Origin of morality

James R

James R

Just this guy, you know?
Staff member
A question for believers in God:

Are some acts (like murder, for instance) evil because God says they are evil, or is it the other way round?

That is, does God say they are evil because they are inherently wrong in some way, or could God just as easily say "Murder is good! Everybody should go out and murder as often as possible."

What do you think? Do morals come only from God, or do they have an independent existence?
 
James R, do you want to discuss this while assuming that god does exist? Or is it a just a challenge for believers?
 
James R said:
A question for believers in God:

Are some acts (like murder, for instance) evil because God says they are evil, or is it the other way round?

That is, does God say they are evil because they are inherently wrong in some way, or could God just as easily say "Murder is good! Everybody should go out and murder as often as possible."

What do you think? Do morals come only from God, or do they have an independent existence?
Click to expand...

Socrates said:
We shall know better, my good friend, in a little while. The point which I should first wish to understand is whether the pious or holy is beloved by the gods because it is holy, or holy because it is beloved of the gods.

- see Euthyphr
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In response to the question: "Do morals come only from God, or do they have an independent existence?", I vote no. ;)
 
Morals don't come from God at all but from our own experience. Human makes mistakes throughout history and learn from history.

One example is slavery. We didn't know slavery was wrong back then, but today it's unthinkable. Slaves weren't owned by atheists back then. They were owned by Christians and if I recall correctly, bible justifies slavery somewhere.

Another example is mass killing of Indians. 99% of all Indians were killed including women and children when white men conquered America. Today the moral standard is much higher and such thing would not occur if we were to discover another continent or another planet with inferior liveform.
 
I would agree that morals develope from experience. Alas, they are also greatly influenced by our upbringing and personal inclinations. There are people who have weak morals other have strong morals. Perhaps it is some kind of evolutionary change? But I think morals are made by humans for humans
 
Mmh, I suppose some guy chiseled them into stone and said that they come from god, just to keep his happy band of slaves under control.
 
grew boring, Rosa had the impression I was scary because I always ran around with usertitles like "Hellbound" "Chaos Rules" or "insanity". I thought Iit´s time to stop it. People even started to take my jokes serious. Had to change something about it :p
 
Interesting article, thanks for the link.
The way I see it, ones sense of ethics are determined by the situation and are based on moral values that are learned from experience. I think it is possible to determine a universal set of moral values, though this obviously has not been done. But even with a set of universal moral values, ones 'code of ethics' would be determined by the situation and be based on one's moral values. For example, one may agree that it is wrong to lie, but that's a code of ethics based on the moral value of trust. I would say trust is a universal moral value everyone can agree on, but that does not mean it is always wrong to lie. If one had to choose between lying and telling the truth, and lying would save a life, and telling the truth would result in the person's death, it would be wrong to tell the truth. Telling a lie is by far the lesser evil.
So, I believe ethics are created by humans, but based on moral values which are learned, and exist regardless of our knowledge of them.
 
Dreamwalker said:
grew boring, Rosa had the impression I was scary because I always ran around with usertitles like "Hellbound" "Chaos Rules" or "insanity". I thought Iit´s time to stop it. People even started to take my jokes serious. Had to change something about it :p
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Jah, and if you write the same thing in a language that fewer people understand, that makes it okay or what? Hm?

But yes, check out Grimmelshausen or one of those old fellas, Sebastians Brandt's "Das Narrenschiff" and such -- you should find fancy words and phrases for insanity there.

:D
 
RosaMagika said:
Jah, and if you write the same thing in a language that fewer people understand, that makes it okay or what? Hm?

But yes, check out Grimmelshausen or one of those old fellas, Sebastians Brandt's "Das Narrenschiff" and such -- you should find fancy words and phrases for insanity there.

:D
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Huh? What do you mean? Last time I looked, Verteidiger des Blödsinns had nothing to do with the examples I gave above. :rolleyes:
 
Dreamwalker said:
Huh? What do you mean? Last time I looked, Verteidiger des Blödsinns had nothing to do with the examples I gave above. :rolleyes:
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Of course not. That's what Blödsinn ist. :D

Look, I don't have anything against you personally, I don't know you. I don't know why this whole thing about your titles came up ... maybe because they were just rather unheimlich.
When someone screams "Jesus rocks!" or "Allah is great!" or something like that, we're used to it; and there is some sort of order in such religious claims.
But chaos and insanity simply are rather scary.

On the other hand, I think you're doing a good job, with your titles and avatars that remind of completely different ways of thinking. It gives new perspectives to this forum. ;)

So I'm glad you're here, although I still feel you're a bit unheimlich.
 
Ah, I understand a bit better now. Well, I think I´ll keep on making unusual titles public. :D

Unheimlich? ...ok, I suppose that can happen, perhaps it is not totally unfounded...
 
morality does develop outside of the confines of religion. soceities such as the greeks had gods that set down no particular moral code (in fact, often opposed them e.g. Zeus moping around continuously comminting adultery) yet they had highly moral cilvalizations.
when religion does set down morals, e.g. Christianity, this still works, and so i will summarize by saying that God does not dictate morals, he is merely supporting them.
 
A couple guys at school would bring up the argument that if you put a bunch of human babies in a totally secluded enviroment, they'd kill each other for food or whatever. The problem I see with this is that a bunch of human babies would never occur naturally on their own. There is always a context, in this case, parents and family. If the parents and family have found a way to survive without killing the species, there must be something external that makes them behave that way normally, or something internal which would keep the babies from killing each other in the first place.
Thousands of civilizations have survived long before the "word of God". Many of their codes of conduct are echoed in ours today. So did God come down and talk to them and tell them how to live? If so, how come he didn't send Jesus too?
Most successful species on this planet distinguish characteristics that promote the succession of the species, even at the expense of the individual. It doesn't make sense to me that humans, as an evolving species, would be any different. Early on, it was morally ok to kill the weak because that way the species could better itself. Now, where that isn't so important, other factors develope. You could argue that we're attempting to evolve more on mental level compared to the purely physical aspects of the past.
 
Well, some guy once tried to raise some children in a secluded enviroment.
Ok, they were given food, but there was no real interaction between thos who brought the food and the children. They also did not have speech, they all died over the time... they did not kill each other, just died...

The early humans have survived with no real words at all, just like animals. It my well be that morality developed from an instinvt for survival.
 
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