God is not true, at least not the sense that any religion claims (God as an abstraction and a meme is as real as any other, as real as Harry Potter or Slenderman) Claims of absolute moral right or authority derived from divine right are not true. Claims made by the religious that belief in God is a prerequisite to morality, community or cultural identity are not true. Claims made by religious teachings about the nature of the universe are not true.
So what does that leave? Philosophy, ethics and cultural mythology? Why do we need to keep religion around for any of that, any more than we need alchemy when we now have chemistry?
God is not a testable hypothesis. There is no empirical way to conclude God does not exist except by assuming that anything that cannot be tested does not exist. Such an assumption also rules out morality, as there is no empirical basis for that either.
Assuming you're utilitarian, you're working off of the untestable belief that making people happier has some property called 'goodness', and that there is some inherent value to it. But that doesn't even matter because happiness is a qualia that cannot be tested anyway.
So, while I agree that faith in God is not a prerequisite for morality, faith in something certainly is. And once you've allowed faith into your worldview, stating with certainty that God doesn't exist becomes inconsistent.
Faith in something doesn't need presuppose faith in anything supernatural.
And theists have no empirical basis for their morality either, because faith by definition is belief in the absence of such evidence. People just believe what they believe. I prefer to be fed rather than starve, I prefer peace to suffering, I prefer liberty to slavery. I'm a social being capable of empathy and extending my beliefs about myself to include my expectations for others. I prefer others be fed, rather than starve. I prefer others have peace rather than suffer. I prefer others have liberty rather than slavery. I believe human life has value because I value my own life, and therefore value the lives of others.
What do I need to have faith in, here, other than nature and mortality?
Faith in something that is the basis for any morality absolutely does presuppose faith in something supernatural. If you know of anything in the natural world that proves the existence of right and wrong, by all means let me know.
I don't disagree that theists lack empirical basis for morality, both because I don't think anyone does and because I don't believe there is an empirical basis for God.
But it doesn't sound like you have a morality*. It sounds like you have preferences. One doesn't decide one's preferences, and even if they did, they would need a morality to do so rightly. This suggests that your being a good person is strictly luck of the draw. If my friend Bob the sadist says he loves it when people starve, would you be in the right to tell him he's wrong? On what grounds?
*Don't take this the wrong way- I don't mean to insult you, and I fully expect you do have morality. I'm only criticizing the argument here.
>If my friend Bob the sadist says he loves it when people starve, would you be in the right to tell him he's wrong? On what grounds?
You first. You don't believe there is an empirical basis for God yet you believe morality absolutely presupposes faith in the supernatural. Presumably, you also consider yourself to have morality. On what supernaturally-derived basis would you (presumably) believe Bob is wrong? and given that the supernatural cannot be objectively proven, how does that faith differ from a preference, on your part?
On the basis of utilitarian notions of right and wrong, I would have no issue with saying that Bob is objectively wrong- he disagrees with what I claim is objectively right. If all I had were preferences, I could no more claim Bob was wrong to prefer to be a murderer than I could claim he was wrong to prefer to be an art teacher. I say, 'I wouldn't do that if I were you', he replies, 'Good thing you're not!', end of discussion. And then I guess he would probably murder me. Or worse: teach me art.
Faith also beats preference here in that, given the premise that it is good to reduce suffering and increase happiness, I arrive at the same conclusions about morally correct actions regardless of the time and place that my mind happens to exist in. I can align my actions to the right choice even if I was raised to prefer something else. A slave owner prefers that slavery exists; a utilitarian slave owner can see that that is wrong and free their slaves.
Growing up in Nashville I've frequently heard that religion is a prerequisite to ethics. While I disagree in principle, I struggle to come up with an example where philosophy and ethics are discussed in a secular setting outside of school(academia included) and politics.
It would not surprise me that on the whole our society is worse off for lack of a widespread secular tradition of discussing these concepts with your community.
edit: substitute "secular setting" for "secular state", definitely not arguing for the integration of church and state.
It's always looked to me like from a first approximation, people just do whatever they want and come up with justifications. The smarter they are, the more elaborate the justification. I doubt I'm above it.
I think you're right, but that developing a sense of ethics and believing those ethics and morals down to your bones will make you not want to do certain things. People without empathy don't have trouble lying to, stealing from, or committing violence against other people - but those things feel wrong to me intrinsically, because I was raised to feel empathy. But empathy is taught. Seemingly immoral things can be everyday occurrences. For example, it used to be acceptable for husbands to beat their wives up, and now it's not. Probably most people truly believe it's immoral now, unless they grew up with their father regularly beating their mother.
I suspect empathy is mostly nature with some influence via nurture. Once you encounter a few genuine psychopaths who aren’t particularly good at hiding it, it sure seems like it’s just something innate to them.
Certainly you can instill reverence in people - give people a challenge that involves using a cross as a hammer to complete and they’ll recoil instinctively, but I think that’s just software tapping into something more akin to firmware.
This is just my conjecture, but I think that it's that psychopaths lack the capacity for empathy, and empathy is otherwise like a muscle in that it can be trained. I suspect this because I've grown more empathetic compared to when I was a kid, and some other people I've talked to said it was like that for them (not very scientific, I know). I remember being somewhat selfish and amoral.
I think it's a combination of the environment you grew up in, the behavior of the people you grew up with, the values you were raised with, and the education you received, and some of it is also purely self-driven. And so toddlers and little kids are like amoral sponges, since they're still developing their senses of justice, morality, and empathy.
Right. I would argue that organized religion provides(provided?) a guided framework of accountability, transparency, and acceptance for your "justifications" amongst your community. In a vacuum, these differences compound into a complete breakdown of understanding.
It's harder to call someone a "libtard" or a "troglodyte" if you have to sit next to them in a pew for the rest of your life.
I fail to see how being forced to confess your crimes to someone who can then informally blackmail you or your employer, for the benefit of an elected dictator-for-life living on the other side of the ocean, provides any "transparency" or "accountability" towards the community.
> an example where philosophy and ethics are discussed in a secular setting
That's what the intellectual cafes of 18th/19th century were. In a more bastardized way, that's what pubs can be today.
This said, school and "politics" have always been the main locations for such arguments - "politics", after all, was effectively built as an alternative to religious establishments to discuss matters without pesky clerics around.
False beliefs are often much more instrumentally useful than true beliefs.
I notice I usually walk away from conversations with fellow believers about the nature of God, the Bible etc feeling closer to and more trusting of them even compared to if I talk with them about e.g. trolley problems or what their take on moral realism is, especially if I later confirm they in fact walk the walk by living in a way which agrees with those principles. There's just something about the religious framing that gives it that extra kick.
The actual question of whether God is real is irrelevant. I just assume they're playing ball the same way I am, and that's often enough to kickstart the friendship.
This is stating as fact several things that have not and cannot be proven by tools such as the scientific method. Seems ironic, given the subject matter. :)
The list of claims made by religion which have been disproved by science is innumerable, and the list of claims made by science which have been disproved by religion does not exist. But sure, let's pretend religion and science are equally valid....
So what does that leave? Philosophy, ethics and cultural mythology? Why do we need to keep religion around for any of that, any more than we need alchemy when we now have chemistry?