What if there was no god?

[Etienne]

Let me second bazarov's apt paraphrase from Dostoyevsky's Brothers Karamazov. Once God - the source of objective morality - is banished, then we really have no reason to prohibit any behavior whatsoever except on basis of personal preference or "might makes right." How scary is that?

Oh, this rhetoric... million of people had/have no God, that doesn't mean that they care about nothing or have no morality... Such a judgment would also imply that everyone acts "morally" only by fear of punishment, which might be Doestoevsky's, Bavarov's and your case, but isn't the case for everyone else.

In fact, that people believed in God hasn't stopped many of them to act contrary to the moral either.

[Redzeppelin]

Oh, this rhetoric... million of people had/have no God, that doesn't mean that they care about nothing or have no morality... Such a judgment would also imply that everyone acts "morally" only by fear of punishment, which might be Doestoevsky's, Bavarov's and your case, but isn't the case for everyone else.

In fact, that people believed in God hasn't stopped many of them to act contrary to the moral either.

But these "millions" were born and raised inside a culture that may carry - if even only latent within it - a belief in God. (As well, the Bible makes it clear that all humanity carries within it an inherent knowledge of God - they may not necessarily know that its Him - God - but they do understand that something far greater than themselves created them and the universe that they are in - and, as a result, carry within them an inherent knowledge of right and wrong - the standard to which all people appeal when making moral judgments - including moral relativists, by the way).

That many ("millions") choose not to believe is different than God truly not existing at all. Dostoyevsky's propostion simply states a philosophic truth (which you've tried to refute using a world that - for the most part - still believes in some form of God). As such, you can't use the world as it is necessarily to argue that the philosophic point is wrong.

Dostoyevsky's proposition suggests the reality of morality's force if God (the source of objective morality) doesn't exist. Without God, all morality becomes subject to (fallible and self-interested) human whim, desire, preference. Pretty scary when you look at what we're capable of justifying.

Secondly, the overcrowding of prisons worldwide is proof that threats of punishment are insufficient to convince people to do the right thing. Nobody can long serve God out of fear - he will simply come to resent God and then finally reject Him. You cannot believe in God as He is described in the Bible and then pretend that He is a God of coercion and force. Trying to hold two such ideas (if one has truly read the Bible) creates a contradiction that cannot be logical.

[Il Penseroso]

Ok, so you can't use a world without religion spontaneously created (in our heads) to demonstrate that belief in the absence of gods does not entail the lack of morality, but you can envision evolutionary development toward a society that does not need illogical, unprovable (untestable, without a smidgin of evidence) contstructions that, in my opinion, take the easy (and unkindly) road out.

Religion can be seen as an evolutionary stage of development requiring a human-created supernatural system (think crutches, or a small child unsteadily learning to walk), whereas a more permanent structure of moral relations between people and others (including the environment) should focus on respect for life for what it is, as represented through observation and what can be known.

[Igetanotion]

Ok, so you can't use a world without religion spontaneously created (in our heads) to demonstrate that belief in the absence of gods does not entail the lack of morality, but you can envision evolutionary development toward a society that does not need illogical, unprovable (untestable, without a smidgin of evidence) contstructions that, in my opinion, take the easy (and unkindly) road out.

Religion can be seen as an evolutionary stage of development requiring a human-created supernatural system (think crutches, or a small child unsteadily learning to walk), whereas a more permanent structure of moral relations between people and others (including the environment) should focus on respect for life for what it is, as represented through observation and what can be known.

This is quite well said Penseroso.

[ballb]

What if you found out with absolute certainty, that there was no god? No god, and no heaven or hell. (really think about this!) Would the knowledge that there was nothing after this life awaiting us, change the way you lived your life?

Some of us having been living with that reality for most of our adult lives. And no, it doesn`t change the way I live. In fact the realization that life is not a dress rehearsal for anything ensures that I try to make the most of the single chance that I get at it.

[rosa]

Hi
I cannot see how it would be a dress rehearsal anyway,Hopefully we would not have to go through it all again. If we had to, I would rather leave out the first 30 years of my life as non consequential.
If there were a God do you expect to have another chance? In which way?
The way I see heaven if ever there is one, is as a troubble free place, where I can relax if I want to and take my well earned place for having been considerate towards others.
In reality I do not really expect heaven to be available.deep inside I know that Heaven is an unrealistic idea.It is a good one though.

[mazHur]

the more you try to learn about God the more mysterious He becomes. If he isn't there then who's there who is controlling this universe from disintegrating?? If there was no God this Universe had been just a non- sensical assemblage of matter!

[B-Mental]

Yeah, I like FICTION too.... thats what I read, but I also read the BIBLE! So believe or don't, B/.

[Redzeppelin]

Ok, so you can't use a world without religion spontaneously created (in our heads) to demonstrate that belief in the absence of gods does not entail the lack of morality, but you can envision evolutionary development toward a society that does not need illogical, unprovable (untestable, without a smidgin of evidence) contstructions that, in my opinion, take the easy (and unkindly) road out.

I merely suggest that you can't dismiss the philosophic truth in Dostoyevsky's statement simply because there is a significant number of people who disbelieve in God and still behave. I am not claiming that a lack of belief in God leads to certain moral anarchy; I am suggesting that Dostoyevsky's statment is true: without an objective morality, why should anything be forbidden?

As far as your hyperbolic attack against religion: please. Much of what even atheists "believe" about life is "untestable, without a smidgin of evidence." There's "evidence" around, but perhaps it isn't in the form you prefer. Life is not about what can be defined, examined, conclusively proved. Life cannot be understood in its complexity and mystery by camping out inside a test tube - sorry.

What exactly are the "easy" and "unkind roads" religion takes, by the way?

Religion can be seen as an evolutionary stage of development requiring a human-created supernatural system (think crutches, or a small child unsteadily learning to walk), whereas a more permanent structure of moral relations between people and others (including the environment) should focus on respect for life for what it is, as represented through observation and what can be known.

To say that the idea of God is an "evolutionary stage" is absurd. There is no reason for the blind forces of nature to engender or create within the human mind the concept of an eternal God and an objective moral law.

As far as your "more permanent structure of moral relations" - what is "more permanent" about it? Tell me, to what standard do you appeal to tell me that I should have "respect for life"? Why? A Darwinistic view would suggest that respecting the lives of others may well endanger mine (survival of the fittest and all that); an evolutionistic view would suggest that morality would be a hamper more than a help to my existence.

"Life for what it is, as represented through observation and what can be known" (my italics).

The greatest literature of the world (including most religious texts but not confined to them) points again and again to the sobering truth that reality may not be exactly what it seems. Check out Buddhism's fundamental ideas about the nature of reality, Shakespeare's Hamlet, the Gospel of Matthew, Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath, Melville's Moby Dick, Conrad's Heart of Darkness and Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn for a quick overview of this truth.

[Dark Star]

the more you try to learn about God the more mysterious He becomes. If he isn't there then who's there who is controlling this universe from disintegrating?? If there was no God this Universe had been just a non- sensical assemblage of matter!

...What are you talking about?

Jesus, man, read a physics (astronomy, preferably) text-book. It explains all of this stuff.

That said, I'm willing to make an an attempt here....why does the universe need God to control it to keep it from disintegrating? What would cause it do so if some divine force wasn't there stopping it...?

And for that matter, how do you know its God doing this work and not some other divine force from a different religion?

[B-Mental]

Tolstoi...and Does(I've seen it so many ways can't spell it) are true genius.. and I spell War and Peace, Peace & War

[Redzeppelin]

...What are you talking about?

Jesus, man, read a physics (astronomy, preferably) text-book. It explains all of this stuff.

That said, I'm willing to make an an attempt here....why does the universe need God to control it to keep it from disintegrating? What would cause it do so if some divine force wasn't there stopping it...?

And for that matter, how do you know its God doing this work and not some other divine force from a different religion?

The contention is that the laws of physics exist because God created them. The textbooks you refered simply describe the existence of laws that God created. Physics cannot explain why these laws exist at all - it can only say "here is why the universe seems to operate as it does." Knowing why something operates as it does is not the same as understanding how the way it operates came to be in the first place.

No other religion can properly account for the existence of the universe as it exists.

[B-Mental]

I'm sorry RZ..Physics is a book written by God! I'm sorry you are ill...illiterate! RZ, you know everything, but I am infinite. sorry if this insulted you ...Biaatch! B

[mazHur]

...What are you talking about?

Jesus, man, read a physics (astronomy, preferably) text-book. It explains all of this stuff.

That said, I'm willing to make an an attempt here....why does the universe need God to control it to keep it from disintegrating? What would cause it do so if some divine force wasn't there stopping it...?

And for that matter, how do you know its God doing this work and not some other divine force from a different religion?

have read enough of physics and all that,,,,time for me forget most of it!

First of all let me say God has no religion. If every religion had its own god this world would have been hell much earlier!

The Universe is expanding or contracting, the question is who's making her do that?? Where did a pinch of dust come from?? If we can't create then it is fair enough to admit that there is someone, someone whom we are unable to comprehend, who is infact ''creating'' and looking after his 'creation' as well.
Nothing is automatic or spontaneous.......nothing is even accidental ,,,,you only think so !

[rosa]

Hi
It sound good and surely from a certain point of view possible,the problem is that it is possible the other way round too,it really depend which interpretation you want to give to it all.I think it is possible to esplain what you describe with fisics,but you are quite welcome to feel differently.
As for myself I think Fisics would do a better job in esplaining your questions but I do not have any problem in hoping that there is a bit more than fisics in everything around us.One can only hope!