an overlay of Buddhism. So the things that matter the most to most people seem to be avoiding illness and bad luck/catastrophes by following a whole long list of don't's--don't praise a child, don't give a child a pretty name, call your eldest "number two," dress firstborn boys as girls, don't allow virgins to touch babies, after being hospitalized, get a buzz cut (even when female!) so you're too ugly for the evil spirits to recognize, moving to a new home is a viable strategy if you think spirits are haunting you. You must also keep an ancestral shrine and make offerings, because if they are angry at you, they may curse you--and their love for you in this life is no guarantee of the next. There are specialists you pay to set your wedding date and other dates, like a funeral, and if they tell you it's during your finals week or on Christmas, sucks to be you, you have to do it anyway. People can get barred from their own parents' funeral for being of another faith, for fear of somehow "sending Mom to hell." New mothers must stay indoors and even in bed for long periods of time--up to a month--and must avoid a great many foods, including basically everything with vitamin C! They are not allowed to bathe or shower. I haven't yet come across a superstition that is other than a burden, and new Christians are greatly relieved to be free of the various prohibitions and requirements--as well as the financial burdens.
Buddhism is fairly remote for most people I know--if someone gets keen on religion, they might go be a nun or something, but most stick to the above-mentioned beliefs. However, at major life events (funerals, mainly), the Buddhist priest or monk gets a look in, saying or playing tapes of chants by the deathbed for hours. This usually requires a very substantial cost in the thousands of dollars, in our experience. They may also lead prayers.
There is a God known as Thuong De, but as far as I can determine, he is identical to the distant "God" so many of us non-Christians heard about in childhood--someone powerful and to be respected, but distant from our everyday lives, unlike the evil spirits who are a constant worry. I suspect this is the Vietnamese cultural version of the "high god" you find in so many cultures around the world. Among Lutherans, we identify the Christian God with this name, and work to help people know him better.
I don't think I've ever met a first-generation Vietnamese who identified as an atheist, though plenty who would say "I don't know," and probably the vast majority do what they do because they figure it's safer--but not out of a religious commitment, if you see what I mean. It's rather like living with tigers or cobras you can't see. You take precautions, but that's about it. Anyone with a religious turn of mind probably investigates either Buddhism or Christianity. The rest seem to be, I don't know, a bit sad. Not angry, not militant, not convinced. But then, given the hell on earth they've been through, I can totally see that.