Consider it said of rabbinified Judaism, then.

The point about the two philosophers is fantastic! Using religion in an attempt to make people act right out of fear saddens me.

If I thought there were a God, then his opinions about morality would in fact be persuasive to me. Not infinitely persuasive, but still strong evidence. It would be nice to clear up some (not all) of my moral uncertainty by relying on his authority.

Robin, and that would be a good use for religion. I had to lose one (a religion) because of the fear factor-- I didn't lose my morality (as Eliezer predicts), but I'm not sure anybody knows God (assuming existence) well enough to speak for him. That was incredibly difficult for me to accept for a while.

A true fundamentalist would say that you're not rationally justified in behaving morally - you just do it because of force of habit or social convention.

Any idea where the lie that rationality equals self-interest comes from?

Selfreferencing, I know that there are many religious people who would declare that God cannot, even in principle, convert torture into an act of inherently positive value. That's why I specified "religious fundamentalists" on this particular post.

Calling it a "caricature" is unfair, though, because there are sincerely religious people out there who use that argument.

The point about the two philosophers reminds of what Nietzsche wrote:

"He that humbleth himself wishes to be exalted."

Selfreferencing: unfortunately there is an enormous gulf between "most theists" and "theistic philosophers". If you don't believe this then you need to get out more. Perhaps in the U.S. South, for instance. It might be irritating that most theists are not as enlightened as you are, but it is a fact, not a caricature.

I'm pretty sure, for example, that almost everyone I grew up with believes what a divine command theorist believes. And now that I look back at the OP and your comment, I notice that in the former Eliezer continually says "religious fundamentalists" and in the latter you continually say "theistic philosophers", so maybe you already recognize this.

I'm a theist...and I'm not offended.

Unlike my fundy brethren, my understanding of faith has been largely formed by the writings of 20th century existentialist theologian Paul Tillich, who conceptualized faith as the state of being ultimately concerned. Meaning, in essence, that faith is that end or purpose towards which we direct our lives, and which provides a framework from which individual actions can be given valuation. Clearly, non-theists can have faith and normative structures, but their morality is contingent. It is by necessity grounded in eith... (read more)

Eliezer said: "If Overcoming Bias has any religious readers left, I say to you: it may be that you will someday lose your faith: and on that day, you will not lose all sense of moral direction."

He's addressing all religious people here, right? I responded to this comment as a theistic philosopher.

Further, specifically to Eliezer, I consider myself a religious fundamentalist (many Christian philosophers do), so I took him to be addressing me on that score as well. I guess I don't know what you mean by it. Plantinga suggests that most people who us... (read more)

The very fact that a religious person would be afraid of God withdrawing Its threat to punish them for committing murder, shows that they have a revulsion of murder which is independent of whether God punishes murder or not. If they had no sense that murder was wrong independently of divine retribution, the prospect of God not punishing murder would be no more existentially horrifying than the prospect of God not punishing sneezing.

What a religious person realizes with such a fear is that truth matters – just not in a sense one would assume intuitively.

Phi... (read more)

You wield the word fundamentalist like an accusation, as if fundamental principles are to be avoided. Stop that.

Also, please be aware that very few people will assert that our moral compass comes wholly from a fear of punishment. Biblically speaking, people were generally expected to know the difference between right and wrong. That is our inheritance, of course. Mankind has eaten the fruit of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, see? ;)

When God-worshiping fundamentalists say that God is the source of all morality, we do not mean that we are conscienceless crit... (read more)

selfreferencing, skyfort, David Williams, Thank-you. I've always been an immortal spiritual being. Unfortunately my experience with religions has not always been all that religious and I can relate to what Eliezer is saying here. (using religion to spread fear bugs me-- I don't feel the need to be afraid at all.) It is a pleasure to read that you have gotten a better understanding from your theological studies than I got--perhaps I have some bias to overcome before I can see what you do. Thank-you again.

Hmmm. I used to be a Southern Baptist and since my turning to atheism I most certainly have lost much of my sense of morality. I'm far more of a moral relativist than I ever thought I could become and I find myself seldom convinced by anything that attempts to appeal to morals based on tradition. But by and large my actions in my day to day life have not changed one bit. God (and what my parents taught me) was my moral compass. Now that compass is gone and I have no moral navigation, but I'm still walking in the same direction I was before out of habit. I'm not sure how I feel about that at all. =/

Religious communities of people seem to have more of a "moral compass" than non religious ones, judging by my experiences of living in the UK and the US. The poor in the US South are far better people than those in the UK, I think as a result of still having some kind of religious identity. Wealthy middle class intellectual workers are pretty much the same anywhere, whether religious or not, but the poor and struggling need an emotionally satisfying story which gives them a reason not to turn to drugs, desperation and violence far more than they need welfare handouts.

Eliezer Yudkowsky says: "If Overcoming Bias has any religious readers left, I say to you: it may be that you will someday lose your faith: and on that day, you will not lose all sense of moral direction. For if you fear the prospect of God not punishing some deed, that is a moral compass. You can plug that compass directly into your decision system and steer by it. You can simply not do whatever you are afraid God may not punish you for doing. The fear of losing a moral compass is itself a moral compass. Indeed, I suspect you are steering by that... (read more)

This is a strawman.

You seem to be suggesting that "fundamentalists" (whatever that means) believe God's rules for moral behavior were printed out single-sided, double-spaced and delivered as an appendix to the ten commandments or something. This isn't how religious people, at least Christians, think about morality at all. A Christian would say that God has imprinted his concept of morality on you, so when you talk about "natural law" or "aversion to murder," you're talking about God's word on the subject.

Also, the emphasis o... (read more)

@ Jacob Stein:

What do you mean by control, and what are your criteria for it? Modern Europe doesn't seem to be experiencing much mass murder right now, for instance. If you mean a society with no theists at all, then you're making a rather narrow claim that doesn't really have many implications.

Also, why do you think "atheistic" is the relevant category? Stalin and Hitler didn't kill millions out of a lack of direction; they did so out of bad directions: Communism, and racist Fascism, respectively. Why aren't their positive political beliefs... (read more)

"You know, in some ways your post boils down to the same silly thing you hear when Christians, say, oppose marriage for homosexuals. "You're anti-gay, you're probably afraid you ARE gay." You're saying, "You're afraid without God everybody would commit murder. You probably think YOU would commit murder." Yawn."

Darin, if being gay is a choice for you, and you enjoy sex with men, but choose to abstain only because God says it's not OK, you're not just afraid you're gay, you are, in fact, at least bisexual.

Which is OK, man, it's ... (read more)

You're saying, "You're afraid without God everybody would commit murder. You probably think YOU would commit murder."

"You" element-of "everybody".

Again, this is not a strawman, this is an argument put forth by (admittedly only some) theists that without believing in judgment everyone loses their moral compass, therefore you should believe in God.

Having the 'divine judge' to 'help one keep oneself on the strai(gh)t and narrow' doesn't make god the source of the morality, or necessary to it. By the same token, the laws against murder, and punishment under those laws, do not define the morality or immorality of killing, they just enforce it using collective means. Society collectively (or the majority of individuals in it individually, or the leaders individually or collectively) determined/defined/believed that murder is wrong enough to warrant state action. Having murder be banned by law does no... (read more)

I think a genuine altruist, or even most self-professed altruists, would not make the sort of argument described, or at least not primarily. They would argue that the world as a whole is better if more people are altruists, and that therefore people should be altruistic even if each individual suffers as a result of his own altruism.

Actually there is an (almost explicit) contradiction in the way most religions talk about morality and god.

I'm most familiar with christianity (specifically catholicism) but I believe the same goes for most major monotheistic religions.

1) They claim that morality arises from god, i.e., they wish to define morality as obeying god's commands.

2) "God is good," is an explicit part of their doctrines.

The tension here is obvious. Clearly the members of the religion take themselves to be saying something substantive and meaningful when they all intone ... (read more)

If I thought there were a God, then his opinions about morality would in fact be persuasive to me. Not infinitely persuasive, but still strong evidence. It would be nice to clear up some (not all) of my moral uncertainty by relying on his authority.

The problem (and this is coming from someone who does still believe in God, so yes, OB still has at least one religious reader left) is that for pretty much any possible God, we have only very weak and untrustworthy indications of God's desires. So there's huge uncertainty just in the question of "what doe... (read more)

"I'm sorry, Morman was the correct answer."

~South Park

Jacob, cannibalism isn't a religion, per se, and I don't know of any modern religions that include it. Satanism is a worship of self, despite the shocking name, and doesn't have any belief in any diety. Perhaps if you spent half the time reading up on other beliefs that you spend on denouncing them, you'd be slightly more informed.

Jacob Stein:

"Are religious societies better? Cannibals and Satanists, perhaps not, but it's a tough call. Orthodox Jews, Quakers, Mennonites, probably yes."

Well Jacob it's just such a coincidence that you'd say that, because I am a cannibal satanist! Cool, right?

Anyway, the reason I bring it up is you say that Orthodox Jews and the like have better societies, but you are a jew, aren't you? (There's probably a bias or something there, I dunno). But since I think (to paraphrase Selfreferencing) that we're naturally motivated to seek Satan and that ... (read more)

1) They claim that morality arises from god, i.e., they wish to define morality as obeying god's commands.

2) "God is good," is an explicit part of their doctrines.

There's no tension between these two statements, and "God is good" is meaningful. :) Statement #1 follows directly from Statement #2. Swap the numbers on those statements and you'll have the right of it.

Tom makes an excellent point.

eats a baby and fornicates with a goat.

Thank Satan for my moral guidelines.

(Doesn't Leviticus condemn eaters of shellfish and wearers of polycotton blends right next to homosexuals? Why aren't there picket lines at Red Lobster and Ralph Lauren? Doesn't it also outline that having sex with your slaves is ok, as long as you compensate the buyer for any depreciation you caused by doing so?)

Have you ever tried to find a copy of "Lolita" by Nabokov in a public library?

3 copies, 2 available in the Santa Clara City Library.

Tom, clever as it is to substitute antonyms, you're a liar. :)

(When ever people knowingly worship demons, it is because they feel that the "dark gods" will actually get things done.)

TGGP,

Utilitarian buys into Pascal's Wager and thinks that Christianity wins in that calculus, but admits that Christianity is almost certainly false in the process of calculation. Most religious people would be unwilling to say that there is less than a 1 in 1000 chance that their religion is correct.

"is less than" rather.

Ramble, ramble, ramble stone. Morals as means of control work quite well. Forbidding drugs and alcohol can be used for keeping people fit for their religious chores. Not killing somebody can mean do not kill anybody from my group but kill the other (the threatening entity). Kill the one who takes away my food (and supposedly my livelihood). Kill the non-believer. Kill the outsider. Happens all the time. Ryman has got a point (Nov 9th, 12.33) … God punishes not murder per se but he punishes murder of a person in his own group. It does not matter if there i... (read more)

gutzperson: good points - it is all about increasing fitness and social control. You will find reading the following paper quite interesting: Selection of Organization at the Social level: obstacles and facilitators of metasystem transitions. Particularly chapter four: Social Control Mechanisms.

For a rationalists reason for going from atheism to a belief in God see www.biola.edu/anthonyflew/index.cfm

For the scientific case for the existence of the soul see the books 1)Mario Beauregard "The Spiritual Brain, A Neuroscientist's Case for the Existence of the Soul" (This book is written by the leading brain researcher on spiritual experience and is suitable for non-experts) 2)"Irreducible Mind" by Kelly and Kelly et.al. (This book is writen for psychologists and advanced students-- assumes some knowledge of philosophy and psychology-- the authors inform me that they have no current plans to write a similar book for the general public. It is worth the trouble 10 times over in my estimation)

I would like to query Flew's 'rationalist' reasons. Please read this article by Mark Oppenheimer about Anthony Flew in the NYT. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/04/magazine/04Flew-t.html

Jacob Stein said:

"I mean societies where the government has officially endorsed and encouraged atheism."

Well, then, we agree! The government should not officially endorse or encourage atheism. I would go so far as to say that the government shouldn't have any opinion on the subject.

Would you agree with me that many other, religious ideological governments share many problems with militantly atheistic ones? (The Inquisition is a classic example.)

I suggest that you read 'Religion in the Public Sphere' by Juergen Habermas.

You can download this as pdf from http://www.sandiego.edu/pdf/pdf_library/habermaslecture031105_c939cceb2ab087bdfc6df291ec0fc3fa.pdf

Stefan Pernar Thanks for the links. Interesting texts. I am dreaming of an anarchistic world . Just chaos. Just dreaming. Fearing that anarchy might only work for a metasecond. All this social control scenarios make me feel like an adolescent who wants to break all the rules.

It appears a belief in God does not hinder one from understanding the universe better than anyone that came before.

Since Newton explained away discrepancies between his models and the observations as an example of God needing to adjust the clockwork now and then, he missed the opportunity to realize that his equations predicted the existence of previously-unobserved masses. So I wouldn't be so quick to claim that deistic thinking doesn't impair understanding.

Caledonian- I agree that Newton missed opportunities to improve his models. That was not what I said, only that his belief in God didn't hinder him from doing better than those that came before.
Here's an odd question-- If we took Newton as an example-
Which is currently a greater hinderance to scientific understanding-
A belief in God, or a belief in a materialistic/mechanistic description of the universe?

Douglas, how can it possibly be sensible to "take Newton as an example" of what are currently, 400 years later, hindrances to scientific understanding? So yes, it's an "odd question" indeed.

We don't have any way of knowing whether Newton's belief in God made it easier or harder for him to improve on those who went before him, because we don't have access to an alternative universe with an atheistic Newton in it. Is anyone actually suggesting that theism makes it impossible to do good science? That would obviously be insane, so I rather doubt it.

@Jacob Stein:

"Actually, it would be hard to beat Pol Pot's Cambodia and present day North Korea."

Fair point, as far as extent is concerned.

So perhaps there really is something about most religions that excludes the very most evil and dangerous ideologies. On the other hand, that hasn't stopped people from engaging in protracted, bloody holy wars. Religion might act as a brake, but it's not a very strong brake.

And I still don't see why "atheism" and "religion" are the relevant terms, as if atheism were itself an ideology. Ma... (read more)

"God, say the religious fundamentalists, is the source of all morality; there can be no morality without a Judge who rewards and punishes."

That semicolon contains a big jump. Most people who believe in some higher power do identify that power with good, or morality, or perhaps merely as its source (morality is a gift from God, therefore, without him there would not be good). However, "there can be no morality without a Judge who rewards and punishes" - you seem to define that as to mean that most religious fundamentalists believe that... (read more)

What's immoral about suicide?

A more appropriate subject of investigation would be comparing the homicide rates of atheistic vs. theistic regions. Care to guess what the results are?

Calcedonian:

The empirical evidence using micro datasets that I have read about does dispute much of the theory about religion and morality. Prison populations are much more religious than average. The Southeast has higher crime rates, etc. There's even the aphorism that "there are no atheists in the foxholes." The people who we, as a society, pay to kill people have higher religious service participation rates. On the other hand, charitable giving is perhaps higher among believers. My point there was that overall is that one of the most com... (read more)

Atheism is not a religion, but its an attitude

No, it's a position on a truth claim.

Jakob Stein
“Atheists simply adopt the teachings of the surrounding culture, since that's the most comfortable thing to do. …
Atheism is not a religion, but its an attitude which tends to include cultural moral relativism, hedonism and narcissism.”

This is a quite damning and prejudiced statement on atheism. There is not one ideology of atheism, though. This is the nice thing about atheism that it does not adhere to an ideology. I am a very cultured, ethical and social atheist who does not want to become part of any ideology that is oppressive. I am a... (read more)

Nabokov: 2,996 libraries have at least one of 107 editions. Three libraries within ten miles of me have copies, including one with an audio edition. You can find your closest here: http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/289704

It's a religious view, obviously, in the sense that it's an opinion about a subject generally classified as religious. As to whether it's "a religion", equally obviously that depends on your definition since "religion" is so flexible a word, but it seems to me that you have to bend it a long way before classifying atheism as a "religion" starts making any sense. Atheism lacks, for instance, belief in superior spiritual beings; ritual observances; a code of conduct [note: that doesn't mean that individual atheists have no moral... (read more)

“nor a form of religion, especially when it is organized as a religion and conducts prostelytic campaigns with fundamentalist fervor –“
Where are these prostelytic campaigns with fundamentalist fervor? Religious groups are omni-present and they interfere with everybody’s lives and concepts. Sometimes they are quite threatening. I have to come across a bullying atheist yet, who wants to convert others more or less forcefully. There are some atheistic organizations (not religions) in the USA and Europe, but they are not really trying to convert the... (read more)

Selfishness is not in proportion to salary. Satisfaction and general happiness with personal values and their achievement however, is. If a person is happy to accept a job that pays less but that he himself perceives as a personal value is selfish. Accepting the higher paying job which is not in accordance to your values or against them is like selling your values to the highest bidder. If you allow your non-values to feed you and your kids, contradictions will develop. That would be a sacrifice, because in objective reality, good is that which sustains li... (read more)

Blank out the recommendations of these two philosophers, and you can see that the first philosopher is using strictly prosocial criteria to justify his recommendations; to him, what validates an argument for selfishness is showing that selfishness benefits everyone. The second philosopher appeals to strictly individual and hedonic criteria; to him, what validates an argument for altruism is showing that altruism benefits him as an individual: higher social status or more intense feelings of pleasure.

The selfish argument for selfishness, or the altruist... (read more)

What Omega is.

The fear of losing a moral compass is itself a moral compass

Doesn't this sound like a belief in belief?

I don't want God to be my moral compass, because I don't believe in it and I don't want my good behaviour (and others' behaviour, too) to be built upon a sand castle. But I don't like this foundation of morality, too: it sounds absolute, which makes it incomparable with others'. Also, what about sociopaths who don't have this moral commanding hard wired in their brain? Should them be allowed to kill?

I prefer to give value to human life, *just because I... (read more)

The first philosopher sounds like an egoist trying to convince altruists. The second philosopher sounds like a sophisticated egoist trying to convince vulgar egoists. I have to question the terminology, though - the goal of egoists is to win, so "acting selfishly" is whatever behavior benefits the egoist, even if it requires benefiting others.

To be fair the religious argument does make some sense. Even if the religious person does have a sense of morality that is separate from their own faith, other people might not. They could claim that the fear of hell, or weekly preachings about morality at religious institutions, or religious charities, etc, make many people far more altruistic than they would otherwise be and therefore makes the world better off.

I don't agree with this actually, but it's a very reasonable argument that is separate from the truth of religion or what moral values the person arguing it actually has.

Blank out the recommendations of these two philosophers

Actually, this is precisely what I object to. Humans are rationalizing animals: without careful training in actual reasoning, we make up reasons for the conclusions we want. If one man finds ostensibly prosocial reasons to be selfish and another ostensibly selfish reasons to be prosocial, I conclude that the one recommending altruism is much more likely to actually hold the door open for little old ladies, but has perhaps been taught to believe that "altruism is irrational" or some such nonsense.

The very fact that a religious person would be afraid of God withdrawing Its threat to punish them for committing murder, shows that they have a revulsion of murder which is independent of whether God punishes murder or not.  If they had no sense that murder was wrong independently of divine retribution, the prospect of God not punishing murder would be no more existentially horrifying than the prospect of God not punishing sneezing.

Well, not necessarily.

They may not have a revulsion to murdering, so much as a fear of being murdered. A religiou... (read more)

I think the issue here is conceiving of Gods Commands as the literal words - which is I agree fundamentalist, and Greek, tendency.

If I here from my neighbour that it is the Queen of Englands command that we in the Colonies should not eat ice cream on Sunday (or something equally absurd) I understand what ice cream is, that some authority has commanded it, and that there may be means and measures taken to enforce that command by my trust in my neighbour and how seriously he says that. All of this IS the Queen of Englands command not just because she 'says i... (read more)