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Does morality exist without God?
- Thread starter AGODBELIEVERlove1stfaith2
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Upisoft
CEO of a waterfal
Nope. Morality cannot exist without a god. If you have morality then you have a brain to think about it and society to use it. If there are a lot of individuals with brains(i.e. society), then at least one of them will make an argument form ignorance. Tada. New god was born. QED.
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really? upon what do you base this assertion, considering that numerous Buddhist cultures both predate monotheism, and do not accept gods.
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Upisoft
CEO of a waterfal
Hmmm, not exactly.
Maybe you didn't understand the proof.
I'll explain. If you can talk about morality you are a person in a developed society which has another human beings as members. Also talking about morality requires advanced abstract thinking. Therefore from Morality follows Society and Thinking. If you have Society of Thinking people, some of them will make logical errors in their thinking allowing such thing like "therefore God did it" to have popularity. So the basic existence of Morality requires existence of Gods. (as abstract ideas)
Is it better now?
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SithDoughnut
The Agnostic, Ignostic, Apatheistic Atheist
Still not following the assumption that "God did it" will invariably come up, seeing as there are many societies who do not have a god. You're arguing the complete opposite, as far as I can tell. You're not saying morality requires belief in God, you're saying belief in God requires morality.
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ok
another thing
why hurricane katrina victims
n haiti received the $$$ funds raised previously
another thing
why hurricane katrina victims
n haiti received the $$$ funds raised previously
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SonOfTheWest
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If morality came purely from the Judiac/Christian/Islamic God. History would look very different than it does.
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SithDoughnut
The Agnostic, Ignostic, Apatheistic Atheist
Monetary transfer can be pretty easily done digitally, allowing for large amounts to be sent to the various charities. This is then used to support their work. Any money given directly to those who were affected would have most likely been done through similar measures, transferring the decided amount of money into their respective bank accounts. Cash handouts are an alternative, but I would have thought that they would have been too cumbersome to do on such a scale.
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Eudaimonist
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It makes no sense. The possibility or even likelihood of logic errors such as "Goddidit" does not mean that morality requires the existence of gods.
eudaimonia,
Mark
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which were predated by animist societies, lacking the more modern concepts of "gods" entirely, which are essentially atheist in terms of this lack. the idea that there is a hierarchy of belief in the supernatural, from animism to polytheism to monotheism, is not one supported by evidence; cultures do not "progress" in such ways -- there are many examples of societies going back and forth in terms of their belief systems (such as the development of monotheistic beliefs in ancient egypt), or incorporating multiple systems at once (Rome with the olympian gods, co-existing with the lares), or purely animist beliefs superseding monotheism (current africa), or animist / monotheist systems (some variants of christianity). that's not even considering totemism or other less common variants of supernatural belief, or purely atheistic materialist systems.
all of which have moral / ethical constructs.
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Upisoft
CEO of a waterfal
That does not mean they don't understand the abstract idea of "god". Thus the abstract idea still exists, despite they reject the implications.
Not exactly, I argue that prerequisites for morality are the prerequisites for "god" (both as abstract ideas). My assumptions is that the idea of "god" will pop up first. History shows this is what happened. When it happens the idea will spread like wild fire.
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I think Upisoft is on to something. We have two attributes relevant to this:
1) Theory of mind -- the ability to realize that others think and have reasonable guesses as to what they are thinking -- without which proper morality (based on the Golden Rule or something similar) would be impossible
2) Pattern recognition. This could be argued to be a prerequisite for 1)
Now given that we have theory of mind, it therefore makes sense to separate actions into inanimate actions and the actions of an intelligent entity. But things like the wind, rain, and lighting act of their own accord (like an intelligent entity does) and not like a rock, like a thing we can control, and if those are not considered inanimate then it only leaves some sort of animate entity. Of course to test this one can see if they can interact with said animate entity, such as by trying to bribe or convince said entity to do something like send rain.
This is where the second part comes in, pattern recognition. It is always easier to test a pattern than to find a pattern; as such we by default are overly likely to see patterns where there are none (else it would be hard to find patterns). This is the basis of all "luck" superstition. Furthermore, some patterns are more valuable to know than others, so people are likelier to believe such patterns fit the data (confirmation bias). And so, when you do a rain dance and observe that it rains, it's very easy to conclude that the rain dance made it rain. And if not, the rain god is angry and wants a sacrifice, so then you sacrifice and then it rains. Unless your sacrifice wasn't big enough, and then you need to try bigger ones until you get one big enough (of course it will eventually rain).
So the same sort of things needed for morality are the things needed to believe in a god.
1) Theory of mind -- the ability to realize that others think and have reasonable guesses as to what they are thinking -- without which proper morality (based on the Golden Rule or something similar) would be impossible
2) Pattern recognition. This could be argued to be a prerequisite for 1)
Now given that we have theory of mind, it therefore makes sense to separate actions into inanimate actions and the actions of an intelligent entity. But things like the wind, rain, and lighting act of their own accord (like an intelligent entity does) and not like a rock, like a thing we can control, and if those are not considered inanimate then it only leaves some sort of animate entity. Of course to test this one can see if they can interact with said animate entity, such as by trying to bribe or convince said entity to do something like send rain.
This is where the second part comes in, pattern recognition. It is always easier to test a pattern than to find a pattern; as such we by default are overly likely to see patterns where there are none (else it would be hard to find patterns). This is the basis of all "luck" superstition. Furthermore, some patterns are more valuable to know than others, so people are likelier to believe such patterns fit the data (confirmation bias). And so, when you do a rain dance and observe that it rains, it's very easy to conclude that the rain dance made it rain. And if not, the rain god is angry and wants a sacrifice, so then you sacrifice and then it rains. Unless your sacrifice wasn't big enough, and then you need to try bigger ones until you get one big enough (of course it will eventually rain).
So the same sort of things needed for morality are the things needed to believe in a god.
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sandwiches
Mas sabe el diablo por viejo que por diablo.
I disagree with this. Morality in its most basic form was an evolutionary development. This is evidenced by the fact that most social animals can be have been observed to restrain and mold their behavior to best coexist in a group.
Now, I guess it could be argued that they also believe in a deity but I am not sure how this idea could be falsified.
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