Overcoming Bias DOES have a religious reader left. Me. I’m a philosopher with strong interests in political philosophy and philosophy of religion. I had several problems with the post:
You say that if we lose our belief in God that we won’t lose our moral compass altogether. But that isn’t the only issue for the theist, it’s also whether the moral compass will point in the right direction all the time. If I become an atheist, I might still believe that murder is wrong, but I won’t believe that a respect for the sacred is particularly important, and I’ll probably start to reject, say, traditional teachings about sexual morality. Theists might well be worried about that.
Further, I think it’s silly to imply (as you appear to) that most theists are divine command theorists. Most theistic philosophers today are not and neither were most theistic philosophers historically. Many of us (theistic philosophers) think that natural reason can tell us what moral rules we should follow.
I should also say that most theologians and philosophers who are religious (I guess all theologians are religious, but I think I have some exceptions in mind.) don’t think that the primary reason to do as God says is because of external reward or punishment. That’s just a silly caricature. Most theistic philosophers think that communion with God is our summum bonum. It’s the whole point of our existence—He is our final end—our eudaimonia. They think we’re naturally motivated to seek God and that those who are not have been corrupted by sin and rebellion. Pascal once said that everyone’s heart has a God-shaped hole. Most of us believe something like that.
When theists worry about losing sexual morality, it is because we are theists. Some of the reasons we think the world would be better if we are chaste depend on us preferring God to be happy than to be sad, the world being equal. If God could take some happiness pill, we’d want Him to.
That reason to be chaste would apply less if God were less important than He is. As such, our actions would displease the real God more if we believed God was less important. That means that believing God is less important would cause us to act in ways that we now consider worse, if we acted as would be right if God mattered less.
Overcoming Bias DOES have a religious reader left. Me. I’m a philosopher with strong interests in political philosophy and philosophy of religion. I had several problems with the post:
You say that if we lose our belief in God that we won’t lose our moral compass altogether. But that isn’t the only issue for the theist, it’s also whether the moral compass will point in the right direction all the time. If I become an atheist, I might still believe that murder is wrong, but I won’t believe that a respect for the sacred is particularly important, and I’ll probably start to reject, say, traditional teachings about sexual morality. Theists might well be worried about that.
Further, I think it’s silly to imply (as you appear to) that most theists are divine command theorists. Most theistic philosophers today are not and neither were most theistic philosophers historically. Many of us (theistic philosophers) think that natural reason can tell us what moral rules we should follow.
I should also say that most theologians and philosophers who are religious (I guess all theologians are religious, but I think I have some exceptions in mind.) don’t think that the primary reason to do as God says is because of external reward or punishment. That’s just a silly caricature. Most theistic philosophers think that communion with God is our summum bonum. It’s the whole point of our existence—He is our final end—our eudaimonia. They think we’re naturally motivated to seek God and that those who are not have been corrupted by sin and rebellion. Pascal once said that everyone’s heart has a God-shaped hole. Most of us believe something like that.
Note that much of what you say in your posts is pretty offensive to religious believers. We’re not a bunch of morons, you know. Please see these philosophers and read their work as counterevidence.
When theists worry about losing sexual morality, it is because we are theists. Some of the reasons we think the world would be better if we are chaste depend on us preferring God to be happy than to be sad, the world being equal. If God could take some happiness pill, we’d want Him to.
That reason to be chaste would apply less if God were less important than He is. As such, our actions would displease the real God more if we believed God was less important. That means that believing God is less important would cause us to act in ways that we now consider worse, if we acted as would be right if God mattered less.
Clearly, the most important work for humanity is to invent a wireheading machine for God. After that, we’re free to do anything we like.