A question of morality
It's an old question of morality, but I'm going to give it some spin. Here is the basic scenario:
"You are walking down the street and you find a wallet with £500 (or $1000) in it. What is the moral thing to do?"
On it's most people would agree that moral things to do include something like trying to locate the owner and returning it or donating the money to someone more in need of it than you are yourself. However, the spin makes this interesting.
"You are walking down the street and you find a wallet with £500 (or $1000) in it. You pick it up and the owner jumps out at you and points a gun at your head and says 'Give that back so I can donate it to a charity or I will shoot you in the face'". What is the moral thing to do?"
Now, imagine a person in that situation, and that person hands over the money. Can we say they are a moral person? No, we cannot know what they would have done sans firearm. Pointing a gun at somebody creates a scenario wherein there are only immoral acts, no moral acts in any sane sense of the word. There are immoral things to do in the situation, like wrestling with the owner and killing him - but there is no moral solution...giving the wallet back is simply sensible, its self-preservation.
I contend, that self-preservation overrides moral decisions. One cannot be said to have been acting morally if one was acting primarily in self-preservation. Of course, it could be (as in our example) that the action which is self-preserving (or simply selfish) also happens to be the 'moral' thing to do. I want to leave aside the idea that giving the money to charity is selfish in the sense that it makes you feel self-rigteous, it unnecessarily obfuscates the issue I feel...at least for the moment.
I'd like to extend this now. If I wanted to kill somebody, but I know if I do, that I will be tortured for 25 years. If I decide not to kill that person can a conclusion be reached about my moral status? Once again, I think the answer should be, "no". If I were to compile a list of moral imperatives, and suggest that if any of those imperatives were breached, I would be tortured for 25 years, it becomes impossible to determine whether or not I am a morally good person based soley on how I act with regards to those imperatives. If I follow them it could be that I am a morally good person, or it could be that I am selfishly trying to avoid getting tortured.
And this is why I get confused when people posit that the Abrahamic God (esp Christian and Islamic versions of him), is required to set the standard of morality. How can we be morally judged when the threat of torture is over our heads? The very concept of definite punishment eradicates morality entirely. People have been known to say that if it wasn't for God, they'd be a bad person. I say, that makes them a bad person. That would be like someone handing over the wallet and saying "I would have spent this on a holiday in the Seychelles if it wasn't for the gun wielding owner...thank the owner for making me do the moral thing. If it wasn't for wallet owners creating moral situations and then enforcing the moral act...I'd be a thieving bastard".
If any deity created mankind, created a moral code, and then held mankind at metaphorical gunpoint enforcing said moral code, that deity cannot be said to be moral, he cannot be said to be fostering morality (As it defines it). Those that act in a moral fashion are not doing so because they are good, they do so because they have unwittingly been born into a cosmic ethical dictatorship. By creating a situation were people fear retribution for transgression we cannot know, whether it was fear or goodness that led them to being moral. Any deity that judged mankind's morality based on this system is skewing the data towards immorality. There is only neutral morality (doing the morally right thing, but with the threat hanging over your head), and immoral (doing the morally wrong thing in spite of the threat). There is no moral solution. This is exascerbated by the idea of cosmic rewards being doled out for doing the right thing. "Give me the wallet and I'll take the cash out and give it back to you, or I will kill you".
The only moral solution that can conceivably exist is to not believe that any threat exists (or to not be aware of any threat) or that any reward exists, and still do the act that we all feel instincively is the moral act. That is - giving the money back to its owner or donating to the needy. Don't let me highlight just Christianity and Islam - many religions have the idea of rewards and punishment, ideas like karma and the threefold law. However the reason why I highlight Christianity and Islam is because of the New Testament and its doctrine of eternal torturous punishment for failure to comply with the rules. Many people point to the Old Testament as being full of horror and bloodshed, but they are only horrorfying because we all beleive in genocide and rape and slavery and philicide and infanticide and...you get the idea. However, if we accept the doctrine of hell, then that is far more ghastly than a thousand million repeats of everything that happened in the Old Testament.
Anyway, Yahweh, if you are listening - suck it. If what they say about you is accurate I think your system is massively and fundamentally flawed. It makes no sense whatsoever. You cannot enforce morality and be said to have created moral beings. Sure, you can talk all you like about seeing into someone's heart but that's even worse. If you can see into their heart, why put us through this shit in the first place? Why not create souls with hearts, and then torture some of them to your own heart's content and giving the other souls virgins or harp music or whatever your ultimate party happens to look like. You're a gigantic fucking asshole, יהוה,
Mod,
a true relativist, and of the Devil's party, whilst knowing it.
"You are walking down the street and you find a wallet with £500 (or $1000) in it. What is the moral thing to do?"
On it's most people would agree that moral things to do include something like trying to locate the owner and returning it or donating the money to someone more in need of it than you are yourself. However, the spin makes this interesting.
"You are walking down the street and you find a wallet with £500 (or $1000) in it. You pick it up and the owner jumps out at you and points a gun at your head and says 'Give that back so I can donate it to a charity or I will shoot you in the face'". What is the moral thing to do?"
Now, imagine a person in that situation, and that person hands over the money. Can we say they are a moral person? No, we cannot know what they would have done sans firearm. Pointing a gun at somebody creates a scenario wherein there are only immoral acts, no moral acts in any sane sense of the word. There are immoral things to do in the situation, like wrestling with the owner and killing him - but there is no moral solution...giving the wallet back is simply sensible, its self-preservation.
I contend, that self-preservation overrides moral decisions. One cannot be said to have been acting morally if one was acting primarily in self-preservation. Of course, it could be (as in our example) that the action which is self-preserving (or simply selfish) also happens to be the 'moral' thing to do. I want to leave aside the idea that giving the money to charity is selfish in the sense that it makes you feel self-rigteous, it unnecessarily obfuscates the issue I feel...at least for the moment.
I'd like to extend this now. If I wanted to kill somebody, but I know if I do, that I will be tortured for 25 years. If I decide not to kill that person can a conclusion be reached about my moral status? Once again, I think the answer should be, "no". If I were to compile a list of moral imperatives, and suggest that if any of those imperatives were breached, I would be tortured for 25 years, it becomes impossible to determine whether or not I am a morally good person based soley on how I act with regards to those imperatives. If I follow them it could be that I am a morally good person, or it could be that I am selfishly trying to avoid getting tortured.
And this is why I get confused when people posit that the Abrahamic God (esp Christian and Islamic versions of him), is required to set the standard of morality. How can we be morally judged when the threat of torture is over our heads? The very concept of definite punishment eradicates morality entirely. People have been known to say that if it wasn't for God, they'd be a bad person. I say, that makes them a bad person. That would be like someone handing over the wallet and saying "I would have spent this on a holiday in the Seychelles if it wasn't for the gun wielding owner...thank the owner for making me do the moral thing. If it wasn't for wallet owners creating moral situations and then enforcing the moral act...I'd be a thieving bastard".
If any deity created mankind, created a moral code, and then held mankind at metaphorical gunpoint enforcing said moral code, that deity cannot be said to be moral, he cannot be said to be fostering morality (As it defines it). Those that act in a moral fashion are not doing so because they are good, they do so because they have unwittingly been born into a cosmic ethical dictatorship. By creating a situation were people fear retribution for transgression we cannot know, whether it was fear or goodness that led them to being moral. Any deity that judged mankind's morality based on this system is skewing the data towards immorality. There is only neutral morality (doing the morally right thing, but with the threat hanging over your head), and immoral (doing the morally wrong thing in spite of the threat). There is no moral solution. This is exascerbated by the idea of cosmic rewards being doled out for doing the right thing. "Give me the wallet and I'll take the cash out and give it back to you, or I will kill you".
The only moral solution that can conceivably exist is to not believe that any threat exists (or to not be aware of any threat) or that any reward exists, and still do the act that we all feel instincively is the moral act. That is - giving the money back to its owner or donating to the needy. Don't let me highlight just Christianity and Islam - many religions have the idea of rewards and punishment, ideas like karma and the threefold law. However the reason why I highlight Christianity and Islam is because of the New Testament and its doctrine of eternal torturous punishment for failure to comply with the rules. Many people point to the Old Testament as being full of horror and bloodshed, but they are only horrorfying because we all beleive in genocide and rape and slavery and philicide and infanticide and...you get the idea. However, if we accept the doctrine of hell, then that is far more ghastly than a thousand million repeats of everything that happened in the Old Testament.
Anyway, Yahweh, if you are listening - suck it. If what they say about you is accurate I think your system is massively and fundamentally flawed. It makes no sense whatsoever. You cannot enforce morality and be said to have created moral beings. Sure, you can talk all you like about seeing into someone's heart but that's even worse. If you can see into their heart, why put us through this shit in the first place? Why not create souls with hearts, and then torture some of them to your own heart's content and giving the other souls virgins or harp music or whatever your ultimate party happens to look like. You're a gigantic fucking asshole, יהוה,
Mod,
a true relativist, and of the Devil's party, whilst knowing it.