Morality versus afterlife

[Brian37]

Most people just follow their hearts and heads and use religion to justify it.

However we are born with a conscience which can decide it ourselves so IDK

Part one, yes.

Part two, not exactly, at least not put that way.

Evolution produces a range of individuals, those who lean to more empathy and those who lean towards less or none. Humans use religion unfortunately to justify both cruelty and compassion. And the justifications for cruelty are often masked by religion as moral and virtue and from those who do that, from their point of view, they are not doing anything wrong. That is the poison religion creates in human thought. It isn't that you can force religion out of existence. But the lack of understanding that our behaviors don't come out of a book, but as individuals are coming from within. Once you set up an idea in the form of an impossible utopia  
in an imperfect messy reality, and sell it as fact and history even within the same ranks it causes different sects whom read the same words and come to different conclusions.

[robvalue]

So, only one answer so far.

I imagine everyone else would throw God in the bin then if there's no party at the end

[RoadRunner79]

This is a question for anyone who thinks morality "comes from God".

If you knew there was no afterlife, that you're dead and gone no matter what happens in this life, would you continue to follow "morality from God"? Or would you then ignore it, and decide for yourself how to act?

Thanks

Yes, I would still be moral.

[robvalue]

Good, thank you

That's two less ticking time bombs. Everyone else is apparently still deciding whether they would pick up an axe and go on a rampage the second they became convinced there was no heaven

I could up the stakes further:

Say you found out for sure that there is no God. Would you continue to follow what you had previously thought was his best teachings, because you think they are good teachings? Or would his nonexistence then make them irrelevant to you? If it's the latter, what would you do instead?

[Brian37]

This is a question for anyone who thinks morality "comes from God".

If you knew there was no afterlife, that you're dead and gone no matter what happens in this life, would you continue to follow "morality from God"? Or would you then ignore it, and decide for yourself how to act?

Thanks

Yes, I would still be moral.

Jefferson while a Deist and cherry picked the bible claiming Jesus was no magic man, but sold good morals, while certainly a watered down and more civil version, as much as he was pillar of modern free speech, and valued being unafraid to question anything, still would argue with him if he were alive today. 

Jefferson certainly thought atheists could be moral, "whence arises the morality of the atheist? It is idle to say, as some do, that no such thing exists."

The same way I love my liberal theist friends but still want to scream "Dude you don't need an invisible friend, your empathy is already there".

Even with my sacred deities Neil Degrasse Tyson and Bjorn Ulvaeus from ABBA, both are of the "off" position on god claims but shy away from the word "atheist", which is what they currently are, the "agnostic" part only refers to the future. 

If you walk into a room and the light is currently off, that does not mean it cannot be turned on in the future. But if it is currently off, that means you are currently an atheist.

Meh, but if we are going to have religious people, certainly someone like King and Malala are better than ISIS or Pat Rubbernuts.

[RoadRunner79]

I could up the stakes further:

Say you found out for sure that there is no God. Would you continue to follow what you had previously thought was his best teachings, because you think they are good teachings? Or would his nonexistence then make them irrelevant to you? If it's the latter, what would you do instead?

That's an interesting question, and it's hard to say for sure.  I know that I do look at things differently since I came to believe in God.  And I don't know how that would change, if I came to believe that there was not a God an no objective "ought" in how I should behave.  I would think that I wouldn't change all that much, as I am a different person, then who I used to be. 

I don't think it's a question of if I would be moral, without God, but what is "moral" without an objective transcendent definition.

[The Grand Nudger]

It can't be too difficult to answer that question RR, what with the numbers of people who go through life being "moral" in a manner completely recognizable to -you- as moral...without having any such objective, transcendent definition...for whether or not they feel like tossing old ladies into the street......

[RoadRunner79]

It can't be too difficult to answer that question RR, what with the numbers of people who go through life being "moral" in a manner completely recognizable to -you- as moral...without having any such objective, transcendent definition...for whether or not they feel like tossing old ladies into the street......

Ok... if cultural perceptions changed about morality, and it was every man for himself, do you think that your views about morality would change?   Would you be doing things, that you now consider to be immoral?

[The Grand Nudger]

Unlikely (or at least no more likely than my doing things which I consider to be immoral now..lol), but that's a softball question...since I already consider morality, ultimately, an every man for himself scenario.  Why would I act differently than I already do if that just so happened to be objectively true somehow?  

There are probably tougher questions to ask along that periphery.

[Simon Moon]

It can't be too difficult to answer that question RR, what with the numbers of people who go through life being "moral" in a manner completely recognizable to -you- as moral...without having any such objective, transcendent definition...for whether or not they feel like tossing old ladies into the street......

Ok... if cultural perceptions changed about morality, and it was every man for himself, do you think that your views about morality would change?   Would you be doing things, that you now consider to be immoral?

Let me begin with my functional definition of morality. Which is behaviors that lead to the betterment of the well being of the most people possible, and the harm of the well being of the least number of people.

Societies that would have an "every man for himself" ethic, would just not last. They would fall apart, and those moral members of the society would start their own society with a better moral ethic, or find one that exists that they could join.

But more importantly, the vast majority of people are psychologically healthy, and have no compunction to behave immorally.

If society became "every man for himself" I would rape, murder, steal, as much as I want. And the amount I want to rape, murder and steal is exactly zero.