Why I believe in God?

[blp]

Well, b, that may be true. The other option available is that I saw your post and did not find that it sufficiently answered my question. I'll let you decide which one is true.

I get to decide? Gee that's nice. Not much of an argument, was it, just saying your question hadn't been answered when it had. OK, I'm going to decide you didn't see it.

Your father was very practical in his outlook. So what philosophy does his answer point to?

Pragmatism? Libertarianism?

From where I'm standing, his answer suggests that the only thing that controls our behavior is fear of retaliation. But isn't that fear predicated on the idea that the other has the power to retaliate? What if I'm stronger? Then what need I fear? Why do the right thing if the other whom I wrong doesn't have the power to return evil upon me? Now what stops me?

I don't think fear of retaliation is really the main thing that's going on here. My question was based on a childish, solipsistic assumption that we, as a family, represented an unquestionably right-thinking majority and it should be a simple matter for the right-thinking people of the world to put a stop to what we thought was wrong. What I really began to understand at this point was that other people held different opinions and our own moral superiority wasn't guaranteed. The further insights that flow from this make it clear that it's not even a desirable position to be able to oppress and silence the opposition because then you don't learn anything. Anyway, from families to governments, tyranny creates instability.

This is all still in the realms of the practical, but I don't see that that necessarily implies it's not also a philosophy. If it's not, I don't see why that should lessen its validity.

Of course, situations do arise constantly in which one individual or group oppress and silence all opposition. Many of these situations are driven and supported by philosophies of one sort or another. The practice of religion is, sadly, no bulwark against this and, in a number of these situations, the religion has actually been the driver of the oppression: the Spanish Inquisition, say. And in others, religion has been a constituent of the oppression or religious leaders have been collusive in it. Please note, I'm not saying this to designate religion the only driver of oppression - Stalinism was dogmatically atheistic, to give a notable example - just to suggest that using a too coherent philosophy may not be the best method of creating a stable society.

The philosophy that drives European and American-style democracy may be a little more ethereal, but it does, to use your term, lead to philosophy. Richard Rorty, with his attempts to come to terms, philosophically, with the multiple voices of modern democracies, might be said to be an example.

While there will certainly be cultural norms that come into play, once we entertain the idea of "a diversity of moral codes" we now step into ethical quicksand because not all moral codes will agree - and without a transcendant moral code that exists beyond human establishment and manipulation, how do we adjudicate conflicts between moral codes? If they're all equal, then who are we to criticize those inflicting genocide in Darfur, female genital mutilation in Africa, piracy in Somalian seas?

I'm a bit surprised at this question since I'd already laid out, if not a philosophy, a governing principle. I'll use the Wiccan version: 'An it harm no one, do what you will.'

Doesn't Mills idea require that we have some sort of frame of reference in deciding what "harm" is? Just because someone says they're "harmed" by my behavior, are they really? And, conversely, just because someone tells me their behavior really doesn't hurt anybody, can't that also be denial in action? How do we decided the nature of "harm" and whether or not it's legitimate?

These discussions are ongoing in democracies, which, as a founding principle, allow freedom of speech to navigate just such conundrums. However, I must say, your examples seem to me to be pretty unambiguous instances of 'harm'. Shucks, maybe I'm just a victim of cultural conditioning.

Wow I'm being mocked by synchronicity. Darfur's on the news right now and they're talking about the difficulty of establishing someone's guilt as a war criminal.

But the difficulties of these kinds of question are the precise reason we need room to manoeuver without overly strict dogma, freedom to judge each instance on its merits and try to arrive at the fairest outcome. Yes one can certainly have discussions about what words like 'merit' and 'fairness' should properly mean and philosophers since Socrates have, at millennial length, but even the religious ones, such as Socrates, have not found that religion helped decide the argument.

But that's part of the problem, b - how do we - selfish and self-interested humans - fairly decide on our own what is "fair" and "causes the least trouble"? History has shown that human law can be bent to serve the will of a tyrant. Without the higher law of nature/God, who can look at the legal slaughter of people under Hitler and Stalin's regime and challenge it? They were LEGAL as judged by society. That is the ultimate end of humanly established law and morality - it can be tweaked to serve power.

See my remarks above. However, the designation of humans as selfish, at least as a defining characteristic, is highly open to question and both philosophers and scientists have been busy questioning it. Philosopher Slavoj Zizek has referred to the way in which humans are frequently 'spontaneously moral'. Richard Dawkins, though he posited the theory of the selfish gene that does everything it can to survive, states emphatically that this must not be assumed to apply in human personality, suggesting that qualities such as empathy, compassion and the desire for social interaction and cooperation are genetically embedded and a big part of what has allowed us to survive as a race.

Perhaps that's why philosophical approaches to morality such as Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics so often seem, rather than laying down the law, to be telling us what we already know implicitly. What this points to, obviously, is a sense of morals that goes beyond the practical - but still without the need for a divinely imposed moral law.

[zado_k]

Where would god get her or his morality from?

Just to be clear, I never said anything about atheists submitting to god as anything at all.



Well, I agree it might be a little early to consider the question settled. I can't help pointing out however, that it was you who said you couldn't imagine how one could have morality without god. Ergo, you were denying non-religious moralities. I'm glad to see you've changed your opinion.

When did I say this? Please quote or retract.

It's a big question. I would say volition is a key component of morality - not necessarily that all morality must be innate, but that, in committing moral acts, one must, at least, understand the reasons for them. This is not just because, without that understanding, it's hard to really qualify the acts as moral.

Volition seems a precondition of morality. We don't ascribe moral judgment or blame non-volitional entities usually. To be responsible for a thing morally you have to be at least able to will it should be so, no? No idea what this has to do with morality being innate. I suspect that behaviours that might be subject to moral judgment could be innate - aggression, nurturing for example - but I doubt that morality as such could be. Which morality would be innate? Kantian? Sartrean? Rule Utilitarianism? Is a child born Mill's moral calculus?

By moral acts you mean acts that are properly the subject of moral judgments? (Rather than say acts of morally judging). I'm reading you this way: to say that one is only subject to moral judgment if one could understand the reasoning by which an act is determined to be moral or immoral and that if you can't understand that reasoning then you are incapable of morality (which is not a criticism or slur: infants are lovely in all ways but are clearly not moral persons for a long while after birth).

I am unsure about the relation between understanding and moral responsibility - it's an age old question: is a man capable of some monstrous action (say, genocide) sick or evil? I want to say that there is evil on the one hand but my sympathies for the human condition make it nearly inconceivable to me that somone who does a truly wicked thing is not in fact in some way damaged and perhaps not fully responsible. Theoretically I'm clear: there is moral responsibility in competent people.

Z

[blp]

Where would god get her or his morality from?

Just to be clear, I never said anything about atheists submitting to god as anything at all.



Well, I agree it might be a little early to consider the question settled. I can't help pointing out however, that it was you who said you couldn't imagine how one could have morality without god. Ergo, you were denying non-religious moralities. I'm glad to see you've changed your opinion.

When did I say this? Please quote or retract.

Zado, it wasn't that hard to find. It was the point I was responding to in the first place.

I don't think an atheist's moral code can include anything - at least not coherently. It can't include "This is wrong because god said so" for example, without being nonsense.

[blp]

Volition seems a precondition of morality. We don't ascribe moral judgment or blame non-volitional entities usually. To be responsible for a thing morally you have to be at least able to will it should be so, no? No idea what this has to do with morality being innate.

Other than getting morality from God, the options seem to be, getting it from other people and getting it from yourself. As I said in my long reply to RedZeppelin, there do seem to be reasons for imagining that some morality is genetically inherited. You go on to mention Kant and, from what I can gather, yes, there's a suggestion of innate morality in Kant too. In The Dignity of the Moral Will from The Foundation of the Metaphysics of Morality he argues, what he hopes, I think, will be conclusively, for 'autonomy', by which he means moral freedom, stating (after some painstaking proofs) '...it is evident that all moral conceptions have their seat and origin in reason a priori [by which he means prior to any experience], and are apprehended by the ordinary reason of men...' In other words, he thinks each individual is privy to a shared, innate sense of morality. Further, he doesn't really think a coherent system of morals is possible unless this is the case. It's a rather beautiful argument, but I wasn't even trying to go that far. I was saying, even without innate morality, it seems to be possible to have a morality without God or belief in God.

I'm afraid I don't know enough about the other philosophers and philosophies you mentioned to say whether they had any belief in innate morality. I suspect not from what I do know about them.

By moral acts you mean acts that are properly the subject of moral judgments? (Rather than say acts of morally judging). I'm reading you this way: to say that one is only subject to moral judgment if one could understand the reasoning by which an act is determined to be moral or immoral and that if you can't understand that reasoning then you are incapable of morality (which is not a criticism or slur: infants are lovely in all ways but are clearly not moral persons for a long while after birth).

Perhaps it's best if you define your terms. You began by saying

I don't think an atheist's moral code can include anything - at least not coherently.

Perhaps you should explain what your conception of a moral code was, just so there's no misunderstanding.

I am unsure about the relation between understanding and moral responsibility - it's an age old question: is a man capable of some monstrous action (say, genocide) sick or evil? I want to say that there is evil on the one hand but my sympathies for the human condition make it nearly inconceivable to me that somone who does a truly wicked thing is not in fact in some way damaged and perhaps not fully responsible. Theoretically I'm clear: there is moral responsibility in competent people.

Well, speaking of innate morality, here's a bit of moral philosophy I favour, from the I-Ching, Richard Willhelm edition, hexagram 61, Inner Truth:

'Wind stirs water by penetrating it. Thus the superior man, when obliged to judge the mistakes of men, tries to penetrate their minds with understanding, in order to gain a sympathetic appreciation of the circumstances. In ancient China the entire administration of justice was guided by this principle. A deep understanding that knows how to pardon was considered the highest form of justice. This system was not without success for its aim was to make so strong a moral impression that there was no reason to fear abuse of such mildness. For it sprang not from weakness, but from a superior clarity.'

[Redzeppelin]

I get to decide? Gee that's nice. Not much of an argument, was it, just saying your question hadn't been answered when it had. OK, I'm going to decide you didn't see it.

Just pointing out that your conclusion was one of two possiblilities. I didn't read your post - but once I did, I didn't find its answer convincing.

Pragmatism? Libertarianism?

Probably the former.

I don't think fear of retaliation is really the main thing that's going on here. My question was based on a childish, solipsistic assumption that we, as a family, represented an unquestionably right-thinking majority and it should be a simple matter for the right-thinking people of the world to put a stop to what we thought was wrong. What I really began to understand at this point was that other people held different opinions and our own moral superiority wasn't guaranteed. The further insights that flow from this make it clear that it's not even a desirable position to be able to oppress and silence the opposition because then you don't learn anything. Anyway, from families to governments, tyranny creates instability.

Part of our conception of the roots of morality come from our idea of human nature; you can be a Rousseau and think we're inherently good, or a Hobbes and believe that we're inherently bad. I - because of my Christian world view - tend to be more Hobbesian: human nature's default behavior is selfishness. Our views of morality are directly linked to that.

This is all still in the realms of the practical, but I don't see that that necessarily implies it's not also a philosophy. If it's not, I don't see why that should lessen its validity.

Certainly.

Of course, situations do arise constantly in which one individual or group oppress and silence all opposition. Many of these situations are driven and supported by philosophies of one sort or another.

At a collective level, yes; on an individual level, self-interest will generally be the primary motivating factor.

The practice of religion is, sadly, no bulwark against this and, in a number of these situations, the religion has actually been the driver of the oppression: the Spanish Inquisition, say.

A fair statement applied to history - however, most examples of Christian misbehavior on a large scale can only be found by going back a few hundred years. Radical Islam now wears that crown proudly. I don't think America's prior history with slavery makes it a terrible country now.

And in others, religion has been a constituent of the oppression or religious leaders have been collusive in it. Please note, I'm not saying this to designate religion the only driver of oppression - Stalinism was dogmatically atheistic, to give a notable example - just to suggest that using a too coherent philosophy may not be the best method of creating a stable society.

I appreciate your fairness; both examples suggest that ideology ultimately can be warped to serve flawed and self-interested human beings who also happen to agree with a certain ideology.

I'm a bit surprised at this question since I'd already laid out, if not a philosophy, a governing principle. I'll use the Wiccan version: 'An it harm no one, do what you will.'

The Wiccan ethical admonishment sounds nice, but I'm uncomfortable with its emphasis on will - on what I desire, what I want. It provides a mitigating condition, but its primary thrust deals with doing what one wants. That is very different from Christian theology which pretty much bypasses what an individual wants to what an individual should do. There's a difference. Acting in a way that "harms" nobody is very different than acting in a way that benefits other people. I'm not dismissing the validity of the Wiccan assertion - I'm pointing out how different it is from Christian ethics which says avoiding evil is not enough - one must actively do good.

These discussions are ongoing in democracies, which, as a founding principle, allow freedom of speech to navigate just such conundrums. However, I must say, your examples seem to me to be pretty unambiguous instances of 'harm'. Shucks, maybe I'm just a victim of cultural conditioning.

But that's the point, b: YOU see them as harmful - but the governments/groups enacting these atrocities have defenses for them - and without a stable moral frame - a transcendant morality that exists beyond cultural differences - we have no ground from which to condemn them. If we do condemn them, we are automatically implying a standard of morality that they should acknowledge as well - but if it's simply OUR morality, what gives us the authority to condemn/judge at all?

Wow I'm being mocked by synchronicity. Darfur's on the news right now and they're talking about the difficulty of establishing someone's guilt as a war criminal.

Don't you love it when that happens?

But the difficulties of these kinds of question are the precise reason we need room to manoeuver without overly strict dogma, freedom to judge each instance on its merits and try to arrive at the fairest outcome. Yes one can certainly have discussions about what words like 'merit' and 'fairness' should properly mean and philosophers since Socrates have, at millennial length, but even the religious ones, such as Socrates, have not found that religion helped decide the argument.

I will - to an extent - agree with you. The Biblical injunction against lying - IMO - is suspended if my telling the truth (here comes the cliched "Jews in the cellars, Nazis at the door" scenario) will end up in the suffering and death of an innocent person. But in that instance, I have violated a "smaller" restriction in favor of the greater good - because the saving of a human life outranks truth-telling (especially truth-telling that cooperates with evil). That said, we cannot make all ethics situational - but we should clearly be using a set of noncompromising principles to guide us.

See my remarks above. However, the designation of humans as selfish, at least as a defining characteristic, is highly open to question and both philosophers and scientists have been busy questioning it. Philosopher Slavoj Zizek has referred to the way in which humans are frequently 'spontaneously moral'. Richard Dawkins, though he posited the theory of the selfish gene that does everything it can to survive, states emphatically that this must not be assumed to apply in human personality, suggesting that qualities such as empathy, compassion and the desire for social interaction and cooperation are genetically embedded and a big part of what has allowed us to survive as a race.

Scientists can argue away - our day to day decisions and behaviors suggest otherwise (notwithsanding random acts of morality that occur - with far less frequency I would suggest than in decades past).

Perhaps that's why philosophical approaches to morality such as Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics so often seem, rather than laying down the law, to be telling us what we already know implicitly. What this points to, obviously, is a sense of morals that goes beyond the practical - but still without the need for a divinely imposed moral law.

But the Bible does that as well - most people who follow the Biblical commands to give to the poor, to offer compassion to the suffering, to serve the community rather than the self - find that they are more satisfied and fulfilled than when they serve themselves.

Divinely inspired law has one unbeatable advantage over human-made law: it cannot be manipulated by those in power; it cannot be changed by fickle masses. Therefore, its stability is considerably higher than law established by human beings.

[atiguhya padma]

Human nature is generally self-serving. It's primary goal is "taking care of #1." The default position for human nature is selfishness, not selflessness. Selfishness comes naturally; selflessness must be taught.

That's absolute nonsense. How did culture, society and civilization develop if we are all programmed towards selfishness? This is the kind of tired weary cliched response that believers trot out when they are too lazy to think about human development. Co-operation is as much inherent in us as is selfishness. Although some choose not to see it that way, as it spoils their treasured view of humanity and its assumed needs

[atiguhya padma]

God is not 100% unknowable, therefore agrees with your logic of X which can be substituted as God.

So what can be known about God?

[zado_k]

Zado, it wasn't that hard to find. It was the point I was responding to in the first place.

you were denying non-religious moralities

Not in anything you quote I'm not.

Peace and loving kindness,

Z

[blp]

you were denying non-religious moralities

Not in anything you quote I'm not.

Oh for...

You can deny it all you want, but I don't see how you can logically claim that

I don't think an atheist's moral code can include anything

is not a denial of non-religious moralities. Care to elucidate?

The remark quoted above was the sum total of what I set out to answer.

When I had, you appeared to retreat to the following more equivocal/relativist position:

I can see prefering an moral code that people worked out for themselves but I don't see any reason to deny that any other kind is really moral.

As if to suggest that it was I and I alone who had a narrow sense of what could constituted a moral code, when it was you who had begun the exchange by saying, I'll quote it again, lest there be any confusion or doubt:

I don't think an atheist's moral code can include anything

[Redzeppelin]

That's absolute nonsense. How did culture, society and civilization develop if we are all programmed towards selfishness? This is the kind of tired weary cliched response that believers trot out when they are too lazy to think about human development. Co-operation is as much inherent in us as is selfishness. Although some choose not to see it that way, as it spoils their treasured view of humanity and its assumed needs

Hmmm..."nonsense," "weary," "cliched," "lazy." Well, don't hold back now, OK?

You'll note - or at least I hope you'll note - that I said selfishness is the "default" position of human nature. That doesn't mean we are incapable of rising above it - it means that we will - especially under certain circumstances - drop into that mindset quite easily, quite naturally. Selfishness is not a behavior that most cultures claim to value; as such, most cultures teach their children the idea that selfishness is not conducive to harmonious relationships - but understand that they need to be taught that. Children will not generally grow up to share and put others first without explicit instruction to do so.

Under moments of stress, fear and duress, human beings will generally default to taking care of #1. There is no shortage of examples from history or contemporary society of individuals who callously abandoned those in need in order to preserve their own property, their own lives, their own interests. Call it "nonsense" if you wish - human behavior throughout history flatly contradicts you.

The "lazy" comment merely reflects your opinion of why others do what they do - but unless you're God and know the contents of all hearts, you have no such knowledge as to why believers believe as they do. As such, your opinion is largely groundless.

[zado_k]

Oh for...

You can deny it all you want, but I don't see how you can logically claim that



is not a denial of non-religious moralities. Care to elucidate?

Well, "this bag can't contain anything" doesn't have to mean that "this bag must only contain nothing" it just means "there are somethings this bag can't contain". I suppose it's ambiguous - I had thought the meaning obvious in context and didn't reflect on whether it should be phrased more carefully. I was after all, an atheist writing about morality!

The remark quoted above was the sum total of what I set out to answer.

In which case I apologise both for causing confusion and for challenging your recall. You were perfectly entitled to interpret what I wrote as you did. We have been talking at cross purposes. I simply meant by the sentence you quote that "there are somethings an atheist's morality can't contain".

Peace and loving kindness,

Z

[blp]

In which case I apologise both for causing confusion and for challenging your recall. You were perfectly entitled to interpret what I wrote as you did. We have been talking at cross purposes. I simply meant by the sentence you quote that "there are somethings an atheist's morality can't contain".

Okeedoke. No hard feelings.

[skasian]

So what can be known about God?

Read the bible and that will answer your enquiry.

I'll make a start for you. What do we learn from the first passage of the first page of the bible?
God is the Creator.

I'll leave the rest to you.

[atiguhya padma]

Well thanks for that Skasian, but you see, I have read the whole of the bible and find it totally unconvincing. It is neither credible nor even compelling. It is a mish-mash of stories that over the ages have come to be interepreted literally by people with a certain mindset. However, they are really inadequate attempts to explain what the primitive society of those times found baffling.

[skasian]

Well thanks for that Skasian, but you see, I have read the whole of the bible and find it totally unconvincing. It is neither credible nor even compelling. It is a mish-mash of stories that over the ages have come to be interepreted literally by people with a certain mindset. However, they are really inadequate attempts to explain what the primitive society of those times found baffling.

So you feel that the idea human should be aiming for perfection, for purity is unconvincing? Ah no worries, theres millions out there that feels just as you. The word faith comes between the line that sets the people apart. Thats one of the things that I like about God. He gives us freewill, we are free to enjoy what we want in life, and take own decisions and full responsibility.

Could you please elaborate in your thoughts about your last statement?