Is God Necessary for Morality?

by leavingwt 73 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  PSacramento

  PS: "animals do not sacrifice themselves for other animals outside thier "kin".", If by Kin you mean close family, i think you are wrong. If by Kin you mean race, well, i think few humans would sacrefice their lives for an animal.

  I don't think you will find many lions sacrificing themselves to a band of hyenas over a cheetah...

  All other humans are our kin. People do not willingly go into situations where death is imminent (or completely unavoidable) for strangers. But we also have a cultural thing where putting yourself in harm's way for the good of others is deemed heroic. In all cases the one at risk is getting something out of it. There are no completely unselfish acts.

  Will, I think we will agree to diagree on that one.

  This is inconsistent with your idea that an a creator being is installing this morality gene in us. Your new theory about birth defects suggests that the creator being can fail, or be thwarted in giving his creation something that is completely necessary for them to function in everyday life.

  Dude, I believe in evolution, God is not installing anything in us as we are being born, other than spirit that it.

  Don't believe in the "evil gene" do you?

  Or people being born "bad"?

  Or certain views that sociopathic behaviour and such may be a result of a "birth deffect"?
• 

  superpunk

  Dude, I believe in evolution, God is not installing anything in us as we are being born, other than spirit that it.

  Don't believe in the "evil gene" do you?

  Or people being born "bad"?

  Or certain views that sociopathic behaviour and such may be a result of a "birth deffect"?

  Sociopaths are genetically incapable of being moral.

  At what point in our evolutionary development did God install our morality, so that none of our closest animal relatives have it?

  All I'm saying is that your ideas for God having any part AT ALL in our morality always turn out to be conflicting and self-defeating. We developed our current morality as we grow as a society. God's got nothing to do with it.
• 

  superpunk

  Human Suffering & Morality

  There is also a serious but rarely noted problem with this myth in that it assumes that it doesn't matter that more people are happy and fewer people suffer if God does not exist. Consider that carefully for a moment: this myth can only be espoused by someone who doesn't consider either their happiness or their suffering to be especially important unless their god tells them to care. If you are happy, they don't necessarily care. If you suffer, they don't necessarily care. All that matters is whether that happiness or that suffering occurs in the context of the existence of their God or not. If it does, then presumably that happiness and that suffering serve some purpose and so that's OK — otherwise, they're irrelevant.

  If a person only refrains from killing because they believe they are so ordered, and the suffering that murder would cause is irrelevant, then what happens when that person starts to think that they have new orders to actually go out and kill? Because the suffering of the victims was never a dispositive issue, what would stop them? This strikes me as an indication that a person is sociopathic. It is, after all, a key characteristic of sociopaths that they are unable to empathize with the feelings of others and, hence, aren't especially concerned if others suffer. I not only reject the assumption that God is necessary to making morality relevant as being illogical, I also reject the implication that the happiness and suffering of others isn't very important as being immoral itself.
• 

  jaguarbass

  If God made me then he made me with the capacity to make decisions, to search for truth and understanding

  and to find what is moral and what is immoral and he gave me the capacity to gravitate towards one or the other.

  Thats the question everyone has to battle with, did God make us.

  Man kind likes to disect and take things apart and in doing so a portion of mankind concludes there is no

  God because they can disect and have their own undertanding of how things work.

  In my life being raised as a JW and taking it somewhat seriously, I got the biblical message not to be promiscuous.

  Thats one aspect of morality, I could have gotten it from any church or religion that advocates biblical direction in ones life.

  I chose to adhere to that admonition and I had one child who got a good education and had a loving family. I have had the same

  wife for the past 38 years, so we have lived biblcally somewhat and we have been a two braided chord that Psalms talks of

  and we have reaped the benefits of biblical morality. We have been blessed in many ways.

  On the other hand I work in a jail and I see all the people that do not follow biblical morals and I see all the pain, sufferning and frustration.

  I dont see society teaching one to be monogomous, teaching one how to raise children and I work with the dregs of this society

  that has no morals or guidance and direction. Society teaches situational ethics and everything is realitve.

  Jesus taught to love your neighbor as yourself.

  If man followed Jesus teachings we would not have wars, we would not have had the holocost.

  So from my observation and experiecne God is necessary for morality.
• 

  jaguarbass

  Sociopaths are genetically incapable of being moral.

  Superpunk, I can tell you first hand. I work in a jail. I was talking to a sociopath the other night who wants to get back out and kill

  people. He has no parents, he is a ward of the state. He has no one telling him, showing him how to believe.

  He is a friend son of Satin as he calls himself.

  He writes Satanic immages and codes all over his cell.

  I work in a world of sociopaths who will shoot you just as soon as piss on you and they dont have

  parents and they have no upbringing.

  You are making your accessments of life and the bible based on text books. The text books are written and controlled

  by the ruler of this world Satin.

  I am in the labatory. Most people in law enforcement that I know are church goers and bible believers.

  I dont think God installs morality in us, we get morality by reading the word. There is life in the word.
• 

  cyberjesus

  I dont think God installs morality in us, we get morality by reading the word. There is life in the word.

  So if you dont have access to the "word" you are screwed! So all the millions and millions of people who didnt and dont have the word. well here is an apology from God. "Sorry" I didnt have the ability or the tools the give you "the word" so you could have morals..
• 

  jaguarbass

  cyberjesus, the question was: is God Necesary for morality, I gave my feelings regarding the question.

  Regarding those that have never heard of Jesus, read the bible or know of God, there are a lot of posibilities.

  Maybe they keep coming back until they get a chance to hear and decide.

  I'm lead to believe hell is seperation from God.

  Some people through out history have appeared to be sepearated from God and some people who didnt

  have the word of bible seemed to know of God the great spirit.

  The American Indians come to mind, they spoke of the great spirit and seemed to live a life that had an awareness

  of God.

  I cant put all of the pieces of the puzzle together. I havent come across anybody who can.

  But I believe faith and belief in Jesus can go along way and make for a better earth and society.

  Faith in Jesus requres conciousness and results in works, its not going to church. Some churches can be very bad,

  still they are places where one can come to an understanding of Jesus.

  LIfe is a journey we are all on. For many the path or way is called Jesus.

  How can people have problems with his teaching especially to love your neighbor as yourself.

  Even if we evolved from an amoeba which I dont believe,

  Even if man invented God and Jesus which I dont believe,

  What is wrong with believing and copying Jesus especially where he says to love your neighbor as yourself?
• 

  ZeusRocks

  If God is the source of my morality, then I have to wonder why this God is less moral than I am.

  A person dying to save someone they don't know ( In the case of a man that drowns saving a stranger) is hardly a "natural thing", there is nothing positive for that persons "genes" to compel him to die for no (benefitial) reason, is there? Perhaps that is where God comes in?

  On the contrary, it is a most natural thing to see someone needing help and trying to help them in any way you can. The main reason people would die in this situation is that they underestimate the nature of the situation, or they overestimate their abilities. They don't set out in this situation to die, but to help the other person. The argument that was put above is complete nonsense. The fact that a human would even help out another human makes them morally superior to “God” as he just sits back and lets people suffer.

  If god is the source of morality, then that morality is contained in the bible, as that is the only thing that teaches people that a judeo-christian god even exists. But the fact is, that even most christians do not get their morals from the bible. We as a society and for the most part individually have evolved to view genocide immoral, rape immoral, slavery immoral, stoning children for disrespecting their parents, and the list could go on,....but “God” doesn't view these things as immoral when it suits him. I don't think anyone could say that rape, genocide, slavery or stoning children would be acceptable for any reason.

  Even Jesus Golden Rule isn't really an acceptable way to think. The more appropriate guideline would be to treat others how they would like to be treated as not everyone likes the same things you do.

  If anyone lived by “God's” moral code would be judged a monster by today's standards.
• 

  BurnTheShips

  If God is the origin of all things, then morality has the same origin as everything else.

  BTS
• 

  PSacramento

  At what point in our evolutionary development did God install our morality, so that none of our closest animal relatives have it?

  A fair question and the honest answer is "I don't know", it may be that this sense of "right and wrong" ( which is at core what morality is) was given to the first of us that "found god", or perhaps it was always there and compeled us to search for the root of our belief in right and wrong.

  I truly don't know and of course, no one does either, but it is fun to specualte :)

  All I'm saying is that your ideas for God having any part AT ALL in our morality always turn out to be conflicting and self-defeating. We developed our current morality as we grow as a society. God's got nothing to do with it.

  That is your view and I respect that, of course, but you say that morality developed as society grew then why is it also linked to relgion of some sort?