In the latter case, morality is what God says it is.
Of course, there is no arguing that morality is not what god says it is, because then it just becomes a matter of semantics and correctly tabooing our words, which is why I insisted about the gut level : I cannot imagine anything that makes me feel the world is as it is if God does not exist.
Philosophical arguments, explanations that the world is not moral, better definitions of morality, they’re all nice but in the end, you won’t convince me that a monkey birthed a human. If I am making a mistake in believing that you believe that the monkey birthed a human, I want to know what that mistake is in order to learn about evolution.
Philosophical arguments, explanations that the world is not moral, better definitions of morality, they’re all nice but in the end, you won’t convince me that a monkey birthed a human.
If I am making a mistake in believing that you believe that the monkey birthed a human, I want to know what that mistake is in order to learn about evolution.
That seems like a total non-sequitur. Morality is a separate question from evolution. But I can also argue this topic. The mistake is that you think your mother is somehow not a monkey.
Do you accept that your mother is a mammal? A vertebrate? An animal (as opposed to, say, a plant or fungus)? Does “mammal” not imply “animal”? A primate? Why do the older clades get a pass, but the more recent and more obvious ones cause offense? You’re either in denial or haven’t bothered to look.
No taxonomist worth his salt will dispute that we’re in the monkey clade. We have all the taxonomic features distinctive of monkeys. We’ve read the DNA. It’s over. There are multiple lines of evidence building this case beyond a reasonable doubt, which we can discuss at length, if you care to.
The only way we can say that humans aren’t “monkeys” is with paraphyletic groupings where we say that “monkey” means all of the monkey clade except for the apes, and “ape” means all the ape clade except for the humans. The exception proves the rule, and doesn’t even work when you account for the extinct species.
In the latter case, morality is what God says it is.
Oh. I don’t think you can have a useful discussion on this topic with someone to whom God has spoken so clearly. But even so, WHY (aside from punishment) is God’s voice morally compelling? I think to really get to this, you need to deconstruct the idea of “God” to the point that you can answer at a detail level what makes that a source of morality. Many many reasons can be replicated with another concept in place of God.
However, this line of discussion is in conflict with Scott’s premise “that many theists would change their mind if you could convince them on a gut-level that there could exist a godless moral world.” You CAN’T convince them of such, so it’s irrelevant. It’s also not true, extending from the case where they change WHICH god they believe it, but still think moral behavior is well-defined.
I guess what I should have said was “I believe I behave morally, more so than most self-identified theists” I also don’t believe there is an objective or outside-view of morality, so I don’t think I can help with identifying such sources.
“Philosophical arguments, explanations that the world is not moral, better definitions of morality, they’re all nice but in the end, you won’t convince me that a monkey birthed a human. If I am making a mistake in believing that you believe that the monkey birthed a human, I want to know what that mistake is in order to learn about evolution.”
Based on this I have to conclude that @gilch was right about the importance of starting with epistemic rationality, and going from there. Practice on the easier problems before you tackle the hard ones, for the same reason that catechism and Sunday school generally teach children and recent converts the nice parables and ignore Job and other complex and harsh passages until much later.
Whether or not you believe it actually happened that way, if you don’t understand how humans and apes could have arisen from a common ancestor over the past 5 million years or so, if you don’t understand how all life on Earth could have originated from some of the first strands of self-replicating RNA billions of years ago, if it isn’t clear how human moral instincts could have arisen via biological evolution for millions of years living in hunter-gatherer bands or how our ideas about those instincts could have been honed into modern forms by millennia of cultural evolution living in agricultural and pastoral communities, then you haven’t understood the concept of evolution and aren’t ready to explore the question of morality in a godless world.
There are many good places to start. Mine was the Sequences, before they became this book. There are lots of other options that will appeal more or less to different people and be easier or harder for you to enjoy reading and stick with. Learn as much as you can about everything that interests you, and as much as is useful about everything that does not. Go forth and study.
When you are ready, maybe don’t start with your own faith. Read about Legal Systems Very Different from Ours, and how law relates to different religious and metaphysical and social systems. Read about what meaning is, isn’t, can be, and can’t be, from a metarational perspective. Then think about the questions you asked here. We’ll all be here to talk then or answer questions you have along the way.
Oups, my wording was misleading. I know about evolution, and I know how the human species came to be according to evolution.
Since evolution argues that monkeys birth humans about as much as catholicism argues that Amalekites should die, I meant that I believed I was potentially making a huge mistake about morality, the same way I would make a huge mistake by thinking evolution claims monkeys birth humans. If I had made such a blatant mistake, I hoped someone could point it out for me.
(Please don’t argue whether monkeys birth humans. I am aware that in some sense they did and in some sense they don’t. That’s really not the point.)
“morality is what God says it is” is still ambiguous between “god declares and defines things to be moral” and “God accurately reports what is already moral”. Both versions have problems.
My point was that your question (how can there be morality without God) makes no sense unless you can say how there can be morality WITH a God.
Sorry, I thought it was obvious.
In the latter case, morality is what God says it is.
Of course, there is no arguing that morality is not what god says it is, because then it just becomes a matter of semantics and correctly tabooing our words, which is why I insisted about the gut level :
I cannot imagine anything that makes me feel the world is as it is if God does not exist.
Philosophical arguments, explanations that the world is not moral, better definitions of morality, they’re all nice but in the end, you won’t convince me that a monkey birthed a human.
If I am making a mistake in believing that you believe that the monkey birthed a human, I want to know what that mistake is in order to learn about evolution.
That seems like a total non-sequitur. Morality is a separate question from evolution. But I can also argue this topic. The mistake is that you think your mother is somehow not a monkey.
I thought the ears were a dead giveaway.
No, this is not just a “your mom” joke. I’m serious. You evolved from monkeys. Your ancestors were monkeys, you’re descended from monkeys. You are a monkey. We are all monkeys in shoes.
Do you accept that your mother is a mammal? A vertebrate? An animal (as opposed to, say, a plant or fungus)? Does “mammal” not imply “animal”? A primate? Why do the older clades get a pass, but the more recent and more obvious ones cause offense? You’re either in denial or haven’t bothered to look.
No taxonomist worth his salt will dispute that we’re in the monkey clade. We have all the taxonomic features distinctive of monkeys. We’ve read the DNA. It’s over. There are multiple lines of evidence building this case beyond a reasonable doubt, which we can discuss at length, if you care to.
The only way we can say that humans aren’t “monkeys” is with paraphyletic groupings where we say that “monkey” means all of the monkey clade except for the apes, and “ape” means all the ape clade except for the humans. The exception proves the rule, and doesn’t even work when you account for the extinct species.
Oh. I don’t think you can have a useful discussion on this topic with someone to whom God has spoken so clearly. But even so, WHY (aside from punishment) is God’s voice morally compelling? I think to really get to this, you need to deconstruct the idea of “God” to the point that you can answer at a detail level what makes that a source of morality. Many many reasons can be replicated with another concept in place of God.
However, this line of discussion is in conflict with Scott’s premise “that many theists would change their mind if you could convince them on a gut-level that there could exist a godless moral world.” You CAN’T convince them of such, so it’s irrelevant. It’s also not true, extending from the case where they change WHICH god they believe it, but still think moral behavior is well-defined.
I guess what I should have said was “I believe I behave morally, more so than most self-identified theists” I also don’t believe there is an objective or outside-view of morality, so I don’t think I can help with identifying such sources.
“Philosophical arguments, explanations that the world is not moral, better definitions of morality, they’re all nice but in the end, you won’t convince me that a monkey birthed a human.
If I am making a mistake in believing that you believe that the monkey birthed a human, I want to know what that mistake is in order to learn about evolution.”
Based on this I have to conclude that @gilch was right about the importance of starting with epistemic rationality, and going from there. Practice on the easier problems before you tackle the hard ones, for the same reason that catechism and Sunday school generally teach children and recent converts the nice parables and ignore Job and other complex and harsh passages until much later.
Whether or not you believe it actually happened that way, if you don’t understand how humans and apes could have arisen from a common ancestor over the past 5 million years or so, if you don’t understand how all life on Earth could have originated from some of the first strands of self-replicating RNA billions of years ago, if it isn’t clear how human moral instincts could have arisen via biological evolution for millions of years living in hunter-gatherer bands or how our ideas about those instincts could have been honed into modern forms by millennia of cultural evolution living in agricultural and pastoral communities, then you haven’t understood the concept of evolution and aren’t ready to explore the question of morality in a godless world.
There are many good places to start. Mine was the Sequences, before they became this book. There are lots of other options that will appeal more or less to different people and be easier or harder for you to enjoy reading and stick with. Learn as much as you can about everything that interests you, and as much as is useful about everything that does not. Go forth and study.
When you are ready, maybe don’t start with your own faith. Read about Legal Systems Very Different from Ours, and how law relates to different religious and metaphysical and social systems. Read about what meaning is, isn’t, can be, and can’t be, from a metarational perspective. Then think about the questions you asked here. We’ll all be here to talk then or answer questions you have along the way.
Oups, my wording was misleading.
I know about evolution, and I know how the human species came to be according to evolution.
Since evolution argues that monkeys birth humans about as much as catholicism argues that Amalekites should die, I meant that I believed I was potentially making a huge mistake about morality, the same way I would make a huge mistake by thinking evolution claims monkeys birth humans.
If I had made such a blatant mistake, I hoped someone could point it out for me.
(Please don’t argue whether monkeys birth humans. I am aware that in some sense they did and in some sense they don’t. That’s really not the point.)
I’m not going to argue with you. I still stand by the rest of my comment.
If »morality is what God says it is« when God exists, why can’t morality be what people say it is if God doesn’t?
“morality is what God says it is” is still ambiguous between “god declares and defines things to be moral” and “God accurately reports what is already moral”. Both versions have problems.