Can you be good without God?

[Hikarifuru]

So morality is just getting what you want? Since Stalin wanted the aristocracy and intelligentsia dead, then he was doing what was moral for him correct?

That's correct, whether you agree with his sense of morality has no bearing on whether morality exists without god.

 

[Hikarifuru]

You refuse to acknowledge that you are nothing more than molecules bonded together. What meaning is there in your existence, other than to have the molecular bond dissolve in just a short time from now?
You are displaying a God-given grasp of morality in this conversation.
Either acknowledge your Creator or admit you are meaningless.

My meaning is up to me, you are only demonstrating that YOU would not be able to sense meaning without your god. Parts of my life are indeed meaningless but that has no bearing on where morality comes from either.

You are still saying sociopathic things ie that right are wrong do not exist unless someone special says so.

 

[Hikarifuru]

It is God who gives you the understanding that rape is wrong. His moral law is within you, even if you refuse to acknowledge him in your life.

There is no reason to even assume this god exists, much less that my desires come from it. You're making the whole thing up.

You made up god, you made up the need for him to give me my feelings... everything.

 

[Hikarifuru]

God has never given approval of rape.

God does let sinners sin, which is what those verses reveal. He is not obligated to act immediately upon our lawbreaking. If He did, we would all be in Hell at this moment and not conversing. Take that as an act of mercy on your behalf and repent before it's too late.

Actually you need to read that chapter again, your god condoned and caused the whole thing.


A prophecy against Babylon that Isaiah son of Amoz saw:
2 Raise a banner on a bare hilltop,
shout to them;
beckon to them
to enter the gates of the nobles.
3 I have commanded those I prepared for battle;
I have summoned my warriors to carry out my wrath—
those who rejoice in my triumph.
4 Listen, a noise on the mountains,
like that of a great multitude!
Listen, an uproar among the kingdoms,
like nations massing together!
The Lord Almighty is mustering
an army for war.
5 They come from faraway lands,
from the ends of the heavens—
the Lord and the weapons of his wrath—
to destroy the whole country.

6 Wail, for the day of the Lord is near;
it will come like destruction from the Almighty.a]">[a]
7 Because of this, all hands will go limp,
every heart will melt with fear.
8 Terror will seize them,
pain and anguish will grip them;
they will writhe like a woman in labor.
They will look aghast at each other,
their faces aflame.
9 See, the day of the Lord is coming
—a cruel day, with wrath and fierce anger—
to make the land desolate
and destroy the sinners within it.
10 The stars of heaven and their constellations
will not show their light.
The rising sun will be darkened
and the moon will not give its light.
11 I will punish the world for its evil,
the wicked for their sins.
I will put an end to the arrogance of the haughty
and will humble the pride of the ruthless.
12 I will make people scarcer than pure gold,
more rare than the gold of Ophir.
13 Therefore I will make the heavens tremble;
and the earth will shake from its place
at the wrath of the Lord Almighty,
in the day of his burning anger.

14 Like a hunted gazelle,
like sheep without a shepherd,
they will all return to their own people,
they will flee to their native land.
15 Whoever is captured will be thrust through;
all who are caught will fall by the sword.
16 Their infants will be dashed to pieces before their eyes;
their houses will be looted and their wives violated.

17 See, I will stir up against them the Medes,
who do not care for silver
and have no delight in gold.
18 Their bows will strike down the young men;
they will have no mercy on infants,
nor will they look with compassion on children.
19 Babylon, the jewel of kingdoms,
the pride and glory of the Babylonians,b]">[b]
will be overthrown by God
like Sodom and Gomorrah.
20 She will never be inhabited
or lived in through all generations;
there no nomads will pitch their tents,
there no shepherds will rest their flocks.
21 But desert creatures will lie there,
jackals will fill her houses;
there the owls will dwell,
and there the wild goats will leap about.
22 Hyenas will inhabit her strongholds,
jackals her luxurious palaces.
Her time is at hand,
and her days will not be prolonged.

Your god condones and causes rape, he sends rapists to do his bidding. You don't understand morality or your bible.

 

[Archaeopteryx]

Everything is meaningless without God. Do the molecules that bind people together care about rape or lying? Are they concerned if they form cancer cells?
Without God, any attempts at morality are mere illusions you create to define your own parameters. You live in your own matrix.

What a nihilistic worldview you have.

 

[Archaeopteryx]

...
Either acknowledge your Creator or admit you are meaningless.

I'm sorry, but I don't subscribe to your nihilistic worldview. You think that everything must be imbued with theological significance or else it is meaningless. I don't think that.

 

[Larniavc]

How do you know what an improvement is or positive changes are?

The patient tells me.

Supporting someone move from being too scared to leave the house or wanting to kill themselves to being able to go out side and wanting to to re engage with life is what I would think a reasonable person would call a good thing.

 

[Eudaimonist]

Everything is meaningless without God. Do the molecules that bind people together care about rape or lying? Are they concerned if they form cancer cells?

You are missing the forest for the trees. What atrocious nihilism.

You refuse to acknowledge that you are nothing more than molecules bonded together.

Yes, since I'm an emergentist, not a reductionist. I am not interested in your straw men.

What meaning is there in your existence, other than to have the molecular bond dissolve in just a short time from now?

I'm a living person. I have my natural potentials as a biological being to fulfill.

You are displaying a God-given grasp of morality in this conversation.

No, I'm displaying a human philosophical grasp of morality (and ethical philosophy) in this conversation.


eudaimonia,

Mark

 

[quatona]

Since Stalin wanted the aristocracy and intelligentsia dead, then he was doing what was moral for him correct?

Yes, quite obviously he found it moral. And I guess, like with everybody else, his choice of actions involved the idea of a "greater good" - which means that not every action is its own end.

 

[Dave Ellis]

Yeshua does not tell people to enslave others.

There are places where it explicitly has god telling people to take slaves, or how they should treat their slaves. That is an endorsement of slavery.

He does not stop evil humans from acting in evil ways. In fact, He uses sinners to bring His judgment and to weave His will.

If he has the power to stop immoral acts and fails to do so, that makes him negligent, and equally as immoral as the evil people in question.

God is Sovereign. He is not subject to your finite judgments and in fact, He laughs at you when you attempt to judge Him.

If some being laughs at me because I call them immoral for condoning slavery, then that being has proven my point.

 

[Dave Ellis]

So morality is just getting what you want? Since Stalin wanted the aristocracy and intelligentsia dead, then he was doing what was moral for him correct?

No, because the consequences of his acts were negative.

On the other hand, when your god (according to the myth) decided to carry out a global genocide and murder every man, woman and child, along with every animal, insect and presumably plant except what could fit on a small boat, then he was doing what was moral for him, correct?

The Noah's ark story absolutely pales in comparison to anything any other totalitarian dictator has done in human history. And yet, you worship this being.

 

[MennoSota]

There are places where it explicitly has god telling people to take slaves, or how they should treat their slaves. That is an endorsement of slavery.



If he has the power to stop immoral acts and fails to do so, that makes him negligent, and equally as immoral as the evil people in question.



If some being laughs at me because I call them immoral for condoning slavery, then that being has proven my point.

Your ignorance and/or arrogance is humorous.

 

[Hikarifuru]

Your ignorance and/or arrogance is humorous.

Coming from some who tries to mock a person's disbelief when you are clearly incompetent to navigate this discussion?

Most of what you've said is god is better than us blah blah, we dont understand him blah blah, he gave us our feelings blah blah.... while ignorant of huge portions of scripture where your god himself caused the very worst things of all.

 

[Dave Ellis]

Your ignorance and/or arrogance is humorous.

1. Selling women as sex slaves, and governing their behaviour

Exodus 21:7-11 - When a man sells his daughter as a slave, she shall not go out as the male slaves do. If she does not please her master, who has designated her for himself, then he shall let her be redeemed. He shall have no right to sell her to a foreign people, since he has broken faith with her. If he designates her for his son, he shall deal with her as with a daughter. If he takes another wife to himself, he shall not diminish her food, her clothing, or her marital rights. And if he does not do these three things for her, she shall go out for nothing, without payment of money.

2. Buying Hebrew male slaves, and the mechanism for keeping them permanently.

Exodus 21:2-6 - When you buy a Hebrew slave he shall serve six years, and in the seventh he shall go out free, for nothing. If he comes in single, he shall go out single; if he comes in married, then his wife shall go out with him. If his master gives him a wife and she bears him sons or daughters, the wife and her children shall be her master's, and he shall go out alone. But if the slave plainly says, ‘I love my master, my wife, and my children; I will not go out free,’ then his master shall bring him to God, and he shall bring him to the door or the doorpost. And his master shall bore his ear through with an awl, and he shall be his slave forever.

3. Non-Hebrew slaves.

Leviticus 25:44-46 - As for your male and female slaves whom you may have: you may buy male and female slaves from among the nations that are around you. You may also buy from among the strangers who sojourn with you and their clans that are with you, who have been born in your land, and they may be your property. You may bequeath them to your sons after you to inherit as a possession forever. You may make slaves of them, but over your brothers the people of Israel you shall not rule, one over another ruthlessly.

4. Hereditary slaves.

Exodus 21:4 - If his master gives him a wife and she bears him sons or daughters, the wife and her children shall be her masters, and he shall go out alone

5. Physical abuse of slaves.

Exodus 21:20-21 - Anyone who beats their male or female slave with a rod must be punished if the slave dies as a direct result, but they are not to be punished if the slave recovers after a day or two, since the slave is their property.



As for the New Testament, there are multiple passages which essentially tell slaves to be obedient to their masters, and not once does it ever condemn the practice.

I think I've made my case. These are not moral teachings.

 

[Ed1wolf]

being able to define and prove goodness has nothing do with whether or not people can be good without god. You had a moral system long before you believed in a god, you had beliefs about what was good before you believed in god. That now you have lost your own decision making ability by no means establishes that goodness doesn't exist with god, the only thing the god gives you is your decision making process.

The reason atheists and everyone can be good without believing in the Christian God is that we were all created by Him and have a built in moral conscience which though distorted by our sinful nature is quite similar to His moral laws. How can a sense of morality come from an amoral process? How can the moral come from the amoral? I know you are going to say evolution but that just begs the question, it doesn't answer it. If God does not exist then objective goodness does not exist. All morality just becomes based on feelings and you cannot explain why your feelings are any better than Stalin's feelings. Other than the outcome would be a little different for a certain species known as homo sapiens, or at least for some homo sapiens but according to atheistic evolution there is nothing special about humans.

dw: don't think you're any different than Hitler or Stalin yourself. You yourself think that without your god there is no right or wrong, you sound like a sociopath to me.

There is no objective right or wrong without God. If you claim there is, provide it. All morality becomes subjective preference based on what particular species you like. I am not saying that your morality is no different from theirs only that the foundation is the same and you have no rationally objective basis for condemning them. Your basis is just subjective feelings for I assume all humans and their morality was subjective feelings for certain particular humans, ie "Aryans" and communists.

 

[Hikarifuru]

The reason atheists and everyone can be good without believing in the Christian God is that we were all created by Him and have a built in moral conscience which though distorted by our sinful nature is quite similar to His moral laws. How can a sense of morality come from an amoral process? How can the moral come from the amoral? I know you are going to say evolution but that just begs the question, it doesn't answer it. If God does not exist then objective goodness does not exist. All morality just becomes based on feelings and you cannot explain why your feelings are any better than Stalin's feelings. Other than the outcome would be a little different for a certain species known as homo sapiens, or at least for some homo sapiens but according to atheistic evolution there is nothing special about humans.



There is no objective right or wrong without God. If you claim there is, provide it. All morality becomes subjective preference based on what particular species you like. I am not saying that your morality is no different from theirs only that the foundation is the same and you have no rationally objective basis for condemning them. Your basis is just subjective feelings for I assume all humans and their morality was subjective feelings for certain particular humans, ie "Aryans" and communists.

Morality does not need to be objective to exist without your god, even if your god did exist that would not make morality objective, you would merely value his person and his opinion... that is not objective.

Arguing that morality is not objective has nothing to do with where morals come from. Arguing that I can't prove that my morality is the one true moral system does not establish or provide that morality comes from god. You are only demonstrating that you think the moral system based on god is best and that you don't know how to have morality without the god... and that makes you a sociopath, not me.

You saying that you can't imagine morality existing without god is your problem, I know I have a moral system, I don't need to prove that it's best and it will never depend on your god.

 

[Hikarifuru]

The reason atheists and everyone can be good without believing in the Christian God is that we were all created by Him and have a built in moral conscience which though distorted by our sinful nature is quite similar to His moral laws. How can a sense of morality come from an amoral process? How can the moral come from the amoral? I know you are going to say evolution but that just begs the question, it doesn't answer it. If God does not exist then objective goodness does not exist. All morality just becomes based on feelings and you cannot explain why your feelings are any better than Stalin's feelings. Other than the outcome would be a little different for a certain species known as homo sapiens, or at least for some homo sapiens but according to atheistic evolution there is nothing special about humans.



There is no objective right or wrong without God. If you claim there is, provide it. All morality becomes subjective preference based on what particular species you like. I am not saying that your morality is no different from theirs only that the foundation is the same and you have no rationally objective basis for condemning them. Your basis is just subjective feelings for I assume all humans and their morality was subjective feelings for certain particular humans, ie "Aryans" and communists.

"You can't prove that your morality is best" =/= morality does not exist without a god.

 

[Dave Ellis]

The reason atheists and everyone can be good without believing in the Christian God is that we were all created by Him and have a built in moral conscience which though distorted by our sinful nature is quite similar to His moral laws.

Citation needed

How can a sense of morality come from an amoral process? How can the moral come from the amoral? I know you are going to say evolution but that just begs the question, it doesn't answer it.

Because it's in our best interest as a species, and as a society to work together. Sure, you might get some short term gain from stealing things from people, however if everyone did that all the time, society would collapse. We'd be far worse off, and that's in the modern society... that's not counting the nomadic hunter gatherers from which we all came from. If they couldn't work together, they all would have died.

So yes, there is a clear evolutionary advantage to morality.

If God does not exist then objective goodness does not exist.

Nonsense. If your god exists and is responsible for defining morality, then you are arguing for subjective morals.

Subjective means something that is dependent on the will or opinion of a conscience entity.
Objective is something that is true or false independently of what anybody thinks about it.

If your god defines morality, then that is god's subjective opinion. That's not in the least objective... I've always found this line of argument from Christians to be absolutely bizarre to be honest.

All morality just becomes based on feelings and you cannot explain why your feelings are any better than Stalin's feelings.

Because we can weigh objective consequences for our actions. The consequences of what we do, are the objective basis for morality which religious moral systems lack.

Stalin's actions were objectively harmful to millions of people. Therefore we have a basis to judge his actions.

Other than the outcome would be a little different for a certain species known as homo sapiens, or at least for some homo sapiens but according to atheistic evolution there is nothing special about humans.

Depends what you mean by special. We certainly have some special traits compared to the other species on this planet.

Your basis is just subjective feelings for I assume all humans and their morality was subjective feelings for certain particular humans, ie "Aryans" and communists.

And Christians.

 

[quatona]

There is no objective right or wrong without God.

There is no objective right or wrong with a God, either.

 

[MennoSota]

1. Selling women as sex slaves, and governing their behaviour

Exodus 21:7-11 - When a man sells his daughter as a slave, she shall not go out as the male slaves do. If she does not please her master, who has designated her for himself, then he shall let her be redeemed. He shall have no right to sell her to a foreign people, since he has broken faith with her. If he designates her for his son, he shall deal with her as with a daughter. If he takes another wife to himself, he shall not diminish her food, her clothing, or her marital rights. And if he does not do these three things for her, she shall go out for nothing, without payment of money.

2. Buying Hebrew male slaves, and the mechanism for keeping them permanently.

Exodus 21:2-6 - When you buy a Hebrew slave he shall serve six years, and in the seventh he shall go out free, for nothing. If he comes in single, he shall go out single; if he comes in married, then his wife shall go out with him. If his master gives him a wife and she bears him sons or daughters, the wife and her children shall be her master's, and he shall go out alone. But if the slave plainly says, ‘I love my master, my wife, and my children; I will not go out free,’ then his master shall bring him to God, and he shall bring him to the door or the doorpost. And his master shall bore his ear through with an awl, and he shall be his slave forever.

3. Non-Hebrew slaves.

Leviticus 25:44-46 - As for your male and female slaves whom you may have: you may buy male and female slaves from among the nations that are around you. You may also buy from among the strangers who sojourn with you and their clans that are with you, who have been born in your land, and they may be your property. You may bequeath them to your sons after you to inherit as a possession forever. You may make slaves of them, but over your brothers the people of Israel you shall not rule, one over another ruthlessly.

4. Hereditary slaves.

Exodus 21:4 - If his master gives him a wife and she bears him sons or daughters, the wife and her children shall be her masters, and he shall go out alone

5. Physical abuse of slaves.

Exodus 21:20-21 - Anyone who beats their male or female slave with a rod must be punished if the slave dies as a direct result, but they are not to be punished if the slave recovers after a day or two, since the slave is their property.



As for the New Testament, there are multiple passages which essentially tell slaves to be obedient to their masters, and not once does it ever condemn the practice.

I think I've made my case. These are not moral teachings.

Of course they are not God's moral law. They are laws under the Mosaic Covenant, which Israel was to use as a nation.