On Morality – yunshui

It is my expectation that, when andyinthepiewithalmonds proposed this topic, he was planning an essay which proposed that atheists have no framework on which to build system of morals. With that in mind, I propose to demonstrate the flaws in that position, and hopefully show that atheist morals are in many ways as firmly founded as those of the faithful, possibly more so. Given that I don’t want to bore you to tears with a ten-thousand word essay, I will just provide an outline of my position and then let the comments thread provide some expansion.

The standard format for the argument against atheist morals seems to go like this: The Bible (or Qur’an, or Upanishads, or sutras) give us a code of ethics by which to live. Atheists do not believe in the Bible (or Qur’an, etc.) and therefore have no objective standard of morality. There are two main points of contention. The first is the idea that a holy book shapes our morality, and the second is that without said book there is no foundation for an ethical system.

I’ve discussed the problem of deriving one’s principles from the Bible on my blog a couple of times before (please see here and here), so I’m not going to get into that now. Instead, let’s look at the second fallacy in the argument; the idea that without a Book of the Law there can be no moral certainty. Let’s start with the obvious, the insinuation that without some cosmic Judge Dread character peering over our shoulder, humanity would rapidly dissolve into anarchy and chaos. This presupposes that humans remain moral only out of self-interest; the promise of either heavenly reward (beer volcanoes and a stripper factory, anyone?) or hellish punishment motivates us to stick to the straight and narrow. If this is indeed the case, surely all that is needed in a godless world is a version of Jean-Jaques Rousseaus’s Social Contract, in which morality is enforced by the state. Actions which benefit society are “good”, and actions which disrupt society are “bad”. Shazam! an instant moral framework which can be applied in any communal situation. It’s deeply unsatisfying, and in some ways repugnant (a possible consequence of this system is the rise of totalitarianism and censorship), but if all that motivates humans to do good is the fear of punishment or anticipation of reward, then this is all you need.

Take as read, then, that there must be something more to morality than simple self-interest. andyinthepiewithalmonds once asked me in a separate discussion where I derived my morals from, and my answer, in one word, was “empathy”. I’d like to expand on that a little here. Rabbi Hillel, a Pharisee and contemporary of Jesus, famously said, “That which is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow. That is the whole Torah; the rest is commentary.” Jesus himself said, “So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you” (Matthew 7:12). Confucius: “Never impose on others what you would not choose for yourself.” (Analects XV.24). Epicetus: “What thou avoidest suffering thyself seek not to impose on others.” Baha’u'llah: “Ascribe not to any soul that which thou wouldst not have ascribed to thee”. The ethic of reciprocity, the so-called “Golden Rule” appears in virtually every philosophy, religion and moral theory the world has seen, and is derived directly from empathy. The ability to consider the other’s position, the power to extrapolate how someone else might feel – these are things that make us uniquely human. The source of this characteristic is harder to define, but it is most definitely not unique to the Christian faith. It is apparent that some of our evolutionary wingmen are capable of empathy – apes and even monkeys demonstrate empathetic behaviour. This suggests a payoff through natural selection, quite possibly related to increasingly long infancy periods for “higher” mammals, but that is somewhat beyond the scope of this discussion. Regardless of its origin, it is this ethic of empathy, devoid of religion, that forms the foundation of my personal worldview. I suspect it is also the basis of yours, be you Buddhist, Taoist, Baptist, Catholic, Sikh, Mormon or atheist.

For a more extensive argument on the subject, I strongly recommend Ebonmuse’s essay, “The Ineffable Carrot And The Infinite Stick”, or Richard Carrier’s book Sense And Goodness Without God. Both express the foundations of atheist morality at far greater length than I am able to here.

On Natural Disasters – yunshui

The past few weeks have seen catastrophic disasters devastate China and Burma. Literally millions have been affected, and thousands killed, the numbers are almost too huge to contemplate. The last statistics I heard put the number of dead in the Chinese earthquakes at 80,000 – that’s equivalent to the entire population of Bath dying at once. My question, then, is this: Why would a loving god choose to indiscriminately slaughter so many of his people?

As I see it, there are three possible answers. Firstly, God may not be able to intervene in human affairs. It may be that God, being outside of space and time, has no power to influence events in our reality. This view is not borne out by reference to the Bible:

“Is any thing too hard for the LORD?” Genesis 18:14

“Then Job answered the LORD, and said, I know that thou canst do every thing…” Job 42:1-2

“Ah Lord God! … there is nothing too hard for thee.” Jeremiah 32:17

“Behold, I am the Lord, the God of all flesh: is there any thing too hard for the Lord?” Jeremiah 32:27

“With God all things are possible.” Matthew 19:26, Mark 10:27

“For with God nothing shall be impossible.” Luke 1:37

“The things which are impossible with men are possible with God.” Luke 18:27

“The Lord God omnipotent reigneth.” Revelation 19:6

A god with no way of affecting the world is not the god of Christianity. This answer requires the abandonment of so much of the Christian ideal that it cannot really be a good response to the question. Why would a god who had no foundation in the real world be worth worshipping?

The second possibility is that God doesn’t care about his creations enough to preserve them. An indifferent, or even actively malignant god would have no problem with the suffering of millions of Burmese (they’re mostly Buddhists, so they don’t really count in His scheme of things) and Chinese (Communists! Even worse!). This is again not supported by the Bible:

“The LORD God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth.” Exodus 34:6

“For the Lord thy God is a merciful God.” Deuteronomy 4:31

“Let us fall now into the hand of the LORD; for his mercies are great.” 2 Samuel 24:14

“O give thanks unto the Lord; for he is good; for his mercy endureth forever.” 1 Chronicles 16:34; Psalm 106:1, 107:1, 118:1, 136:1; Jeremiah 33:11

“Good and upright is the Lord.“ Psalm 25:8

“For thou, Lord, art good, and ready to forgive; and plenteous in mercy unto all them that call upon thee.” Psalm 86:5

“For the Lord is good, his mercy is everlasting.” Psalm 100:5

“The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and plenteous in mercy.” Psalm 103:8

“For he doth not afflict willingly nor grieve the children of men.” Lamentations 3:33

“For he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness.” Joel 2:13

“Blessed be God … the Father of mercies.” 2 Corinthians 1:3

“For the Lord is very pitiful and of tender mercy.” James 5:11

“God is love.” 1 John 4:16

One of Christianity’s principle tenets is the love God has for his creation. A cruel, unmerciful god is not the god of Christianity. This ignores the genocides perpetrated at Yahweh’s command in the early days of Israel, of course, but Christians are ever ready to point out that Jesus sacrifice apparently made all that “chosen people” shtick irrelevant. As a result, God loves the whole world equally, Burmese and Chinese too – he’s just chosen to visit them with an especially large dose of misery, death and torment this year.

The third, simplest and most obvious solution, is of course that there is no god. Natural disasters occur because of plate tectonics, weather patterns and other natural phenomena. There is no longer any need to answer the question.

The above is, of course, an expression of the problem of evil. Many Christian apologists (as well as those of other religions) have attempted to answer it. Some of the arguments offered include: that evil exists because of Mankind’s sin; that evil exists because suffering is beneficial; that evil is not a thing in and of itself, merely the absence of good; or that evil is necessary in order that we can appreciate and understand the concept of “good”. None of these really addresses the principle thrust of the problem, which is that the simplest and most likely cause for evil is the absence of a god, but nonetheless I think it’s important to at least supply a brief rebuttal of the main contenders.

The most popular argument of these is the argument from free will. This states that God gives humanity a choice of whether to follow him or not. The upshot of this idea is that evil results when we choose not to follow God’s dictates. This idea may work reasonably well in instances of war, theft, murder and so on, but against natural disasters (what insurers would call “acts of God”) it has little strength. Humanity did not decide to die by the thousand in China and Burma as an act of rebellion against God. A development of the argument from free will claims that Adam and Eve’s original sin in the Garden of Eden resulted in the then-perfect and harmless Earth falling into a state of disrepair, but for that to work you have to take Genesis literally, which I, for reasons too extensive to go into here, don’t.

The other principal apology is that evil is somehow beneficial, either because it enables us to comprehend the idea of God’s “goodness” by providing a diametric opposite, or because it allows us the opportunity to display virtues such as charity, compassion, courage and benevolence and thus attain greater holiness. The first part of this argument falls flat when one considers that a god who created evil in order to show off his ineffable goodness cannot really be considered to be “good” at all. “Hey, you’ve all been killed in an earthquake! Wouldn’t it be great not to have been killed in an earthquake? Well, that’s me, God! I’m the Way, the Truth and most importantly, the Life – which you no longer have, since I killed you so you could have a yardstick to compare My goodness with.” Such a god would be an utter bastard, not a paragon of virtue. The second part of the argument assumes that suffering brings us closer to God. This would suggest that, if God were truly interested in forming a closer relationship with all of us, we would see an equality of suffering. Surely it would be unfair to deny everyone the chance to get closer to God? Furthermore, why should God designate certain “inspired-by-suffering” virtues to be the criteria for holiness? Given the chance to choose a holy virtue, I would instantly pick “love”, which requires no suffering for its genesis, or maybe “peacefulness” or “joy”.

To a degree, I am just playing games with semantics here. In doing so, I hope that in doing so I’m highlighting the fundamental reason that I don’t seriously consider these arguments – they are mere games with words and logic, seeking desperately to demonstrate extenuating circumstances for God. Trying to redefine “evil”, or claim that “God works in mysterious ways” is an attempt to sidestep the issue. The answers I can accept to the problem of evil are those outlined above: in the light of recent events, God is either feeble, fiendish or fictional.