I think all four numbered sentences say the same thing, so why are there four separate numbers? Did I miss a detail?
Can Morality Exist Without God?
- Thread starter fiicere
- Start date
I think all four numbered sentences say the same thing, so why are there four separate numbers? Did I miss a detail?
Good for you, because all I can see is "humans need to stop mythical reasoning and start natural reasoning".I see at least 4 different conclusions here ..
WillNever
Valued Senior Member
Like mike said, they are four related yet distinct conclusions. You not seeing them doesn't change that.
You misunderstand me. You see, an athiest believes that there is no afterlife, and that humans are therefore not eternal.
So, let's say I choose today to give food to a homeless man. If we fast forward a day, he'll be hungry again. So let's say I teach him to work and get him a job. Fast forward a year, and he'll be more happy and successful. But fast forward a hundred years, and he'll be dead. In fact, fast forward a hundred years and he'll be dead NO MATTER what I do for him.
That's what I mean by permanance. You referenced Walt Disney, and his work may indeed last a long time, but even the effects of that are not "permanent" as you suggested. Consider Julius and Augustus Caesar, who forged the greatest empire ever seen on the face of the Earth. You'd be hard pressed now to find any repercussion of their rule still around today.
And that is precisely what I mean by permanence. There is a time limit on any effect you might have on anything. There is no time limit on what I do.
Essentially, to take Utilitarian standards, imagine you were to save the entire world. Say 9 billion people. The amount of Good you would have done is equal to all the happiness and joys of the entire human race from this day forward. Monumental, is it not? Yet if I were to benefit one person, even in the slightest, the good I would have done them will last for an eternity, every "day" benefiting the person I helped, even long after humanity has ceased to exist. This far outweighs even the monumental good you would have accomplished.
But, you asked a good question. How does the soul differ from the physical, if the two obviously overlap? The soul must start in balance, then eventually make a decision, which essentially decides the final state of the soul. The physical provides more factors to judge but is not essential to the choice. Consider a test. You are asked to write an essay. When the time's up, you will have something written, but how much you studied the night before will influence what it is you have written. I don't think the memories themselves, specifically, are important, except in relation to how they change the soul.
aragorn_shiva
Registered Member
GOD or boss?
Well, all these discussions are based on a primary idea. Its like GOD is our boss and if we know that he is not around, ITS PARTY TIME. Man has been on this planet even before he coined the concept of a Supreme Power. I believe its more to do with one's conscience. But i also do agree that religion and the concept of GOD (to whom we believe are answerable) are playing a major role in grooming one's character.
So, as long as one believes that he is accountable to GOD for his actions and refrains from doing unethical or immoral things solely for that reason, it will always be a party time for those guys, if somebody proves that all these matter came to existence by itself.
As for me, whether by the belief in GOD or my natural conscience, i have been groomed to be stopped by a voice inside, if i intend to hurt someone. And the existence of GOD would not make a major difference in this context. And ya. i forgot to tell you. I am no atheist
Well, all these discussions are based on a primary idea. Its like GOD is our boss and if we know that he is not around, ITS PARTY TIME. Man has been on this planet even before he coined the concept of a Supreme Power. I believe its more to do with one's conscience. But i also do agree that religion and the concept of GOD (to whom we believe are answerable) are playing a major role in grooming one's character.
So, as long as one believes that he is accountable to GOD for his actions and refrains from doing unethical or immoral things solely for that reason, it will always be a party time for those guys, if somebody proves that all these matter came to existence by itself.
As for me, whether by the belief in GOD or my natural conscience, i have been groomed to be stopped by a voice inside, if i intend to hurt someone. And the existence of GOD would not make a major difference in this context. And ya. i forgot to tell you. I am no atheist
Questions on the morality of God (aka, "is God a good entity", or, more correctly, "why god is not a good entity") are very good points of discussion. Unfortunately, it's off topic, so I have redirected it here: http://www.sciforums.com/showthread.php?t=95084
You will find a (hopefully explanatory) response.
fiicere,
See - http://www.imminst.org
Anti-aging and uploads, and all aspects of post-humanity are very actively being worked around the world. The referenced site has links to most of the active research currently in progress and the forums discuss the many aspects and practical repurcussions of the new science and technologies currently being developed. Involuntary human death is unlikely to continue to be the enevitable outcome we have come to expect.
Ultimately the only value for our existence is personal survival and personal happiness.
Souls do not exist, there is no purpose left for them to do. The concept was derived long before we had any clue about how the brain functioned. The soul is a redundant concept, and hence the afterlife concept is similar nonsense. In this case you are doomed to be non-eternal and any attempt at a lasting mark you might make will only survive as long as people choose to remember it or it is recorded in history books, just like Disney or Julius Ceasar.
Close enough.
At the moment, but we are working on changing that.
See - http://www.imminst.org
Anti-aging and uploads, and all aspects of post-humanity are very actively being worked around the world. The referenced site has links to most of the active research currently in progress and the forums discuss the many aspects and practical repurcussions of the new science and technologies currently being developed. Involuntary human death is unlikely to continue to be the enevitable outcome we have come to expect.
I don't follow your need to make a permanent mark on the universe or its connection with religion. This feels to be merely ego seeking attention. There are many famous people now who will be remembered for their actions for many centuries, and yet there are billions more who simply live their lives and where very few will ever know them. Yet many feel entirely satisfied and fullfilled with the their lives. The fact that they left no mark is of no consequence, they neither care and neither do most others.
Which is all entirely irrelevant if we all have eternal souls. If we reach a utopian paradise in an afterlife where there is no suffering and everyone has what they need, then what? Any previous actions you took to help become of zero value, wiped out because of post-death perfection. And what will you now do for eternity if no one any longer needs any help? If making a permanent mark is your goal then once achieved you then have eternity in which to "think" about your fame, perhaps. It's an empty and worthless ego trip.
Ultimately the only value for our existence is personal survival and personal happiness.
I'll clarify a little more. We know the brain accounts for identity, memory, ability to think, and emotions. We know this because when parts of the brain are damaged clinical studies show all these attributes can be either lost permanently or are seriously limited. The question then becomes what role does a soul play here? If the soul is the "holder" of identity, memory, emotions, etc, then these things cannot be lost when physical damage occurs, but they are. This raises the question then of what exactly is a soul and what does it do? If you die and enter an afetrlife, what goes with you? You brain is dead so you will not know who you are, you will have no memories of what has happened to you, you will feel no emotions or experience them, and you will not be able to form any thoughts. So what exactly are you in this state? A soul that has no abilities. That is synonomous with non existence.
Souls do not exist, there is no purpose left for them to do. The concept was derived long before we had any clue about how the brain functioned. The soul is a redundant concept, and hence the afterlife concept is similar nonsense. In this case you are doomed to be non-eternal and any attempt at a lasting mark you might make will only survive as long as people choose to remember it or it is recorded in history books, just like Disney or Julius Ceasar.
Wrong, sorry. We are nowhere even close to changing that. If you knew enough biology you'd realize that the problem is impossibly complex due to the continual specification of DNA. But even if it is solved, we'll all die when the solar system collapses. Or the universe, if you're hopelessly optomistic and believe that even if we could travel the necessary light years, we wouldn't find just inhospitable living areas.
I trust you're not optomistic (imbecillic) enough to suggest that we might avoid the heat death of the universe.
I care. I never said that you had to. Your point?
Oh, an incidentially, this is where I smack you over the head with a version of Pascal's wager. You have absolutely nothing to lose by believing me, and the possibility of losing something big by not doing so.
My friend, I think you skipped elementary school and it's stress on the comprehension half of reading. Note I said I believed that I could change the state of people's souls? That is precisely what I meant to say.
What I did not say, or intend to say, was that I believe all souls go to some utopian paradise or become perfect "post death." I believe some souls are more perfect than others.
But, since you asked what I would do in my eternity: I would probably spend it doing what I'm doing now. Striving towards perfection. And helping others to do the same.
Finally, it has little to do with fame. It has much to do with worth. What I do not want is to die knowing that I have wasted my life and my purpose for being.
So, you are saying that you don't believe in a moral code of any kind? Everyone should do what they think is best to aid their own survival and personal happiness?
A statement made with little supporting evidence, so far as I can see. But, unfortunately, for you, I DO have evidence.
Did you know neurotechnology is actually quite advanced? We are capable of causing people to move, walk, and even make speechlike sounds by passing signals through the brain. The exact same signals, in fact, that people use to do the same motions. You know the funny thing? Everyone they tried this on could tell you the difference between them choosing to move their limbs and you controlling you. Funny, since scientists were inputting the EXACT SAME SIGNAL PATTERNS. And since signal patterns directly change chemical concentrations in the brain according to the laws of physics and chemistry, the two identical signals should have identical effects.
Furthermore, what you are saying makes no sense. Obviously parts of you are lost if, wait for it, parts of you are lost. If I lose my right hand, OBVIOUSLY I will be, well, right hand-less. Meaning I'll never be able to wear right-handed gloves, for example. Similarly, If I lose my optic nerve, I'll obviously lose my sight.
But what you don't seem to be comprehending (funny, cause it's really not a complicated concept) is that I believe there's a part of you which doesn't reside in your brain. Meaning, even if your physical brain is lost, GASP, this part might not be lost either.
There are also philosophical ramifications for your statement. There are people who have lost large segments of their brains due to accidents. Should they be treated less like people? Like animals, perhaps? If the brain is all there is to it, why not?
Free will? But you obviously don't believe that, despite all your lifelong experiences telling you it exists, and no actual reason to believe it doesn't. Aside from the (entirely baseless) assumption that EVERYTHING follows a set of pre-determined rules known as physics.
And yet, you live your every day life as if, wait, free will existed! You choose (or act like you do) what music to listen to, which job to work at, which food to eat, and, wait, which philosophy to believe in. To be logically consistent, why don't you act as if all the corollaries to that statement are also true?
Strange thread.
I got a better question, can you believe in something others might perceive as God, without believing in any religion? Yes, I do
Religion is full of violence, hatred, greed, jelousy, selfishness, etc... why would you need to believe in religion to have a moral standard?
Religious followers believe there beliefs so strongly that they can't accept others that don't have the same blind faith! Religion seperates from others much more then the op seems to realize. I don't see how any religion is trying to unite the world. All religion operate under the same idealogy that if you don't believe, you will go to hell. Religion supports man vs man violence because not all people believe the same religion, and all religious followers think there religion is the only 'right' one.
I am not religious whatsoever. And I seek a united, free world. So the real question the op is trying to ask is, Can you love the whole world without needing a tool like blind faith? Answer is of coarse you can.
I got a better question, can you believe in something others might perceive as God, without believing in any religion? Yes, I do
Religion is full of violence, hatred, greed, jelousy, selfishness, etc... why would you need to believe in religion to have a moral standard?
Religious followers believe there beliefs so strongly that they can't accept others that don't have the same blind faith! Religion seperates from others much more then the op seems to realize. I don't see how any religion is trying to unite the world. All religion operate under the same idealogy that if you don't believe, you will go to hell. Religion supports man vs man violence because not all people believe the same religion, and all religious followers think there religion is the only 'right' one.
I am not religious whatsoever. And I seek a united, free world. So the real question the op is trying to ask is, Can you love the whole world without needing a tool like blind faith? Answer is of coarse you can.
Strange thread.
I got a better question, can you believe in something others might perceive as God, without believing in any religion? Yes, I do
Are you saying that you believe there is a God just that none of the religions have it right?
WHOAWHOAWHOA. A LOT of unsubstantiated arguments. For example:
"Blind faith"
The belief that just because 2 people disagree, there will be violence.
The statement that all religions believe in hell. They all don't.
Heck, if you even thought about it, you'd realize that the problem isn't too few religions trying to "unite the world," it's too many!
But, I will clarify that I was not discussing organized religion. That's why I specificially said "without God" in the title, not "without religion"
Ummm. No, that's not what I'm asking. I'm asking if morality can be justified in a world without objective morality. In other words, short of saying "It's just the right thing to do!" is there a way to come up with a moral code (preferrably one which is in accordance with Kant's First Formulation).
fiicere,
Yes I understand. Like so many who ask the questions, why am I here, there must be more to life than this? There must be more than just being, born, living and dying? The assumption is that there are answers, yet we see nothing that indicates we have any independent purpose other than living. Those who cannot live with that create religions or as in your case create a variation of religious beliefs that make you feel comfortbale, as many others have done.
But which god? Man has defined some nearly 3000 of them over the past several thousands years, that's an average of about 1 each year. What if you choose the wrong one and the real one laughs at you? And wouldn't a real god see through any pretense at belief? Pascal's wager has been torn to shreds repeatedly here.
I see. How? Define a soul first and what it has that can be changed.
So what is the nature of the afterlife, what is a soul, and what is perfection, and how many degrees of perfection are there, and how do you know?
Understood. A common reason people follow a religion.
Why equate survival and happiness with immorality? For example you want to help others because it makes you happy. Or put another way you are unhappy with a life where you think there is no purpose. Your entire perspective here is your personal happiness, that it may well make others happy is incidental to your core intention, i.e. your personal satisfaction (your personal happiness).
OK, go ahead and show me someone alive without a brain. And where is this thing that doesn't reside in the brain, and what is its nature, and how do you know?
If they are unable to function and their bodies kept alive via machines yet there is no brain activity, i.e. permamently commatose, presents a massive social problem, usually for their families. Without a funtioning brain that person has essentially ceased to exist. I have no answer to that. It is simply very sad.
Not sure where you are going with that. I have no real perspective on whether free will exists or not, apart from it being incompatible with omniscience.
I've lost you. What was your point? I have no problem living as if I have free will, I have no reason to do otherwise. But if omniscience exists then what I think is free will is simply a delusion. I would have no real choices since everything would have been pre-determind.I'd be nothing more than a sophisticated puppet.
fiicere,
So exactly what would you be in an afterlife? Would you have any emory or ability to think? And if so how would that be achieved without a brain?
But not all of you. You admit you depend on your brain which wouldn't survive a transition to an "afterlife".
So exactly what would you be in an afterlife? Would you have any emory or ability to think? And if so how would that be achieved without a brain?
It should be obvious from the behavior of the religious that morality has nothing to do with god.
You mean like the Buddhists have done for 2500 years? Or the Jains? Or the followers of Epicurus? Or any number of Animists, Atheists and Agnostics?
Morality is about how you live with others. God has never been more than just an excuse.
He doesn't.
So why don't you?
Why pretend? In 5 minutes I can tell you how to kill people and not get caught. Are you tempted? Why not? Because of a bunch of myths nobody really believes? What is the difference between you and Ted Haggard?
There has never been an absolute moral system, but if it helps you can always pretend.
Why pretend?
So why don't? Baron Max is like that.
If it is based in evolution, there isn't any code, but there are exterior reasons, just not absolute ones carved by sky fairies in baloney.
Ain't that the truth. Religious people are scary. You never know when their cult leader is going to snap and they all kill themselves or worse, kill others.
Answers are for those who look for them. We (humans) had never seen anything which indicated that our world (cars, planes, lightbulb, computers) were even possible, and yet somebody took a chance on them and here we are today. Granted, often a person will be wrong, but the only way to ever go forward is to try, fail, try again, and keep trying until someone gets it right. You are proposing that we give up, which I find unacceptable.
To a man in a Nazi gas chamber, you could use the same argument. "The assumption is that there is a way out, yet we see nothing that indicates that there is." True as it may be, that sure as hell won't keep me from trying anyways.
First, 3000 is irrelevant according to the wager. It could be 300 billion, and the wager would still work.
But I wasn't talking about gaming it. It's a matter of intention, as you (and many others who oppose the wager have said). I'm not trying to find my way into heaven because I believe that's what benefits me the most. I'm trying to find my way there because if I ever do, it will be the affirmation I've been looking for that I actually did something right. That I served the purpose I'm here for. And that maybe I was a part of something bigger than myself, and my petty hates, fears, joys, or sorrows.
So you see, Pascal's wager is often used incorrectly by the religious who have never truly understood what their God is about, but it can be used correctly. It is, however, often misunderstood. Heck, it's even in the bible:
44"The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field.
45"Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant looking for fine pearls. 46When he found one of great value, he went away and sold everything he had and bought it.
I do not seek God for what he can offer me. I seek him because, if there is any chance of me doing something "good" or "right," it is with him.
Good question. A soul is something made "in God's image." Namely, it is metaphysical (aka, immesurable by science), and is capable of making choices independent of such things as physical constraints. Beyond that, it's hard for me to define as it is metaphysical and therefore I can't do any experiments on it. But, if we are to believe it's existence in the Christian sense, I'm going to say it's what determines a person's morality. If you want me to go out on a limb, I'd say that ultimately the soul represents the choice between who owns your life, God or you. On one hand, following God means that you will serve the purpose you are created for, be part of something bigger, and be at harmony with the universe but at the expense of some of your anonymity. On the other hand, following yourself allows complete anonymity, but at the expense of serving any higher purpose. A fundamentally selfish existence.
The best way to think about it (perfection) is to either have read some CS Lewis, or to understand math. I'll assume the latter. So you are aware of escaping series? Given infinite time, some series will go to infinity, some to negative infinity, and some to a constant. Perfection is like that, but without the middle road of approaching a constant. I believe there's no limit to how good a person can be, but nobody can ever be fully good. Kind of like how there's no limit to how big a number can be, but it will never be infinity. Same for the negative.
Lewis sums it up in the following way: "Again, Christianity asserts that every individual human being is going to live for ever, and this must be either true or false. Now there are a good many things which would not be worth bothering about if I were going to live only seventy years, but which I had better bother about very seriously if I am going to live for ever. Perhaps my bad temper or my jealousy are gradually getting worse —so gradually that the increase in seventy years will not be very noticeable. But it might be absolute hell in a million years: in fact, if Christianity is true, Hell is the precisely correct technical term for what it would be."
As for how I know? I don't. Philosophy and religion require different standards of weeding out useless theories than Science. All I can say is that, if we accept the base premise (the soul exists), this view is:
1) not self-contradictory, nor contradictory with any of my assumptions, nor with Kant's first formulation, nor with any standard I know of for measuring contradiction.
2) Makes a good deal of sense. It's not built on flawed reasoning, and seems rather obvious in hindsight.
3) Explains some of our observations. For example, I have observed that it is possible for me to make choices and have never had any good reason to disbelieve that fact.
If the soul is metaphysical, then I would need some way to show you something metaphysical, right? Essentially, we can only see the soul based on it's interaction with other objects, just as we can only see physical things based on their interactions with other objects. (for example, if light bounces off an object, we can see it, or if it touches us, we can feel it). So far as I'm aware, the soul only interacts with the brain, so with no brain, we'd be unable to see it. Just like you couldn't see me if we were in a room and the light suddenly went out.
That's actually why I created my theory of the soul. It reconciles Eternal Time with Physical Time. It holds that your actions (physical actions) ARE determined if one knew the state of your soul. (anything is determined if all it's constituent parts are determined). So all God has to do to be omniscient is observe the state of your soul, and thereby all your actions (physical, anyways) are predicted.
How God's omnicience interacts with a single instant of free will is still something which I'm trying to work out. I feel it has a great deal to do with the difference between Eternal time and Physical time, also having much to do with the theory of Grace.
If you have any insight, please let me know
BTW, thanks for an interesting (and insightful) discussion.
People survive better when they preferentially work for both their own interests and the interests of the group.
Then you fail to understand it fully.
Now that is funny.
You mean like serving your community? Those in need? What does god have to do with serving real purposes larger then yourself?
Is it the highest achievement you can hope for?
How does pretending magic sky faries exist help anything?
You mean like xtians murder heretics, pagans and heathens? Atheists have higher standards. They understand the value of life.