There really is no distinction between the concept of god and religion.
Conflation occurs when the identities of two or more individuals, concepts, or places, sharing some characteristics of one another, seem to be a single identity — the differences appear to become lost. In logic, it is the practice of treating two distinct concepts as if they were one, which produces errors or misunderstandings as a fusion of distinct subjects tends to obscure analysis of relationships which are emphasized by contrasts. -
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conflation
If there were no distinction then a Buddhist would necessarily be a theist, even though it is a nontheistic religion.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_in_Buddhism
You can debate this further with Yazata:
It's entirely possible to be a 'spiritual' atheist.
Buddhism doesn't involve belief in the existence of an 'Abrahamic'-style monotheistic "God", yet Buddhists can be very religious. In other words, 'spirituality' or 'religiosity' are broader and more extensive categories than theism. Theism is a particular kind of religious belief. It's both possible and common to deny the truth of theism, and hence qualify as an atheist, while still possessing a strong personal religiosity. (Imagine a Zen monk.)
Human ethical standards will be formed in conjunction with contemporary cultural conditions regardless the degree of religiosity. A rational basis for god as a governing element of conscience has weakened to the point of irrelevancy in a rational cosmology. ...Technological oversight and better understanding of social dynamics can, and do, supplant the role of the imagined divine overseer.
I never said anything even vaguely like "god was a governing element of conscience." Why is it those who do not understand a god concept have a strictly relative morality?
You have your way, I have my way. As for the right way, it does not exist. - Friedrich Nietzsche
Humans have always wondered about the meaning of life...life has no higher purpose than to perpetuate the survival of DNA...life has no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind pitiless indifference. - Richard Dawkins
Basically, in the right circumstances or culture
anything may be morally defensible.
I am too. What precisely is supposed to be evolving here?
The suggestion seems to be that it's ideas that are evolving, particularly the idea of "God" (imagined as a universal witness and judge).
I'm not convinced that the history of ideas is best understood in Darwinian-style natural selection terms.
No, I have not suggested anything about ideas evolving. Only that the concept is useful in the evolution of conscience, and that is persists (in whatever form) for that purpose. Conscience was selected for. The concept of god can be considered a means to that end.
Biological natural selection operates in genomes, gradually changing gene frequencies in populations. And I don't think that there's any direct correlation between gene frequencies and particular ideas.
As I have already said, there is such a thing as social evolution.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_evolution
Unfortunately, not Syne's poor understanding of evolutionary biology. I don't claim to be a professor, but the idea that the concept of God has been selected is absurd.
But there's really no use explaining it to him.
Yet I have already demonstrated a better understanding, while you keep conflating biological with social evolution.
And commenting about me is not remaining silent. I called that one.
"...glaring lack in all other such institutions"? "None offer..."? "Only the concept of god..."? The universal generalizations need justification.
The phrase "an objective view of themselves" seems to refer to how people appear to others, where the identity of 'others' is left unspecified. Imagining some kind of universal omniscient witness just seems to be a personalization of that abstract idea, putting a hypothetical supernatural person's face on it.
It is merely common sense that human institutions, on their own, can only instill a sense of "don't get caught". People only think they can do more because humans are smart enough to learn from their mistakes. But it is just a fear/threat response, in lieu of actual conscience.
It is also fairly trivial that a fully developed conscience must involve a high internalized and objective sense of oneself. The problem with abstracting this objectivity from other humans is the same liability that human institutions have.
And again, I have assumed a god does not exist, so no "supernatural person's face" necessary.
Do "all other human institutions" besides monotheism really imply that "something is only wrong if you get caught"? I think that's just false.
I never specified a "monotheistic" concept of god, and actually included "human-like gods, nature spirits, devils and angels, karma, ancestors or a universal consciousness".
And why doesn't the monotheists' theory of a universal witness suffer from precisely that same shortcoming? It just seems to be adding the additional assertion that wrongdoers will always get caught. It doesn't seem to be addressing the problem of developing conscience. Conscience after all is what typically makes us feel that particular sorts of acts are wrong even when nobody else can see us doing them.
It might increase somebody's fear of getting caught, particularly in situations where their actions are unseen by other human beings. But would it strengthen people's innate sense of fairness, reciprocity and right and wrong?
Again, not necessarily monotheistic and not necessarily actually existing to witness anything at all. I have already said that it serves as a pattern for personally internalized objectivity.
I think that I'm inclined to favor some sort of virtue ethics in those kind of situations. Good actions should ideally be the result of virtuous qualities in the actor. So perhaps our emphasis should be on identifying, instilling and strengthening virtuous qualities in people.
How? And especially, in what way that it is not merely a reward-seeking mechanism?
Not readily apparent to you, perhaps. (Are you really arguing for theists' social prejudice against atheists?)
Relative morality, that assumes anything can be "moral" given the right circumstances or culture, is detrimental, especially to a society that is becoming increasingly global (not only "for theists").
You seem to have identified conscience with the idea of what other people think, then argue that only imagining an all-seeing imaginary person as a universal witness will keep people behaving properly when other humans aren't around. You seem to think of that as "developing" conscience.
You miss the point entirely. Fully developed conscience is seeing oneself as the final arbiter of your actions in fully confident objectivity (which is beyond self-assured justification). For some people a god concept will remain necessary. For others a concept of
higher self, personal divinity, or selflessness will suffice.
I'm more inclined to think that you're fundamentally misunderstanding conscience. Conscience is what makes us think that some actions are wrong, even if nobody else is around to observe us doing them. Conscience is basically instinctive in my opinion, part of our human social instincts. The way to best develop it might be to work on developing qualities such as self-control in the face of desire and empathy and compassion for others.
Yet those who dismiss a god concept usually espouse a relative morality. If conscience were a natural, innate instinct there would be no need for such relativism. Instinct, developed by all the organisms of a species being subject to the same evolutionary pressures, would inform morality much more similarly than not.
