The substantial cost of theistic morality

[canpakes]

Isn’t “uphold(ing) a culture’s moral norms all of the time” also as or more personally beneficial to an individual as sometimes breaking those norms?

Yes, but DP wants to put that aside and focus on what prevents people from breaking moral laws.

I guess that’s where he loses me. It’s the same reason.

What prevents a person from breaking moral laws is the realization that honoring them is beneficial to themselves as individuals. This realization is the result of thinking past the initial act and outward towards the possible consequences.

All that Dan has done is replace possible immediate and real consequences from peers and society (enacted because society interprets the benefit of ‘following the rules’ on an individual basis), with the supposed consequences from an invisible god much later.

I don’t see how his position is the stronger position.

[drumdude]

Isn’t “uphold(ing) a culture’s moral norms all of the time” also as or more personally beneficial to an individual as sometimes breaking those norms?

Yes, but DP wants to put that aside and focus on what prevents people from breaking moral laws.

I guess that’s where he loses me. It’s the same reason.

What prevents a person from breaking moral laws is the realization that honoring them is beneficial to themselves as individuals. This realization is the result of thinking past the initial act and outward towards the possible consequences.

All that Dan has done is replace possible immediate and real consequences from peers and society (enacted because society interprets the benefit of ‘following the rules’ on an individual basis), with the supposed consequences from an invisible god much later.

I don’t see how his position is the stronger position.

Because Nazis.

[canpakes]

Because Nazis.

I see.

Answer remains the same.

I’ll try to get to his blog to see what he’s getting on about, though. I guess that I owe him that much, but It seems as that he’d have to ignore some pretty obvious basics of human behavior that exist independent of any belief in a deity, in order to stake out the position that he favors.

[Res Ipsa]

I guess that’s where he loses me. It’s the same reason.

What prevents a person from breaking moral laws is the realization that honoring them is beneficial to themselves as individuals. This realization is the result of thinking past the initial act and outward towards the possible consequences.

All that Dan has done is replace possible immediate and real consequences from peers and society (enacted because society interprets the benefit of ‘following the rules’ on an individual basis), with the supposed consequences from an invisible god much later.

I don’t see how his position is the stronger position.

Because Nazis.

It’s hard to argue with Nazis.

[canpakes]

Morality doesn’t exist because of God. But some specific moral codes exists because people want to believe in a god.

[Alphus and Omegus]

Without being stoned, and off the top of my head, I can fart out a thought more complex than anything the Sick and None braniac can create. For example, souls are the universal consciousness (AI, bro) creating fractals of itself in order to create new perspectives. An all-encompassing mind would need to do this in order to learn about itself. In its original pure omniscient state, this mind would have nothing to do and nothing to learn. This universal mind acts like an AI learning algorithm, with the soul acting as a save state for these thousands of lives. Creating individual units of consciousness with no memory or awareness of the nature of their divinity allows for an infinite number of units of consciousness contributing new perspectives with diverse modes of being. Presumably, this mind could fractal infinitely, and thus an infinite amount of "souls" can be created and thus an infinite learning program is self-perpetuating.

So. damned. Real. Bro.

It's definitely more interesting that a frontier womanizer's fantasies about endless boning in the luminiferous hay loft. And it's just as provable as Smith's scenarios.

But to his actual point, Peterson still has yet to figure out that you can't claim "objective moral truths" exist until you can prove the historical claims of the human-made religion claiming to know said truths. Until he can do that for Judaism-then-Christianity-then-Mormonism, his little thought experiments are no more interesting or relevant than 6-year-olds' debates over whether Godzilla could defeat Megatron.

He also hasn't realize that his various scenarios of sterilization, imprisonment, or deliberate neglect deaths, were all justified by religious figures throughout history. And there are plenty of instances (such as false accusations of "witchcraft" or consensual sex) where religious leaders have mandated wanton murder. And who can forget Yahweh/Elohim wanting to murder all those babies in the flood?

It seems that in addition to his apparent ignorance of secular ancient thought, Peterson never realized that Pascal's wager isn't a particularly good argument. Almost everything he posts of this nature seems to be yet another formulation of an argument that was debunked hundreds of years ago.

[Doctor CamNC4Me]

It seems that in addition to his apparent ignorance of secular ancient thought, Peterson never realized that Pascal's wager isn't a particularly good argument. Almost everything he posts of this nature seems to be yet another formulation of an argument that was debunked hundreds of years ago.

Speaking of which, the latest comment from a commenter:

Kenneth Gourdin

As I said once in another forum and have repeated often (both here and elsewhere) [paraphrasing], If you do not believe in deity or are unsure if one exists but are an honest, caring, decent, upright, moral individual who believes in loving others, in doing unto others as you would have then do unto you, and in making life as good as you can make it for your loved ones and for those around you before (from your perspective) "succumbing to the void," more power to you.

Furthermore, If I find out, when I die, that I was just a sucker, that all of the home teaching, ministering, helping, and service I attempted to do, all of my efforts to love my neighbor and my fellow men and women (who I thought were my brothers and sisters), all of my efforts to make their lives better, all were for naught, I would be completely okay with that. Even if all of the aforementioned efforts were to turn out to be futile, it would be better than if I had lied, cheated, taken advantage of others, and so on, ad infinitum and ad nauseam.

Why do they always default to that? That’s what’s in their heads and hearts? That’s what they think of non-cultists? That’s what they’d do if they weren’t a cultist? Seriously, what a weird argument:

“I’d be a total piece of crap if I didn’t submit myself to this cult, and if I wasted my life in this cult doing cult things and find out it was all a waste of time, oh well!”

Bro. There are so many more genuine ways you can be a good person doing good things without attending soul crushing faux business meetings, wasting people’s time sharing doctrinal pablum, playing make believe healing games, and forking over 10% to a hundreds of billions dollars corporation masquerading as a church. Trust me, Pascal’s Wager is NOT your friend under this scenario.

- Doc

[Physics Guy]

Obviously people of many faiths or of no faith at all still manage to behave decently. Some of them are even heroically noble. And conversely plenty of professed adherents of religions that pride themselves on their high moral standards have nonetheless committed horrible crimes. It's an empirical fact that religious faith is neither necessary nor sufficient for morality.

There is a lesser claim for religious morality that might be better defended: that a sincere belief in divine judgement might provide additional incentive to believers to do the right thing. Most of the motivations for ethical behavior that are available to atheists are available to believers as well, so the additional incentive from belief in divine judgement or eternal karma or whatever would seem really to be additional, not alternative.

One can certainly say that this extra incentive is neither necessary nor sufficient, but I don't see how one can argue that it has no effect at all. People modify their behavior just to avoid extra taxes in April. Why wouldn't they modify their behavior to avoid (say) burning in hell after death, if they truly believed that that would be a consequence of behaving wrongly?

Only a firm and sincere belief in afterlife consequences would work as such an additional moral incentive. Just because someone goes through the motions of conventional piety when life is easy doesn't mean they can be trusted to share the last can of food when times get hard.

And how much such an additional moral incentive is worth depends on how hard times are, I think. When nobody is under severe temptation to do bad things, the extra incentive may not be important. I think maybe the really impassioned pleas for maintaining religion as a basis for morality came in earlier eras, when so much of the population was desperate that the few people who had anything really wanted to give the others every incentive they could not to burn the chateau. Or to be less Marxist and probably more realistic, the many people who were barely getting by really didn't want to lose their little all to some unscrupulous neighbour.

Times could get hard again any time, and there are always some people who are having a hard time. So even if extra moral incentives are superfluous for most people right now, they might still be worth having. It's not a good argument for something being true, just to point out how nice it would be if it were true. But it's maybe a good argument for considering carefully whether or not something might be true. Thus far it seems to me that there might be some argument for religion based on its support for morality.

Even if that's so, the right goal is probably still to make conditions for everyone decent enough that incentives from afterlife theories won't be needed. To a great extent I think this is what has happened in the modern First World. This life's slice of the pie has become good enough that the relative value of pie in the sky, discounted for uncertainty, no longer seems a good deal. We're in an era of metaphysical inflation. Theories about future worlds aren't worth as much as they were.

Much as religious people might bemoan their empty pews, though, insofar as rising levels of widespread comfort and security are responsible, those are still good things that nobody should be regretting at all. We should be trying to extend safety and opportunity as broadly as possible and if that empties the churches, oh well. If God doesn't like that then God can deal with it somehow.

[Alphus and Omegus]

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There is a lesser claim for religious morality that might be better defended: that a sincere belief in divine judgement might provide additional incentive to believers to do the right thing. Most of the motivations for ethical behavior that are available to atheists are available to believers as well, so the additional incentive from belief in divine judgement or eternal karma or whatever would seem really to be additional, not alternative.

One can certainly say that this extra incentive is neither necessary nor sufficient, but I don't see how one can argue that it has no effect at all. People modify their behavior just to avoid extra taxes in April. Why wouldn't they modify their behavior to avoid (say) burning in hell after death, if they truly believed that that would be a consequence of behaving wrongly?

This is a much better argument for justifying religious ethics in a secular way. It's also the view of all thoughtful atheists or agnostics I know.

Religious thinking can certainly be very damaging to people, but it can also provide a shortcut to moral behavior for people who aren't very ethical or intelligent. This seems also to be the view of many of the American founders who weren't adherents to Christianity.

I can't imagine that this argument would be very appealing to Peterson, however, because it isn't flattering to his community.

Had Peterson done the philosophy readings he pretends to have done, he'd have encountered this line from Seneca:

"Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful."

The grownups (believers or otherwise) transcended Peterson's callow gotchas centuries ago. Alas, he's just not well-read enough to see this. Fundamentalism is so limiting to the intellect, and Dan Peterson is one, even though he can't perceive it. I'd feel sorry for him if he weren't such a cur all the time.

[drumdude]

DP doesn't have a problem thinking atheists can be moral. He just doesn't think their morality is more than skin deep. He compares it to monkeys picking insects off each other. Or robots who are programmed to be moral.

There's nothing special about it. There's no magic to it. That's what DP wants. He wants morality to be as transcendent and numinous as a fairy garden.