Can you be good without God?

[Archaeopteryx]

Good and evil cannot "truly" or "absolutely " exist because no "true or absolute" standard would exist to declare it so.

Who says? I don't think morality has anything to do with gods.

All we have left is a popular consensus of what's best for the greater good. Everyone is different, every culture is different. So when it comes to morality and what is good or evil, there is no black or white. Just shades of grey. So for every evil or wicked act that you can think of, somebody somewhere will disagree or think of a situation that would make that evil thing good.

Religion doesn't solve this. For every wicked act you can think of, somebody could claim that God commands it.

 

[Freodin]

No. The point is this, without a god, good and evil cannot truly exist.

Well, first of all, this is incorrect. There are indeed philosophical systems that postulate a "true" objective good and evil, without the reference to a god.
You can disagree with these systems - I know I do... I am a strict moral subjectivist - but you cannot deny their existence.

Second, this equation of "true" with "objective" is false, and, truth be told, rather annoying for all who have to deal with it in a philosophical setting. In a system of subjective morals, good and evil are no less "true"... they are just defined differently.

Third, even with a god, you wouldn't have found "true" objective good and evil... you would just have declared it so.
You still have no way to analyse it... you have just limited it to an arbitrary decree. There still isn't a way to find out if such a decree "really" is objective good or evil.

All we have is a system based on popular opinion. We all know that popular opinion changes over time so what was good/evil yesterday may not be so today There is really nothing wrong with that if it has worked for this long.

A moral system based on popular opinion has worked for... ages. What objectivists like you misunderstand is that "subjective" means "whimsical". It doesn't.

 

[Freodin]

You guys make it sound as though "good" and "bad" are meaningless, unless you make them rocket-science.

When we see someone painfully drowning, any person gifted with only moderate empathy will say "this is bad". That´s not rocket science, we don´t need no stinking "cosmic purpose" for saying it (and we are neither explicitly nor implicitly referring to such). We call it as we see it. We don´t want this to happen, it´s "bad". That´s how this word is used (outside self-serving philosophical mind games, that is).
For those of you who aren´t gifted with any empathy, you just have to imagine yourselves in that situation (or be subjected to it), and you will agree "drowning painfully is bad".
This is the basis for our morality: We conclude that intentionally subjecting someone to this "bad" experience is "bad". Again, no rocket science, no abstract philosophy, no stinking "cosmic purpose" required. Human needs, human feelings, human experience - that´s all.
And since your scenario says "without a God", this is entirely sufficient for a basis in this scenario. Again: No "cosmic purpose" required, so far.
(Now, the scenario where there is a God or a cosmic purpose which happens to postulate that human suffering is a "good" thing - that would be an entirely different issue.)

This is a real problem with the divinely based objective moral system: basically it becomes impossible to distinguish between good and evil at all. This system necessarily leads to exactly this scenario that the "God = moral" propagators abhor.

Divine morals are situational morals. Their judgement is limited to "whatever God intends to do in / with this special situation".
Stalin commanding soldiers to kill the reactionaries who threaten the welfare of the Russian people? Evil! God commanding soldiers to kill the children of the Amalekites, because they will threaten the welfare of the Israelite people? Good!

So when such an objective moralist sees someone drowing painfully, he must ask himself: "What is it that God wants in this situation? Is God punishing this person for being evil / going to be evil?"
The simple existence of disagreements in such a situation is enough to show that morals must be a system of "opinion". (Well, except for those people who think that God talks directly to them and all who disagree are evil.)

 

[MennoSota]

Nice. Are you an owner?

I welcome being a spokesman for my Sovereign King. He is the only one who is truly good. All other kingdoms pale in comparison and fall before His authority.

 

[MennoSota]

Who says? I don't think morality has anything to do with gods.

Religion doesn't solve this. For every wicked act you can think of, somebody could claim that God commands it.

Paragraph 1: You are wrong.

Paragraph 2: You and they are wrong.

Merely feeling something to be true does not make it true. When God says it, then it is true.

Yeshua, Jesus, said, "I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me."

 

[quatona]

I´m so impressed with these ipse dixit´s.

 

[MennoSota]

Well, first of all, this is incorrect. There are indeed philosophical systems that postulate a "true" objective good and evil, without the reference to a god.
You can disagree with these systems - I know I do... I am a strict moral subjectivist - but you cannot deny their existence.

Second, this equation of "true" with "objective" is false, and, truth be told, rather annoying for all who have to deal with it in a philosophical setting. In a system of subjective morals, good and evil are no less "true"... they are just defined differently.

Third, even with a god, you wouldn't have found "true" objective good and evil... you would just have declared it so.
You still have no way to analyse it... you have just limited it to an arbitrary decree. There still isn't a way to find out if such a decree "really" is objective good or evil.


A moral system based on popular opinion has worked for... ages. What objectivists like you misunderstand is that "subjective" means "whimsical". It doesn't.

As I have mentioned, there are many imitators of God's moral law, who tweak to ensure they have control, rather than submit to the Creator.
Had God not established His moral law, we would have no concept of good or bad to try imitate.

As it is, nothing has changed since the time of the Judges.
"Everyone did what they thought was right in their own eyes."

 

[Archaeopteryx]

Paragraph 1: You are wrong.

Paragraph 2: You and they are wrong.

Merely feeling something to be true does not make it true. When God says it, then it is true.

Yeshua, Jesus, said, "I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me."

Why am I wrong?

 

[MennoSota]

Why am I wrong?

God is good.

God solved it.

 

[Eudaimonist]

Merely feeling something to be true does not make it true.

Agreed.

When God says it, then it is true.

Do you feel that to be true?

If so, that doesn't make it true. (See above.)

If you don't merely feel that to be true, why should I conclude that it is true?


eudaimonia,

Mark

 

[Archaeopteryx]

God is good.

According to whom? God?

 

[(° ͡ ͜ ͡ʖ ͡ °) (ᵔᴥᵔʋ)]

Well, first of all, this is incorrect. There are indeed philosophical systems that postulate a "true" objective good and evil, without the reference to a god.
You can disagree with these systems - I know I do... I am a strict moral subjectivist - but you cannot deny their existence.

Well, I don't quite agree. But I see where you are coming from. For now I think we can agree to disagree.

Second, this equation of "true" with "objective" is false, and, truth be told, rather annoying for all who have to deal with it in a philosophical setting. In a system of subjective morals, good and evil are no less "true"... they are just defined differently.

As I stated earlier, for something to be objective, it must be rooted on facts. Facts are facts and are true regardless of subjective opinion. In a system of subjective morals, good and evil are arbitrary. I will explain in response to your last paragraph.

Third, even with a god, you wouldn't have found "true" objective good and evil... you would just have declared it so.
You still have no way to analyse it... you have just limited it to an arbitrary decree. There still isn't a way to find out if such a decree "really" is objective good or evil.

I agree. If we have no way of determining which God or gods exist, there is no way to definitively determine what objective system to follow. But this arguement is not about "which objective standard is correct" but rather "does an objective standard exists at all? And if so, how is it possible?". Obviously, I believe that the God of Abraham is that objective standard. However, I honestly have to say that I do not know how to prove to you or anyone that it is true. But that is not what I am doing. I am just simply saying that hypothetically, if good and evil truly exists in a way that it is black and white, a god/gods/superior alien race must exist.

A moral system based on popular opinion has worked for... ages. What objectivists like you misunderstand is that "subjective" means "whimsical". It doesn't.

I don't think "subjective" means "whimsical". I call it what it is. Subjective is subjective. ..period. It is personal opinion. And that's not a bad thing but to declare it otherwise is wrong. Thus, without an objective standard of good and evil, we are no different from two people floating in the vacuum of space trying to find an agreement on which way is north! Ultimately we may come to an unanimous consensus, but that still does not change the fact that north does not exist in the vacuum of space. If this is the system of morality humanity has adopted, that is fine. As you and I have stated, it worked for thousands of years. But let's just call it what it is.

 

[MennoSota]

Agreed.



Do you feel that to be true?

If so, that doesn't make it true. (See above.)

If you don't merely feel that to be true, why should I conclude that it is true?


eudaimonia,

Mark

It's not a feeling. It is a fact. God is good because God says He is good.

 

[MennoSota]

According to whom? God?

Yes

"Who are you, oh man, to talk back to God?" (Romans 9)

 

[Eudaimonist]

It's not a feeling. It is a fact.

Do you feel that it is a fact? If so, that feeling does not make it true.

So, why should I regard that as a fact?


eudaimonia,

Mark

 

[MennoSota]

God is not good.
God did not solve it.

The problem with "Baseless Assertion Tennis" is that no one ever wins a point. We just keep hitting the ball back and forth until somebody dies.

How old are you again?

This isn't a game. You are wrong. God is right. No arguments necessary.
The child in this dialogue is the person fighting against God's authority over his/her life.

 

[MennoSota]

Do you feel that it is a fact? If so, that feeling does not make it true.

So, why should I regard that as a fact?


eudaimonia,

Mark

You don't have to. You can choose to be wrong.

 

[Eudaimonist]

You don't have to. You can choose to be wrong.

You can choose to be wrong too.

Why should I think that you aren't the one who is choosing to be wrong?


eudaimonia,

Mark

 

[Archaeopteryx]

Yes

LOL. That's funny.

"Who are you, oh man, to talk back to God?" (Romans 9)

Someone with a brain?

 

[(° ͡ ͜ ͡ʖ ͡ °) (ᵔᴥᵔʋ)]

Your epistemology is doomed to swallow up Christianity in its gaping nihilism. All human beings have are opinions, and if all human judgment is merely about "popular consensus", nothing can be known, including the existence of God and what God has allegedly said.

The only way out is to say that opinions are not all alike. Some are better founded on logic and evidence than others. So, if there is an objective standard of ethics (no matter its source), even if the standard is not known with absolute precision, not all opinions are on an equal footing and it is possible to avoid the intellectual chaos that you threaten.


eudaimonia,

Mark

I agree. I hate to be nihilist, but if a God does not exist. That would mean the universe was created out of nothing by nobody for absolutely no reason, all life is simply a byproduct of nature by natural means, when we die we will fade to non-existance, and ultimately all the universe will loose all it's energy and fade into darkness (as per the laws of thermodynamics and sorry for the run on sentence). So really, what's the point? Everything is meaningless. The best we can hope for is to give our lives some sort of meaning and live it the best we can before we die and fade into non-existance. Which is not wrong at all. However, we cannot escape the fact that since all life will ultimately cease to exist, whatever good or harm someone has done through the course of their life as well as the impact and legacy that individual has made of future generations is in the end...meaningless and so insignificant that it has no value.

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