God and Right/Wrong - Bad argument for Mormons

[_Gadianton]

Good post Sethbag. I especially liked the style in which you presented it. There is another very conflicted line of thinking in the minds of Mormons who post on these forums. On the one hand, they argue the typical line that God is required as the grounding for moral law, as the Fort Knox backing up moral currency. And they go on to claim that atheists only have primal urges, whims, and preferences by which to ground morals - e.g., atheists ultimately are making laws which dictate their private interpretations of happiness rather than morality in itself. But then they go on, often times in the same thread, to argue that an atheist's life can have no meaning because when an atheist dies, "that's the end therof" and nothing ultimately mattered. Because why? Because the atheist will not go on living forever stimulating his subjective whims and preferences. So they argue for Divine Command Theory and its antithesis, the most extreme forms of materialism and moral skepticism in the same threads, and often within the same post.

[_The Nehor]

Good post Sethbag. I especially liked the style in which you presented it. There is another very conflicted line of thinking in the minds of Mormons who post on these forums. On the one hand, they argue the typical line that God is required as the grounding for moral law, as the Fort Knox backing up moral currency. And they go on to claim that atheists only have primal urges, whims, and preferences by which to ground morals - e.g., atheists ultimately are making laws which dictate their private interpretations of happiness rather than morality in itself. But then they go on, often times in the same thread, to argue that an atheist's life can have no meaning because when an atheist dies, "that's the end therof" and nothing ultimately mattered. Because why? Because the atheist will not go on living forever stimulating his subjective whims and preferences. So they argue for Divine Command Theory and its antithesis, the most extreme forms of materialism and moral skepticism in the same threads, and often within the same post.

I don't see how this follows as LDS theology calls for all good to come from God, even those who follow his influence unwittingly.

[_antishock8]

I'll add my two cents to the OP.

I think you have to recognize a distinction between "natural law" and "sin". I believe there is a natural law to which God conforms and eventually we will be fully under. However, because of his mercy, which is effectuated through the atonement, God suspends the natural law for us for a time. In its place, he gives us his laws, which are designed to allow us to fully comply with the natural law before being overwhelmed with it. Disobedience to God's law is sin.

For example, if my 5 year old lets his anger get the better of him and he hits his younger brother, this is wrong under nature's law. But it is not a sin, because it is covered by the atonement. If my son does the same thing when he is 20, it is both wrong and a sin, but because his probation is still open, he can correct the wrong (in reality place it on Christ) by repenting. At some point the probation will end.

I think you have things backward. It's right according to nature's law. Survival of the fittest. Dominance. Hierarchy. Etc... We subvert nature's law through "God's law".

[_Gadianton]

Nehor, you're going to have to expand on that. I don't follow.

[_The Nehor]

Nehor, you're going to have to expand on that. I don't follow.

Sorry, that will teach me to post when I'm working on my Sunday School lesson.

The idea that athiests are immoral savages without God is difficult to support. According to our own teachings, the Light of Christ is the only thing keeping us from falling into utter depravity. Since most LDS agree that those not members of our Church are not completely depraved (if there are any exceptions they need to think about what society should be like if they were all depraved) it follows that exmo's and nevermo's are following God to a degree. They do emphasize different justifications for following him and most deny that they are following him. To scream that those who reject God and all his teachings are amoral bastards is to deny that the Light of Christ is proof that they have not rejected his teachings in whole and follow them.

[_Gadianton]

Nehor,

Maybe you didn't understand what I was getting it. The battles I'm talking about aren't over whether or not atheists have morals, but whether the atheist worldview holds the possibility for morals. The argument from theists is that without God, if there really were no god yet humans did in fact still exist, there would be no right or wrong.

[_Thama]

Ok, so from a theist's point of view, can the atheist's worldview hold the possibility for morals? This is getting a bit convoluted.

From the traditional Catholic/Protestant view of the origin of morals, I can see where they'd say that an atheist's worldview would not hold the possibility of morals, as for them God is the source of morals: right and wrong are defined by him.

LDS hold that God became God due to his adherence to an external set of morals. Although he is the exemplar of these morals now, they exist eternally and are unchangeable by him, as it is due to his obedience to these morals that he maintains his divinity. If morals then exist outside of God and are absolutes in the universe (regardless of whether the commandments given to us by God are perfect representations of that morality, or merely simplifications designed to get us to adhere to these absolute morals most of the time), then it would not be consistent for an LDS theist to claim that morality cannot exist for the atheist. The theist may claim that the atheist cannot have the same access to information regarding this absolute morality, yet the morality exists as natural law regardless. Assuming that the atheist cannot approximate this morality through reasoning (if reasoning is indeed a God-given power) appears quite incorrect.

Of course, the atheist may or may not dismiss the idea of an absolute right or wrong, depending on the ethical system they have in place. A consequentialist may in the end find their code of behavior to be very close to the moral code of a theist, as the basis for both systems are similar.

[_The Nehor]

Nehor,

Maybe you didn't understand what I was getting it. The battles I'm talking about aren't over whether or not atheists have morals, but whether the atheist worldview holds the possibility for morals. The argument from theists is that without God, if there really were no god yet humans did in fact still exist, there would be no right or wrong.

From the LDS viewpoint that is completely correct. If there was no God there would be no morals. Where LDS may get it wrong is assuming that atheists would act as if that were so. They are working from the knowledge base that there is no God. However, LDS should accept that if their reality is correct in many ways atheists would live as if there is a God. They won't be absolutely depraved because God influences them any way. LDS who say that they'd be amoral bastards if they weren't in the Church must all be thinking they qualify for Perdition. I call this delusions of grandeur.