Stephen Fry on Meeting God has been added as a related post - related requested by messenger on that post.

So it occurred to me, as I watched this, that although this makes perfect sense and it's pretty much how I see things as well, does everyone think like this.
I've seen the people who claim that morality comes from religion, and that without religion, we wouldn't know right from wrong.

So, that's when I wondered:
Are there people who actually don't know right from wrong? Are they missing that piece in their brains that limit their comprehension of empathy. That feeling when they are doing something wrong. There are no thoughts of doubt, no pangs of guilt. No recognition that they are hurting others, even if just emotionally.

And, if so, are these the people that need a God? Are all those god fearing people good members of the community just because they "fear a God"
Without a god to tell them, would they end up being the most unruly people on the planet? Is it religion that is keeping them at bay? Is chaos and anarchy the result of no religion? Not because we need it, but because without a GOD, certain people (currently religious) would have no compass, and would they feel free to randomly hurt, kill, steal and otherwise be the lowest of humanity?

Just some thoughts....

I think we all have different degrees of empathy. Empathy is something that's learned and not something you are born with. The less empathetic you are the easier i assume it is to do something that society says is wrong. Empathy i've always thought usually goes hand in hand with right and wrong although judging what's right and wrong is subjective to some extent(lots of grey area).

There seems to be some evidence that a lack of empathy -can- be inborn, rather than learned. An actual malformed brain or unbalanced brain chemistry, if you will. At the same time, there is evidence that empathy is indeed an innate trait, rooted in physical brain structures (the whole mirror neuron idea).

This is a statement my uncle made when I expressed a distaste for religion in general. His belief is that it's the only restraint on a fair number of people, and worth putting up with for that reason alone. I'd hate to think he's right (not that I mind him being right in general, but for what it says about the human race), but it could be so.

Which might offer some actual benefit from religion. Blech. I'd hate to think that superstition is a useful facet of society.

The fact that we can look critically at the instructions we are given in the Bible and judge them to be moral or immoral is evidence that we do not get our morality from the god described within its pages, nor its human avatar.

On the flipside of the argument, the killers and thieves you mention have access to this book too, and behave badly despite certain instructions to the contrary. We look at its instructions regarding genocide and slavery and stoning adulteresses and it's an easy "no, I won't do that", at least for most of us. We also look at its instruction regarding theft and murder and some people do those things anyway. So what I wonder is, what effect is this god supposed to have, exactly?

Sure, on both ends, there are clearly people that don't find morality in religion. The question at hand is, what about those believers in the middle of the spectrum? Is the behavior of some of them moderated by the rules of their religion? If so, how many, and how much moderation?

Tough questions, and I can't see any trustworthy and ethical way to find out.

*promote

Promoting this video back to the front page; last published Friday, February 6th, 2015 12:59pm PST - promote requested by kulpims.

keep trying, atheists! lol

Sit down, the adults are talking.

i simply ask those people, "do you believe slavery is wrong?"

because the only mention of slavery that i'm aware of in the bible, is that you should treat your slaves well.
not only is that not a condemnation, it's tacit approval.

so if religion is the source of morality, how do you know slavery is wrong?

even just using god's name as a swear word makes the top ten list of hell-worthy offenses, but one of the most barbaric crimes i can imagine doesn't, and it even gets an implied thumbs-up in the fine print?

religion is not the source of anyone's morality.
it's the enforcement system we invented, for those of us so morally bankrupt that they can't see a good deed as its own reward.

Proving atheists believe in nothing, therefore they will believe anything. How does one atheist convince another atheist of their believe system? Wouldn't that take a lot of faith? And if it's science, wouldn't that take faith in science, which has proven to be incomplete since day one?

But i'll sit down, since the atheists are talking. Popcorn, please.

Yes, it's called Psychopathy, or Anti-Social Personality Disorder.

It doesn't mean you go around killing people (though it certainly lowers the bar!)

Here's a good article about a scientist studying the characteristics of psychopathic brains who accidentally found out that he was a psychopath. He'd never realized it, because everything in life had gone his way, but once he saw what he was, he reflected and found things he'd done without any guilt that ordinary people might have dwelt on (or not done in the first place).

As I understand it, Psychopathy (or ASPD) means that there's no empathy for other people. They can't read emotions like the rest of us can, and so they see other people almost like unfeeling robots. In extreme cases, the psychopath believes they are the only real person in a world of automatons and they think no more of other people than you or I would think of plant life. There's a range, this isn't an absolute on or off switch. About 10% of the male population and 1% of the female population has it to some degree (much higher in politics and executive offices).

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/the-neuroscientist-who-discovered-he-was-a-psychopath-180947814/?no-ist

This is a very interesting question that I've thought quite a lot about during my life (to myself, not in any sort of professional capacity).

The conclusions that I have come to (so far) are:
I think that, yes, religion in general terms IS a significant (but it is a stretch to say the ONLY) restraint on a pretty large number of people. Which is a prospect that I personally have a negative and pessimistic reaction to, similar to what it sounds like you do.

However, I think that there are lots of mitigating circumstances. First, many different religions currently provide that restraint to people. And in the past, many many more religions provided it to even more people. Many of those different religions have been very very different. Some have been near polar opposites. That proves that if your goal is restraining people from being utterly evil, and someone suggests that religion has made or is making a noble effort towards that (like your uncle), the positive aspects they are cheering for are not unique to any single religion, or dogma, or whatever.

If one accepts that many many diverse and completely different religions can potentially have the positive effects that we're looking for, then the actual source of those effects can not be something specific to any one religion. Instead, it has to be something that is held in common by all such religions.

Religions are so diverse and different, it might be hard to imagine something that they have in common. No specific god is held in common, even though all the Abrahamic religions might arguably share that aspect. Not even the simple idea of a god or gods or creator is far from universal; Buddhists revere no god.

Yet I believe that there is one easily overlooked thing that all religions DO have in common. Humanity. They all come from flawed but usually well-meaning people.

However, atheists hold that humanity in common with religions as well. And that makes me believe that if we understand humanity better, either through psychology, or empathy, or whatever, we can achieve the positive effects of religions without the religions themselves. Certainly without the stone-age dogmatic nonsense -- which tends to have arguably as many if not more BAD effects as good. This actually gives me great hope for humanity; rather the opposite to the conclusion that I came to originally when pondering the question.

There may always be people who have no empathy, and for whom nothing would serve to restrain them from what humanity at large would easily identify as great evil. No religion will handle such individuals any better than no religion ... so I guess I don't lose any sleep over that.

My god! It's like listening to myself think. With more detail.

In fairness to my uncle, I should point out that to the best of my knowledge, he's not at all a believer. His statement was coming from much the same viewpoint that you and I seem to share. It was that statement that started me thinking along these lines. I'm still not sure I'm willing to reduce my view of humanity to that level (that most need rules forced on them by imaginary superhumans before they'll behave well), but the older I get, the closer I come.

Coming at this from the perspective of academic philosophy I think the truth of the matter is ultimately very simple (however the details can be almost infinitely complex and diverse in how we apply them).

Simply put it appears impossible to demonstrate any kind of ultimate ethical authority or perfect ethical principles objectively.

One can certainly assert them, but they would always be subject to the problem of underdetermination (no facts, only interpretations) and as such subjective.

Even strictly humanist systems of ethics like concequentialism and deontology are at their core based on some arbitrary assumption or rule e.g. minimising harm, maximising pleasure, setting a universal principle, putting the concequences before the intention etc. etc.

As such I think the only honest and objective absolute moral principle is "Nothing is true and everything is permitted" (the law of the strong). All else can only truly be supported by preference and necessity. We do not "Know" moral truth, we only appear to interpret and create it.

This being the case it is the opinion of myself and a great many post modern philosophers that ethics is essentially a specialised branch of aesthetics. An important one still, but none the less it is still a study of preference and beauty rather than one of epistemological truth.

By this logic one could certainly argue that the organic "Humanist" approach to ethics and morality as outlined in this video seems infinitely preferable to any sort of static absolute moral authority.

If morality is at its core just a measure of the degree of thought and extrapolation one applies to maximising preferable outcomes then the "humanist" seems like they would have an inherent advantage in their potential capacity to discover and refine ever more preferable principles and outcomes. A static system by its very nature seems less able to maximise it's own moral preferences when presented by ever changing circumstances.


However I'm about to kind of undermine that very point by suggesting that ultimately what we are calling "humanism" here is universal. i.e. that even the most static and dictatorial ethical system (e.g. Wahhabism or Christian fundamentalism) is still ultimately an expression of aesthetic preference and choice.

It is aesthetically preferable to a fundamentalist to assert the absolute moral authority and command of God and while arguably less developed and adaptable (and thus less preferable by most Humanist standards), it is still at it's core the exercise of a preference and as such covered by humanism in general.

i.e. if you want to be a "humanist" then you should probably be wary of placing ultimate blame for atrocities on specific doctrines, as the core of your own position is that morality is a human condition not a divine one. i.e. religion did not make people condone slavery or start wars, human behaviour did.

We can certainly argue for the empirical superiority of "humanism" vs natural authority by looking at history and the different behaviours of various groups & societies. But really what we are arguing there is simply that a more considered and tolerant approach appears to make most people seem happier and results in less unpleasant things happing.

i.e. a preference supported by consensus & unfortunately that doesn't give us any more moral authority than a fanatic or predator beyond our ability to enforce it and persuade others to conform.

"Nothing is true and everything is permitted", "right" and "wrong" can only be derived from subjective principles ergo "right" and "wrong" should probably instead be replaced with "desirable" and "undesirable" as this seems closer to what one is actually expressing with a moral preference.

I completely agree with the sentiment in the video, more freedom of thought seems to mean more capacity to extrapolate and empathise. The wider your understanding and experience of people and the world the more one appears to recognise and appreciate the shared condition of being human.

But I must never forget that this apparent superiority is ultimately based on an interpretation and preference of my own and not some absolute principle. The only absolute principle I can observe in nature seems to be that chaos & conflict tend towards increasing order and complexity, but by this standard it is only really the conflict itself which is moral or "good/right" and not the various beliefs of the combatants specifically.

It's not just slavery.

The bible is also big on stoning your kids to death, forcing rape victims to marry their rapists and cutting off the hand of a woman who breaks up a fight. Hell, if you're a dude who's had a really unfortunate accident, no church for you!

As soon as the bible is no longer a perfect guide to morality (which it's clearly not), it is rendered completely useless.

People who can't tell right from wrong are called "psychopath" or "sociopath" (different places tell me these are the same thing or different things; I don't care). Those people need some kind of guidance to fit in. If they accept a religious god that gives them orders to be good, then they might follow them.

They'd be better off having a professional explain to them how to determine if others will consider their actions good or bad.

I'd wager the amount of harm that comes from religion outweighs the amount of harm prevented in such rare people who are only restrained by religion. Almost everybody knows the difference between right and wrong and much prefers to do right for its own sake.

Awful lot of hospitals named after saints, as well as a large number of schools. Religion teaches empathy for other people, it teaches right behavior, it teaches the ten commandments, it teaches the golden rule.

Just because people fail to follow those ideas wholly you condemn everyone who believes in any of it.

To replace it you bring in some philosophical sophistry that has nothing to back it up unless it is to say that there is a spark of Godliness behind it all.

It is good that we can agree that people have an innate sense toward empathy but it's an empty box.

All you have to say is that psychotics are restrained by religion, ipso facto, anyone who believes in God is a psychotic.

I don't know too many psychotics who open hospitals, care for the sick/infirm/dying, educate the masses.

"teaches right behavior"....
Do you mean like owning slaves, murdering infidels and heretics, raping women, crusading, inquisitioning, conquesting, etc.... Yeah, great book of morality, and wonderful moral behavior exhibited by it's believers...not.

It's only because people fail to follow the religious ideas wholly that religion is tolerated at all. If people acted like the fanatical Muslims, taking every word as law and acting on it, Christianity would have been outlawed in the US at the inception of the country (indeed, many of the founding fathers seemed to want this, at least in part). The 3 major western religions all require 'holy war' to spread the belief system if read honestly.

What he said is that only psychotics need religion to restrain them from immorality. If you aren't psychotic, religion harms you more than helps you.

Any catholic hospital would qualify as one opened by psychotics, since one of their 10 important rules is "no statues of anything", yet they do nothing but worship statues and icons. They institutionally ignore any 'rule' that's inconvenient, and insist on absolute adherence to any that further their current goals, which may change 180 deg tomorrow. Sure sounds psychotic to me.

I don't necessarily disagree with you. I tend to think that religion does more harm than good, especially when the lesson it teaches is "Don't think, just trust your priest".

However, his view -could- be right. I cannot think of any way to test it that doesn't involve highly unethical processes, so I can't help but hope that we'll never really know.

Fair comment. We'll certainly never be able to measure it. As with anything of a philosophical nature, there are thought experiments we could conduct, and though they might come up with wrong answers, there's a better chance they're right than arbitrarily picking a side, and human civilization was doing just fine before organized religion entered into it.

Expanding on your point about obeying your priest (and giving myself an opportunity to quote my most hated Bible verse), the lesson the Bible teaches in that vein is to obey not just priests, but all human authority because all leaders were placed there by God.

Romans 13
1Every person is to be in subjection to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those which exist are established by God. 2Therefore whoever resists authority has opposed the ordinance of God; and they who have opposed will receive condemnation upon themselves. 3For rulers are not a cause of fear for good behavior, but for evil. Do you want to have no fear of authority? Do what is good and you will have praise from the same; 4for it is a minister of God to you for good. But if you do what is evil, be afraid; for it does not bear the sword for nothing; for it is a minister of God, an avenger who brings wrath on the one who practices evil. 5Therefore it is necessary to be in subjection, not only because of wrath, but also for conscience’ sake.