What if there was no God?

[witeken]

So much of what we call morality is really just an description of an effective survival tactic. Thou shalt not steal - take away God enforcing it, and it's still a good idea. The people you would steal from are going to try to prevent you from stealing, and they're going to refuse to help you if you get caught. Even without the divine, it's a questionable approach simply because of the sea of other people who are going to react to you doing it.

I think it is quite a wrong idea to base morality or try to explain morality through evolution. It's like trying to explain psychology through the laws of physics. You could probably make a point for morality at older points in time, maybe for slavery (for example, I dunno), but morality today is or at least should be based on knowledge, fairness, etc.

So I'm not sure if morality is meaningfully impacted by evolution (today, at least), but behavior is much easier and straightforward to explain.

 

[Cerpin Taxt]

Sure as shit as you're yammering away on the keyboard there was a creator of some kind. It might not be a personified creator, but just the fact that you exist in time and space means you came from somewhere ya dingdongs.

It means nothing of the sort. You're perpetuating a falsehood.

I'm okay with personifying a creator as that comes pretty naturally but I don't see how you can say there isn't "Something" responsible for your existence and the universes existence, thats stupid.

Your inability to rationalize a fact does not falsify that fact.

 

[Dr. Zaus]

Pretty much.

Does the lack of 'goodness' and 'evil' as something more than a story we were told as children cause you any concern?

 

[njdevilsfan87]

Black holes are the just locations in space time where the results of equations have blown to -1.#IND. God must have just been a summer intern. Maybe he's just fixing the code right now, and after he does, heaven on Earth!

But on a more serious note, I think I would have the easiest time accepting we are in a computer simulation. Because then the answer of God existing becomes a definite yes, with an explanation (for our universe) I can easily relate to. While that may not stop the desire for more knowledge later on, it would be enough, for now. And then believe it or not, it actually would give purpose for your life because what computational engineers today run simulations without reason? The result of every simulation is used for something.

http://news.discovery.com/space/gal...-simulation-recreates-our-universe-140507.htm

We might be able to do it one day ourselves. Then we'll know the rabbit hole exists. And how deep it goes? F**k it. It's infinite.

 

[Retro Rob]

But it's a mistake to label that as bad in and of itself without further consideration.

I don't think its bad no more than believing a God is bad in an of itself. I just think humanity is more than just a mixture of chemicals and genetic material, and I believe most people feel that way because of our efforts to understand the world and our quest to enjoy life, not just to survive and pass on our genes.

We don't need a god/gods, good food, art, happy dance, and song to pass down our genes and survive our evironment.

Those things are really superflous to survival.

Some people will have made the poor choice and affected their behavior on the superficial reading, causing some net cost to humanity as a whole and any given individual in particular.

This I agree with.

But how much of a cost, and what other effects does it have? If the title of the book alone makes 100 people mean, but also makes 100 people who would've been mean actually read the book then reconsider their behavior, is that a net loss or net gain? What other effects do those changes in behavior on those other people have?

These questions are of great interest, and some I'd have to think about.

 

[soulcougher73]

Sure as shit as you're yammering away on the keyboard there was a creator of some kind. It might not be a personified creator, but just the fact that you exist in time and space means you came from somewhere ya dingdongs. I'm okay with personifying a creator as that comes pretty naturally but I don't see how you can say there isn't "Something" responsible for your existence and the universes existence, thats stupid.

Obviously. But lets pick the one thing that sounds the most illogical given the fact we possess the skills of reason and logic and without a shred of proof other than an old ass book said so. Makes total sense to explain something you dont have the answer to.

 

[sandorski]

Does the lack of 'goodness' and 'evil' as something more than a story we were told as children cause you any concern?

Having a difficult time understanding the question.

 

[moonbogg]

Sure as shit as you're yammering away on the keyboard there was a creator of some kind. It might not be a personified creator, but just the fact that you exist in time and space means you came from somewhere ya dingdongs. I'm okay with personifying a creator as that comes pretty naturally but I don't see how you can say there isn't "Something" responsible for your existence and the universes existence, thats stupid.

OverVolt, I like this. That something has to exist, whatever it may be. Whatever that thing is, that's all that God could ever be. That IS God whatever that is. God is a label that means nothing. I scratch my head at people who try to convince others that there wasn't a cause for anything, lol. Its the same as saying, "nothing is really here, so forget about it".
I'm convinced that there are a lot of atheists out there who went clear off the deep end as they flew right past skepticism and straight into lunacy.

 

[sandorski]

OverVolt, I like this. That something has to exist, whatever it may be. Whatever that thing is, that's all that God could ever be. That IS God whatever that is. God is a label that means nothing. I scratch my head at people who try to convince others that there wasn't a cause for anything, lol. Its the same as saying, "nothing is really here, so forget about it".
I'm convinced that there are a lot of atheists out there who went clear off the deep end as they flew right past skepticism and straight into lunacy.

Read this carefully: Nobody says there was "No Cause".

 

[witeken]

Ahh ok, makes sense.

There is chapter in Lawrence Krauss' book Fear of Physics about symmetry. It's actually quite an important concept. Here are some quotes.

Nevertheless you can wait 10 billion years and you will never see a ball on Earth fall up. That is order. Symmetry is the most important conceptual tool in modern physics precisely because it elucidates those things that do not change or cannot happen.

[...] This feature is general: The more symmetrical something is, the fewer variables are needed to describe it completely.

In a theorem that bears her name, Noether demonstrated a mathematical result of profound importance for physics. After the fact, Noether’s theorem seems eminently reasonable. Its formulation in physics goes essentially as follows: If the equations that govern the dynamical behavior of a physical system do not change when some transformation is made on the system, then for each such transformation there must exist some physical quantity that is itself conserved, meaning that it does not change with time.

For example, conservation of energy.

Energy conservation is, in fact, related to the very symmetry that makes physics possible. We believe the laws of nature will be the same tomorrow as they are today. If they weren’t, we would have to have a different physics text for every day of the week.

Nevertheless, the very fact that an accident of our circumstances can hide an underlying symmetry of the world is one of the most important ideas directing modern physics. To make progress, and to exploit the power of such symmetries, we have to look beneath the surface.
Many of the classic examples of hidden realities I discussed in the last chapter are related to this idea that symmetry can be masked. This idea goes by the intimidating name spontaneous symmetry breaking, and we have already encountered it in a number of different guises.

The trick of physics is to rise above the particular circumstances that may be attached to our own existence and attempt to peer beyond them. In every case I know of, this implies searching for the true symmetries of the world. In the case I just described, it would mean discovering that the equations governing the magnets were invariant under rotations and that north could be rotated to be south and the physics would still be the same.
The prototypical example of this is the unification of the weak and electromagnetic interactions. There, the underlying physics makes no distinction between the massless photon and the very massive Z particle. In fact, there is a symmetry of the underlying dynamics under which a Z can be turned into a photon and everything will look exactly the same. In the world in which we live, however, this same underlying physics has produced a specific realization, a solution of the equations —the “condensate” of particles occupying otherwise empty space—inside which the photon and the Z behave quite differently.

The same background density of particles in empty space that causes a Z particle to appear massive, while a photon, which transmits electromagnetism, remains massless, provides a background that can physically respond to the weak charge of an object.

[...]This is why particle physicists are obsessed with symmetry. At a fundamental level, symmetries not only describe the universe; they determine what is possible, that is, what is physics.

We believe that for every symmetry that is spontaneously broken at elementary scales today, there was at some sufficiently early time a “cosmic” phase transition associated with its breaking. Much of cosmology today is devoted to exploring the implications of such transitions, again governed by symmetry.

 

[PhatoseAlpha]

I don't think its bad no more than believing a God is bad in an of itself. I just think humanity is more than just a mixture of chemicals and genetic material, and I believe most people feel that way because of our efforts to understand the world and our quest to enjoy life, not just to survive and pass on our genes.

We don't need a god/gods, good food, art, happy dance, and song to pass down our genes and survive our evironment.

Need isn't the right word. The question is do they provide more advantages than their costs? And that's a very complex question, and the answer changes since it involves other people doing very similar calculations - or rather, acting as if they were.


That background of other people is what makes this so tricky. You end up with seemingly paradoxical effects that are perfectly sensible once you take the other people into account.

Let's take art, for instance. I'm deciding whether I should be an artist - whether it will pay my genes in the long run to make art instead of doing something else. And lets assume tending to be an artist is somewhat genetic - reasonable, right? I'm likely to be poor, art isn't likely to put food on my table or a roof over my head, so it can't pay to be an artist, right?

Except I still need to take a look at the population pool. If I'm in a civilization where the ladies around like to have sex with Artists, no matter how useless art is to my individual survival, it's still got an advantage because it makes me more likely to breed. So I'd better check what the ladies are into.

And they're not all that better off really. If a lone lady doesn't especially care for artists but the majority of the other women around do want to breed with the artists, that actually works against her. Because she'll have sex with less artistic men, and her sons will be less artistic and so they'll breed less because they're less artistic so less women will want to have sex with them.


Evolution is like that. Even things that can reasonably diminish your chance of survival can become imperative simply because of the population you're in.

 

[witeken]

I just think humanity is more than just a mixture of chemicals and genetic material, and I believe most people feel that way because of our efforts to understand the world and our quest to enjoy life, not just to survive and pass on our genes.

We don't need a god/gods, good food, art, happy dance, and song to pass down our genes and survive our evironment.

Those things are really superflous to survival.

Why do you think that? Ironically, the same process that explains why you exist also explains why you think there is more to existence than what the eye meets. If you didn't think you were special, you wouldn't be able to reproduce. This is the whole beauty of evolution. Evolution gives meaning and gives reasons (to do what you do). The examples you give are direct or more indirect results from evolution. If food didn't taste good, we wouldn't get the necessary energy to live. Following is what evolution was probably thinking when it created art as an activity that humans find enjoyable: "we should give those intelligent humans some other things they find enjoyable than only reproduction and survival, because else those poor beings might suspect that that's the only purpose of their existence, which would not be healthy for their evolutionary purpose. Since we already have a reward and emotion system in place, we can extend that to let people repeat some stupid activities like football (soccer) and even become strongly emotionally engaged in them."

 

[witeken]

Let's take art, for instance. I'm deciding whether I should be an artist - whether it will pay my genes in the long run to make art instead of doing something else. And lets assume tending to be an artist is somewhat genetic - reasonable, right? I'm likely to be poor, art isn't likely to put food on my table or a roof over my head, so it can't pay to be an artist, right?

Evolution is like that. Even things that can reasonably diminish your chance of survival can become imperative simply because of the population you're in.

I don't really think it works that way, that there's an art gene. Remember that nature doesn't know like we know, it can't predict in which world the animals will live, so they have to be as flexible (but also efficient) as possible, which is certainly true for humans. So instead of focusing on specific things like an artist, you could more generally say that creativity could benefit people (creativity is something that can be used across a range of uses, like creating tools).

 

[alzan]

Those things DO have a philosophical affect on our lives. You're actually helping my point by giving more examples of things that are not philosphical by definition, but have that sort of impact on our lives.

Thank you, very much.

You are not contradicting me.

My car not running can have a direct impact on how I live my daily life and the choices I make. Does that make my car a philosophy or philosophical?

"Zen and Life Maintenance" by Dodge Dart GT - copyright 2014

"How a Dodge Dart GT Can Save Your Marriage" by Chrysler

I just think humanity is more than just a mixture of chemicals and genetic material, and I believe most people feel that way because of our efforts to understand the world and our quest to enjoy life, not just to survive and pass on our genes.

We don't need a god/gods, good food, art, happy dance, and song to pass down our genes and survive our evironment.

Those things are really superflous to survival.

Interestingly enough I feel that as well.

It could be argued that those things and others that some consider superfluous are in fact the reasons for living. To bring joy, community, empathy, etc. to one's self and others through song & poetry; to celebrate life through art and dance, to do those things and more is to truly live.

 

[moonbogg]

Read this carefully: Nobody says there was "No Cause".

I'll be damned if they aren't the same thing. I am interested in the truth of the matter. There really is a cause or source. We cannot know the details yet, obviously, but we know damn well that there is a cause, or a source of some kind or another. By recognizing the truth of that, I realize that whatever that source is, happens to be the God that people have been claiming to know for thousands of years. Its real and exists, its just not as people have imagined it to be. It might not be alive or anything like that, but who cares? It is what it is, and its real or else we wouldn't be having this discussion.

 

[PhatoseAlpha]

I don't really think it works that way, that there's an art gene. Remember that nature doesn't know like we know, it can't predict in which world the animals will live, so they have to be as flexible (but also efficient) as possible, which is certainly true for humans. So instead of focusing on specific things like an artist, you could more generally say that creativity could benefit people (creativity is something that can be used across a range of uses, like creating tools).

Oh, you're right. It's probably not just a single gene, or even a trait of a gene or genes that could be called 'art lovers'. Genetics generally doesn't work anywhere near so simply. That was chosen because it's already an incredibly complex process and if you don't simplify where you can, you end up needing a lot more then a single post. Or book, for that matter.

 

[soulcougher73]

I'll be damned if they aren't the same thing. I am interested in the truth of the matter. There really is a cause or source. We cannot know the details yet, obviously, but we know damn well that there is a cause, or a source of some kind or another. By recognizing the truth of that, I realize that whatever that source is, happens to be the God that people have been claiming to know for thousands of years. Its real and exists, its just not as people have imagined it to be. It might not be alive or anything like that, but who cares? It is what it is, and its real or else we wouldn't be having this discussion.

You said a lot of words to really say nothing at all.

 

[Retro Rob]

Let's take art, for instance. I'm deciding whether I should be an artist - whether it will pay my genes in the long run to make art instead of doing something else. And lets assume tending to be an artist is somewhat genetic - reasonable, right? I'm likely to be poor, art isn't likely to put food on my table or a roof over my head, so it can't pay to be an artist, right?

Except I still need to take a look at the population pool. If I'm in a civilization where the ladies around like to have sex with Artists, no matter how useless art is to my individual survival, it's still got an advantage because it makes me more likely to breed. So I'd better check what the ladies are into.

And they're not all that better off really. If a lone lady doesn't especially care for artists but the majority of the other women around do want to breed with the artists, that actually works against her. Because she'll have sex with less artistic men, and her sons will be less artistic and so they'll breed less because they're less artistic so less women will want to have sex with them.


Evolution is like that. Even things that can reasonably diminish your chance of survival can become imperative simply because of the population you're in.

I see where you're going, but no offense...you're kind of painting the target around the arrow here.

But I'd like to introduce some differences. Perhaps there are only a handful of ladies in your pool, and since all of them like artistic men, they went out and found them, except for one lady, who really doesn't find you attractive and decides to go elsewhere. She loves your abilities, but cannot get passed the way you look.

Then, it puts you at such a disadvantage that your breeding chances are practically eliminated within your pool.

I agree, this is tricky.

Good discussion, though.

 

[Retro Rob]

If you didn't think you were special, you wouldn't be able to reproduce.

Animals don't think they're special, yet they can reproduce.

If food didn't taste good, we wouldn't get the necessary energy to live.

Are you saying that energy is a direct result of good tasting food? What happened to the nutritious value?

Following is what evolution was probably thinking when it created art as an activity that humans find enjoyable:

I wonder why you're assigning evolution intelligent, cognitive qualities like being able to think and obviously prophesy, unless you're trying to indirectly validate the existence of a god.

"we should give those intelligent humans some other things they find enjoyable than only reproduction and survival, because else those poor beings might suspect that that's the only purpose of their existence, which would not be healthy for their evolutionary purpose. Since we already have a reward and emotion system in place, we can extend that to let people repeat some stupid activities like football (soccer) and even become strongly emotionally engaged in them."

What you're describing is a god, just under a different name.

 

[Dr. Zaus]

Having a difficult time understanding the question.

Sorry about that. My poor writing of the question probably betrays my lack of thinking through the question.

it would seem that a willingness to learn and to trust your elders are an Evolutionary advantage. Especially for Children.

And then if someone abuses that trust by creating a fairy story, as long as that fairy story doesn't confer an evolutionary disadvantage large enough to be overcome by losing trust, then trust in kin-group stories runs rampant?

So let's say I come up with a fairy story about how you need to wash your hands (The truth is all I know is I was good at accounting and people that didn't wash their hands died a lot and people that did wash their hands kept on going) but instead my fairy story is about a mountain god that will spank your ass forever if you don't do what he says.

Now the kids believe the story and do what they are told and their kids also do what their parents were told and the accounting of "hand-washing = longevity" is lost.

... now let's say that perfectly describes what the old-testament reads like.


Now let's say we have a modern concept of "evil" but it is based on the fairy story from the book that told you to wash your hands.

So are you at all concerned that there's no such thing as "good" or "evil" in this explanation of things? Do you feel uneasy about the most horrendous acts of inhumanity being, essentially, not objectively evil, but an accident of storytelling throughout history?

I ask because I am not willing to be logically consistent with such a world view. I refuse to accept that there's no such thing as Real "evil" and in order to believe in Evil I have to believe that there's some objective creator of that which is opposed to evil.

If it's all just a historical artifact of bad storytelling, or if it's all just a psychological mechanism created to moderately increase subservience to the tribe, then all morality is bullshit and should, if you want to live the best possible life, be ignored every time you gain anything at all by not being moral.

But perhaps this isn't the same for you. Perhaps you can share your own take on it so I can appreciate your stance.

 

[sandorski]

I'll be damned if they aren't the same thing. I am interested in the truth of the matter. There really is a cause or source. We cannot know the details yet, obviously, but we know damn well that there is a cause, or a source of some kind or another. By recognizing the truth of that, I realize that whatever that source is, happens to be the God that people have been claiming to know for thousands of years. Its real and exists, its just not as people have imagined it to be. It might not be alive or anything like that, but who cares? It is what it is, and its real or else we wouldn't be having this discussion.

The bolded part, everyone agrees with, but then your argument falls off the rails. Peoples claims about gods are not that vague, but are very specifically about Conscious Beings similar to our selves, but far beyond our capability.

 

[sandorski]

Sorry about that. My poor writing of the question probably betrays my lack of thinking through the question.





So let's say I come up with a fairy story about how you need to wash your hands (The truth is all I know is I was good at accounting and people that didn't wash their hands died a lot and people that did wash their hands kept on going) but instead my fairy story is about a mountain god that will spank your ass forever if you don't do what he says.

Now the kids believe the story and do what they are told and their kids also do what their parents were told and the accounting of "hand-washing = longevity" is lost.

... now let's say that perfectly describes what the old-testament reads like.


Now let's say we have a modern concept of "evil" but it is based on the fairy story from the book that told you to wash your hands.

So are you at all concerned that there's no such thing as "good" or "evil" in this explanation of things? Do you feel uneasy about the most horrendous acts of inhumanity being, essentially, not objectively evil, but an accident of storytelling throughout history?

I ask because I am not willing to be logically consistent with such a world view. I refuse to accept that there's no such thing as Real "evil" and in order to believe in Evil I have to believe that there's some objective creator of that which is opposed to evil.

If it's all just a historical artifact of bad storytelling, or if it's all just a psychological mechanism created to moderately increase subservience to the tribe, then all morality is bullshit and should, if you want to live the best possible life, be ignored every time you gain anything at all by not being moral.

But perhaps this isn't the same for you. Perhaps you can share your own take on it so I can appreciate your stance.

So this is an Objective v Subjective Morality question?

Assuming so, I don't have a problem with a lack of non-Human Objective Morality. Especially in comparison to the Biblical Objective Morality. The reason for that is, although Yahweh condemns Murder, it repeatedly demanded its' followers to commit Murder, with the only difference being that it commanded them to do so, thus making it "Moral". What good is an Objective Moral code if it can be Subjectively changed?

William Lane Craig and many other Christian apologists have repeatedly had to admit that if their god ordered them to commit an otherwise Immoral act, they would have to do it, because by their god's command alone it becomes Moral by default. At the risk of Godwinning the Internets, this is the exact same reasoning that Nazi War Criminals used to justify them following their orders to commit genocide.

Essentially, the Objective Morality of Religion is only Objective to Humanity, it is not Objective to the gods, but instead it is entirely Subjective to them and I would suggest that it is entirely based upon their Whims.

There is a superior, IMO, form of Morality that avoids the pitfalls of Whimsical Deities based Morality. That is, more or less, very similar what we have now in Secular based Western Democracies. In a sense, we all as Individuals accept the Objective judgement of Society. Not quite entirely though, because we have also limited Societies authority over Individuals, using basic principles of Liberty and other principles as a guide to achieve a desired goal.

That Secular Morality isn't perfect, but it has proven itself as being much more dynamic and better able to deal with injustices. It has lead to abolishing Slavery, improving the plight of Women, and other issues where Religious based Morality resisted change. Not only that, but Secular Morality has even forced Religious Morality to change.

So, the answer is No, I don't fear the loss of "Objective Morality" in the traditional Religious sense. Even if it provided a basic framework for some people at some time in History and helped them to get on a path that lead to Civilization. It should be given credit where credit is due, however, like the horse and buggy, it has become obsolete and many of our current conflicts are based upon people unable to see the inferiority of these obsolete Moral systems.

[/rantish]

 

[OverVolt]

..

 

[Retro Rob]

At the risk of Godwinning the Internets, this is the exact same reasoning that Nazi War Criminals used to justify them following their orders to commit genocide.

Kent Brantly said, and I quote:

We moved to Liberia because God called us to serve the people of Liberia.

http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/eb...nt-brantlys-full-remarks-god-saved-my-n185956

So if we can directly blame God's OT commands to kill for inspiring the Holocaust, then we can directly credit Jesus commands to love for inspiring Kent in Liberia, and staying to help Ebola patients...though that wasn't their initial reason for being there, God helped them serve Ebola patients at the risk of the own health:

As I lay in my bed in Liberia for the following nine days, getting sicker and weaker each day, I prayed that God would help me to be faithful even in my illness, and I prayed that in my life or in my death, He would be glorified.

See, if you can blame God for inspiring the Holocaust, then he can also be credited, through His Son, Jesus, for inspiring unselfish acts.

For your position to be logically consistent and coherent, you must admit this.

 

[sandorski]

Kent Brantly said, and I quote:

http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/eb...nt-brantlys-full-remarks-god-saved-my-n185956

So if we can directly blame God's OT commands to kill for inspiring the Holocaust, then we can directly credit Jesus commands to love for inspiring Kent in Liberia, and staying to help Ebola patients...though that wasn't their initial reason for being there, God helped them serve Ebola patients at the risk of the own health:

See, if you can blame God for inspiring the Holocaust, then he can also be credited, through His Son, Jesus, for inspiring unselfish acts.

For your position to be logically consistent and coherent, you must admit this.

Incorrect. I don't blame a god for anything. I criticize the claims of gods which are in clear contradiction to the totality of the claims. There is no Objective Morality within Christianity, there is no god of Righteousness or Holiness in this god, there is no coherent idea behind this god.