Why do people unite morality and God?

 

It is easy to unite morality and God in your head when you want rules about what people should not do and not say and not think.  You feel then you want there to be a God who stands by the rules and enforces them.  Rules seem a bit thin and contrived without a rule-maker to regulate them.  All who think right is real and wrong is real agree that if the rules do not apply to everybody in the same circumstances then it is not a morality. The real motive behind fusing God and morality is a feeling.  Yet it is manipulative to do that!  It is not about what you feel and want to feel!  Paradoxically it is immoral to do that!
 
THE QUESTION
 
Why does religion insist that if there is no God there is no objective morality and if there is no objective morality then there is no God?
 
OBJECTIVE MORALITY OR GOD?
 
Is it about having an objective morality?
 
Or about having a God?
 
Or both?
 
If it is not both then which one matters?
 
If it is God then it is not true that objective morality can be had without God. It makes no sense to worry about God then. It makes no sense to bring in God. That shows that there is something absurd about trying to make out that God and objective morality go together.
 
If it is objective morality then God by definition is not God. He is not important if there is a choice between him and morality and it has to be one or the other. Morality can be real without him. It is real without him.
 
AN "AND" NOT AN "OR"?
 
If both, then do you care about the God aspect or the morality aspect the most?
 
No man values two masters the same. Even if God and objective morality are the same, our consciousness can make a distinction between them. Your father the lawyer does not mean that being a father and a lawyer go together.
 
God by definition is that which deserves all our devotion and is the ultimate being we need to be with in a relationship of love. God demands to be put first ultimately. That not only contradicts how we differentiate between a person and the values that make her a person. It contradicts the notion that God comes first for he is morality for that is really putting morality first. It is the morality you care about.
 
So if God alone ultimately matters then most of that if not all of it is about how God is the reason we have to be moral. Morality is then supremely important if God is. God is that which alone really matters thus it demands that you put the God aspect first. But that insults those who believe in objective morality without knowing why. The notion that you need to believe in God is unfair and immoral. You don't need to know why morality is real.
 
The morality aspect comes first. But that contradicts the notion of God. But who cares? Nobody should care.
 
INTRINSIC GOODNESS
 
God's morality is more about good consequences than anything else. The consequences of an action are always put before any intrinsic goodness in the act. Intrinsic moral value then has no practical use. It is useless. So God cannot matter!
 
What matters most?
 
Is it that morality is more than God’s commands? It is better to help a child because you want to than because you are commanded by God to.
 
Is it that morality is God’s character? It is better to help a child because you want to than because God would do it.
 
Is it that because God is a rational creator he will never command us to kill babies for fun? Obviously reason then is more important than any command coming from God.

If you have a choice, only one choice, then which question should be asked?
 
BELIEF IS ABOUT PROBABILITIES
 
Belief is not certainty but based on probabilities. Most - if not all - of us merely believe morality is real and don't know why we believe it exactly and who cares?
 
To ground morality in God is just an attempt to dehumanise you. There is nothing wrong with you seeing or thinking that happiness is good just because it is good. Anybody who has a problem with you is trying to detract from your happiness. The God botherers are subliminal and sometimes not so subliminal people of mean-spiritedness.
 
OBEDIENCE
 
If we should want to believe in God, then why? Is it because it is best for us or moral and because God gives us standards to live up to? This approach implies that we must obey God.
 
Why have a moral system? Is it to facilitate God engaging with you? Is it a system to honour a God who is an agent beyond or in the universe? Which of these is the most important and which one?
 
Time should not be wasted on God - people matter not God. No sensible morality can be based on God. Only hypocrisy and false concern for others can be.
 
FUSS NOT WORTH IT
 
Is the fuss about God and objective morality really worth it?
 
The atheist does not fuss about objective morality in this way. He merely deals with how religion makes a huge fuss about it. It is religion that is fussy.

If God alone matters then the fuss religion makes about objective morality needing to be based on him is justified and should be everybody's concern.

We know that it is good to feed a hungry baby. We don't need belief in God to tell us that. Feeding the baby is good. Suppose it is immoral for us. Perhaps the food will kill the baby or we hope it will. But feeding the baby is good in itself. The intention is bad. If we believe in being good, really good, then we must not care about morals, assuming morals are different.

Human nature does not need God to justify the theory of moral right and wrong. We are built to do without it. If we are constantly nasty we will make enemies and be destroyed. That happens whether there is a God or not.
 
Religion tries to defend objective morality when it doesn't really need to. It does not trust people. It uses God to try and convince itself that it should help people. If it knew what objective morality was it would see that we are forced to believe it anyway and don't need to justify it with a God of objective morality.
 
WHY MORALS SEEM COMPULSORY
 
People may say, "When it comes to moral values, we are participants and recipients. The values choose us and we choose them. It is mutual." This argument could be the reason why people are fooled into thinking that you cannot have a morality unless you have a God who has the authority to make it compulsory. But if morality is compulsory it just is and does not need a God.
 
If morality needs participants then it needs that as much as it needs recipients. Recipients means that you don't get to decide what morality is - you have to learn what it is and live up to it. Participation means you have to make morality your own for it to exist. It is true that it is immoral to kick a dog even if there is nothing at all. But there is no such thing as a moral or immoral action. Morality then is real in itself but also made real when it has participants.
 
What do you choose if there has to be one or the other? Participating or receiving? Participating. If that is all you can do then you ARE lining up to objective morality for objective morality DOES NOT DEMAND THE IMPOSSIBLE! The efforts to bring God into all this are just an insult to these principles.

 

WE CARE FOR WE WANT A COMMUNITY

 

Any normal person wants morality to be fact so that we can form and do form a community united by it.  That is why we care even if we say we care because of God.

 

Maybe God wants us to decide what is moral ourselves so we can form a community? The moral argument for God assumes there is no morality unless God decrees it. Then it is up to God to decide what it will be from his end.  But surely he can delegate it to us?  He can intervene to make sure that what we choose will be the best as far as we can make out even if it is not best in itself.

 

This delegating question shows that if the view that there is no morality unless God decides there is it still does not stop people from believing God gives us the power to do it.  If he can do it himself he can indeed delegate the power.  The notion that God decreeing morality into existence is good for it stops us trying to decree morality is rubbish. It does not.  People fear the consequences of us thinking we can decree right and wrong with God's authority.  It is the same as us creating morality out of nothing.  If we decree morality or have reason to think we do then there is no point in morality being real!

 

SOME THINK MORAL PRINCIPLES ARE LIKE MAGIC!

 

Why is morality important to the believer? Why does she need it to be fact and not theory and not feeling and certainly not relative? Is it because she wants to believe it will prevail? Does she think it will prevail for it is objectively true or does she just think it will prevail?  I lean towards thinking that for her it is about the latter.  Morality being true or thought true never got enough people to put it into action properly.  Many do report having magical beliefs that the truth will always prevail.  They ignore the fact that if it does it is usually when it is too late.

 

The unbeliever in the supernatural may show they do seem to be unaware that they magically believe that morality will triumph.  The believer in a God who creates morality or who it depends on in order to have authority will be more likely to see morality as magical.  Actions speak louder than words so whoever treats morality as magic believes in magic even if they do not realise it.

 

The notion that moral principles have magical properties and defend themselves and act like they have a mind of their own leads to laziness.  It leads to people leaving the responsibility for morality with morality.  Morality is about people and if we do not strip it of magic and fail to labour for it terrible things will  happen.  Morality will be eclipsed by relativist nonsense.  Even 20% laziness with regard to our moral obligations can be devastating.  The moral would be more moral without magical rubbish.
 
FINALLY
 
Care about objective morality for at the end of the day it is all you have got!