Morality without God

Morality without God

This question begins by assuming morals were created entirely by God

and not just approved of by God. It also bypasses the possibility that

there is no such God and man created morals using the authority

intrinsic in the idea of a God in order to enforce them; thus raising

the possibility that morals are learned but also partly innate and

instinctual to humankind. The ideas raised target those who have no

religious persuasion, namely those who consider themselves to be

atheist or agnostic. The claim implicit in the question (in assuming

that God exists) is that all morality and sound ethical values stem

from religion, without which motivation towards virtuous behaviour

becomes ambiguous.

In assuming that the Ten Commandments were never written and a list of

moral rules never set out, it is easy to imagine a world where

barbarity and survival of the fittest becomes as natural for human

beings as it is for wild cats of the African Savannah. With these

rules to fall back on, humans have guidelines, discipline and

structure to a subject that is often problematic. Morality is an

ambiguous subject because, unlike natural laws that offer up a

specific and tangible consequence when broken, moral laws merely carry

the name ‘law’ as an indication to their ideal weight whereas in

reality these ‘laws’ can be broken without necessarily bad

consequences or any at all. Belief in God can solve the problem of

obedience to a moral law, as, when broken or deviated from the person

can expect to travel to Hell in the afterlife, rather than the

preferred destination of Heaven; the ultimate reward for...

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...se that

distinguishes morality from immorality and as seen in the case of

people never exposed to Christianity or any large civilisation with a

God, the same sentiments are still conveyed and held as beliefs. Loss

of morality through choice is a far more reasonable suggestion than a

complete lack of it if the idea of God has not come into existence. To

therefore suggest that society would have no form of morality if there

had been no God and no religion is as unsustainable an argument as a

society with no form of morality.

Bibliography

Peter Singer, Chapters 4 and 7, Practical Ethics (2nd edition),

Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993

Bernard Williams, Chapters 7 and 8, Morality: An Introduction,

Cambridge University, 1993, 2004

Plato, Book 1, Chapter 3, Plato: The Republic (2nd edition), Penguin