Apr 04
I’ll try to avoid being offensive here
I just saw a hilarious old episode of Roseanne in which her youngest son DJ started randomly going to church and asked all sorts of questions about the morality of his family. He was asking his father Dan about the denominations of his family (they are more or less atheist in the show) and Dan replies, ” well my parents were Lutheran, Roseanne’s catholic, and us, well, we’re just good people” This prompted a hysterical laugh from the laugh track. While I don’t think the point of the laugh was that the idea of having morals while not being religious is absurd, it got me thinking about it anyway.
It is a very common belief that morality comes from god and the reason something is right or wrong is because god says so. Further, many believe that anyone who does not believe in god does not have much of a moral code. I give far more credit to the moral code of those who do not derive it from god and are “just good people” than those who follow “god’s word”.
When someone believes that morality comes from god, pretty much anything goes. Often without the insight or the desire to examine their beliefs, these people will accept what religious authorities tell them quite literally as gospel. They do not need to understand nor justify their beliefs to anyone because they come from the highest possible authority. God has long been used as a justification for many unspeakable evils. I would not presume to argue that evil people would not find other reasons to do evil things if they were unable to use their god as justification, but it certainly does make it easier for them to still believe they are “good people”. After all, if two people that trust in gods moral authority argue over who is right when one says to blow up innocent people and the other says not to, just how in depth can the argument be when one yells, “god says to do so” and the other says, “no you got it all wrong”.
I have also heard the argument made that people are generally better when the feel they are answering to someone greater than themselves. There is no real way to measure this outside of experience, but in my (admittedly limited) human experience, some of the biggest scumbags are the truest believers (and being around the poker world offers some unique access to scumbags).
On the flip side, a moral person who derives his morals through logic and reason often has a much more complex thought process. I personally have always appreciated the golden rule of treating others how you would want to be treated, but this is fairly amorphous and I learned what I think is a far better way to reach similar values in college. I took an ethics class where we read a number of great writers, I apologize for not giving credit to the author of this thought process but I can’t remember his name. He argued that if humans form a society, unethical behavior will naturally be forced out. Take stealing as an example, in a society in which stealing is fine and accepted, people will naturally snatch the belongings as others. People won’t like having their hard earned possessions taken so they will form into bands that protect each other from such theft. These bands will become new societies in which stealing is immoral.
To me the thought process I just described offers far greater depth and is a far more interesting springboard for discussion than the classic discussion ender, “god says so”.
On a separate but related note I just finished watching this season of the Celebrity Apprentice. Stephen Baldwin was one of the contestants and he was hilarious to watch. He is someone who’s life was so messed up that he turned to religion for help. He became a born again Christian celebrity minister of sorts who I understand has quite a following. One of the highlights of the show for me was Stephen’s blank stare and vacant laugh in response to almost anything anybody said to him. If you are looking for someone to take life advice from, choosing him seems totally absurd. If you would like a bit of further entertainment, I encourage you to check out the following link that has a list of Stephen Baldwin’s hobbies:
http://www.stephenbaldwin.com/hobbies.htm
Sorry for all the pseudo-intellectualism, my next blog will be about poker
April 4th, 2008 at 11:48 am
You got it all wrong. When people have morals not based on God, that’s when anything goes. There’s no justification for anything they do and if they don’t fear God or what comes after this life, than truly anything goes. They become beings enslaved by their own desires for happiness and pleasure which will often come at the expense of others. The people without a fear of God are truly frightening, since they often believe nothing they do has any real consequences (prison/death is not enough here), and can ruin all society. If you don’t believe in God or an afterlife of any kind, what’s the point in being a good person, a moral person? This whole life becomes instantly pointless, once you die nothing continues, the world just becomes a cycle that presumably will go on forever up until the point we all kill each other or nature does. Nothing will have any lasting meaning at all and because of this there’s no real point in listening to society and being “moral”.
April 4th, 2008 at 1:13 pm
i’ve been reading your blog for some time and have really enjoyed it. in that time i came to the conclusion that you seem like an intelligent and well grounded guy. having said that this is by far the most ridiculous thing you have said during that time. to make my point i only need point out that since they took God out of our schools crime and depravity have sky rocketed. our prisons are over flowing now 1 in 10 americans is currently locked up. not to mention all the left wing eco terrorist we have running around burning things down. i don’t believe any of these people did their crimes in Jesus/allah/buddah name. and what about the overall discourse in this nation? people are done right mean these days if you don’t see the world exactly as they do. having said all that religion (christianity) is not so much about me being better than you it’s about me getting to heaven at least that’s my concern. finally i hate to disappoint you, but i’m no sheep that blindly follows what some crack pot says. i have my own mind and make my own judgments for example i do not believe our government created the hiv virus to kill blacks or that they are responsible for 9/11. hateful, evil or otherwise crazy people will always find a way to justify their evil deeds they in know way need religion for that.
April 4th, 2008 at 1:47 pm
I didn’t say I would trust the morals of anyone over someone who derives his morals from god, I said I’d trust the morals of a generally good person. These responses show the typical blindness of someone following religious ideas as they totally ignore my argument that it is possible to derive morals from a more logical place than a potential almighty figure
April 4th, 2008 at 2:03 pm
Steve, I see that you are a successful poker player, so I’ll use a logical argument. Hopefully you can follow. You see, since God is all knowing and all powerful, basing your morality on God’s teaching will ALWAYS be right.
KAN
April 4th, 2008 at 10:51 pm
“I said I’d trust the morals of a generally good person.”
Incredible circular logic here. What makes a good person? I guess some one that has good morals. What makes someone have good morals? I guess that they are a good person.
My first response was saying that it’s a lot harder to have good morals if you are an atheist, there is just nothing to live for. I’m sure there are “good” people out there who are atheists, but the reason they act “moral” is probably because the consequences they see wouldn’t make it worth it. I’m sure these people would lie/cheat/steal etc etc if they knew they could get away with it.
April 4th, 2008 at 11:35 pm
Religious people who think morality is on their side are of course completely deluded. There is no moral action that a religious person could perform that an atheist / agnostic / non-believer couldnt or wouldnt do. When you look at the question the other way round though, no-one ever has any trouble finding actions which could only be carried out by the religious. (Suicide bombings, 9/11, 7/7 etc.)
In regards to saying that religious people dont get arrested in the name of their belief, im not suggesting they do. However it is certainly true that if we are to take the US as an example we can see that seventy-five percent of Americans are God-fearing Christians; and 75 percent of prisoners are God-fearing Christians. Ten percent of Americans are atheists; yet 0.2 percent of prisoners are atheists.
Put together with the fact that >98% of the top 2% of the worlds most intelligent people (MENSA), are atheist and the lack of any scientific evidence AT ALL for any god then the religious are always going to have an uphill struggle.
For reference the facts and figures are taken from Richard Dawkins, ‘the God delusion,’ before anyone claims that the figures are made up ^^
April 5th, 2008 at 2:49 pm
Hi,
first of all, i’m not American, but European. I recently
watched a tv documentary about the creationism movement at
USA. Mainly they talked about how the Political right was
using creationism to introduce religion in schools again,
like in Kansas. I think it’s pretty shocking…
April 7th, 2008 at 12:35 pm
Yes, Antonio, the extremists in our country get far too much attention. If either side of the extreme had their way we’d be in very big trouble.
April 7th, 2008 at 2:29 pm
have fun in hell biatch
April 10th, 2008 at 2:41 pm
Hey this has nothing to do with your recent post but I was wondering if you could add me to your blog list. I have enjoyed reading your blog about poker and other topics and have added you to mine. I appreciate it and good luck.
April 10th, 2008 at 2:42 pm
sorry my link is www.maccampb.blogspot.com
April 13th, 2008 at 1:44 pm
Jesus says: “Put together with the fact that >98% of the top 2% of the worlds most intelligent people (MENSA), are atheist and the lack of any scientific evidence AT ALL for any god then the religious are always going to have an uphill struggle.”
Why is there a need for scientific evidence for something to be true? I think most people don’t realize that scientific evidence does not make something true. And, why can’t you look at it from the other side, there is no scientific evidence AT ALL that God doesn’t exist. So you need another argument.
May 15th, 2008 at 3:12 pm
This reminds me of the religion discussion we had at Thanksgiving dinner.
May 26th, 2008 at 9:05 pm
Good post. But just know that having a rational discussion about religion on the internet is completely impossible. Even in person, it’s very difficult and you’re unlikely to sway a true believer or have them concede a point. By definition, faith is the opposite of logic, therefore it is very difficult to have a logical debate about faith.