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5141602 No.5141602 [Reply] [Original]

Can true morality exist in the absence of God?

>> No.5141608

>>5141602
You know that quote from true detective about how if a person needs the expectation of divine reward to be good then they're a peace of shit. I disagree with that. I think that you can end harm and pain in the world, but true good exists only as is defined i relation to divinity.

>> No.5141609

Morality is a set of nonsensical rules. Only weak people need it. Moralfags are going extinct because they have an evolutionary disadvantage.

>> No.5141611

>>5141602


nein

>> No.5141613

>>5141609
>2014
>Thinks natural selection is now making undesirable traits go extinct.
Nigga please.

>> No.5141642

LOOK, MOM, I POSTED IT AGAIN.

Take is as granted that God does not exist. Now consider all those living and that have lived. Is it impossible make judgments about their actions and decisions, whether they are/were good or bad. No, it's not.

What is "true" morality, anyway? That kind of phrasing is just pleading for someone to beg the question.

If you read some of the philosophers from antiquity, like the Epicureans or the Stoics, you'll find they constructed entire ethical systems that were completely indifferent to the presence or absence of a deity, or deities.

You might just start with Plato's Euthyphro, and sit in conversation with him for awhile.

>> No.5141646
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5141646

This dude said he was motivated by the idea of an impersonal god, which he found more probable than one that resembled a human. He was bummed that exploring quantum mechanics wasn't indicating anything to inform his religious predilections.

>> No.5141657
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5141657

>>5141609

>> No.5141664

>>5141602
It can only exist in the absence of God. Otherwise it's just an appeal to authority and fearful obedience.

>> No.5141670

>>5141646
He just bandwagoned Spinoza's God.

>> No.5141675

>>5141664
>appeal to authority

Doesn't mean what you think it means

>> No.5141719

>>5141602
Only if youre religious.

>> No.5141721

>>5141602
>true.

I think "true" morality (not bombing the fuck out of innocents) can exist only in the absence of God. That is absence, and not non-existence, however you might think these to be interrelated, you can't prove a negative. Likewise, you can't prove the existence of a being who is all powerful, for god could just remove all proof comprehensible by humans.

I acknowledge that I am a fucking fedora! I am the biggest fucking fedora in the galaxy! Look at me and laugh! Ridicule me! Do it! I WISH I COULD BE! I would wear a trenchcoat and a chain wallet and a socks 'n' crocs combo and beat by shit to MLP daily if I could be that I would be that euphoric. I would trade for that my sleepless nights, and my dread suspicion that there exists an omnipotent being and judge utterly alien to human comprehension, and all my nightmares of hellfire and eternal torture because I fail to find the proper understanding of a 2000 y.o. book of riddles. All the holy books are madness, insanity and hatred, but worse is the certainty of the writers. The faith itself. How many times they repeat that God is love and life despite doing everything to the contrary.

If I could erase the concept of gods from my mind, how happy and carefree I could be! but it sits like a parasite, another source of fear in a world full of it. It cannot be moral to propagate such an idea, not by human standards at any rate.

>> No.5141832

Morality can exist with or without the idea of God, but it won't be objectively true in either case.

>> No.5141854
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5141854

True morality can only exist with Calvinism.

It has an absolute morality as stated by the Lord, but salvation is predetermined and not influenced by works. So God tells you what you should do, but you won't get rewarded for being a 'good person'. You have to do what is right for its own sake.

>> No.5141861

whatever I say is wrong is objectively wrong

>> No.5141867
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5141867

>morality

What a spook.

>> No.5141877

"true morality" can't exist at all, and god is only tangentially related to the matter

"because god commands it" is no more reason to do something than "because god forbids it", both are missing the further confirmation that god is either good or bad and should therefore be followed

no matter who is telling you what to do, you cannot decide that it is the right thing to do without making the subjective judgment that it is indeed the right thing to do.

there is no shifting the burden of responsibility onto god, you cannot claim to do anything "in spite of your own feelings" or "deferring to god's judgment", because you have therefore judged that god is perfect, which you claim you have no right to do

true morality just does not make any sense at all, it cannot be explained or defined as anything other than emotional attitudes, a disposition toward behaving a certain way, a desire for how others would behave. when you try to step beyond "I object to this behavior" or "I commend this behavior" and into "the behavior is *RIGHT*", you abandon reason, clear language use, and enter into a world where the only determinant of truth is if you can repeat a lie over and over hard enough and fast enough. Morality is pure delusion when it goes beyond the subjective expression of attitude, it is simply an angry-proud-vindictive person telling themselves over and over "god/the universe know that I am right, this feels too correct to be wrong" until they are convinced its true *objectively*, even when it makes no sense.

people are just too embarrassed to admit that morality is no different from whining, that there really is no better reason for murder and rape being "wrong" than the fact that you and I dont want to be raped or murdered.

"It's not just my feelings!" they claim

>> No.5141881

>>5141602
Just as any other word "morality" cant really be defined as something of nature, it's just how humans classify "propper behaviour" but since everyone can think of an action differently than others but similar too then morality can't actually be defined as something you can asimilate, in other words it can't be defined as "true", this is what i believe, i don't know if it's the "correct answer" at all (fuck you critical thinking), but if you mean that if for example: they discover that god legitimately doesn't exists then there would be different behaviours anyways, there would be a good punch of depression since there are people who take its existance very seriously and others just wont actually care and would keep their lifes as always i think :/

>> No.5141887

>>5141609
wow

much overman

such clokwork orange

wow

>> No.5141888

Morality is a cultural preference. And although many cultures are similar in their many preferences, this neither guarantees a higher power nor a 'human nature' which we all take after.

>> No.5142170

Yes.

/thread

>> No.5142183

>>5141602
How about you speak in terms that we can understand instead of saying ambiguous phrases?

For instance: is God a cultural meme or a really existing character, what is 'true morality' as opposed to 'fake morality', etc.

>> No.5142185
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5142185

>>5141602
Must morality be God's morality if God would exist?

>> No.5142200

>>5141881
>"morality" cant really be defined as something of nature
Sure it can

are you implying humans are not natural

>> No.5142224

>>5142200
The entire artificial/natural dichotomy is predicated on humanity's separation from nature. If something humans make isn't artificial, nothing is.

>> No.5142256

>>5142224
You're right, nothing is artificial..

>> No.5142258

What is "true" morality? I mean, aside from a No True Scotsman.

>> No.5142269

>>5142256
What about that artificial vagina you keep in your sock drawer?

>> No.5142276

>>5141861
this, except it's when I say it, not you

>> No.5142344

>>5142269
Nope.

>> No.5142427

>>5141602
Duh

>> No.5142435

>>5142276
>N-no guys
>It's a real vageena

>> No.5142528

>>5142435
That's not what I'm saying. It's different from a real vagina in many critical properties.

>> No.5142622

Can fruit loops exist in the absence of pez?. No because you need them both to create detacheable penis.

>> No.5142854

>>5142622
see guys? not that difficult to understand

>> No.5142860

God or a god?

>> No.5142877

>>5142854
Ok, little ninny. I wasn't quite clear. Morality is impossible without egodeath which requires a hypothetical self, ie 'soul'. In egypt this becomes demiurg in trismesgustus, eve in judaism, christ. God is not that necessary a concept, it just points to a poetic necessity namely where did 'the self' come from, what created it? Hence 'the father', a 'god'. If u don't get the pez joke you're probably slightly mongoloid, or a vain prick, probably both. Tudeloo.

>> No.5142886

>>5142877

What a load of bullshit.

>> No.5142890
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5142890

>>5141609

>mfw peole take this b8

>> No.5142915

>>5141602
Our lord says he God, see he has morality up in the air and when he comes all round us we see his aura radiates this morality thing, you see we get +1 morality knowledge thing is whats it like. He divine, lord god dictate upon us his morals we obey, we do, we follow, him is light, we be good. But he aint no divine, mortal like all our mates, someday he be six feet under, then what? Chaos or new order? Whatev, a shadow looms over us, slowly each day from the north east, one day, a new day shakl erupt then I will know lies of bile as black as obsidian.

>> No.5142933

Categorical Imperative

>> No.5143286

>>5142933
>>5142933
Easily overcome by the biological imperative>>5142933
>>51

>> No.5143367

>>5141602
Do you see people with morals?

There is your answer.

>> No.5144131

>>5142886
That's somehow an argument?

>> No.5144135

>>5142886
Also. You have studied trismesgustus right? Becuz otherwise you wouldn't be able to make this judgement.

>> No.5144136

>>5142933
But even Kant uses the postulates of God to justify Morality.

>> No.5144175

>Can true morality exist in the absence of God?

Yes, we can have what we have always had; inter-subjective ethical frameworks.

>> No.5144204

No, objective morality can't exist without a divine standard.
Here's a more meaningful question though; Is something right because God commands it to be, or does God command it to be because it is right?

>> No.5144230

Define 'true morality'

>> No.5144238

>>5144230
I think he means objective morality.

>> No.5144484

>>5144204
It is right because God commands it
God is synonymous with goodness

>> No.5144489

>>5141602
maybe

>> No.5144502

>>5141602
The absence of God is brought about by ignorance. Can ignorant people be consistently moral?

>> No.5144506

>>5141602
Yeah, its ingrained in us genetically to insure our survival.

>> No.5144524

>>5141609
But yo,its completely the opposite. Having morals is the fucking advantage, if nobody had them we would kill and fucking each other over so much that we never be able to survive. We'd be dead as a species a long time ago if it wasn't for morals.

>> No.5144548

>>5141613
THIS
fuck sake the average person lives to like 80 in the western world, even like 40 in shit sub-saharan areas, people pass on their genes before they die

>> No.5144569

>>5141613
>>5144548
You guys don't understand. Selection is still making undesirable traits go extinct as always, it's just that far fewer traits are undesirable to the point of hindering reproduction. You can't cheat on the survival of the 'fittest', if you manage to reproduce, it's all in the game.

>> No.5144810

There is no absolute truth without God. So no.

>> No.5144820

shut up

>> No.5144977

Of course not.
But it can't exist for humans with him either so.

>> No.5146232

>>5144569
Selection pressures are non-existent in the developed world.

>> No.5146243
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5146243

>>5141609

>> No.5146317

>>5146232
You're on one.

>> No.5146470

>>5146232

thats just not true though

people still die before having children due to genetic factors, there are genetic diseases that kill you as a fetus/baby/child, there are genetic conditions that make you infertile, there are genetic conditions that make you suicidal

all of these are being currently affected by natural selection

it doesnt just go away because it works differently now, different pressure = different selection

>> No.5146478

>>5144484

why should we want to be good then? what makes god so "chooseworthy" of a leader, and you cant appeal to his "goodness" as a leader because that doesnt make the connection between god and chooseworthy, since god is by definition good.

>> No.5146633

>>5146478
If God is God you don't have any option to choose him as a leader; he already is. On the question of why we should want to be good; you are doing what is the essentially your meaning for existence. If you believed life truly had meaning would you not pursue that meaning?

>> No.5146716

>>5146633
>you are doing what is the essentially your meaning for existence. If you believed life truly had meaning would you not pursue that meaning?

This is factism, and the argument takes the same form as evo psych.

It's actually very common to believe in God, and question his decisions and plans and so on.

>> No.5146743

>>5146633

>If God is God you don't have any option to choose him as a leader; he already is

why?

what if his plan was for us to be slaves and to suffer eternally? would that still be "the meaning of life" ??

no matter what you still have to decide that god is worth listening to, and that can only be decided through subjective emotional judgment

>On the question of why we should want to be good; you are doing what is the essentially your meaning for existence. If you believed life truly had meaning would you not pursue that meaning?

for obvious reasons: what if god had picked a shitty role for me in the universe?

it is clear that unless you already agree with god, following his commands cannot be a consistent way of producing "morally correct" choices

>> No.5146760

>>5146716
I don't see why can question why in the sense that they are questioning why an event occurred but it seems odd to me to question whether or not an act that you believe to be from God could be anything but good.
A human questioning a the morality of God's actions is common but it doesn't make it any less nonsensical; given that they believe in the tradition Abrahamic God.

>> No.5146787

>>5146743
To your first question
Yes; it's a tough pill to swallow but humans can only interpret the morality in human terms. True morality was created by a transcendental being, is unchanging, and eternal.
To the second question
My knee jerk response is to tell you to deal with it but if you really think your role in the universe is shitty maybe you have to re access your life and ask why you think it's shitty
You can solve most the problems of theodicy by embracing a form of universal purgatorial redemption or universal redemption

>> No.5146796

>>5146760

>it seems odd to me to question whether or not an act that you believe to be from God could be anything but good.

does it also seem odd to you Friday the 13th: the Final Chapter was not in fact the final installment in the series?

i dont get what you're not getting here

>> No.5146797

>>5146787
Also about the subjective emotional judgement; I'm not dismissing that as probably one the the most important parts of faith.

>> No.5146803

>>5144524
not really, being moral gets you nowhere in nowadays business; if you want to get really rich or powerful, get ready to kill and steal

>> No.5146806

>>5146796
I dont get what i'm not getting either so we are on the same page

>> No.5146817

>>5146806
What I mean is you have yet to make any argument or point.

>> No.5146822

>>5146787

>Yes; it's a tough pill to swallow but humans can only interpret the morality in human terms

this is a contradiction. if humans can only interpret morality in human terms, then in what way can we circumvent this by appealing to god's terms?

>True morality was created by a transcendental being, is unchanging, and eternal.

once again, this brings to mind my original rejection. if you want to claim that morality JUST IS what god wants, then you must make the further argument that justifies why we should want what god wants. if morality is transcendent unchanging eternal etc, but also objectionable, then why not object to it?

>My knee jerk response is to tell you to deal with it

fucking faggot, im not actually complaining about my position in life, goddamn are you retarded? its a thought experiment, im saying IF god commanded you to have a role in life you didnt like (what if your role was to inject babies with aids?), then you have reason to reject his commands, and no reason to follow them

whereas if he commands you to do something good, like being a good parent, then you have reason to follow god and no reason not to

no matter what you must decide for yourself what is right, "you must" as in "you cannot not" do this, its not a moral imperative, im saying you literally you cannot avoid deciding for yourself what is right

appeal to god does nothing

>You can solve most the problems of theodicy by embracing a form of universal purgatorial redemption or universal redemption

idk what the point of this above is

>> No.5146875

>>5146822
>this is a contradiction. if humans can only interpret morality in human terms, then in what way can we circumvent this by appealing to god's terms?

Well if you are Christian God (Logos) became a human being and taught morality as best as humanity could understand it

>once again, this brings to mind my original rejection. if you want to claim that morality JUST IS what god wants, then you must make the further argument that justifies why we should want what god wants. if morality is transcendent unchanging eternal etc, but also objectionable, then why not object to it?

Because God knows what's best for us as humans. Saying you want to be a slave to God's will and morality sounds awful but it's not so bad
.
>fucking faggot, im not actually complaining about my position in life, goddamn are you retarded? its a thought experiment, im saying IF god commanded you to have a role in life you didnt like (what if your role was to inject babies with aids?), then you have reason to reject his commands, and no reason to follow them

sorry I assumed you were projecting. If God literally came down to me and told me to do something that awful I would question if it was really God commanding and probably never act on it and accept that possibility that I disobeyed God.

You cannot avoid deciding for yourself what is right yes, I'm just saying there is a right and wrong choice and you can choose wrong believing your entire life you chose right

>> No.5146930

>>5146875

>Well if you are Christian God (Logos) became a human being and taught morality as best as humanity could understand it

right but ultimately, the human must decide for themselves both that it WAS indeed god speaking to them AND that this god is a good god who is telling them to do good things.

>Because God knows what's best for us as humans. Saying you want to be a slave to God's will and morality sounds awful but it's not so bad

it actually doesn't sound bad inherently, it sounds fine, because God is generally thought of as a pretty good dude, and indeed, the universe is pretty cool sometimes. but the point is the value of following god lies 100% in the congruence between his commands and your personal convictions, and not even .000001% due to God's place as creator of the universe, or his omniscience/omnipotence

these things count as exactly 0 reason to listen to him, and this is due to the nature of morality. basically if you like God's morality then you probably would have done something similar anyways, even if he didnt tell you

>sorry I assumed you were projecting. If God literally came down to me and told me to do something that awful I would question if it was really God commanding and probably never act on it and accept that possibility that I disobeyed God.

that's good, that means you have integrity. the question is, if you later found out that God really did command you and you disobeyed him, would you regret your original decision? you shouldn't, regretting your original decision is an abandonment of personal integrity in this case

>You cannot avoid deciding for yourself what is right yes

okay thats my main point here

>I'm just saying there is a right and wrong choice and you can choose wrong believing your entire life you chose right

what makes the right choice right? it cannot be merely that these are the choices god commands, as we've discussed. so what makes them the right choice?

objective morality is nonsense. "the right choice" is the right choice to YOU, it's whatever you decided was the right choice

doesnt mean you cant be wrong, but what would it mean for you to be wrong? if at the end of your life, god just shat on all your proudest most altruistic acts and praised your violent, greedy, tc ones, would you then conclude that you were wrong your whole life?

thats dumb if you would

the only way you can choose wrong morally is if you regret your decision, and decide at a later date that the other choice would've been better, what else could you mean by "choosing wrong" ??

>> No.5146978

>>5146930
I understood your main point from the beginning I probably just didnt do the the best job of making that clear. In the end you believe objective morality is nonsense and if I'm arguing from the position of a traditional theist I don't see how I could not argue from the point that objective morality exists, comes from God, and is the only absolutely true moral system

although I could concede other moral systems have some truth

I had fun arguing but in the end we will just be arguing in circle because my belief in is founded on a "leap of faith"

>> No.5147014

>>5146978

>arguing from the perspective

i've always hated this term, we are all working with the same material here, we both share at least a language and similar ideas about logic (a>b, a; ergo b)(~a v ~b; ergo ~ a&b).

why should your view only make sense "from the position of a traditional theist" and not "from the position of a human in general?"

my view does not assume that objectively morality is not real, my view claims by argument that its not real. your view only works if you assume that objective morality is real

>in the end we will just be arguing in circle because my belief in is founded on a "leap of faith"

yes but that means i won lol, I won the argument, you've admitted that i was right and that the only reason you disagree is pure caprice (leap of faith), but you dont think i won

obviously my win is hollow, I dont care about winning this argument, I'm just saying I dont understand how the theist/moralist deals with this cognitive dissonance