First, congratulations on seeking out opposing points of view, I know it’s not easy.
A parable to answer your question: You are leaving a bar after a merry Saturday night and you see an attractive person of your preferred gender and you feel tempted to rape them. You don’t do it because there is a policeman on the street and you don’t want to go to jail. Is this a moral decision? I would say clearly not. It’s a pragmatic decision based on what will benefit you.
Now imagine the same situation but with no policeman. Instead you believe that God is watching you and you don’t want to go to hell, so you don’t commit the rape. Is this a moral decision? Still no. It’s exactly the same as the policeman example: you make a pragmatic decision to avoid punishment.
Now imagine that you are tempted to rape the attractive person but you choose not to do it because you understand that they are a fellow human being and they deserve to choose what happens to their own body and you understand that raping them will inflict horrible suffering on them. That is a moral decision, not a pragmatic decision. No God required.
Another way to make the point: imagine you were really sure there was no God. (If you can’t imagine this, imagine that the archangel Gabriel comes to tell you that God has made another bet with the devil, like in the Book of Job, and he guarantees that you will go to heaven no matter what you do on Earth.) Would you personally choose to murder, rape, steal, defraud etc? Or would you choose to behave decently to people anyway? If the latter, that implies you already have a personal morality separate from your desire to go to Heaven / avoid Hell.
From my theology class, I remember the priest exposing three possible ways of deciding to make a good action : -You do it because you fear that if you don’t, God will punish you and send you to Hell. -You do it because you hope that God will reward you in paradise for it. -You do it because it’s right.
He then explained that the last reason was a better reason than the first two.
Therefore, according to the dogma, I should seek good for the purpose of goodness : I should not need God’s command to do what is right (although using Hell and Heaven as incentives is still better than being evil altogether). As it turns out, it means that the most efficient way to avoid Hell and go to Heaven is not to have these as end goals, but it’s no concern to me since I seek good first and foremost anyway. Let God make bets and tests, if I follow my religion faithfully, I will still abide by his usual commands.
First, congratulations on seeking out opposing points of view, I know it’s not easy.
A parable to answer your question: You are leaving a bar after a merry Saturday night and you see an attractive person of your preferred gender and you feel tempted to rape them. You don’t do it because there is a policeman on the street and you don’t want to go to jail. Is this a moral decision? I would say clearly not. It’s a pragmatic decision based on what will benefit you.
Now imagine the same situation but with no policeman. Instead you believe that God is watching you and you don’t want to go to hell, so you don’t commit the rape. Is this a moral decision? Still no. It’s exactly the same as the policeman example: you make a pragmatic decision to avoid punishment.
Now imagine that you are tempted to rape the attractive person but you choose not to do it because you understand that they are a fellow human being and they deserve to choose what happens to their own body and you understand that raping them will inflict horrible suffering on them. That is a moral decision, not a pragmatic decision. No God required.
Another way to make the point: imagine you were really sure there was no God. (If you can’t imagine this, imagine that the archangel Gabriel comes to tell you that God has made another bet with the devil, like in the Book of Job, and he guarantees that you will go to heaven no matter what you do on Earth.) Would you personally choose to murder, rape, steal, defraud etc? Or would you choose to behave decently to people anyway? If the latter, that implies you already have a personal morality separate from your desire to go to Heaven / avoid Hell.
From my theology class, I remember the priest exposing three possible ways of deciding to make a good action :
-You do it because you fear that if you don’t, God will punish you and send you to Hell.
-You do it because you hope that God will reward you in paradise for it.
-You do it because it’s right.
He then explained that the last reason was a better reason than the first two.
Therefore, according to the dogma, I should seek good for the purpose of goodness : I should not need God’s command to do what is right (although using Hell and Heaven as incentives is still better than being evil altogether).
As it turns out, it means that the most efficient way to avoid Hell and go to Heaven is not to have these as end goals, but it’s no concern to me since I seek good first and foremost anyway. Let God make bets and tests, if I follow my religion faithfully, I will still abide by his usual commands.