logicnazi comments on Fake Morality - Less Wrong

46 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 08 November 2007 09:32PM

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Comment author: logicnazi 09 November 2007 05:43:09PM 0 points [-]

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 "God is good" but yet if they really believed that morality was merely obedience to god then you aren't actually asserting anything of substance when you claim that god is good.

So not only does the theory that morality come from god have some philosophical problems the people who advocate it don't even really seem to believe it.