Jonte

The banner for this forum asks “Can people be good without God?”. I want to discuss the converse question “Can people be good with God?”

Some exhibits to seed discussion:

1. I remember a quotation to the effect “Good people will tend to do good things and bad people will tend to do bad things, but it takes religion to make good people do bad things.” (can anyone source this?) This rings true from personal experience. I know Christians who, for example, support the death penalty and oppose contraception – while they are uneasy about their support and freely accept the overwhelming force of contrary arguments, they still feel obliged to back what they believe their religion requires over their conscience or their reason.

2. I know a Christian who gives 10% of his (considerable) gross income to charity, but shows a complete lack of interest about how this money is spent. When we discussed his support of a charity which I believe is actively doing harm in the third world, he showed no interest in evidence and simply said “well we can’t just leave people to starve can we?” I eventually had to accept that what he sought was the pain of loosing the money he gave, not the reward of contemplating the good he was doing others. I get the same feeling about many of the supporters of third world debit relief.

3. I have come across Muslims who are well educated and humane and yet supported the fatwa against Salman Rushdie and lately have been expressing at least ambivalence about Islamic terrorism. Yet somehow I do not feel in the least personally threatened by them or inhibited in expressing my own views. There seems to be a walled-off place in their minds were Islamic violence is regarded as a kind of formal, legalistic or theological thing not subject to rational or moral assessment in the real world.

4. As a humanist, I believe that morality derives from the calculus of consequences within the framework of treating others as having an equivalent value to oneself – good actions are those which produce good results. Believers in God tend to regard morality as being about process rather than results: either following pre-ordained rules or “praying to God for guidance”. Often this gives good results, but sometimes the lazily unimagined consequences will be truly awful, and the believer, having “gone through the correct process” may have a completely clear conscience about it.

5. “Let God sort them out.” I have heard this view from believers in many extreme situations, most chillingly from a man who had an influential role in setting defence policy in a nuclear armed state. It justifies killing the innocent in order to get at the guilty by appealing to the omnipotence of God who will reward and compensate the innocent for their loss – so the killers are actually doing them a favour!

I accept that belief can help week people towards more self discipline. But is this really worth the cost of it’s corrupting influence on the strong and on society as a whole?

What do you think?

God Fearing Atheist

What exactly is a "good result"? Are you proposing some sort of utilitarianism?

Ms. Siv

Considering the fact that most primates and mammals live in a moral society, I'd say yes .

Morality is finally what works in a group or tribe. ESS (Evolutionarily Stable Strategies) will result (long term) which are what we call "moral".

- Sivakami.

God Fearing Atheist

Why exactly should I adopt an ESS (assuming I dont prefer it)?

tronvillain

It's not that you have to, it's just that being human, you probably have a tendency to.

Ms. Siv

Its not a question of you choosing to adopt or not adopt it.

Some of these strategies are partly in-built into us because those were what worked in a group or tribe. And thats what has survived.

Obviously, we could not live together very well if we did not accept rules prohibiting murder, assault, theft, lying, breaking promises, and the like. These rules are justified simply by showing that they are necessary if we are to survive and cooperate as a group.

- Sivakami.

[ January 23, 2002: Message edited by: Sivakami S ]</p>

God Fearing Atheist

Let me ask it this way: is it ever the case that we cant *not* adopt an ESS? This seems patently false; criminals do it all the time, and non-criminals surely give it a good deal of thought.

If indeed this is impossible, your conception may be nessecary, but its certainly not sufficent.

Andrew_theist

[ January 25, 2002: Message edited by: Andrew_theist ]</p>

Andrew_theist

Greeting Jonte,

Interesting that you should point out the banner for this forum. The argument from morality is often obfuscated yet it really isn’t that difficult to understand. The argument can be summed thus;

1. Are good and evil objective values?
2. If so on what grounds are they objective?

My own thought is there are objective values. I have no evidence other than common sense and that I believe relative values is a position that invalidates itself. Ask questions about this if you want.

Regarding your points.

· …I know Christians who, for example, support the death penalty and oppose contraception – while they are uneasy about their support and freely accept the overwhelming force of contrary arguments, they still feel obliged to back what they believe their religion requires over their conscience or their reason.

This is a little humorous do you see a linkage between the death penalty and contraceptives? I think the Christians opposed to contraceptives are mostly Catholic and frankly I never understood that either and I think there are a lot of closet advocates. As for the death penalty I think that is a divided issue among theists and non-theists.

· 2. I know a Christian who gives 10% of his (considerable) gross income to charity, but shows a complete lack of interest about how this money is spent. When we discussed his support of a charity which I believe is actively doing harm in the third world…

You must be a good friend that he would consult you about his offering. I think a person should be discerning regarding there giving. Still this seems a little sour grapes on your part since he is giving generously to help.

Reading the rest of your points some of them seem a bit like nit picking and finger pointing. I don’t see where you are going with this. Are you suggesting people should give up believing in God because some don’t do as right as they might?

<a href="http://pub22.ezboard.com/bgwnn" target="_blank">Challenging Atheism</a>

E_muse

But religion has survived too and has 'worked'! Religion has played a major role in most tribes. Sigmund Freud even said that religion is 'perhaps the most important item in the physical inventory of a civilization' and he could hardly be referred to as 'pro'.

Of course, religion itself is as much the product of evolution as the ESS's you describe as is man's sense of the divine.

Yes. Hadn't you noticed that different groups try and kill each other or try and intimidate each other into accepting each other's values?

There are people out there called 'terrorists' who we currently at war with. They are as much a product of evolution as you and I!

We don't live together very well, and you can blame evolution for it!

Also, the presence of the law indicates that values have to be imposed on a society. It is not the 'natural state' of a society to obey these rules.

Society still needs the fear of punishment in order to maintain certain values and control people. Any society must seek to control those who do not accept its fundamental values.