Can you have morals without god?

For the most part, things are wrong because they harm or hurt people.

you don't need to believe in god in order to have unconditional love for your fellow humans, you just need to try

A god doesn't solve the problem, because of the Euthyphro dilemma.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euthyphro_dilemma

People have tried to solve it (like William Lane Craig) by saying that god and "good" are identical, that god *is* good. But that appealing to god's nature doesn't solve the problem. Could god's nature can be of a "good" where "good" means to torture people for fun? If yes, than what is "good" is arbitrary, if not ("torturing people for fun is obviously not "good"") than we are merely defining what is "good" regardless of god.

Also, whether or not the euthyphro can be solved, that doesn't mean god actually exist.
So it might just be that we have to deal with the reality of god not existing, whether this involves accepting moral nihilism or not.

OP here, I'm actually an atheist, and I don't think you need a god in order to build an objective ethical framework, or that a god is actually required.

I just wanted to rattle theists' cages and see if they can provide some good arguments for the position, so we can have a discussion.

More specifically to your point. I don't think the question "why is freedom good?" is a dumb question.
I think that the only thing that we can call "good" in a universe without god is the well-being of a conscious system (whether an animal, human or not, or an AI).

So whether freedom is good or not depends on whether being "free" increases these conscious entities' well-being.
With humans, the answer is usually yes.

But you can perfectly imagine a conscious AI in the future for which this is not true. Therefore freedom wouldn't be good for them. Well-being would.

>I just wanted to rattle theists' cages and see if they can provide some good arguments for the position, so we can have a discussion.
I already did. It's called the social contract. Why would you ask this unless you're unfamiliar with it?

The same circular reasoning can be applied to the theist.
"Why are the commands of god intrinsically good"?

If you are a pure utilitarist, you'll consider that the moral value of an action must be judged based on its consequences. So there's no "wrongness" or "goodness" inherent to something ; it depends on the consequences.

But you can also have a deontological stance (like Immanuel Kant), and not necessarily found it on God. Kant states that if you want to know if your actions are moral, you need to formally state them as it if was universal. For example, is lying good? Well, what would happen if lying was an universal behaviour? There would no truth so there would be no lies ; there lies a contradiction that shows that this type of action is immoral.
As for murder, what would happen if everybody murdered everybody? You can clearly see here the contradiction.

Here you go.

Yes. They are animals

The argument is not that atheist cannot be moral (it's a fact that they can), it's that they have no objective basis for being moral in a non self-interested way.

I don't buy the argument, but that's how it goes.

A good video on this topic.
youtube.com/watch?v=SiJnCQuPiuo&ab_channel=bdw5000

I honestly don't know user.

I'm an atheist, I like to think I'm pretty well-read philosophically and I've yet to come across a compelling arguement in support of morality. Obviously I'd rather live in a society where other people believe in morality and I pay lip service to it in public ... but I 100% don't see why I should care about anyone's wellbeing but my own.

Now I've never committed a violent crime but that's only 'cause the cost-benefit analysis rarely works out in my favour, especially given I have a very satisfying career that I couldn't really pursue with a criminal record.

Literally everything about human being is the result of evolution (aka randomness + natural selection), why can't morals be? Most people find joy and satisfaction in being moral, because there's clear evolutionary advantage to it. People who stick together tend to survive and procreate more effectively than those who rape and murder each other.

god doesnt exist. therefore the current justification is adequate.

Oh, if you want to bamboozle a theist asking this, then just ask him if he would kill and rape and stuff if god had not told him it was wrong, then ask why. If you actually wanna argue against it, natural law (a set of morals you are born with, look it up) works fine.

You can't. And you can't have them with the Christian god either since he never intervenes in anything, so a strong grotto can just whipe out Christians and overwrite their morals.
Morals are all subjective, the person or force with the most power makes the morals in that moment. We live in a might makes right universe. It's literal proof that there is no Christian good, because he wouldn't make objective morals and have the universe NEVER respond in anyway to the breaking of those morals.

That being said, treating people the way you wish to be and instilling this value in society as a whole with a sprinkle of empathy and tolerance objectively makes society better.

no you cannot. "atheists" select other gods to base their morals on, polytheistic ones like humanity, the environment, the good and so on. It's just semantics if you base your morals off of selfishness, maybe thats properly amoral or maybe youre just treating yourself and your ego as god.

If you don't commit "immoral" stuff because of fear of punishment or to appease a god then it's not morality but risk-reward analysis and obedience.

>implying morality is anything other than that

>doing bad things makes other people feel bad
>making other people feel bad makes me feel bad
>I don't want to feel bad
It's that easy.

because they inhibit the survival of the species, all morals can be derived from this easily

The bible was MADE for them because they are stupid to have their own sense of autonomy without feeling like they are endangering the welfare of others.

>humanity, the environment, the good and so on.
How are any of the things you listed even close to a god?

You can impose your own personal standards but they're more or less arbitrary and socially dictated at that point. Without god there is no universal standard of right and wrong, which is why we need him

Pantheism, christlet

Atheist here. The Natural Law argument can still be weak. I think of two issues:
- It can still be said that human nature is evil. You can think of Hobbes' view on the natural law: he thought that natural law is simply the fact of achieving ends with your reason. But that does not exclude murder (in the state of nature, you can kill someone to steal they meat, for example). And then you would need the Leviathan to limit human nature's inherent ferocity.
- Let's accept that laws of nature (as it is construed by Locke, so what you were originally saying) are rooted in human nature, it does not solve the problem of knowing them. This problem lead Pascal to formulate an epistemological objection to Natural Law: "there are certainly natural laws, but our corrupted reason corrupted them" (i.e. hid them from us).

>which is why we need him
>him

lol ok you totally don't have stockholm syndrome for the jews or anything, nope not this guy

because god is essentially that which you elevate above yourself at a divine level. dumbass

Atheists don't believe in that nonsense though and you have yet o demonstrate any argument for it to be the case anyway.

rape is bad because it basically reverts us to fucking animals and that's it my dude, common fucking sense.
oh that and the general violation of freedom

I see.

I guess there are different ways to care about the well-being of other even if you are a moral nihilist, like self-interest. There is some good evidence that shows that altruism has great psychological benefits for the person doing the altruistic act.

youtube.com/watch?v=kP7UHk6zAtc&ab_channel=abcqanda
In a more "moral objectivist" sense, on the other hand (something is "objectively bad/wrong", regardless of whether you have a personal stake in it), you can simply say that it is an objective fact that well-being is for you, rational sentient being, very important, and that's an objective fact about you.
Then you say that other sentient beings capable of the same experiences, have similar interests, and your suffering is not any more special that theirs, therefore it matters to them just as much as it matters to you.

That doesn't necessarily give you a "duty" to care about their well-being, it simply states you can say that it is objectively good if you increase their well-being.

I don't think any moral system can give you that , not even one that involves a commandment from a god. If something can be good or bad only if a god says so, you could still ask the question "but why should I care?".
If the theist tells you "because you are going to hell" or "because you will be reincarnated in a life full of suffering in your next life", then that means that we are still talking about self-interest, and not something, which doesn't solve the problem.

In the case of pantheism, the existence of "life" as we define is all the proof you need. Which is why it's so stupid. But still less stupid than "he is a man who judges us and watches us from another plane"

>justifying the wrongness of rape and murder without a god
Quite frankly, doesn't having a god make it worse? What kind of god allows that?

Yes that's the explanation for why we have morals. But that doesn't necessarily answer the question of whether there are things that are actually objectively good or bad.

For example, what if humans evolved to eat, rape and torture each other?
And only doing those things would give evolutionary advantage to the ones who survive, instead of peaceful collaboration?
Would that make rape and murder a good thing?

They experimented on monkeys with this, they basically tied the monkeys up and had them raped and later they beat the shit out of their offspring and even killed them sometimes. Good stuff

You elevate humanity above yourself, we need to do this and that because of humanity, i act against my self interest because of the good of humanity etc

It's not a atheist then, dumbass.
Also I doubt there are many people in modern countries that regard humanity or enviroment as a deity in itself.

>I doubt there are many people in modern countries that regard humanity or enviroment as a deity in itself.
No because that defeats the entire purpose of believing you have a spiritual parent that lives in outer space that makes sure everything is okay

Humanity is what we make out of it.
I'm not elevating it in any way.

>In the case of pantheism, the existence of "life" as we define is all the proof you need.
How so?

But those moral intuition that various religion take claim as their own predate all religions and are innate in all humans beings (we can study how they develop in babies that have not been socialised to adhere to a moral system yet).
There moral intuitions are simply selectively applied to what is considered the in-group based con the society they live in (for example, the intuition that it is wrong to kill is actually "it is wrong to kill members of my family", or "people from my tribe", or "people from my religion/skin color").

>How so?
That's literally what it is.
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pantheism
>Pantheism is the belief that all reality is identical with divinity, or that everything composes an all-encompassing, immanent god. Pantheists do not believe in a distinct personal or anthropomorphic god and hold a broad range of doctrines differing with regards to the forms of and relationships between divinity and reality.

First of all I'm black. Second of all, the Bible is the only book in the world that is clearly divinely inspired. It contains scientific information far ahead of its time (like laws on quarantine hundreds of years before people understood disease transmission), accurate prophecies (predicting the name and method of Cyrus the great's overthrow of Babylon 200 years beforehand), principles that wisely apply to all areas of life, and narrates a continuous, non-conflicting theme despite having been written by 40 men from all walks of life over a span of 1600 years.

every atheist in this thread elevates something above themselves, morals become god when god is removed. just look at polytheistic gods

If you're an athiest, you belive the bible was written by humans. If a set of rules were written by humans, that shows that humans have moral of what right and wrong is already.

But atheists don't believe that all reality is something "divine" so I'm not seeing why you're trying to make a connection here.

so why keep pollution in check? why not destroy the earth in the name of technological progress right now so that in 20 years when youre still alive we'll be as advanced as possible? why do what is good?

If god commanded genocide and torture for fun, would that make those things "good"?
If the answer is yes, then what god chooses to be good is arbitrary.
If the answer is no, then what is "good" is independent of god.

AKA, a god doesn't solve the problem.

>First of all I'm black
Well, case in point I guess?
>Second of all, the Bible is the only book in the world that is clearly divinely inspired
Nope just ripped off Gilgamesh but nice try, now take this new age psychobabble back to /x/

My religion is "Don't be a cunt"

You clearly haven't read the Bible or what I've said enough to make an informed assessment of it. Gilgamesh is a document that supports the many accounts of faith that the Bible contains.

Morals aren't set in stone and they're not a deity anyway. Also I think most people try to look for themselves first before morals come into consideration.

so why keep pollution in check? why not destroy the earth in the name of technological progress right now so that in 20 years when youre still alive we'll be as advanced as possible?
People already do that to get ahead.
And the obvious answer why it isn't considered good is because it's not sustainable and will come back to bait us or other people in the ass.
We are born in a social species with empathy for other beeings, that's why we sometimes do good.

This is the hardest one to follow since it doesn't tell me when I am allowed to eat or fuck.

Bro, seriously?

What about simply instructions like washing your hands which at that time would have prevented countless lives to be saves an horrible death?

What about all the other predictions for things that never happened?

What about the fact that those teachings reflect for the most part concerns of primitive people, specific to that time (coveting, lust, sexual indiscretions)?

What about the contradictions?
What about god's endorsement of genocide, including the killing of innocent women and children (like the amalekites)?

What about the fact that Jesus burial and empty tomb story was probably invented since at that time crucified criminals were not supposed to get a decent burial (usually they stayed on the cross and then tossed in a communal grave)?

I suggest you check New Testament scholar Bart Ehrman.

youtube.com/watch?v=0Xju_MQhI2g&t=23s&ab_channel=trythinkingnow

It's a huge fucking book, if it hadn't got even one thing right it would have been a fucking embarrassment. Confirmation bias

>it would have been a fucking embarrassment. Confirmation bias
It IS a fucking embarassment because it says human beings popped out of the ground like cabbage patch kids.

I think there's more to be debated in there than that. What about the fact that any self-respecting Israeli man would have stoned his woman to death before he'd have let her cuck him with the Lord?

What about God being a sick fuck from the start and putting demons in the garden that he made by bullying the angels until one of them fought back so he had to make something weaker?

Good point. What about making a tree full of knowledge on sex just so your children can disappoint you and you can have an excuse to throw them out?

People who say you need God to have morals must really be messed up in the head, completely unable to feel empathy and unable to see how immorality is in most cases to their own detriment. If I could sum up my feeling about morality, it is partly because immorality will usually lead to pain for the perpetrator in the end, and is bad for society, again which will harm the perpetrator. That and empathy.

I am extremely reductionist too, we're nothing more than very complex interactions of fundamental particles. There is no universal concept of good or bad, it is an emergent property of the physics of life that we just have to put up with after having been thrown into the world to live.

Why not make all different kinds of retarded animals that have inefficient, specialized bodies and weird deformities and shit, but then make one really smart animal that can do just about everything with enough willpower, but somehow can't figure out the cause and effect relationship it has with it's own environment, AFTER eating the god damn magic fruit, so it eventually creates a trash island in the ocean

Trash Island is our new Eden.

Sure, but most christians ive met believe in natural law as an act of god in order to explain conscience and allowed salvation to non believers.

Most christians are fucking stupid

I don't want X done to me, so I do not do X upon others. It's that simple.

I don't think they are messed up in the head or anything. I mean some of them probably are, but I think they are simply using what they perceive as a "gap" in understanding, and exploiting it to fill it with their favourite god.

It's just a trick.

For some people it's probably also an inability to seriously question their own moral intuitions and try to justify them, weeding out the nonsensical ones (like "homosexuality is bad").

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_intuitionism

>but I think they are simply using what they perceive as a "gap" in understanding, and exploiting it to fill it with their favourite god.
What is the difference between that and outright ignorance?

This is true. If something causes you pain and you would not want it done to you, don't conduct it to others unless you are trying to survive. Basic empathy allows us that at least.

youtube.com/watch?v=wRHBwxC8b8I

Yes, this is good idea, I believe in having morals, and I also believe in God. But there is also the question of not wanting something to happen to you, so you do not do unto others. Honestly, I feel that it can work both ways. People can have morals without a God, but the people with morals who believe in a God may have more consideration for others.

Attached: curiosity.jpg (250x240, 7K)

you can easily. Christian morals are pretty much universal.

>the people with morals who believe in a God may have more consideration for others.
What about all the ones that commit felonies/murder/etc? There is absolutely no correlation between religious based morality and improved behavior.

fair points

Sort of beside the point, but I don't think questioning homosexuality is nonsensical. Of course people can't help it, but I think there is good reason to question the motives of people pushing gay marriage (a small minority of gay people) when traditional marriage, at the heart of society, is collapsing. The level of propaganda for gay relationships to be treated as completely normal is also of concern to me, or at least is pushed onto children at a very young age.

But getting back to the general points, I agree that most people are too dumb to ask deeper questions and will only spout 'gays bad' with no further thought because of an emotional repulsion to it.

The evidence is contradictory.

At a societal level, the countries with higher percentage of religious adherence are the once with the highest crime rates, whereas the majority or predominantly atheist ones are the ones with the least amount of crime.

On an individual level, on the other hand, the trend, at least for the US, seems to go the other way. it seems that religious people tend to be more generous when donating to charity.

But then again the effective altruism movement (donating a decent portion of your income to the most effective charities in the world) is a movement born out of secular thinkers.