What IS good, and how do we determine it?

[abaris]

Isis thinks it's ok and even good to kill infidels. But they are wrong. It is never moral to murder someone, and that is what it is regardless of what anyone may think. That's what I mean when I say it is a universal truth.

Really? So go tell that to your evangelical brethren in christ, who repeatedly call for killing gays and transgender people.

There's only a very thin layer of society preventing these people to act out on the very same vile impulses as ISIS. The only difference being the god franchise. And sometimes that layer breaks. Then some abortion doctor is killed or 87 people on the island of utoya. And please, don't come with the "no true scotsman" argument of Anders Bervik Brejvik not being a christian. He claimed to do what he did in the name of christianity against islam.

So christianity certainly isn't a safety belt against human depravity. And I'm not even speaking about catholic priests raping children - yet.

[Esquilax]

To answer your questions:

1. We believe that God's laws establish moral/immoral, since we believe that He is the master of the universe.

So if god decided to invert the current moral status quo, so that everything good became bad and vice versa, you would suddenly change your beliefs entirely and your moral system would do a one-eighty?

Too many christians avoid this question by saying god wouldn't do that, but please don't; it's a hypothetical, it doesn't have to happen in real life.

Well, it depends on which parts of the bible you are referring too. Christianity defines itself by the New Testament. The gospels, and the teachings of Christ. From that, you will most definitely see that the things you listed above are contrary to Christian teaching.

But the old testament is still the same god, yes? All that evil stuff is still in his past.

[Catholic_Lady]

So where does this guy fit in on the catholic "goodness" scale?

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/16/world/...TE&ei=5043

The case of the former envoy and archbishop, Jozef Wesolowski, caused an international scandal when it was learned that the Vatican had secretly recalled him from Santo Domingo, the Dominican capital, before officials in the Caribbean nation could investigate, saying that he could not be tried in the Dominican Republic because he had diplomatic immunity.

Mr. Wesolowski came to the attention of the Dominican authorities after a television journalist aired an investigation reporting that the ambassador had a habit of picking up shoeshine boys along the waterfront and taking them to secluded spots. Some boys said he gave them money to molest them.

Minimalist, to answer your question, the Catholic Church definitely believes child molestation is immoral. The bishop who did this acted very wrongly, as did the individuals in the Vatican who tried to cover it up. Luckily, Catholicism doesn't claim that being Catholic makes you immune to immoral behavior. There are bad seeds in all groups, and Catholicism unfortunately is not different.

[Simon Moon]

This is kind of a spinoff of the WHY BE GOOD thread.

The question I have for atheists, isn't "why by good." I think it's simplistic and deeply flawed to think that the only reason to "be good" is to avoid Hell. And of course, I believe that anyone can be a good person regardless of beliefs.

The question I have for atheists is how do we know what IS good?

Religious or not, we all somehow know that certain things are intrinsically, universally immoral. Let's use murder as an obvious example. So if murder is wrong, where did this law come from? If this is a universal truth, where did this truth come from and who/what determined it to be what it is?

Good can be determined using a combination of rationality, empathy and our evolutionary past.

The reason why murder is wrong, from an evolutionary standpoint, is because it would have hindered our ancestor's ability to survive as a species. 

We are a social species. We evolved in small groups (50-150) where altruism, cooperation, reciprocity were, along with our intelligence, were our survival strategy. 

Social species are unable to survive if they did not utilize altruism, cooperation, reciprocity. Wolves do not murder members of their groups (even if food is in short supply) because they, like us, need altruism, cooperation, reciprocity to survive.

From the point of empathy and rationality, I can determine that, what I need for my well being and ability to thrive, is what the vast majority of other humans also needs. In other words, for me, life is preferable to death, health is preferable to disease, freedom is preferable to slavery, etc. How much does it take for me to figure out, that since I don't want to be murdered or a slave, chances are very good that no one else does either?

You know how you can tell if murder is wrong? Ask the (potential) victim.

[Catholic_Lady]

This is kind of a spinoff of the WHY BE GOOD thread.

The question I have for atheists, isn't "why by good." I think it's simplistic and deeply flawed to think that the only reason to "be good" is to avoid Hell. And of course, I believe that anyone can be a good person regardless of beliefs.

The question I have for atheists is how do we know what IS good?

Religious or not, we all somehow know that certain things are intrinsically, universally immoral. Let's use murder as an obvious example. So if murder is wrong, where did this law come from? If this is a universal truth, where did this truth come from and who/what determined it to be what it is?

This is the sort of question that used to bother me a lot when I was a Christian. 

 There are logical reasons why murder is considered immoral.  Instability would not be good for a social species  and killing each other would definitely hurt our ability to live with one another. It makes sense that our society has  evolved to the point that  we disapprove of murdering innocent people. 


Our view on murder has changed from biblical times. For example, we no longer put people to death for cursing their parents, having an affair or being raped while in the city. Those would be considered innocent people today. They weren't considered innocent in the Old Testament world. Our views change on these issues. 

There are no easy answers. Once I became an atheist I had to rethink about what I considered moral. I couldn't just accept what the bible said was good anymore. I had to ask myself why certain actions were bad or good. In the long run, I feel that this has made me a better person but when I first lost faith this questioning really frightened me.

Thanks for the answer!

I'd actually argue that it was always immoral to kill people for the reasons you stated above. I don't think morals change. I guess in the OT times people thought it was ok, so it was considered ok by society, but I believe objectively it was always immoral.

I do think it is important to ask ourselves why we believe what we believe about morality and not just blindly follow a certain path just because our religion tells us to. It is important to understand *why* it does.

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This is kind of a spinoff of the WHY BE GOOD thread.

The question I have for atheists, isn't "why by good." I think it's simplistic and deeply flawed to think that the only reason to "be good" is to avoid Hell. And of course, I believe that anyone can be a good person regardless of beliefs.

The question I have for atheists is how do we know what IS good?

Religious or not, we all somehow know that certain things are intrinsically, universally immoral. Let's use murder as an obvious example. So if murder is wrong, where did this law come from? If this is a universal truth, where did this truth come from and who/what determined it to be what it is?

It's quite simple really, you use empathy combined with reason to determine options cause and promote suffering and which options cause and promote pleasure.

Thank you for the response!

I believe there are 2 flaws with this thinking.

1. Empathy can be subjective, while the morality of certain things are not. For example, a vegetarian can feel empathy for farm animals and claim that it is immoral to eat meat. Meanwhile, a meat eater can say they do not feel empathy for such animals and so eating meat is not immoral.

2. Why is it immoral to promote suffering? Where does this law come from?

[Jenny A]

You've yet to define "murder" and establish it is in fact a "universal truth", whatever that means.

Good point.

By murder I mean to kill an innocent person without their consent. Not in self defense, and not assisted suicide.

By "universal truth" I mean that it is definitely immoral to murder someone, regardless of what a particular person might think. Isis thinks it's ok and even good to kill infidels. But they are wrong. It is never moral to murder someone, and that is what it is regardless of what anyone may think. That's what I mean when I say it is a universal truth.

I don't think your definition is a "universal truth,"  Many cultures do not consider killing other people in war murder even if the victims are civilians.  Speaking of war is a soldier drafted against his will an innocent person? Assume for the moment he hasn't killed anyone.  If you are a soldier on the other side and you kill him, are you a murderer?

At various times in history, killing slaves/serf has not been considered murder.  In many places in the U.S. self defense includes defense of your home from felony.  In ancient Rome a man had a legal right to kill any dependent member of his household.  Many ancient cultures did not consider exposing babies murder.  Also sacrificing innocent (often they were required to be pure and innocent) victims to the gods was considered moral in many societies.  Some cultures expose the elderly to the elements. Hebrew law required killing rape victims.  I could go on, the point is that coming up with a universal definition of murder is well nigh impossible.

[abaris]

I do think it is important to ask ourselves why we believe what we believe about morality and not just blindly follow a certain path just because our religion tells us to. It is important to understand *why* it does.

Because we're a social species, simple as that.

Please, don't dissapoint me. Do some reasearch and look up the experiments of Brian Hare, one of the leading experts on dogs and apes and Frans Van der Vaal and you will see what I mean that we're not as special as religion tries to make us out to be. Also look at the youtube channel kokoflix. It's about the life of a gorilla who's learned human sign language.

[Simon Moon]

Double post

[Simon Moon]

Thanks for the answer!

I'd actually argue that it was always immoral to kill people for the reasons you stated above. I don't think morals change. I guess in the OT times people thought it was ok, so it was considered ok by society, but I believe objectively it was always immoral.

I do think it is important to ask ourselves why we believe what we believe about morality and not just blindly follow a certain path just because our religion tells us to. It is important to understand *why* it does.

How about when Yahweh ordered Moses to slaughter all the Midianites, except to keep the virgins for themselves?

Moral or not? 

[Catholic_Lady]

It's almost like we instinctively know it's wrong. But where does it come from? And if someone was brought up being taught that it's ok to kill people, and they do so, they would still be doing something immoral. Because murder is immoral regardless of how the person feels about it.

See, that's exactly the idea every theist brings into this board as if it was something novel. First, you have to descent from the religiously inspired human high horse and have a look at the world surrounding you. We know because we're a social species. There are advantages to being what you call good, since you get the support of your peers if you are.

And we're not the only species working that way. Not by a long chalk. Virtually every social species refrains from hurting or killing their peers. And, maybe you're different from the other we had here before, you can easily look up recent cognition research on animals to see that compassion and other so called human emotions, aren't exclusively human either.

And I can't understand for the life of me why every new arrival needs their very own "why be good" thread.

Abaris, here's the problem I see with that.

You can be born into Isis and be taught that killing infidels is good and then get support from your peers for it. But the fact remains that this action is still definitively wrong, even if your society views it as a good thing. Wouldn't you agree?

Hm.. Animals kill their own species more than we like to believe. I do know that felines (from lions to feral cats) will kill the babies that are not from their own group.

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It's almost like we instinctively know it's wrong. But where does it come from? And if someone was brought up being taught that it's ok to kill people, and they do so, they would still be doing something immoral. Because murder is immoral regardless of how the person feels about it.

You do realize you've said two mutually exclusive things, within two sentences, don't you? You began with "we instinctively know morality," but then a moment later you're asking us to envision a person who was brought up being taught that murder is morally okay, and thus believes that. So which is it?

Thanks for bringing this to light Esquilax.

I believe that by default we would all know that murder is wrong. But I do believe it is possible to brainwash someone from a very early age to think otherwise.