Fusing God and Objective Morality does nothing productive

 

Morality whether absolute or relative is about declaring something unchangeable and true. Even to say that morality is relative is to say it’s a fact that morality is what we want it to be. That makes an unchangeable rule that bans anybody from contradicting your right to decide what iron rules are in force and for how long.  It is just a superstition and a recipe for totalitarianism.  It is important to agree that we need morality to be objective even if it is not much practical use.  If God is a threat to it then God has to go!  And even more so if it is disaster enough!

 

The cure for cancer is no good to us if we cannot find it. Objective morality is not necessarily useful. Objective morality can be true and real and everything else and still totally useless as in impractical. Paradoxically, it may be useless but still needed as something to wish for and believe in.  It is good to know that 1 and 1 are 2 even if nobody uses that information.  Morality can be true and real and everything else and still totally useless. Paradoxically, it may be useless but still needed as something to wish for and believe in.

Here is a list reasons why morality is not as useful as is made out.

You may have fixed rules. Eg no adultery. But they only apply in the uncommon situations where there is a free choice. If a person is forced or insane or drunk or vulnerable then the person is not an adulterer in the moral sense.

You cannot judge somebody who seems to freely sin for nobody tells everybody everything and situations and circumstances are complicated. Many like confessing sins they are not guilty of or that they imagine they are to blame for.

 

People who want to be loved unconditionally will do that.

 

If somebody is blackmailed by a spirit or something they are not going to tell you or get you to understand.

 

Morality is full of contradictions.

 

Trying to make a morality that does not agree with itself more binding by saying God commanded it and sanctioned it only adds to the absurdity.

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!

Despite the fact that we all get along fine by believing that love needs no justification religion wants to use God to justify it.  That is religion being so reluctant to love that it has to talk itself into it.  There is something wrong with a person or religion who needs a God to justify what needs no justification.  Love not only needs no justification but anything that does cannot be called love no matter how good an imitation it is.  Love not only needs no justification but it WANTS no justification.  It wants no God to justify it.  Atheism may not be always loving but at least it holds the key.

 

You need a morality or so you are told. If so, then who do you need it for? You or others or both? You do not need morality if you have only minutes to live and cannot do anything for anybody.  Yet you will be told that God and morality are inseparable so that to deny one is to deny the other so morality is supremely important for in some way it is part of God.  What bigoted nonsense!!

 

Morals and moral principles are not the same thing. Every decision gives you loads of principles to think about. Are morals and moral principles equally important? Yes and no. In our lives, morals are most important thing. Nobody really cares what God wants or commands when a baby is sick and needs your help. They don't care why it is moral.  In other words, it is not about the principle.

Morality is about two things: reciprocity and empathy not God. Anybody then who brings God into the equation is looking for power and does not really care about real morality. If there was a choice between reciprocity and empathy which one would we have to choose? Reciprocity for it is about treating others well who treat you well because they treat you well.

 

If we had to reject one thing and the choice was reciprocity, empathy and God obviously God would have to go.

 

The motivation behind people telling you that God somehow is morality is about trying to make morality non-arbitrary. It is the main motivation if not the only real motivation. Even liberal people want a line that nobody is supposed to cross.

 

Everybody fears that each person might take it on herself to decree what is objectively moral or otherwise. That would be chaotic and it opens the door for them to oppress you and me in the name of what is right. Even if people don't do that there is the problem of the principle. It is still allowed even if it does not happen. It would be absurd if one person decreed it was objectively wrong to kill a relative for the inheritance and another said it was right and another said it was objectively neither moral or immoral but neutral. Believers fear it more than the normal person does for they worry about how our moral autonomy is going to consider God. The believer then is more likely than the unbeliever to want to see rules imposed on people. Some want them imposed on themselves as well but more often than not, when people wail about bad standards in morality they mean everybody else's morality.

 

Believers also want to stop the notion that morality is relative. An arbitrary "objective" morality like what we have just studied and a relative one need not be the same thing. They often are but they do not need to be. A relativist thinks morals are not facts but opinions. The relativist will deny that morality is objective.

Many believers limit the right to decree morality to God alone. That solves the arbitrary problem they say. Even if it does, it does not solve the relativist problem. A relativist morality that is dished out by one being, God, is still a relativist morality.

 

The thing that mostly frightens those who care about morality is people changing moral principles and actions to suit themselves.  It is not clear that the idea of a God who enforces morality is really any help.

 

Some argue, "Morals are changeable which means you cannot say you need God to have unchanging morals. Morals have to be changeable to be morals. Thus there can be no mistake about it. Nothing has the right to lay down moral laws. The best argument for a lawmaker God is in fact a dud. It is dreadful and fails dreadfully."  But this may allow for changing the rules but not for changing moral principles.  The principles cannot change.  If you think it is okay to hurt evil people and others think it is wrong then different rules are being created.  But the principle, "Do not hurt the innocent" is accepted by both.  They apply the principle differently.  The argument works if by morals you mean moral laws.

 

Objective morality should be unchangeable but a relativist morality can claim to be unchangeable too.  Unchangeability is not enough to make a morality objective.  Many of those who say objective morality is grounded in God could actually mean relativist morality. If you are a moral relativist, there is no problem if you want to claim there is an objective morality - you can do that as a relativist. You may say that objective morality is a lie but telling the lie that morality is objective is no problem if you are relativist Perhaps they all mean that but won't admit it.

 

If there is no God and believers say there is and that he is the reason morality is real then they are relativists without knowing it.  Then they are the ones who are inventing their relativist morality!

 

A God who is relativist would be a worse nightmare than people being relativist!  Relativists do force their rules on people but if they thought a God was relativist they would be worse.  After all you cannot defeat God!!

 

The other question is how relativist is God? Relativists are usually inconsistent. But God would not be.  God then is either 100% relativist or he is 100% non-relativist.  So the worst relativism is that which says there is a relativist God!  Religion can do nothing to show God is not a relativist being.

 

Finally

 

Because morality is not as clear as we want it to be and God could be a relativist attempts to make it more than just opinion or preferences are doomed to fail.