Good Without God

[_DrW]

A December 18 article on the opinion pages of the New York Times begins:

I was heartened to learn recently that atheists are no longer the most reviled group in the United States: according to the political scientists Robert Putnam and David Campbell, we’ve been overtaken by the Tea Party.

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/12/18/good-minus-god/?src=me&ref=general

One reason that I was interested in the article is that when I hear "Tea Party" nowadays, I automatically think "Mormons".

One can't help but wonder if some of the precipitous decline of Mormonism's public image over the last few years it is linked to their overwhelming and strident conservatism, and the de facto linkage this creates with Tea Party craziness.

Anyway, the article is definitely worth a read. Fro one thing, the article does a good job of describing the problems with linking Good with God.

[_TAK]

Thanks!
I enjoyed reading that.

[_mikwut]

Hello DrW,

So what is "The Good"?

mikwut

[_Runtu]

I especially liked this part:

This view of the basis of morality is hardly incompatible with religious belief. Indeed, anyone who believes that God made human beings in His image believes something like this — that there is a moral dimension of things, and that it is in our ability to apprehend it that we resemble the divine. Accordingly, many theists, like many atheists, believe that moral value is inherent in morally valuable things. Things don’t become morally valuable because God prefers them; God prefers them because they are morally valuable. At least this is what I was taught as a girl, growing up Catholic: that we could see that God was good because of the things He commands us to do. If helping the poor were not a good thing on its own, it wouldn’t be much to God’s credit that He makes charity a duty.

It may surprise some people to learn that theists ever take this position, but it shouldn’t. This position is not only consistent with belief in God, it is, I contend, a more pious position than its opposite. It is only if morality is independent of God that we can make moral sense out of religious worship. It is only if morality is independent of God that any person can have a moral basis for adhering to God’s commands.

For me, it is far more moral to have dug deep within and decided what is right and good, as opposed to merely following what other people, such as prophets, tell us is moral. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but she is right that a morality developed independently of God is, in the end, true morality.

[_mikwut]

Runtu,

What do you mean by:

"to have dug deep within and decided what is right and good .......[to reach] morality developed independently of God is, in the end, true morality."

How is it true?

mikwut

[_Runtu]

How is it true?

mikwut

Well, perhaps "true" is an overstatement, but what I mean is that, at least for me, it was very easy to just accept that what I was taught was right and good. When I lost my faith, I had to really think things through and decide what I believed was right. I think having done that has made me a more moral person.

I'll give you an example. I used to believe that gay marriage was wrong. I wouldn't say that I adopted that belief solely because the church told me to, but the church colored my perception of the issues. I was far less skeptical or critical of the usual arguments than I should have been. Since losing my faith, I realized that I wasn't sure, after all, that gay marriage was a bad thing. So, I did my homework and determined what was right, and changed my position. I think my new position is much more moral than my prior position.

[_mikwut]

Runtu,

Thank you for the conversation. This topic has always fascinated me. What ethical theory or process did you come to in order to determine what you now consider "right"?

mikwut

[_Runtu]

Runtu,

Thank you for the conversation. This topic has always fascinated me. What ethical theory or process did you come to in order to determine what you now consider "right"?

mikwut

I don't recall using any particular theory. I just remember being in my early 40s and wondering what I really believed. How much of what I believed was a product of simply accepting the teachings I'd been presented with, and how much came from inside of me? I honestly didn't know.

It came down to me deciding that certain principles are inherently right: do things that benefit others, don't hurt others, don't do things that hurt you, and so on. And then it has just been a matter of applying those principles to my decisions. For example, participating in a war violates both of the latter principles, but then refusing to defend one's self and family (and by extension, one's country), is a greater violation of those principles. And defending against invaders is something that does benefit to others.

Obviously, this is a board post, and I'm being incredibly reductive, but I think you get the gist of it. So, in my prior example, I determined that same-sex marriage does not harm people and does not harm me personally, but it does benefit the people who enter into it, and by extension the larger society.