Objective Morality cannot exist without God?

anonymous

2017-07-21 15:20:52 UTC

If you're really interested in this, there are tons of books by historians of philosophy that describe the many answers that people have given to this question over the centuries. Go to your library and find some books on the history of ethics and read them. You'll get much better-thought-out answers (on all sides of the question) than you'll get by asking semi-literate teenagers on Yahoo.

?

2017-07-21 18:43:42 UTC

"If there is no God there's no such thing as Good and Evil, only opinions about what's good and evil"

- Seriously brain dead. If you can have an opinion about something, that something exists in some manner.

Basically "If there's no god, Objective morality doesn't exist,

- That has absolutely nothing to do with the previous quote.

I mean it could be possible that a God doesn't exist and at the same time there's an objective morality we don't know about.

- If you do not want to be murdered, it would make sense that other people don't and that is objective morality. All it takes is intelligence.

Why does Dennis Prager automatically assume Objective Morality is impossible without God?

- Idiot fundies believe a lot of stupid things.

We just don't see any proof for believing that morality is objective.

- You don't, but people with intelligence do.

anonymous

2017-07-21 18:39:30 UTC

You are of course entitled to think that.

The Bible (supposedly the Word of God) condones slavery, rape, murder, war, and assassination. It says to kill disobedient children and to rape your dead brothers wife.

Well hon, if you want to live your life that way then be prepared to go to court a lot.

A Nonny Mouse

2017-07-21 15:39:31 UTC

No idea, but I'm not getting into your semantic argument about what is defined as good or bad. Suffice it to say the god and religion aren't responsible for it.

the internet

2017-07-21 15:35:44 UTC

Dennis is just plain wrong on that. His explanation or the part of it that you cite here is plain shít. It does not help to think more about his illogical claims.

?

2017-07-21 15:34:59 UTC

I have never heard of Dennis Prager, but I will look him up.

I think you can posit the existence of objective morality without having to posit the existence of a deity. All humans are the same species. The same things help and hurt us. We have the same physical, emotional, psychological, artistic attributes. I think that the fact that we're the same species leads us to objective morality, however that morality is practiced.

I'm a theist and it's difficult or maybe impossible for my theism not to color this issue. I try.

anonymous

2017-07-21 15:28:28 UTC

I have to admit, your question is giving me a headache! I personally believe that without the moral standards already established by God humans can only exert subjective morality. But how to prove it? Well, I'm not a philosopher so I had to do a bit of research and I found an interesting article that explains the Christian view. It might not persuade you, but it does at least put up an argument in defense of objective morality that stems from God. Part of the article says this:

"If a person omits a transcendent source of objective moral values, then there are three options left for a starting place of the objective moral law:

1. The natural universe

2. Culture or society

3. The individual person

Can the natural universe serve as the source for objective moral values? Since science admits that an effect must match its cause in essence (i.e., a cause cannot give what it does not have), it seems impossible that amoral matter could create beings obsessed with moral behavior.

What about culture or society—can it serve as the source for objective moral values? This hardly seems like a plausible possibility given the fact that many cultures and societies exist, and they can differ quite a lot where their moral framework is concerned. Which one is the right choice? For example, in some cultures they love their neighbors, and in others they eat them.

If a singular culture cannot be chosen as the standard, then another possibility is just to let each culture decide on morality, yet this becomes untenable unless human beings around the world want to turn a blind eye to customs such as widow burning (a practice where a living wife is burned alive with her deceased husband) or systems such as Nazism. The problem of even deciding what is moral within a culture becomes problematic as well. If the majority rules that rape is “good,” does that make it morally good?

The last choice for a source of objective moral values is the individual person, and it is typically represented in philosophies such as postmodernism or in religions like Wicca whose motto is, “If it harms none, do as you will.” Yet such grounding can be nothing more than emotive in nature; nothing can be labeled as truly wrong. Instead, perceived immoral actions are reduced to statements such as “I don’t like rape” or “For me, rape is wrong.”

In his debate with the atheist Bertrand Russell, the Jesuit and philosopher Frederick Copleston looked at Russell and asked, “Lord Russell, do you believe in good and bad?” Russell replied, “Yes.” Copleston continued, “How do you differentiate between good and bad?” Russell replied, “The same way I differentiate between blue and green or yellow and green.” Copleston then said, “Wait a minute, you differentiate between yellow and green by seeing, don’t you?” Russell said, “Yes.” So Copleston challenged him by asking, “How do you differentiate between good and bad?” Russell replied, “I differentiate on those matters on the basis of my feelings, what else?”

The fact is it becomes impossible for the individual to be the source of objective moral laws. If two people disagree on what “good” is, how is the dispute settled? " More info from the article in the link below.

?

2017-07-21 15:22:38 UTC

"I mean it could be possible that a God doesn't exist and at the same time there's an objective morality we don't know about."

That is so arbitrary. There could be invisible pink unicorns. we just don't know about them.

If God doesn't exist, moral absolutes don't exist. Justify moral absolutes without God. You haven't done that. Morals would be based on individual opinions. There would be no universal standard for morality.

Without God how are you anything other than the coincidental, purposeless miscarriage of nature spinning round and round on a lonely planet in the

blackness of space for just a little while before you and all memory of your futile, pointless, meaningless life finally blinks out forever in the endless darkness?

The human value and morality of Atheism:

"There is no ultimate foundation for ethics, no ultimate meaning in life, and no free will for humans either.”

“No inherent moral or ethical laws exist… The universe cares nothing for us and we have no ultimate meaning in life.”

-“William Provine, -Atheist, Historian of Science.

“[T]here’s nothing, nothing, absolutely no reason for existing.”

-Jean Sartre, Atheist Existentialist, Philosopher.

“To live is to suffer, to survive is to find some meaning in the suffering.”

-Friedrich Nietzsche, Atheist, Nihilist, Philosopher.

“We are a meaningless collection of molecules, the only reason we exist is to promote our selfish genes, when we die, that's it” (and nothing ever mattered after-all)

-Richard Dawkins (atheist)

“In a universe of electrons and selfish genes, blind physical forces and genetic replication, some people are going to get hurt, other people are going to get lucky, and you won't find any rhyme or reason in it, nor any justice. The universe that we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but pitiless indifference.”

-Richard Dawkins (atheist)

"Morality is no more … than an adaptation, and as such has the same status as such things as teeth and eyes and noses. ... [M]orality is a creation of the genes".

- Michael Ruse

Richard Dawkins: “We are survival machines—robot vehicles blindly programmed to preserve the selfish molecules known as genes.

The thing is, you know that moral absolutes do exist. The reason they do exist is because God exists. But you are trying to justify your Atheism. You are like a fish swimming about, denying the existence of water. You are trying to come up with a rational explanation for moral absolutes without God. Since you can't, your irrational explanation is "well, we just haven't discovered yet where moral absolutes come from".

anonymous

2017-07-21 15:15:47 UTC

Yeah that's right

President Michael Vicks Dog

2017-07-21 15:13:35 UTC

Stick to jerking off to midget porn.

Archer

2017-07-22 05:20:45 UTC

It is "gods" and it seems that the morality of the gods is quite convenient as they use their gods to justify violating such.

?

2017-07-21 23:34:01 UTC

Here

?

2017-07-21 19:04:46 UTC

There is no morality and your idea all non Christians must be immoral!

Why do Christians post to suggest they are so morally unstable that is how they will behave if their faith wavers and become a danger to themselves and others?!

All the mass murderers and virtually all the serial rapists claim god told them to do it all!

Research shows that the reason humans struggle with emotion to find equitable solutions is pinpointed the region of the brain called the insular cortex, or insula, which is also the seat of emotional reactions.

The fact that the brain has such a robust response to unfairness shows that sensing unfairness is a basic evolved capacity.

The emotional response to unfairness pushes people from extreme inequity and drives them to be fair. This observation shows our basic impulse to be fair isn't a complicated thing that we learn.

It therefore fully illustrates that all humans have morals controlled by the brain and that Christians are entirely wrong to try and claim morals as their own!!!!

But Christians found a way round it!

Government statistics show that Christians are vastly over represented in prisons for sexual, violent and fraudulent crime whilst year on year government figures show atheists make up only 2% of the prison population!

The Catholic Church is paying millions in compensation for the sex/paedophile crimes of their priests alone!

Christians are vastly over represented in the divorce courts!

Christians invented the concept of sin and then the idea that you could sin, ask forgiveness, get pardoned and start with a clean sheet!

So no surprise that they are so expert at it is it‽

A Christian is a man that feels repentance on Sunday for what he did on Saturday and is going to do on Monday. - Thomas Russell Ybarra

California Institute of Technology

tehabwa

2017-07-21 16:29:02 UTC

Uh, if you think he's the only believer who says that, then you have never met, seen, heard, or read any believers.

Objective reality exists. Good and harm are objectively real.

What do you mean "that no one knows about"? You really think no one realizes that murder is wrong, for instance?

Obviously, dumping poison in streams, rivers, or lakes is wrong.

Many, though not all, believers think they get their morality from their Sky Bully. And religious leaders say things to discourage doubt among believers.

Why these things bewilder you is unclear.

When the air is filled with sludge, babies, kids, and adults develop asthma. That's clearly wrong. It's immoral to pump gazillions of tons of sludge into the air.

That some people think they need an imaginary Sky Bully for that to be true just means that they're confused.

gw

2017-07-21 15:32:39 UTC

All morals are the character of God through commands to regulate man's actions towards mankind and nature.

Corey

2017-07-21 15:16:10 UTC

If a god is the author of morality, then objective morality wouldn't exist either. If there were such a thing as objective morality, then it would necessarily not require a mind to decide what it was.