Is a God Needed for Morality?

[lamont]

ok, now that the Creation v. Evolution thread is gone (and what a great thread it was), i figured i'd ask a question:

how do you do right in the absence of absolute right (i.e. God)?

how do you know what's "wrong" without a GOd telling you?

or is that possible? is morality the exclusive domain of a deity, be it our God or Buddha?


i guess my question is:

can there be moral lives without God in them?

The one thing that you need to believe in and have Faith in is that other people/beings out there like you are similar to you and that you can't simply be out for your own short sighted self interest. You can also apply some game theory and iterative non-zero sum games and arrive at a cooperative set of ethics and morals.

The one thing that I find amazingly offensive about a lot of Christians is that they think that belief in God/Christ is the only way to be moral with the corrollary that atheists are all selfish and immoral. I'd love to hold up a mirror to them to make them see how concieted and un-christ-like they're being to their fellow man. It seems like those kinds of Christians (not all of them, but a distressingly large number of them) are using Religion to fix the fact that they can't tell right from wrong themselves, which says more about their own character flaws than it does about religion, god or atheism.

 

[onfloat]

Are wars moral? The Inquisition, The Crusades, Jihad, Ireland, etc.............

 

[Bryan]

If nobody is looking and no cars are in sight, is it wrong to run a red light?

Is it wrong to download mp3s and movies that you didn't buy? They're just electrons that were going to be generated anyway... no real value?

How is that worse than another "wrong" activity, such as stealing food, another person's spouse, vehicle, or life? Who gets to decide, and why do they get to decide, and why did we listen to them in the first place. Do we live in a moral vacuum and are these ideas about morality original to us?

 

[Tassie_Rohan]

'Good' and 'Evil': evolution in action.

in the scheme of a civilization, yes, it has to for us to be able to rely on each other to survive in our social formats

Exactly - There is no absolute Good or Evil, only a social construct to ensure we function as a group.

The development of concepts of 'good' and 'evil' therefore provide an evolutionary advantage.

Time to reach for the Nietzsche....

 

[dlndavid]

Lamont, your own little rant reflects of what you dislike about christians, ironic

 

[Bryan]

No..and that is what makes them sociopaths.

you know this stuff, don't you?

Are sharks sociopaths when they eat a seal? They don't feel bad.

 

[onfloat]

Are sharks sociopaths when they eat a seal? They don't feel bad.

I don't feel bad when I eat cow, fish, and pig. Sometime alot of lettace will get me though.

 

[lamont]

Lamont, your own little rant reflects of what you dislike about christians, ironic

what i dislike about *some* christians.

if those christians said *some* atheists are immoral and selfish, i wouldn't have as much of an issue with that...

the philosophical believe that *all* athiests are immoral and selfish, though, and god has the corner on morality is what i object to...

 

[dlndavid]

Are sharks sociopaths when they eat a seal? They don't feel bad.

when a lawyer takes somebody's hard earned money, do they feel bad?

 

[Bryan]

'Good' and 'Evil': evolution in action.




Exactly - There is no absolute Good or Evil, only a social construct to ensure we function as a group.

The development of concepts of 'good' and 'evil' therefore provide an evolutionary advantage.

Time to reach for the Nietzsche....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master-Slave_Morality