Achieved morality without God:

[EltronRangamma]

I mulled this issue over and determined that achieved morality without acknowledging God/a transcendent force results in vainglory.

Atheistic morality is not undergirded by humility because it is a concentration on the self and what it does.

The morality YOU achieve cannot be attributed to anyone else; you yourself are to thank:

• The self, the essence of "I", the individual, solely determines the moral choices; morals are not matters of human or divine assignment.
• Even if morals are humanly 'assigned' (for instance, a father passing on family traditions to his son), the task to exercise morals is still up to the individual ASSIGNED.
• Knowing that one who has FULFILLED the moral task is done so on ONE'S OWN DISCRETION AND ACTION, that individual thus celebrates/glorifies himself for exercising morals.

Not to say that every atheist praises himself when he commits a moral act that he himself determines but when in regards to the celebration of morality, it then becomes vainglorious.

 

[revolutio]

I wouldn't say that all atheistic morality results in excessive or ostentatious pride especially in one's achievement. Some atheists even believe in a universal good and evil without believing in a god so you can't tie the existence of a god directly to morality. Afterall some people believe in god but not in morals.

I personally don't think there is a such a thing as a selfless act. There are arbitrary acts and habitual acts but I doubt the existence of actually selfless acts. Before you raise the question yes that means I am an self-righteous egotist with delusions of adequacy.

 

[EltronRangamma]

I wouldn't say that all atheistic morality results in excessive or ostentatious pride especially in one's achievement. Some atheists even believe in a universal good and evil without believing in a god so you can't tie the existence of a god directly to morality. Afterall some people believe in god but not in morals.

What does 'atheistic morality NOT resulting in excessive or ostentatious pride' have to do anything with 'atheists believing in an a universal good and evil without believing in god'? Furthermore, what does the existence of God have to do anything with my thread? My argument has nothing to do with THE EXISTENCE OF GOD and MORALITY as a supporting element of it.

I personally don't think there is a such a thing as a selfless act. There are arbitrary acts and habitual acts but I doubt the existence of actually selfless acts. Before you raise the question yes that means I am an self-righteous egotist with delusions of adequacy.

No such thing as a selfless act? Care to elaborate?

 

[openeyes]

Atheistic morality is not undergirded by humility because it is a concentration on the self and what it does.

So what are saying here, is that an atheist cannot be humble without God? I personally have found that just isn't true. Or are you confusins atheist with Crowley's satanist? ("do what thou wilt")
I turned this post over a few times an determined it to be an attack. How can we, as Christians, profess to be more humble when there are those who blatently throw out statements such as these?
How humble is it to claim a stake in morality? That there can be no humility without God?
As a Christian I think good should by sought out in everyone, conversions cannot take place by "shameing" someone into it..... Showing love and compassion would be the way to go.

revolutio,
I tend to believe that there is a possibility for selfless acts, but there seems to be a shortage of selfless do-gooders. Most want to do acts for something, it made ME feel good, God tells us to, etc.
How about whom the act affected? Can't the act be for their bennefit alone?
Yes, but it takes a strong individual to acomplish that.


Feel free to attack me.... this is my stance, I'm trying to overcome my own prejudices, and this may be the way to do it.

 

[EltronRangamma]

So what are saying here, is that an atheist cannot be humble without God? I personally have found that just isn't true. Or are you confusins atheist with Crowley's satanist? ("do what thou wilt")
I turned this post over a few times an determined it to be an attack. How can we, as Christians, profess to be more humble when there are those who blatently throw out statements such as these?
How humble is it to claim a stake in morality? That there can be no humility without God?
As a Christian I think good should by sought out in everyone, conversions cannot take place by "shameing" someone into it..... Showing love and compassion would be the way to go.

revolutio,
I tend to believe that there is a possibility for selfless acts, but there seems to be a shortage of selfless do-gooders. Most want to do acts for something, it made ME feel good, God tells us to, etc.
How about whom the act affected? Can't the act be for their bennefit alone?
Yes, but it takes a strong individual to acomplish that.


Feel free to attack me.... this is my stance, I'm trying to overcome my own prejudices, and this may be the way to do it.

I should have phrased this more articulately. Bah. It was late. Anyway, what i meant to say is summation that when goals becomes the end of one's actions, it results in vainglory.

There is no God/transcendant to refer to to prevent a moralistic man's self-righteousness. Furthermore, a higher/superior force does not countenance humility.

 

[openeyes]

Believers in God can equally become self-rightous, eventhough there is the supreme power there. Vainglory can be on both sides of the fence, I think equally. To pay lipservice to God and to say moral actions were in his name, is wrong. Moral actions should come from the heart, regardless of creed.
The scriptures tell of this in the story of the Pharasee and the tax collector. When the former was exalting himself by telling of the good he did and following the law he expirienced vainglory, when the later only cried for forgivness and admitted his shortcommings he expirienced true humility.

 

[revolutio]

What does 'atheistic morality NOT resulting in excessive or ostentatious pride' have to do anything

Excessive or ostentatious pride is the definition of vainglory. I was simply saying that not all atheistic morality results in this.

with 'atheists believing in an a universal good and evil without believing in god'? Furthermore, what does the existence of God have to do anything with my thread? My argument has nothing to do with THE EXISTENCE OF GOD and MORALITY as a supporting element of it.

I apologize I said existence of god when I meant 'belief in'.
I wanted to point out that you were working from the mindset that all atheists believe there is no higher order nor power than themself. Many atheists I know believe in absolutes in morality. Thus they are motivated to do 'good' regardless of the benefits to the self.

No such thing as a selfless act? Care to elaborate?

I suspect that every human action is motivated by a selfish desire or urge, however indirectly. This of course requires a deterministic philosophy so it is really not applicable to non-Calvinist Christians.
My belief basically was the result of asking the question 'Why?' and searching for an honest answer many many times.

 

[PreacherJoe]

Without a God good and evil can certainly not be absolute. Good and evil become a matter of perspective. They are determined by the opinion of a majority and that is very different in various places in this world. The bible says in Prov. 14:12-There is a way which seemeth right unto a man but the end thereof are the ways of death. For those of us who believe the bible what seems right to men in our society may be wrong but what seems right becomes right in a Godless society regardless of what the issue is. Some say here that atheists believe good and evil exist without God but can anyone show me what standard causes good and evil to be absolute ?

 

[foolsparade]

Without a God good and evil can certainly not be absolute. Good and evil become a matter of perspective. They are determined by the opinion of a majority and that is very different in various places in this world. The bible says in Prov. 14:12-There is a way which seemeth right unto a man but the end thereof are the ways of death. For those of us who believe the bible what seems right to men in our society may be wrong but what seems right becomes right in a Godless society regardless of what the issue is. Some say here that atheists believe good and evil exist without God but can anyone show me what standard causes good and evil to be absolute ?

who said good and evil are absolutes? what is good and evil? we need to clear this up first and come to a consensus before we or "I" proceed.

 

[PreacherJoe]

who said good and evil are absolutes? what is good and evil?

I don't know where you stand but these questions go to prove what I said about good and evil. There are no absolutes if there is no God and as for your second question you cannot define good and evil with an enduring definition if the imaginary standard can change.

 

[burrow_owl]

Some say here that atheists believe good and evil exist without God but can anyone show me what standard causes good and evil to be absolute ?

Sure - there are some that say that evolutionary pressures create an objective moral standard, others may just say that there simply is a moral right and wrong to something (see the early 20th century intuitionist movement), others will say that the order of the social creates a kind of quasi-objective morality, some might argue for different forms of consequentialism (utilitarianism: that is good which produces the most happiness for the most people; epicureanism: that is good which creates the most pleasure [in the old-school sense of 'absence of pain'], etc.)

There are all kinds of ways for an atheist to hold both that God doesn't exist and that there is an objective standard of morality. Are these strategies plausible? Well, that's a different question altogether. But it's just a matter of fact that an atheist can believe in objective morality.

 

[Charles Darwin]

The easiest way to prove it is to simply ask the athiests. If many of them seem to think its possible, then apparently they can and do (or dont as the case may be) believe in objective morality

 

[EltronRangamma]

Sure - there are some that say that evolutionary pressures create an objective moral standard, others may just say that there simply is a moral right and wrong to something (see the early 20th century intuitionist movement), others will say that the order of the social creates a kind of quasi-objective morality, some might argue for different forms of consequentialism (utilitarianism: that is good which produces the most happiness for the most people; epicureanism: that is good which creates the most pleasure [in the old-school sense of 'absence of pain'], etc.)

There are all kinds of ways for an atheist to hold both that God doesn't exist and that there is an objective standard of morality. Are these strategies plausible? Well, that's a different question altogether. But it's just a matter of fact that an atheist can believe in objective morality.

Both those fancy terms seem somewhat frigid. I mean, what if 'most' constitutes evil people or people who do not deserve that happiness? Would it be moraliistic? For instance, what if your'e put in a situation in which you determine the happiness of the Nazis or an individual who's deserves that happiness? That's when Utilitarianism collapses.

And creatres more pleasure? What if committing suicide is the most pleasurable option for an individual? What about sadists?

And so on and so forth.

I think objective morality is a topic that atheists fail to argue for.

 

[foolsparade]

who said good and evil are absolutes? what is good and evil?

I don't know where you stand but these questions go to prove what I said about good and evil. There are no absolutes if there is no God and as for your second question you cannot define good and evil with an enduring definition if the imaginary standard can change.

If that were true, then not one believer in God would have commited an "evil" act in the history of civilization. I wanted you to tell me what YOUR definitions of good and evil were; I would then compare them to mine. Not that I nor you speak for anyone else other than ourselves.

 

[burrow_owl]

Both those fancy terms seem somewhat frigid....For instance, what if your'e put in a situation in which you determine the happiness of the Nazis or an individual who's deserves that happiness? That's when Utilitarianism collapses.

There are all sorts of species of utilitarianism, at least on of which was created in response to these sorts of concerns (rule-utilitarianism). Nevertheless, while a utilitarian would find this line of criticism problematic, it's something of a marginal concern - it's not very often, after all, that one has to decide whether or not to make a nazi happy. A different kind of response, though, is that each ethical system is bound to have its blind spots - utilitarianism has the happy-nazi, christianity has the hell-bound-heathen that's never heard the Gospel, which a lot of people would probably think is far worse than a system that commits one to, say, saving a nazi's life if s/he is starving to death.

 

[jayem]

who said good and evil are absolutes? what is good and evil?

I don't know where you stand but these questions go to prove what I said about good and evil. There are no absolutes if there is no God and as for your second question you cannot define good and evil with an enduring definition if the imaginary standard can change.

I'd like to know exactly what these absolute standards are. Do you mean the 600 or so rules in the books of Exodus and Leviticus? But how absolute are these? What do you do when the rules conflict with each other? The 8th commandment says not to steal. Does a concentration camp prisoner violate the commandment if he steals some food to stay alive? The 6th commandment says not to murder. But what's murder? Willfully killing the innocent, maybe? Then what about war? Did the US sin when it dropped atomics bombs on Japan, killing thousands of children? In real life, there are exceptions to almost all of these rules, which necessarily means that they are not truly absolute. And how about the Golden Rule? It says to do for others as you would want them to do for you. Isn't this really the height of relativism? What I may want may in some situations could be quite different than what someone else might want. Even if you want to believe the laws of the Bible are supernaturally revealed, they are not really absolute in practice. And I would say that they are, in fact, just the arbitrary customs and taboos of the ancient Hebrew tribes, and no more divine than any other moral code.

 

[dnich163]

I believe that " achieved morality " is possible without knowledge of God.

This is different from achieved morality without God.

This is not possible as I believe that existence is not possible without God.

The difference is that we can be doing something without knowing what God does for us.

David

 

[Lillithspeak]

How utterly arrogant of you to suggest that anyone who behaves with a sound grounding in ethics, and a sense of compassion, is somehow vainglorius. It seems to me that more Christians indulge in bragging about their good works than anyone else. I've behaved in a moral way my entire life, I've also done many good deeds, but I don't feel a sense of pride about it. How can you not help someone out when it's within your power to do so?For me, it's a conscious choice to always be the best expression of who I am. Has nothing to do with pride. It's about choosing who you want to be in the world.

 

[dnich163]

How utterly arrogant of you to suggest that anyone who behaves with a sound grounding in ethics, and a sense of compassion, is somehow vainglorius. It seems to me that more Christians indulge in bragging about their good works than anyone else. I've behaved in a moral way my entire life, I've also done many good deeds, but I don't feel a sense of pride about it. How can you not help someone out when it's within your power to do so?For me, it's a conscious choice to always be the best expression of who I am. Has nothing to do with pride. It's about choosing who you want to be in the world.

Is that me your talking to Lillith ?

I am also from Scotland; just outside Glasgow.

If any christian brags about his good works for his own sake, then the good (to a certain extent) has been takn away.

I agree with you on this point,

David

 

[one love]

I mulled this issue over and determined that achieved morality without acknowledging God/a transcendent force results in vainglory.

Atheistic morality is not undergirded by humility because it is a concentration on the self and what it does.

The morality YOU achieve cannot be attributed to anyone else; you yourself are to thank:

• The self, the essence of "I", the individual, solely determines the moral choices; morals are not matters of human or divine assignment.
• Even if morals are humanly 'assigned' (for instance, a father passing on family traditions to his son), the task to exercise morals is still up to the individual ASSIGNED.
• Knowing that one who has FULFILLED the moral task is done so on ONE'S OWN DISCRETION AND ACTION, that individual thus celebrates/glorifies himself for exercising morals.

Not to say that every atheist praises himself when he commits a moral act that he himself determines but when in regards to the celebration of morality, it then becomes vainglorious.

Good post, but the better topic would be "How to Achieve Morality With God(s)". Religion is not based on a moral premise, but on that of what God(s) says. And what God(s) says is not always moral: abortion, homosexuality, etc.