back to the beginning: morality

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The Basis of Morality
Tim Madigan on scientific versus religious explanations of ethical behaviour.

There are problems with the claim that morality comes from a divine source. I will list and briefly examine a few objections, before then looking at some arguments for the origins of morality which do not rely upon the existence of a divinity.

On the other hand, for every one person who sees divine morality as untenable there are still hundreds and hundreds of others who insist not only that God is the basis for their own moral font, but it had better be your own as well. As in “or else”.

This and the fact that the divine is said to be the one and only source for free will. Not to mention immortality and salvation.

How do we know this Law Giver exists? For most people, the existence of God is something they learn from earliest infancy. They seldom think much about it but if they did, they would find that the arguments traditionally given to justify this existence have serious flaws.

Yes, any number of us are indoctrinated as children to believe in one or another God. But, again, for any number of them [still] merely believing in a God, the God need be all that establishes His existence. In fact, for many of them, the most serious of flaws revolve instead around the fact that others believe in a different God…and are doomed/damned if they don’t come around to the One True God.

There are many such arguments and I will not examine them here, as it would need a separate article, or even a book. (The philosopher Michael Martin has written two such books, which I recommend: Atheism: A Philosophical Justification and The Case Against Christianity). Suffice it to say that no argument for the existence of a transcendent deity has proven to be generally persuasive or has withstood rigorous philosophical analysis. If the existence of God cannot be proven, how can one argue that morality is grounded in his commands?

Philosophical analysis? Right. Run your own No God philosophy by the religionists here. If only up in the spiritual clouds. With moral commandments, immortality and salvation at stake both here and there, God and religion are unlikely to disappear anytime soon.

In fact: Google Search

And I suspect the irony here revolves around the fact that in our modern/postmodern world, men and women have access [re extraordinary communication technology] to any number of One True Paths around the globe. God and No God. Back in the day when most human beings lived in villages or hamlets or other small communities, failures to communicate were minimized given that there was “a place for everyone” and everyone was expected to stay “in place” until they…died?