Origin of morality

[James R]

A question for believers in God:

Are some acts (like murder, for instance) evil because God says they are evil, or is it the other way round?

That is, does God say they are evil because they are inherently wrong in some way, or could God just as easily say "Murder is good! Everybody should go out and murder as often as possible."

What do you think? Do morals come only from God, or do they have an independent existence?

[Bruce Wayne]

James R, do you want to discuss this while assuming that god does exist? Or is it a just a challenge for believers?

[ConsequentAtheist]

A question for believers in God:

Are some acts (like murder, for instance) evil because God says they are evil, or is it the other way round?

That is, does God say they are evil because they are inherently wrong in some way, or could God just as easily say "Murder is good! Everybody should go out and murder as often as possible."

What do you think? Do morals come only from God, or do they have an independent existence?

We shall know better, my good friend, in a little while. The point which I should first wish to understand is whether the pious or holy is beloved by the gods because it is holy, or holy because it is beloved of the gods.

- see Euthyphr (http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/euthyfro.html)
In response to the question: "Do morals come only from God, or do they have an independent existence?", I vote no. ;)

[Joeman]

Morals don't come from God at all but from our own experience. Human makes mistakes throughout history and learn from history.

One example is slavery. We didn't know slavery was wrong back then, but today it's unthinkable. Slaves weren't owned by atheists back then. They were owned by Christians and if I recall correctly, bible justifies slavery somewhere.

Another example is mass killing of Indians. 99% of all Indians were killed including women and children when white men conquered America. Today the moral standard is much higher and such thing would not occur if we were to discover another continent or another planet with inferior liveform.

[Dreamwalker]

I would agree that morals develope from experience. Alas, they are also greatly influenced by our upbringing and personal inclinations. There are people who have weak morals other have strong morals. Perhaps it is some kind of evolutionary change? But I think morals are made by humans for humans

[§outh§tar]

Gee guys, you'll never guess Who the Ten Commandments came from.

[Dreamwalker]

Mmh, I suppose some guy chiseled them into stone and said that they come from god, just to keep his happy band of slaves under control.

[§outh§tar]

What happened to being hellbound, smartypants? :D

[Dreamwalker]

grew boring, Rosa had the impression I was scary because I always ran around with usertitles like "Hellbound" "Chaos Rules" or "insanity". I thought Iit´s time to stop it. People even started to take my jokes serious. Had to change something about it :p

[ConsequentAtheist]

See The Biological Basis of Morality (http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/98apr/biomoral.htm) by Edward O. Wilson.

[Alpha]

Interesting article, thanks for the link.
The way I see it, ones sense of ethics are determined by the situation and are based on moral values that are learned from experience. I think it is possible to determine a universal set of moral values, though this obviously has not been done. But even with a set of universal moral values, ones 'code of ethics' would be determined by the situation and be based on one's moral values. For example, one may agree that it is wrong to lie, but that's a code of ethics based on the moral value of trust. I would say trust is a universal moral value everyone can agree on, but that does not mean it is always wrong to lie. If one had to choose between lying and telling the truth, and lying would save a life, and telling the truth would result in the person's death, it would be wrong to tell the truth. Telling a lie is by far the lesser evil.
So, I believe ethics are created by humans, but based on moral values which are learned, and exist regardless of our knowledge of them.

[Jenyar]

Morality is humanity's agreement with God.

[water]

grew boring, Rosa had the impression I was scary because I always ran around with usertitles like "Hellbound" "Chaos Rules" or "insanity". I thought Iit´s time to stop it. People even started to take my jokes serious. Had to change something about it :p

Jah, and if you write the same thing in a language that fewer people understand, that makes it okay or what? Hm?

But yes, check out Grimmelshausen or one of those old fellas, Sebastians Brandt's "Das Narrenschiff" and such -- you should find fancy words and phrases for insanity there.

:D

[Dreamwalker]

Jah, and if you write the same thing in a language that fewer people understand, that makes it okay or what? Hm?

But yes, check out Grimmelshausen or one of those old fellas, Sebastians Brandt's "Das Narrenschiff" and such -- you should find fancy words and phrases for insanity there.

:D

Huh? What do you mean? Last time I looked, Verteidiger des Blödsinns had nothing to do with the examples I gave above. :rolleyes:

[ConsequentAtheist]

Morality is humanity's agreement with God.
Including, no doubt, child sacrifice, genocide, and the enslavement of virgins.

[water]

Huh? What do you mean? Last time I looked, Verteidiger des Blödsinns had nothing to do with the examples I gave above. :rolleyes:

Of course not. That's what Blödsinn ist. :D

Look, I don't have anything against you personally, I don't know you. I don't know why this whole thing about your titles came up ... maybe because they were just rather unheimlich.
When someone screams "Jesus rocks!" or "Allah is great!" or something like that, we're used to it; and there is some sort of order in such religious claims.
But chaos and insanity simply are rather scary.

On the other hand, I think you're doing a good job, with your titles and avatars that remind of completely different ways of thinking. It gives new perspectives to this forum. ;)

So I'm glad you're here, although I still feel you're a bit unheimlich.

[Dreamwalker]

Ah, I understand a bit better now. Well, I think I´ll keep on making unusual titles public. :D

Unheimlich? ...ok, I suppose that can happen, perhaps it is not totally unfounded...

[Logically Unsound]

morality does develop outside of the confines of religion. soceities such as the greeks had gods that set down no particular moral code (in fact, often opposed them e.g. Zeus moping around continuously comminting adultery) yet they had highly moral cilvalizations.
when religion does set down morals, e.g. Christianity, this still works, and so i will summarize by saying that God does not dictate morals, he is merely supporting them.

[SkippingStones]

A couple guys at school would bring up the argument that if you put a bunch of human babies in a totally secluded enviroment, they'd kill each other for food or whatever. The problem I see with this is that a bunch of human babies would never occur naturally on their own. There is always a context, in this case, parents and family. If the parents and family have found a way to survive without killing the species, there must be something external that makes them behave that way normally, or something internal which would keep the babies from killing each other in the first place.
Thousands of civilizations have survived long before the "word of God". Many of their codes of conduct are echoed in ours today. So did God come down and talk to them and tell them how to live? If so, how come he didn't send Jesus too?
Most successful species on this planet distinguish characteristics that promote the succession of the species, even at the expense of the individual. It doesn't make sense to me that humans, as an evolving species, would be any different. Early on, it was morally ok to kill the weak because that way the species could better itself. Now, where that isn't so important, other factors develope. You could argue that we're attempting to evolve more on mental level compared to the purely physical aspects of the past.

[Dreamwalker]

Well, some guy once tried to raise some children in a secluded enviroment.
Ok, they were given food, but there was no real interaction between thos who brought the food and the children. They also did not have speech, they all died over the time... they did not kill each other, just died...

The early humans have survived with no real words at all, just like animals. It my well be that morality developed from an instinvt for survival.

[Esoteric]

Our 'moral sense' we have, as Steven Pinker would put it, that has evolved through out the course of history through experience from reason(logic; grasping the interchangeability of our interest and others), knowlegde(learning of the advantage of cooperation over the long term), and sympathy(having experiences that allows us to feel other peoples pain).

[JustARide]

Morality is humanity's agreement with God.

Damn. I must have missed the meeting where we sat down with God and discussed this. Did they say anything about masturbation? Heh.

[Logically Unsound]

that would have been an interesting meeting. thered be all three trillion of earths inhabitants and god, talking about wanking. hmmmm interesting.

[Dreamwalker]

Man, I just want to meet god once. I suppose he will just say http://www.world-of-smilies.de/html/images/smilies/schilder/00000692.gif

[Jenyar]

Damn. I must have missed the meeting where we sat down with God and discussed this. Did they say anything about masturbation? Heh.
Basically, anything done in excess, anything addictive (in other words, an act that has control over you), or beyond the natural limits, are immoral. God created a certain order, and "morality" is our interaction with that order. It's a living process, like a dialogue, but it's principles remain the same: to remain in obedience to love. By that law, we "know" that infanticide, suppression and genocide are wrong (the Israelites had a rudimentary understanding of this - but only God gave it persuasion, and as we know, they didn't obey God all the time; they were still getting to know Him). Today, history, experience and global awareness through the media gives that persuasion, but it still doesn't explain the origin of morality. Nobody can pretend their ancestors didn't act like barbarians at some time. History never pleases everybody.

[everneo]

Blanket morality is a consolidated (often by the religious sanctity and next by social convention), readymade safer code.

Why Dante 'condemned' Judas and Brutus to the lowest strata of Hell as the eternal food for satan.? 'Betrayal of trust' was the common, 'ultimate' sin of both. Does Brutus deserve to share the same fate of Jusdas ? Through centuries both were depicted by poets as the epitomes of treason.

In every day life, every individual faces persons, like Judas who could sell of his/her beloved for pennies; and like Brutus, the romantic type who for the general good and personal conviction kills his/her beloved ones. An objective mind always sees through debris of treason charges heaped on Brutus and does not fail appreciate his conviction not withstanding his 'betrayal'.

Morality is chain of assessing the options down to the premise where one finds the basic fact what he/she values. God helped to consolidate / comfort the actions based on general morality (or its violation). On the other hand, New Gods [or new, 'true' attributes of God(s) ] were always found/discovered when people were dissatisfied with the 'immoral gods'.

God can 'survive' long among people if only He is moral or seemed to support morality.

[JustARide]

By that law, we "know" that infanticide, suppression and genocide are wrong (the Israelites had a rudimentary understanding of this - but only God gave it persuasion, and as we know, they didn't obey God all the time; they were still getting to know Him).

God gave it persuasion. How? By <i>ordering</i> genocide once or twice just to show us how bad it is?

Nobody can pretend their ancestors didn't act like barbarians at some time. History never pleases everybody.

Though some can certainly defend their barbarism by saying God endorsed it, huh? Handy for them.

[Esoteric]

Why don't you people just read Steven Pinker's book, "Thew blank slate," and stop making this so hard on yourselves. Maybe read some articles on nueroscience, or evlutionary pychology... Micheal Shermer also has good book.

And Jenyar, there is absolutely no evidence for anything you said. I respect it, that is your belief based on religion. But it is not based on any testable science, and not objective truth to anyone but you.

[Jenyar]

God gave it persuasion. How? By ordering genocide once or twice just to show us how bad it is?
As I said, the Israelites only had a rudimentary knowledge of what morality implied. They knew God didn't tolerate evil or injustice, and consequently moved to eradicate it. They did that in a way that was morally responsible by the standards of the day. Do you think the Amalekites, after having ambushed the women, children and old people from behind - the stragglers as Israel was fleeing Egypt - would have stopped at killing also the other men and soldiers? God didn't declare war on them because He deemed them inferior (as a matter of fact, He made clear that Israel was the inferior nation), but because He couldn't tolerate their sins any longer.

The same is true until this day, but our moral compass has swung. We can't go back to the way things were objectively anymore. If you did, you'd realize Israel was no worse for obeying God than any other ANE culture were for disobeying Him. The difference is that Israel were learning, the others (the Amalekites were still marauding terrorists 400 years later) weren't.
Though some can certainly defend their barbarism by saying God endorsed it, huh? Handy for them.
Um...no, they can't. That's the point of having a system of morality.

And Jenyar, there is absolutely no evidence for anything you said. I respect it, that is your belief based on religion. But it is not based on any testable science, and not objective truth to anyone but you.
Test it for yourself. Next time you think about whether something is warranted or not, ask yourself why you would think either way. We measure things by an order that most people just assume is universal. For example, "love" is a general term we use for a lot of things that we assume we should share with each other - but few people really think about how much that assumption and others influence the way we act. Love certainly isn't based on "testable science" or "objective truth" (if you think it is, what then what would you classify as "subjective"?) - but I don't see you holding out on it until it has been "proven".