What is the point of morality if you're a theist?

[davidMC1982]

We often give humans more credit than they deserve. We don't go around killing/raping/stealing from each other because it's simply not in our nature to do so. Invoking morality suggests some sort of active thought process; a balancing of the scales so to speak. We don't ask, "why don't fish go around killing each other?" or "why don't elephants go around killing each other?"

It seems to me that we are just intelligent enough to learn, reason, and be convinced, but not intelligent enough to do it well. Our intelligence gives us motives that are simply not present in other animals - some of those motives are positive, some negative - and morality is how we deal with those motives.

Take "not killing" as an example. Not killing people is not a moral question. We simply don't do it (yes, I know some do, but that's mirrored in the animal kingdom also). It only becomes a moral question when we have the opportunity to rationalise our decision making process. Is it right to kill one to save many (for instance)? Generally speaking, you'd have to say yes, but our nature shows itself when you realise how hard it would be to do.

The questions I would ask religious people are, what true moral dilemnas does your religion actually answer? Would most people, of any religious persuasion come up with the same answer? Could someone else from the same religion come up with a different answer?

[MindForgedManacle]

Good to hear, you're just being wrong a purely logical level then I don't mind that so much. You see all things that are caused have a cause. No infinite regresses of causes either as it would take an infinite number of causation's to cause anything to happen therefore nothing would ever be caused to happen. Solid philosophical proof of God there.

Aside from the fact that you're merely copying from the D-list philosopher William Lane Craig, the argument has the following flaws:

1) It doesn't support God. It only concludes that there must exist something that either:

1a) Was the first, uncaused cause

or

1b) Existed tenselessly, as per the B-theory pf time, wherein the casually prior state of the universe was that of a 4-dimensional block of spacetime in a tenseless state.

2) If our understanding of quantum mechanics is correct (and the available evidence seems to indicate such is very plausible), then there are in fact things that can begin to exist or happen uncaused. These include quantum phenomena like photon decay, nuclear decay, virtual particle pair production, etc.

So a 'solid proof' it is definitely not.

---

We often give humans more credit than they deserve. We don't go around killing/raping/stealing from each other because it's simply not in our nature to do so. Invoking morality suggests some sort of active thought process; a balancing of the scales so to speak. We don't ask, "why don't fish go around killing each other?" or "why don't elephants go around killing each other?"

Humans kill each other all the time. "Not in our nature" at best means such is not a typical action done by 'normal' members of our species. And yet in the last century alone hundreds of millions died from war and other human-chosen atrocities, despite it not being normal to do so.

There is something like an active thought process as to why you don't do such things. Have you never walked away from a fight? If so, why? Was it not because you rationally considered what woukd happen?

It seems to me that we are just intelligent enough to learn, reason, and be convinced, but not intelligent enough to do it well. Our intelligence gives us motives that are simply not present in other animals - some of those motives are positive, some negative - and morality is how we deal with those motives.

I would say that science and philosophy nick that whole 'we don't reason well' assertion.

Take "not killing" as an example. Not killing people is not a moral question. We simply don't do it (yes, I know some do, but that's mirrored in the animal kingdom also). It only becomes a moral question when we have the opportunity to rationalise our decision making process. Is it right to kill one to save many (for instance)? Generally speaking, you'd have to say yes, but our nature shows itself when you realise how hard it would be to do.

That is a moral question. Morality is by definition what one ought do, which entails what one ought not do as well. And rationalizing our decision-making process is ingrained in moral considerations. We tend to have predispositions (as you said) against certain behaviors which we generally take as sort of moral axioms (or very nearly so), not to be transgressed except under circumstances in which other moral axioms are under distress.

The questions I would ask religious people are, what true moral dilemnas does your religion actually answer? Would most people, of any religious persuasion come up with the same answer? Could someone else from the same religion come up with a different answer?

I'd like to see those questions answered by the religious as well.

[DLJ]

Just on the Pell vs Dawkins exchange...

I chatted to an ex-colleague (a 'spiritual' Dutch guy living in Oz) a while ago and mentioned how my eyebrows raised at the amount of applause that Pell received. I wondered if they had bused in all the Aussie catholics for the show.

He mused about how Pell made so much sense. I pointed out that Pell had actually lied, bare-faced, on camera.

What kind of morality is that? The pious lie?

My friend, of course, was too heavily invested in his views to do any fact-checking.

Methinks there is a term for that behaviour.

[davidMC1982]

Humans kill each other all the time. "Not in our nature" at best means such is not a typical action done by 'normal' members of our species. And yet in the last century alone hundreds of millions died from war and other human-chosen atrocities, despite it not being normal to do so.

Humans do kill each other all the time, but only because they have been convinced to do so. We can be convinced to commit attrocities because we have a mind capable of reasoning but we're mostly not very good at it. It's like our mind's ability to adopt new ideas has yet to be balanced by its ability to rationalise them. We still have some way to go in biological and social evolution.

On some level, I would agree with all of your points. I guess we only differ on whether morality covers the whole of the human condition or just the conscious part. That's an argument of semantics which wouldn't really get us anywhere, so I'll leave that to the philosophers

[Esquilax]

If something is from God then it is good if something is against God it is human sin.

So in your view, christianity doesn't have morality at all? It just has edicts?

It's just the nature of what the reality of God is and reality of human freedom of will. There is good and there is evil, right and wrong. We don't invent it we understand it.

Except I'm asking about the criteria of selection for morals, here. Did god reason out the rule against killing, for instance, because the action is directly harmful here on earth, or did he just do it because he doesn't like killing?

Not only have you still not answered my question, you've now put yourself in the position of accepting anything god says as moral regardless of whether or not that thing was previously immoral. If god came to you today and commanded you to murder a child, would you do it?

[davidMC1982]

If god came to you today and commanded you to murder a child, would you do it?

William Lane Craig, the apologists go-to guy, has the only reasonable (from his argument) answer to that question. He says, "yes, if god commanded it, it is moral". His arguments are generally spurious, but at least in this case he's consistent.

[Tonus]

William Lane Craig, the apologists go-to guy, has the only reasonable (from his argument) answer to that question. He says, "yes, if god commanded it, it is moral". His arguments are generally spurious, but at least in this case he's consistent.

I think that's the only way to approach it. For example, would it be moral to kill a man for working on the Sabbath? I would expect a Christian to say that no, it is not. But there was a time when it was. God's morals are not absolute. They can change. They can even contradict; god commands the Israelites not to kill, then commands them to kill while the law remains in effect. Presumably the first command is considered to be suspended when a man is caught working on the Sabbath or when a couple is caught committing adultery.

Religious morals have only one basis-- "it's what god wants." Good and bad (or right and wrong) have nothing to do with it for the same reason; what constitutes good or bad depends on what god wants it to be, and that can change.

[pocaracas]

A question for theists.... 3 pages of atheists responding.... well, there is ONE theist replying.
AF.org at its finest!

[Chas]

Really? I don't remember doing that at any point in my life.

Good to know you're atheists. But you don't see atheists ever try to argue against the existence of God or that religion is purely a man made fabrication of fairy-tales and myths? I think I may have seen that happen before with hilarious results.







Ah yes great stuff there, fun to be had by all.

Ah, yes. Laughter from the ignorant. So telling.

Now, I don't think it's a "truth", but I also don't consider it a "harmful myth".

Good to hear, you're just being wrong a purely logical level then I don't mind that so much. You see all things that are caused have a cause. No infinite regresses of causes either as it would take an infinite number of causation's to cause anything to happen therefore nothing would ever be caused to happen. Solid philosophical proof of God there.

Philosophy provides no proofs of anything. Philosophy is about questions, not answers.

Where did god come from? More regress or special pleading?

[Esquilax]

Ah, yes. Laughter from the ignorant. So telling.

What's even more interesting is that Sword posted a fifty second clip of a show that goes for at least an hour, from an episode I've seen all the way through, and Dawkins comes out far better than that clip would suggest. Out of context dishonesty from a christian?! Madness!

I could post the clip of Dawkins making the priest look foolish by calling him on his lack of understanding of evolution, but I won't, because that would be a lie, and a misrepresentation of what actually went down there, just as much as Sword's was.

I'm always so fond of how this "Sword of Christ" is so willing to abandon his teachings when it suits him.