Argument from Conscience

[Redbeard The Pink]

So you bekieve the propaganda of a corrupt and twisted ideology. Not surprising. But can you do the same for Stalin and Mao...(crickets).

I pretty well already addressed Stalin and Mao, but why not? Let's do it again.

First off, those guys weren't espousing atheism, they were espousing Communism. Knocking down opposing ideologies is extremely normal for groups making a bid for power. Hitler knocked down all the churches so he could build churches run by the Nazi state (christian churches, mind you), and Stalin knocked them down because they threatened the state. Mao was barely a Communist and was mostly interested in setting up a personality cult centered around himself.

At any rate, tearing down other people's churches is far more common in religious societies than in secular ones, and as Nemo pointed out, none of the violence you're describing was done under the "flag" of atheism in the same way that religious atrocities are expressly religiously motivated. Most modern secular societies still enjoy religious freedom, in fact. The societies with the least religious freedom are actually religious ones...go figure.

[robvalue]

It seems no one has answered this question, so I'll repeat it. (To be fair, Kingpin and CL answered a similarly worded example before indicating that they would reject god's morality under some circumstances. I don't however understand their justification for doing so.)

Scenario to all theists:

God shows up and announces to everyone in the world that we need to know what is moral and what is not, things have not been clear enough up to this point.

"Murder and rape are moral. Helping people is immoral. Everything else is neither moral or immoral. Bye."

Now. Will you live by this moral code? It's the universal moral code, we just didn't know exactly what it was until now. Would you be fine with me murdering and raping your family? If not, on what grounds can you object? God just said it's moral, and he is the only authority.

I know this kind of question is difficult, because either answer has big problems. That's the point of me asking it. If you can't answer a simple hypothetical question, that implies a problem with your belief system. If you think the question is loaded, then please explain why it is loaded.

Also, no theists have attempted to address the below either, unless I missed it.

Slippery use of the word "moral". If an outside agency is just handing out instructions about what is and isn't moral, then the distinction is arbitrary from our point of view unless we have some way to evaluate the items on the lists. It may as well be "apple" actions and "banana" actions. The agent could reverse the lists, or mix them up, and they would still be "moral" and "immoral", because it says so. If we have no way to measure "morality" ourselves, then we can't possibly know what these lists mean and are just mindlessly taking orders.

Of course, the implication is that these lists also just happen to coincide with what are helpful and harmful actions from our point of view; in other words, the morality of consequences. That's the slippery part. There is no way to deduce such a correlation without analysing the lists ourselves and confirming the actions are actually in the right list. To just announce the lists must be right because the outside agent is always right because it says it's always right is circular reasoning. I don't give a fuck if outside agent X tells me that biting everyone I see in the street is "moral". Unless I can have it explained to me why I should do this, I'm not going to do it, because I know it is harmful.

"God" morality has it all backwards. It's simply observing the common ground we tend to find in our own morality, declaring this to be amazing and labelling it magic. It's not amazing at all, or even surprising, if you study evolution. It's no use announcing that there "must be a correct moral standard", because that doesn't mean there actually is one; and even if there was, it becomes "apples" and "oranges" again if we can't assess it ourselves. That's if we had had any way to find out what it is, which we don't. We have millions of people all with their own interpretation of "objective religious morality" and no way to show who is "right" without looking at the consequences of actions. Assessing consequences is going to vary from person to person. That is the reality, whether people accept it or not. Morality is not a simple matter of good and evil actions as religion would like to have us believe. We live forever in the grey area.

[Kingpin]

It seems no one has answered this question, so I'll repeat it. (To be fair, Kingpin and CL answered a similarly worded example before indicating that they would reject god's morality under some circumstances. I don't however understand their justification for doing so.)

Scenario to all theists:

God shows up and announces to everyone in the world that we need to know what is moral and what is not, things have not been clear enough up to this point.

"Murder and rape are moral. Helping people is immoral. Everything else is neither moral or immoral. Bye."

Now. Will you live by this moral code? It's the universal moral code, we just didn't know exactly what it was until now. Would you be fine with me murdering and raping your family? If not, on what grounds can you object? God just said it's moral, and he is the only authority.

I know this kind of question is difficult, because either answer has big problems. That's the point of me asking it. If you can't answer a simple hypothetical question, that implies a problem with your belief system. If you think the question is loaded, then please explain why it is loaded.

Also, no theists have attempted to address the below either, unless I missed it.

Slippery use of the word "moral". If an outside agency is just handing out instructions about what is and isn't moral, then the distinction is arbitrary from our point of view unless we have some way to evaluate the items on the lists. It may as well be "apple" actions and "banana" actions. The agent could reverse the lists, or mix them up, and they would still be "moral" and "immoral", because it says so. If we have no way to measure "morality" ourselves, then we can't possibly know what these lists mean and are just mindlessly taking orders.

Of course, the implication is that these lists also just happen to coincide with what are helpful and harmful actions from our point of view; in other words, the morality of consequences. That's the slippery part. There is no way to deduce such a correlation without analysing the lists ourselves and confirming the actions are actually in the right list. To just announce the lists must be right because the outside agent is always right because it says it's always right is circular reasoning. I don't give a fuck if outside agent X tells me that biting everyone I see in the street is "moral". Unless I can have it explained to me why I should do this, I'm not going to do it, because I know it is harmful.

"God" morality has it all backwards. It's simply observing the common ground we tend to find in our own morality, declaring this to be amazing and labelling it magic. It's not amazing at all, or even surprising, if you study evolution. It's no use announcing that there "must be a correct moral standard", because that doesn't mean there actually is one; and even if there was, it becomes "apples" and "oranges" again if we can't assess it ourselves. That's if we had had any way to find out what it is, which we don't. We have millions of people all with their own interpretation of "objective religious morality" and no way to show who is "right" without looking at the consequences of actions. Assessing consequences is going to vary from person to person. That is the reality, whether people accept it or not. Morality is not a simple matter of good and evil actions as religion would like to have us believe. We live forever in the grey area.

Rob, 

I'm going to answer and hope you can understand where I'm coming from in this.

In answer to the first scenario, as I stated before, I would not do that because that goes against the greatest commandments to love your neighbor as yourself.

Second, I actually agree with you that we as humans live in the grey area for moral actions.  This does not remove God from the equation however.  You are reading "morality from God" as an infinite list of do's/do not's.  God has set forth a blueprint for life that he has designed to bring us the most fulfillment.  Treating others as we would treat ourselves.  Now of course this does open it up to interpretation.  People certainly decide for themselves.  However, this does not mean that objective morals do not exist only that we subjectively assess them to suit us.  Ever see on an airplane bathroom the sign next to the smoke detector?  Don't tamper, touch, disengage, destroy, etc.  Why don't they say don't mess with it?  Because while that should be implied, people redefine the word "mess".  

The important part though is this.  No one is moral in God's eyes.  There is nothing you can do to be perfect in God's eyes.  That is why Jesus came to fulfill the law and pay the consequence of sin (death), and whoever believes in the work he did on the cross is right in God's eyes. 

I will come straight out and say IVF is not a sin.  I don't agree with the Catholic church here.  The sacredness comes in the life of the child.  The process for conception is still the same and results in a child.  However we are not judged on our sin, because if we were, we would all go to Hell.  We are judged on our belief in Jesus and our desire to turn away from sin (even though we fail).

[robvalue]

OK, thanks for your answer

I'm afraid I can't make any sense of it however. But I appreciate you trying.

If we're all immoral, what is the point of morality? This sounds exactly like the thing I hate most about Christianity, the idea that we are all somehow "wrong". That we are doomed to be not good enough, no matter what we do. It's a disgusting idea. This is breaking your leg and selling you a crutch.

If God in person contradicts what other people have told you are god's commandments, you'd pick what people have told you, which is now obviously actually not from God at all?

Let me make a bold statement and see if you agree:

You think rape is immoral regardless of whether God says it is or not.

[Kingpin]

OK, thanks for your answer

I'm afraid I can't make any sense of it however. But I appreciate you trying.

If we're all immoral, what is the point of morality? This sounds exactly like the thing I hate most about Christianity, the idea that we are all somehow "wrong". That we are doomed to be not good enough, no matter what we do. It's a disgusting idea. This is breaking your leg and selling you a crutch.

If God in person contradicts what other people have told you are god's commandments, you'd pick what people have told you, which is now obviously actually not from God at all?

Let me make a bold statement and see if you agree:

You think rape is immoral regardless of whether God says it is or not.

Yes.  Because I would never want that to happen to me nor would I want to intentionally harm someone else.

[robvalue]

OK! So that shows that your morality, at least on this issue, has nothing to do with God. You have made your own decision that it is wrong/immoral whatever you want to call it, and you hold your opinion higher even than god's.

Of course, what I'm hearing is that you're happy for God to be the author of morality as long as he agrees with you; as soon as he doesn't, you revert to your own morality. This is what everyone does in my opinion, they just don't realise it God is a mirror.

Additional: here's an interesting take on it. Can you list the things that you currently consider immoral that you'd be willing to change your mind about if God told you to? Same question for things that are moral. Obviously rape is not on the list of immoral things you would change your mind about.

I'm going to make a separate topic about this!

[I_am_not_mafia]

1) Each person is obligated to follow his or her moral conscience.
2) The human conscience is the product of something: either instinctual nature, the individual, society, or divine.
3) No one is morally obligated to follow instinct since instincts easily fail upon rational consideration.
4) No one individual’s conscience is absolute and morally binding on others.
5) Individual consciences cannot be added together unless each person relies on their own conscience to feel morally obliged to the group. Thus it is functionally equivalent to individual conscience as a source.
6) The only remaining source is something that transcends nature, the individual, and society. Such a source must be divine.

Usual apologetic technique of creating a whole load of steps that each follow on from each other and then making a huge leap of logic that is not supported by the previous steps in the hope that no one notices. Specifically in this case ...

Who says that there is a remaining source? That assumption is completely unsubstantiated and not addressed by the previous steps. The whole argument assumes that morality is objective and exists even without the presence of humans and it does not even feel it necessary to state this. 6) could just as easily be:

6) The chocolate tea pot orbiting on the far side of the sun was therefore put there by a higher being.

[ErGingerbreadMandude]

Maybe Christians did not join Christianity and then accepted morality according to Bible.
Maybe Christians joined Christianity because some of their own moral values were similar to the moral values of the Bible?
So the Christians doesn't necessarily have to change their moral values if Bible changed them.

That's the only explanation i can come up with as justification for Christians not agreeing with killing and raping if God asked them to.

[Redbeard The Pink]

OK, thanks for your answer

I'm afraid I can't make any sense of it however. But I appreciate you trying.

If we're all immoral, what is the point of morality? This sounds exactly like the thing I hate most about Christianity, the idea that we are all somehow "wrong". That we are doomed to be not good enough, no matter what we do. It's a disgusting idea. This is breaking your leg and selling you a crutch.

If God in person contradicts what other people have told you are god's commandments, you'd pick what people have told you, which is now obviously actually not from God at all?

Let me make a bold statement and see if you agree:

You think rape is immoral regardless of whether God says it is or not.

Yes.  Because I would never want that to happen to me nor would I want to intentionally harm someone else.

Ok, you have just hit on the actual basis for human morality. Rob succeeded in illustrating it to you. Go Rob.

This right here is where all human morality ACTUALLY comes from. Your morality is sourced by empathy. You know what suffering is because you've experienced it. You can imagine the suffering of others even if you haven't experienced it. You know how you feel about people who make you suffer, and you can therefore imagine how others would feel about you if you made them suffer. All of this adds up to the Golden Rule: I won't do to someone what I know I wouldn't want done to myself.

This morality works not because of religion, but in spite of it. The hypothetical here is that Gaud comes down from heaven and tells you what to do, and your answer was "heck no, that's horrible." If god were the source of your morality, you would listen to him without question. Because you're willing to ignore the icky parts of the bible and even the icky parts of what god tells you in person, that means you have an empathetic morality that super cedes your religious convictions. Not only is god NOT a source of objective morality, he's not even the source of YOUR morality. Your humanity (ironically enough) is actually what makes you moral. It's what makes us all moral. We're social creatures who don't like to suffer, and that's all it actually takes.

[Kingpin]

OK! So that shows that your morality, at least on this issue, has nothing to do with God. You have made your own decision that it is wrong/immoral whatever you want to call it, and you hold your opinion higher even than god's.

Of course, what I'm hearing is that you're happy for God to be the author of morality as long as he agrees with you; as soon as he doesn't, you revert to your own morality. This is what everyone does in my opinion, they just don't realise it God is a mirror.

Additional: here's an interesting take on it. Can you list the things that you currently consider immoral that you'd be willing to change your mind about if God told you to? Same question for things that are moral. Obviously rape is not on the list of immoral things you would change your mind about.

I'm going to make a separate topic about this!

Au contrair!  I hold that objective morals are part of us and that we know right/wrong but still have the will to be selective to go against it or not. 

here's the problem with your question, it dies the death of a thousand qualification and subqualifications.  It goes back to my example about the smoke detector.  Don't mess with it.  People start redefining that and then we need to qualify by adding more definitions because people say, "well it didn't say not to do this."  There are a lot of topics that the Bible does not address.  But because we want to subjectively redefine things to justify our actions, does not mean objective morality is non-existent.  There is a simple rule and everyone wants to redefine what it means.

God said to love your neighbor as yourself, now we redefine what that means to the point it is meaningless.  Morality is not a list.  Value life, both yours and everyone else's.   But again I go back to this really being moot.  No one is perfectly good.  We all mess up.