by Colleen
I was listening to a question and answer session led by an atheist and a christian, the other night. Someone had asked the atheist where his morals came from if they weren't derived from a religious code, and he responded that in order for society to function relatively smoothly, the golden rule (do unto others as you would have them do to you) makes sense. People suppressing some of their own negative impulses and tendencies benefits humanity in general, and so this type of behavior may have evolved over time as society advanced. Therefore, his own personal moral code was essentially to try and live by the golden rule. Fair enough.
I would argue he has a very valid point when speaking in generalities, and I could see how he was also implying that morally, there's not much (if any) difference between atheists and christians -which, sadly, can also be argued to be a fair statement. The operative word in this whole thing, though, is "try". When we say we try to live by the golden rule, what we really mean (and I did read an article referencing a study that supports the point I'm about to make - really I did :p) is that we may be superficially polite to everyone, but we are truly nice only to people who are nice back to us, and we either ignore or respond in kind to people who are rude or hurt us. So we have this "tit for tat" mentality (this is what that paper was about, so if you really want to you can try googling 'tit for tat' research, but maybe not while at work...) where there's some baseline initial interaction you have with a person, probably based on your personality and genetics, but after that your actions towards that person adjust according to how you think the other person responds to and treats you. And if that other person treats you like scum, well, then all's fair in war, right? And that's kind of how the worlds' morality is right now. I mean...we're not super nice to everyone, no matter what, right?
But, I was randomly reading through the golden rule passage of the bible tonight; it's in Luke, chapter 6. And after the 31st verse: Do to others as you would like them to do to you. The passage continues on to say: If you love only those who love you, why should you get credit for that? Even sinners love those who love them! And if you do good to only those who do good to you, why should you get credit? Even sinners do that much. And if you lend money only to those who can repay you, why should you get credit? Even sinners will lend to other sinners, expecting to be repaid in full.
So basically, Jesus is calling out christians here by saying - hey, the world is going to have some basic level of morality, that's the truth. They're going to be nice to those who are nice to them, and do favors for those who are able to return the favor in kind. But you, christians, really need to take this to a whole new level - we're called to be apart from what the world does. So what's our charge? "Love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back."
I was really moved and challenged by this passage tonight. If I was even a tiny bit better at this commandment, then maybe I wouldn't keep ending up as being part of the reason why non-believers see christians as no different than the rest of the world. By God's grace, if christians can be more open to loving like this, then at some point, atheists and nonbelievers will see a difference between christian morality and world 'morality'.
So christians: love boldly and openly. Love others no matter what!
I will definitely be praying about this.
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As an atheist I have to ask then, why do religious people have ask where do their ethics/morals come from if they deny religion to paraphrase what you wrote above. To me, why is it a prerequisite for someone to do good it has to have religious undertones to it?
ReplyDeleteJust as the atheist answered he lives by the golden rule; why can't people do good for the sake it is the right thing to do? I don't understand why someone can't do good and not be religious. Why does religion have to be the reason for someone to do good deeds/help mankind, et cetera?
Sure religion teaches those morals, but you don't need to believe in God to do so. Man should do good because he wants to do good, not just to score points for the afterlife. Because whether or not there is a heaven or a hell, it is preferable to do good. You should live life to the fullest, and enjoy life now while you are alive as if it were your last. Enjoy life as if you won't have a second chance after death.
Obviously people have free will to do what they want, good or evil, and that to me has nothing to do with God nor Satan.
This is a great point, and I also think it's a good example of how our starting philosophies are so different that we're not even on the same page - that beliving in a God, specifically this God, changes everything.
ReplyDeleteI consider myself a practical person and a realist (except for this whole Trinity thing which I take solely on faith :), so if I were an aethist, I would completely agree with you about good, bad, and morality. If I didn't believe God existed, then motivations behind any altruistic actions or charity would not matter to me in the slightest. So what if a famous actor makes a huge donation to aid Haiti victims and gets a boost in PR at the same time? The end result is that victims of a disaster got much needed supplies. This is good. On a smaller scale, does it really matter if two neighbors hate each other inwardly, but don't bring it to physical violence because Neighbor 1 sticks to being passive agressive and Neighbor 2 is too easy going to care? No, the end result is that they can coexist without hurting each other. This is good.
But, when you set religion aside and just consider why someone would want to do what is right, or why they would be charitable towards others, their reasoning will ultimately lead back themselves. They want to help others because it's the right thing to do. OK, well Why do they want to "do the right thing"? Because it makes them feel good to do the right thing, or because it makes them a good person to do what is right. So it seems like one of the outcomes of viewing yourself as a morally upright person is that it is self-satisfying.
ReplyDeleteAs christians though, and this relates back to the passages I posted earlier, our first and greatest commandment is to love our God with everything we have. This strongly ties in with the old testament first commandment to "Have no other gods before me (God)" (Exodus 20:1). It's been argued that the most common "god" that comes between us and God is ourselves, Just by default, our actions affect ourselves, therefore most of our choices result in actions that will lead to beneficial consquences for ourselves.
So this is where we completely diverge, because if you don't believe in God then you don't believe in the entity who tells you that it is wrong to conduct your life to please yourself, so for an aethist there's nothing wrong with letting yourself be the ruler of your own life - in fact, by default, you are. Because of this, I don't know if the rest of my comment will really be that meaningful to you then, since it hinges on minimizing the focus on yourself and instead loving everyone else unconditionally so that God is glorified; this is biblical goodness. Well, I guess I'll just continue on anyway though.
Going back to the example of volunteering and donating, with my christian perspective, although we can both agree that if a person is charitable, regardless of motivation, the final outcome: that other people were helped - is good. The difference is that as a christian, my motivation for doing "the right thing" stems from my accountability and wanting to satisfy God rather than myself. It's like when you remove God, everything goes a level down. Without God you have still have a desire for doing the right thing, for the sake of doing the right thing. Once you have done this, you will have pleased yourself for doing it, because your action followed your own standard of moral conduct.
ReplyDeleteAnd that's where it ends. Christians have a desire to do the right thing to please God, who, in our opinion (since we believe he is the ultimate perfect entity in the universe) knows what the perfect standard of moral conduct is and wants us to live by it. And his perfect standard of conduct includes the idea that we would humbly submit to him and humbly service others also above ourselves. So I guess what I'm trying to get at is that without a reconciled relationship with God, it would be impossible for our hearts and inner motivation to be that selfless, because we're always fighting that battle to put ourselves first. So God is the only one who is able to change our motivations so that they're not inherently selfish.
So I just packed a lot of theology into this and I'm sorry if it got really boring or wacky to you, but one thing I really do want to emphasize before ending is that - I do NOT mean christian motiviation stems from doing good things so we can go to heaven. [And I hope that if you get one thing out of this rambling comment, it would be that Christians don't earn their way into heaven (Romans 3 & pretty much all of the bible)] The crux of christianity lies in being given eternal life solely through faith in Jesus who justifies us before God (More Romans). Because we are then saved, we are asked to do good works because of our love for Him. (Titus 2:2-14).
So, to sum up, I really didn't mean to imply that an aethist can produce nothing good - I probably meant to imply that no one can produce good. Hehe...But really, although people do perform "good" actions in this world, I do believe humanity's inner nature has an innate tendancy to be bad, and that's true of EVERYONE, aethist or non. Probably stuff for another post, or another comment at least. Anyway, the point of my post was really more of a call for myself and my christian friends to examine our motives and remember how we are to joyfully love others as God loves us, and I just kind of used what I remembered of that discussion I attended the other week to launch into it.
ReplyDeleteOK - again I'm really sorry for the length. This looked a lot shorter on notepad. :P
ReplyDeleteahh and that would be "humbly serve others"..not "service others". yikes. hehe :)
ReplyDeleteBecause somebody feels good about doing good comes from the knowledge you helped another human, or generally speaking, made another life forms life better. That comes from yourself, where your body creates endorphins from that knowledge.
ReplyDeleteI believe that does not come from God or another higher being because people should do things because they want to not because God told them so. And going to commandments God gave us, the first commandment is actually, "And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth." Gen 1:28.
The ten commandments aren't the only commandments God has (and just because I am an atheist doesn't mean I don't know the contents of the Bible).
That being said, you mention doing good is because it is God's will. And you are serving God by doing good towards others. While Christians, Jews (I was raised in a Jewish household), and Muslims all pray to the same God, serving God and doing good I don't believe are hand-in-hand.
The main point I am trying to get at is, people do good because they want to help others. Not for the selfish reason of making themselves feel good or better about themselves. I don't go good deeds because I want the high from helping others. I want to do good for the simple reason I want to help somebody else.
And Himself shouldn't be the reason for changing oneself because God gave us freewill. We are free to do good or to do evil. And by choosing to good should come from not the fear of eternal damnation of Hell.
You know your motives for your actions and I only know my own, so I don't want to get into a deeper discussion on motives, because I feel I'll just end up taking my own experiences and generalize too much. I do have one question though, about what you wrote:
ReplyDelete"Because somebody feels good about doing good comes ... That comes from yourself, where your body creates endorphins from that knowledge."
I think this statement implies that we do good to others because the end result is endorphins that give us a pleasurable feeling. If that's the case, then isn't the act of doing good to others inherently self-serving?
As for all the bible verse citations, I didn't mean to imply that you didn't know the Bible, I just wanted to put them in there for reference so you could do your own verification if you wanted. The word choice of "first" in referencing the commandment to have no other gods before me was because conventionally that kicks off the first of the most famous commandments that are commonly known as the 10 Commandments. But I do recognize that there are others, sorry about the vagueness.