the absolute morality judgement board
People recognize that *if* there is a right and wrong they want to live rightly. If there is a God who judges us then they want to know they acted rationally in light of what we know to face of that judgment.
This comment gives possibly the saddest reason I’ve ever heard to believe in the Christian god. It gives the most cringe-worthy excuse to believe that an omniscient, benevolent being left a book of barbaric rubbish to humans to help them understand him. Oh and he’s a male god, that’s why it’s ‘he’. Because if a god existed, it would be a man, right? He’d be a male god leaving stories about stupid men raping and killing women, and he’d pain himself as a jealous, illogical god who kills and tortures on a whim, but has a change of heart and kills himself so that he can accept humans again – the humans he lovingly created. That is why people want to do the right thing?
People recognise that there are consequences to their actions, and these consequences can hurt other people. So there is broadly a right and wrong, and we want to live rightly (not my grammar, excuse the quote) because we are co-operative animals, conditioned with empathy by our social and nurturing upbringings, by our friendly and touching interactions and relationships with other people. Most of us understand how other people feel, and we don’t want them to feel emotional or physical pain. It’s not a magic ‘moral’ stick, it’s common sense and it’s natural. Look at the dogs, look at apes, look at dolphins.
This idea that our actions only matter *just in case the god God or another angry deity exists has a list to run down when our soul floats out of our body* is disgusting. Our actions matter because we care about people round about us, and we know that every stranger in the world has the same feelings. If we fail at that hurdle due to a biological blip, logic easily tells us that if we don’t treat people nicely, they aren’t going to treat us nicely. If you can’t relate to empathy, you can probably relate to experience – because we all know that people treated well are more likely to be nice right back at you.
So for anyone afraid to face to obvious elephant in the room – that the story of the Christian god is flawed to the core – please, don’t be afraid. It’s really easy not to be a genocidal maniac, especially when we know that when we die there is no superbeing with a clipboard reviewing our score on an absolute morality judgement board.
But…but…VW, don’t you want to, “Give the guy time to explore“? After all, “It takes years for Christians to change their minds about things, and the supernatural blinkers are blocking their view all the while” —
LikeLike
Exactly! But while they’re wearing those blinkers it’s important that they are aware that this notion of ‘morality’ is straight-forward, natural, logical and not attached to their invisible deity. They can believe he set it up like that – still retaining their belief but being rationale about the whole thing.
LikeLike
Scary stuff. I just read Ron’s comment on another blog and think it should be posted here:
Christians make the following claims:
1. God is a perfect being.
2. God created the universe.
3. God desires adoration and obedience.
By definition, the word perfect means complete, i.e:
– lacking in no essential detail
– entirely without flaws, defects, or shortcomings
– conforming absolutely to the description or definition of an ideal type
– excellent or complete beyond practical or theoretical improvement.
– as good as it is possible to be.
In other words, a perfect being is one without needs, wants or desires.
Yet claims two and three directly contradict claim one. Moreover, the god of the Bible is prone to sudden paroxysms of rage, anger, hatred, jealousy, vengefulness, grief and remorse—hardly the traits of a perfect and complete being.
Hence the Christian conception of God is severely flawed.
LikeLike
Allow me, Ron is an angel! That fellow makes my days and comes in handy with the right comment just when one is needed.
LikeLike
Indeed.
LikeLike
I never got into Ron’s comments – he’s the old guy with the beard, right? Seriously dry, dull and deluded to my palate. But seeing as you’re posting comments, I’ll post you one back. 😎 Someone popped over and posted a reply on the original quote here, with a link that’s relevant:
@trueandreasonable
” If there is a God who judges us then they want to know they acted rationally in light of what we know to face of that judgment. ”
Let me tell you about acting rationally in light of God’s judgment. For the sake of this argument, lets’ assume the God of the Bible is the One True God and the Bible is His Inerrant Word. In that case it rapidly becomes clear that God regularly engages/d in evil actions, like condoning genocide and slavery, compelling women to marry their rapists or face the death penalty, declaring women to be inferior to men, and so forth. And then unless you love him, believe some impossible story about somebody coming back from the dead, and do everything he says, he’s going to punish your finite crimes with infinite suffering. If there is an absolute morality, the God of the Bible is evil.
As a member of a social species, I have empathy and a sense of fairness that have evolved in order to allow us to live in community. Rationally applying my empathy and sense of fairness leads me to reject God and the Bible and do my best to be honest and compassionate. I believe strongly enough in these values that I don’t care if I’m going to be judged by an evil being and punished for not living up to his evil standards. I will proudly take my martyrdom in the afterlife, knowing that I lived according to the highest moral law I could find.
http://freethoughtblogs.com/greta/2014/04/17/religious-fundamentalism-leads-to-screwed-up-moral-relativism/
LikeLike
Oh no, wait, Ron must be an atheist … who am I thinking of? And who’s Ron?
LikeLike
Cute little bear avatar.
LikeLike
Anyway, yes, a perfect being requiring adoration and obedience from beings it created would make no sense at all. Although all the crazy parents out there will disagree …
LikeLike
“People recognise that there are consequences to their actions, and these consequences can hurt other people”
No they don’t, Violet. For example, many people have no idea what the consequences of Obamacare are. Many people can’t even see why some of us are so concerned about redefining marriage. People have no idea what the consequences of US welfare policies are. Never mind the religious reasons, the majority of people entrenched in these ideas can’t even conceive of the scientific reasons these actions may indeed hurt other people. In fact, they won’t even look at the evidence right before them.
For the most part, people do not recognize that there are consequences for their actions. Instead, most people justify their actions and only alter their behavior when they think it will be beneficial for them to do so.
LikeLike
Like I’ve said before, I’m not familiar with the people or the government in the place you live. I think I would have to go there to undertake some serious analysis of the situation before I could understand where your understanding of the world comes from. Your experiences are not my experiences of life, and I’ve lived in several countries around the world.
“people do not recognize that there are consequences for their actions. Instead, most people justify their actions and only alter their behavior when they think it will be beneficial for them to do so.” I agree this does happen to a certain extend, but it doesn’t adversely affect our wider, collective attitude to morality, a lot of which is in our civil laws (which are of course open to change and amendment as we learn more or society changes).
LikeLike
Indeed Violet, it does “adversely affect our wider, collective attitude to morality.” Our perceptions of morality are constantly being shaped and influenced by the popular thought of the day. It is a kind of morality by consensus. The problem being, just because many people believe something to be acceptable, does not make it so. Take smoking for example, at one time it was believed to be harmless and acceptable. Our perceptions of smoking were influenced by politics and business, not common sense and reason.
LikeLike
Totally disagree with you about smoking. Sure, it was pedalled to society for profit, but it feels good and it looks cool. Reason = I feel good, Common Sense = I look good and I’m popular. There was no clear body of evidence to show it was harmful. It’s the perfect illustration for morality/behaviour being influenced by ignorance versus evidence.
LikeLike
” It’s the perfect illustration for morality/behaviour being influenced by ignorance versus evidence.”
Not quite, Violet. People weren’t ignorant so much as manipulated by peer pressure and very clever marketing schemes. There was plenty of evidence to show that was harmful. Smokers were not all ignorant and still aren’t to this day.
When we allow morality to be defined by government, they don’t always have our best interests at heart. The same could be said of popular thought and the ways of the world. What you call evidence is very easily bought and paid for and can be made to say whatever you want it to say. Hence smoking was considered good for you at one point in time.
LikeLike
@IB22
The government, ostensibly elected as representatives of the public, is us. So, I’m not really sure what you’re saying here.
Evidence and how it is portrayed is important. The government is responsible for regulating private interests that would seek to provide a inaccurate picture of reality to further their profitability.
The idea that private industry has/will be unethical in pursuit of profit is not up for debate, highlights include the Clean Air Act, Food safety and workplace safety etc. Thus the government is a necessary component in keeping society working for everyone, as opposed to a certain segment of society.
So, a body that represents the interests of the people, aka the government is a necessary feature of society.
I feel that there is another shoe waiting to drop and that because you’d take flak for what you want to say, you are skirting the issue. Just a hunch I’m having.
So what would you propose the alternative be, rather than letting the people, represented by the government, define morality?
LikeLike
“For the most part, people do not recognize that there are consequences for their actions. Instead, most people justify their actions and only alter their behavior when they think it will be beneficial for them to do so.”
Christians do this all the time, too. Belief in their absolute, objectively moral God doesn’t change that fact.
LikeLike
Belief in an objective moral God does indeed cause people to recognize a morality that exists outside of themselves and to see the consequences of their actions.
LikeLike
There are Christians who back Obamacare, you know? Christians are no more moral than their non-Christian counterparts.
LikeLike
I would tend to disagree because before we go judging who is more moral, we first have to agree on a definition of morality.
There are certainly Christians who support Obamacare. There are also Christians who do immoral things and non believers who do moral things. None of those realities change the fact that belief in an objective moral God does indeed cause people to recognize a morality that exists outside of ourselves.
LikeLike
That wasn’t the premise of your original statement. You said:
“For the most part, people do not recognize that there are consequences for their actions. Instead, most people justify their actions and only alter their behavior when they think it will be beneficial for them to do so.”
All I said was that Christians do this all the time as well. Belief in God doesn’t equate to morality. There are many atheists I’ve met who I would classify as more moral than many Christians I know.
Many agnostics and atheists do recognize there are consequences for their actions, just the same as many Christians do not; or they don’t care. Either way the result is the same. If you need God to make or keep you moral, by all means keep him.
LikeLike
There are atheists who behave with more morality than some Christians, however that does not change the nature of what I said. Belief in a morality outside of ourselves does indeed create different results in the world.
LikeLike
RE: “Belief in a morality outside of ourselves does indeed create different results in the world.” – so let’s all convert to Buddhism!
LikeLike
however that does not change the nature of what I said.
Agreed, for believers and non-believers alike. Although I would disagree with your assessment of “for the most-part”. If “for the most-part” people didn’t consider the consequences of their actions the world would be worse than it is.
Belief in a morality outside of oneself creates a different result in some people.
LikeLike
@IB22
So can using other ethical systems, utilitarian, deontolgoical and virtue ethical systems come to mind off the top of my head. With the added benefit of being coherent as opposed any sort of ‘objective moral’ system enforced by god.
Case in point, are you wearing clothing of mixed fibres? If you are and haven’t discarded them, then it is *you* making the decisions, not objectively, and most definitely not god.
LikeLike
@insanitybytes22
However, many do. Many see it as a (small) first step toward a single payer universal healthcare system – a feature of most modern industrialized societies. In other words a verifiable, quantifiable *good thing*.
Given that so much of this “concern” is based bigotry and superstition the concerns should be rightly, dismissed.
I bet they do. What they don’t have an idea about is why their voice in government is not being heard on the substantive issues that effect them. That is the question the deserves more attention.
LikeLike
“Given that so much of this “concern” is based bigotry and superstition the concerns should be rightly, dismissed.”
Well there you go. Rather then even listen to those who have moral objections to what is happening you silence and dismiss everyone as bigots.
“What they don’t have an idea about is why their voice in government is not being heard on the substantive issues that effect them. ”
See my response to number one, oddly it also applies to this part of your comment. People are not being heard in government because there is a distorted version of morality and compassion that has become a thick and impenetrable wall of shame and silencing tactics. What some consider moral and self righteous does not allow for any other moral voices because in some people’s minds only they can possess the absolute truth.
LikeLike
@IB22
Are you feeling oppressed yet as a part of the religious majority because you seem to be running from the playbook as if you’re the one being persecuted.
Moral objections. Hmmm, well that seems like a fungible topic to delve into, please state your concerns on a purely ethical level and then we can properly analyze your claims.
People are not being heard in government because most of the elected representatives are bought and paid for by elite corporate interests. These same interests use the socially religious right as a cover to advance their oligarchic goals and consolidate their power.
Consider how many goals of ‘social conservatives’ have actually been met versus those results that benefit greater oligarchic power.
Shouldn’t reprehensible viewpoints,once judged unworthy and unfitting of moral behaviour, be cast aside? We don’t formally do slavery anymore and people who argue for it often don’t get a lot of traction.
Are you arguing my side or your side of the topic here? 🙂
LikeLike
“Are you arguing my side or your side of the topic here”
What fascinates me is paradoxes, mirrors, reflections. What people seem to complain the most about are the negative qualities they don’t want to see in themselves.
LikeLike