Not a Sunday School Teacher

[MSUSpartan]

I think most of what you've said about morality and meaning is self defeating in a religious context, Mike.

Morality and meaning are both endogenous qualities.

Morality is pretty clearly an outgrowth of social constraints, in a social species. Social systems require normative codes of behavior, and social organisms enforce them. Humans are no different. I did my masters with an ethologist, so I could honestly go on about this for days, but given my unusually high level of interest, I'll refrain from writing you all a text book on social behavior, and just say that this is totally transistor obvious to those that study the subject. What we perceive as morality is actually a set of social codes that provide the highest (or at least local maxima) net well-being for a community.

Moreover, there is no way to infer true morality from a God. You have to assume the Bible is accurate, to begin with, and then there is euthephros dilemma to deal with.

Even if the Bible (of whatever religious text you prefer) were conveying God's code accurately, and not biased by the writer and the times, you can't know if the actions prescribed are moral because God says so, or if they are moral on their own, and that's why God says so. If they are moral only because God says so, then they are arbitrary. Would theft or murder be moral if God said so, or would it still be wrong? If you think it would still be wrong, then your morality doesn't come from God. Then consider where God only behaves in ways that are moral, ie. says a thing is moral because it fundamentally is. In that case, it's not God's dictum that makes morals, but another source, and God's character is simply consistent with an existing moral code, which would fundamentally have another source.

Meaning is another issue entirely. My life has meaning based on the things I value. My legacy in terms of works, and my children. I look no farther than that, and don't know why I ought to. Why should the meaning of my life be dictated by another entity? The religious idea that the meaning of life is issue by an intangible parental figure makes no sense to me at all.

[B Brian]

MimeJames, as long as you approach it logically you can always change someones mind. I grew up to a mother who used to be a nun and a father who became a born again christian. That exposure turned me and my siblings away from any belief of god quite thoroughly.

After a number of debates I came to the modified conclusion that something higher than us or our current existence is still extremely possible, if even not likely.

While I still do not believe in a single "divine being", I now see it more as a collective conscious power in the universe which we all make up- and can collectively influence but are not directly influenced by it.

Oddly, my best example for this higher power would be the force in starwars. There is enough hard evidence to show at least something is out there after all. Take jesus for example. We know he was a real and normal man who reportedly did incredible things, and was justly executed by a court for pushing his belief of religion a lot too far. We know he survived his legal execution by crucifying, and after a three day coma woke up again (which we now know was actually quite common back then since people didn't know how to fully diagnose full death). Who knows, maybe he was a jedi too (lol).

[MikeJames]

I think most of what you've said about morality and meaning is self defeating in a religious context, Mike.

Morality and meaning are both endogenous qualities.

Morality is pretty clearly an outgrowth of social constraints, in a social species. Social systems require normative codes of behavior, and social organisms enforce them. Humans are no different. I did my masters with an ethologist, so I could honestly go on about this for days, but given my unusually high level of interest, I'll refrain from writing you all a text book on social behavior, and just say that this is totally transistor obvious to those that study the subject. What we perceive as morality is actually a set of social codes that provide the highest (or at least local maxima) net well-being for a community.

Moreover, there is no way to infer true morality from a God. You have to assume the Bible is accurate, to begin with, and then there is euthephros dilemma to deal with.

Even if the Bible (of whatever religious text you prefer) were conveying God's code accurately, and not biased by the writer and the times, you can't know if the actions prescribed are moral because God says so, or if they are moral on their own, and that's why God says so. If they are moral only because God says so, then they are arbitrary. Would theft or murder be moral if God said so, or would it still be wrong? If you think it would still be wrong, then your morality doesn't come from God. Then consider where God only behaves in ways that are moral, ie. says a thing is moral because it fundamentally is. In that case, it's not God's dictum that makes morals, but another source, and God's character is simply consistent with an existing moral code, which would fundamentally have another source.

Meaning is another issue entirely. My life has meaning based on the things I value. My legacy in terms of works, and my children. I look no farther than that, and don't know why I ought to. Why should the meaning of my life be dictated by another entity? The religious idea that the meaning of life is issue by an intangible parental figure makes no sense to me at all.

This is a logical fallacy, petitio principii begging the question. You're argument is based on an assumption that you're premise is correct, when it hasn't been proven. Theology argues quite the opposite of what you said in bold. Saying morality is just social codes is essentially saying morality is whatever the law says is right and wrong. Even outside of official legal structures, societies can't even agree on the morality of certain thing (say like abortion...just an example, let's please NOT get into an abortion debate).

I agree that you can't infer morality from a god, that's what faith is. People with no faith don't get it.

If morality is just social code, then it's just man-made. Who are is one person to dictate how another must live? Why should anyone, who owns their own life, submit to any man-made moral authority? Plenty of legal things are immoral, and plenty of illegal things are perfectly moral. Cultural relativism further renders a near unlimited set or moral codes, many at odds with the moral codes of different or opposing cultures. Are you suggesting morality is not absolute, but relative? If moral relativism prevails, then morality is essentially non existent as nothing can truly be judged moral or not without cultural constraints and an agent could simply bounce between cultures to find a morality best suited to himself.

Is it right or wrong to kill people? It was culturally perfectly acceptable for the Aztecs to sacrifice unwilling subjects to the gods, to brutally behead them and cut their heart out. In the context of that culture it's perfectly ok but morally repugnant to "civilized" societies. So who decides what's moral?

I think morality, rather is a priori knowledge, self evident and obvious, and absolute.

[wheels5894]

Mike,

I'm not sure the an appeal to a divinity or a holy book really gets one any further than accepting that social norms are just that - societies norms.

It is quite true to notice that what has counted as moral in one time is not counted as moral in another. For example, the bible encourages slavery yet it was a Quaker (a Christian) who campaigned for slavery to be abolished. How many religious people would support slavery today- even in the face of their religious text? Thus the Aztecs and other peoples make have approved or human sacrifice which we would not do today. In fact, who would support animal sacrifice today, given the extensive rules in the OT? No one - it offends our moral principles now.

So I think it is pretty clear that morals are what a social group establish them to be and not something imposed from without societies.

[MSUSpartan]

No Mike, it's not begging the question. That humans are social animals is uncontroversial, and that social animals have enforced codes is also not controversial. Both those things are empirically verifiable. What I'm saying is that that morals are the name we call those codes. For this to be petitio principii I would have to be arguing that morals are what make humans social. I'm not arguing that at all. Eusocial insects are a perfect example to the contrary. Morals are an outgrowth of our social behavior, not the cause. It's not a circular argument.

Your also pretty straight forwardly conflating morals with ethics. Ethics are more akin to legal codes, whereas morals are the abstracts that inform ethics. I'm not saying that morals are the social codes. Morals the the abstract ideas that tell us what is ethical or not. For example, we can easily day that murder is immortal (essential by definition), but then we get to argue about whethera particular type of killing qualifies as murder (self defense, etc.) and that is an ethical debate.

Whether or not there are moral absolutes is therefore a matter of how brutally or narrowly you define your moral values. In my opinion, for morals to be absolute, you have to define them so vaguely that they really have no value. Since you brought it up, the aztecs probably did not view human sacrifice as immortal because, in their religious context, it probably wasn't considered murder. That's rather my point in fact. Morals are an emergent property of society. You're putting a moral judgement, based on our society, on a society that doesn't exist in that context, when you say "civilized" societies. The fact that I happen to agree with you that human sacrifice is repugnant has everything to do with context, and not some absolute moral set passed down from on high.

Moreover, you neatly sidestepped the issue of whether murder or theft would be immoral even if God said it was OK. What are your thoughts on that.

[MSUSpartan]

Bingo wheels.

[MSUSpartan]

Brian, I wrote youa long post that somehow got lost. Suffice it to say, if you aren't familiar with Spinoza, you should be. I think his works would be right up your ally.

[MikeJames]

Mike,

I'm not sure the an appeal to a divinity or a holy book really gets one any further than accepting that social norms are just that - societies norms.

It is quite true to notice that what has counted as moral in one time is not counted as moral in another. For example, the bible encourages slavery yet it was a Quaker (a Christian) who campaigned for slavery to be abolished. How many religious people would support slavery today- even in the face of their religious text? Thus the Aztecs and other peoples make have approved or human sacrifice which we would not do today. In fact, who would support animal sacrifice today, given the extensive rules in the OT? No one - it offends our moral principles now.

So I think it is pretty clear that morals are what a social group establish them to be and not something imposed from without societies.

Right and I'm arguing against that. Morals under that system are meaningless and totally fluid. Fluid meaningless morals are, well meaningless.

There's no need to appeal to a religious text, I'm not arguing "God gave Moses the 10 Commandments, here's THE moral code". I'm saying morality is transcendent, absolute and NOT just made up by a majority of a social group. Those are social norms, which can be moral or immoral.

A thousand people in norther Idaho could build a fence around themselves, become a totally self sufficient social group, and lose all contact with the rest of the world. They could institute the death penalty for sneezing without covering your mouth. For a thousand years this could be their social norm, sneezing without covering is SO immoral to them they'll hang you for it. The only thing immoral there is their moral code.

[MikeJames]

No Mike, it's not begging the question. That humans are social animals is uncontroversial, and that social animals have enforced codes is also not controversial. Both those things are empirically verifiable. What I'm saying is that that morals are the name we call those codes. For this to be petitio principii I would have to be arguing that morals are what make humans social. I'm not arguing that at all. Eusocial insects are a perfect example to the contrary. Morals are an outgrowth of our social behavior, not the cause. It's not a circular argument.

Your also pretty straight forwardly conflating morals with ethics. Ethics are more akin to legal codes, whereas morals are the abstracts that inform ethics. I'm not saying that morals are the social codes. Morals the the abstract ideas that tell us what is ethical or not. For example, we can easily day that murder is immortal (essential by definition), but then we get to argue about whethera particular type of killing qualifies as murder (self defense, etc.) and that is an ethical debate.

Whether or not there are moral absolutes is therefore a matter of how brutally or narrowly you define your moral values. In my opinion, for morals to be absolute, you have to define them so vaguely that they really have no value. Since you brought it up, the aztecs probably did not view human sacrifice as immortal because, in their religious context, it probably wasn't considered murder. That's rather my point in fact. Morals are an emergent property of society. You're putting a moral judgement, based on our society, on a society that doesn't exist in that context, when you say "civilized" societies. The fact that I happen to agree with you that human sacrifice is repugnant has everything to do with context, and not some absolute moral set passed down from on high.

Moreover, you neatly sidestepped the issue of whether murder or theft would be immoral even if God said it was OK. What are your thoughts on that.

That humans are social animals is not controversial. Concluding your argument in your premise is begging the question.


I'll be back to discuss further...This reminds me of college. I was a philosophy major and spent MANY a night up very late having conversations like this with friends.

Your last question is like asking if God could microwave himself a burrito so hot that he himself could not eat it. By definition that wouldn't be God, as God is understood to be ombibenevolent.

[kdlstar]

...........how in the world are we talking about religion here on an incontinent forum? WTF.....
Can we file this under the miscellaneous folder?