Nietzsche Would Laugh: Morality without God

Breakpoint with Chuck Colson ^ | 12/26/2007 | Chuck Colson

[svcw]

I would disagree.
You can be in one of three states:
moral
ethical
legal
Without God you can not be moral, it maybe possible to be ethical.
Since ethics are in general based on morality it may not be possible to even be ethical.
So I believe without God the best state one can be in is legal.

[EyeGuy]

So the “God doesn’t play dice” quote referred to perhaps Gaia?

[Mr. Silverback]

I really need to make that into a T-Shirt.

There used to be a Living Epistles shirt (a hockey jersey, IIRC) with “Sorry, Charlie” on it in reference to Darwin.

[Soliton]

Forgive him, but don’t rely on his judgement regarding morality.

Morality isn’t in the genes or God, but in memes (also a Dawkins formulation). These memes existed long before Jesus was born and salvation was possible. Mencius had a version of the golden rule as did Socrates as did Buddha as did Hillel.

Societies that acquired the meme grew and supplanted ones that didn’t. Of course no society could ever actually live up to the golden rule in reality. It only works when it is restricted to a group and not to enemies of the group. As a goal, however, it serves as the glue that holds families, tribes, nation-states, countries and cultures together. Although many people require a supernatural being as a lawgiver, the law stands on its own and its evolution is consistant with observed human history under many gods and no gods..

[Soliton]

He was explicit in his rejection of the Judeo Christian concept of god. Look it up. The quote you cite was simply a figure of speech.

[Mr. Silverback]

It could be that species which have learned to take care of each other have a better chance of surviving and reproducing.

So that explains a human getting a needle shoved in their arm in order to help someone they've never met, a person who may indeed damage society?

Also, couldn't your animal examples point to God as well, that He has established an order that includes mercy? The fact that they're animals doesn't mean their behavior is removed from the Creator, if he exists.

[Mr. Silverback]

It doesn’t bother you that Colson is a convicted felon?

When a guy spends minutes, hours, even a few days committing a felony, pays for it with 7 months of his life and then spends 32 years devoting himself to the Gospel, I couldn't care less about the felonies.

Why do you?

[EyeGuy]

You’d think an individual of his intellect would be more careful with his “figures of speech”.

In any case, Einstein’s personal gross mis-reading of the reality that screams in our face everyday is hardly the point anyway.

I personally can interpret the thought, which had been articulated by others, in various forms, long before Albert Einstein, in any way I choose.

[Mr. Silverback]

Einstein didn't believe in God

Um...no. Here's just one paragraph from Wikipedia about it:

The question of scientific determinism gave rise to questions about Einstein's position on theological determinism, and even whether or not he believed in God. In 1929, Einstein told Rabbi Herbert S. Goldstein "I believe in Spinoza's God, who reveals Himself in the lawful harmony of the world, not in a God Who concerns Himself with the fate and the doings of mankind."[50] In 1950, in a letter to M. Berkowitz, Einstein stated that "My position concerning God is that of an agnostic. I am convinced that a vivid consciousness of the primary importance of moral principles for the betterment and ennoblement of life does not need the idea of a law-giver, especially a law-giver who works on the basis of reward and punishment."[51]

He also said "science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind ... a legitimate conflict between science and religion cannot exist."

[Mr. Silverback]

He was explicit in his rejection of the Judeo Christian concept of god. Look it up. The quote you cite was simply a figure of speech.

About 4 billion people walking the planet right now explicitly reject the Judeo Christian concept of God. That doesn't make them atheists.

[Mr. Silverback]

See post 29, you are 100% right about Einstein.

[wjcsux]

Please put me on your Chuck Colson ping list. Thanks.

[wjcsux]

Einstein believed in God. The Lamestream Media ignores this. Einstein struggled with his belief in God his entire life.

[Malesherbes]

Dostoyevsky wrote in “The Brothers Karamazov,” “If there is no God, then everything is permitted.” In the next century, we got Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, and the rest of the thugs who thought that everything was permitted.

When Nietzsche wrote that God was dead, he meant dead in the minds of Europe’s elite. He feared the consequences of that belief, and his concept of the Uebermensch was an unsuccessful attempt to fill the void.

Agnosticism is rationally defensible; atheism is not. To believe that what we have is an accident requires a high degree of gullibility.

[Soliton]

“Einstein believed in God.”

Quotes:

If this being is omnipotent, then every occurrence, including every human action, every human thought, and every human feeling and aspiration is also His work; how is it possible to think of holding men responsible for their deeds and thoughts before such an almighty Being? In giving out punishment and rewards He would to a certain extent be passing judgment on Himself. How can this be combined with the goodness and righteousness ascribed to Him? [Albert Einstein, Out of My Later Years (New York: Philosophical Library, 1950), p. 27.]

If people are good only because they fear punishment, and hope for reward, then we are a sorry lot indeed. [Albert Einstein]

I do not believe in the God of theology who rewards good and punishes evil. [Albert Einstein, as quoted in a memoir by Life editory William Miller in Life, May 2, 1955]

It has not done so up to now. [Einstein’s reply to a reporter’s question if religion will promote peace]

A man’s ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties and needs; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death. [Albert Einstein, Religion and Science, New York Times Magazine, 9 November 1930]

During the youthful period of mankind’s spiritual evolution, human fantasy created gods in man’s own image who, by the operations of their will were supposed to determine, or at any rate influence, the phenomenal world... The idea of God in the religions taught at present is a sublimation of that old conception of the gods. Its anthropomorphic character is shown, for instance, by the fact that men appeal to the Divine Being in prayers and plead for the fulfillment of their wishes... In their struggle for the ethical good, teachers of religion must have the stature to give up the doctrine of a personal God, that is, give up that source of fear and hope which in the past placed such vase power in the hands of priests. [Albert Einstein, reported in Science, Philosophy and Religion: A Symposium, edited by L. Bryson and L. Finkelstein. Quoted in: 2000 Years of Disbelief. by James Haught]

I do not believe in immortality of the individual, and I consider ethics to be an exclusively human concern with no superhuman authority behind it. [Albert Einstein: The Human Side, edited by Helen Dukas and Banesh Hoffman, and published by Princeton University Press.]

The foundation of morality should not be made dependent on myth nor tied to any authority lest doubt about the myth or about the legitimacy of the authority imperil the foundation of sound judgment and action. [Albert Einstein]

I cannot conceive of a personal God who would directly influence the actions of individuals, or would directly sit in judgment on creatures of his own creation. I cannot do this in spite of the fact that mechanistic causality has, to a certain extent, been placed in doubt by modern science. [He was speaking of Quantum Mechanics and the breaking down of determinism.] My religiosity consists in a humble admiratation of the infinitely superior spirit that reveals itself in the little that we, with our weak and transitory understanding, can comprehend of reality. Morality is of the highest importance — but for us, not for God. [Albert Einstein, from Albert Einstein: The Human Side, edited by Helen Dukas and Banesh Hoffman, Princeton University Press, p.66]

...a doctrine which is able to maintain itself not in clear light but only in the dark, will of necessity lose its effect on mankind, with incalculable harm to human progress. In their struggle for the ethical good, teachers of religion must have the stature to give up the doctrine of a personal God, that is, give up that source of fear and hope which in the past placed such vast power in the hands of priests.... The further the spiritual evolution of mankind advances, the more certain it seems to me that the path to genuine religiosity does not lie through the fear of life, and the fear of death, and blind faith, but through striving after rational knowledge. [Albert Einstein, address at the Princeton Theological Seminary, May 19, 1939, published in Out of My Later Years, New York: Philosophical Library, 1950.]

[kalee]

ping

[Mr. Silverback]

You’re added!

[Mase]

Einstein didn't believe in God

Einstein believed in a God who was the overall creator of the universe but, not in God as someone you could have a personal relationship with. Einstein understood the conflict between science and religion as revolving around the concept of a personal God.

For some people, miracles serve as evidence of God's existence. For Einstein it was the absence of miracles that reflected divine providence. The fact that the world was comprehensible, that it followed laws, was worthy of awe.

Let's look at some of Einstein's quotes regarding spirituality:

• I want to know God's thoughts; the rest are details.
  
• Science without religion is lame. Religion without science is blind.
  
• My religion consists of a humble admiration of the illimitable superior spirit who reveals himself in the slight details we are able to perceive with our frail and feeble mind.
  
• The further the spiritual evolution of mankind advances, the more certain it seems to me that the path to genuine religiosity does not lie through the fear of life, and the fear of death, and blind faith, but through striving after rational knowledge.
  
• Every one who is seriously involved in the pursuit of science becomes convinced that a spirit is manifest in the laws of the Universe-a spirit vastly superior to that of man, and one in the face of which we with our modest powers must feel humble.
  
• The scientists' religious feeling takes the form of a rapturous amazement at the harmony of natural law, which reveals an intelligence of such superiority that, compared with it, all the systematic thinking and acting of human beings is an utterly insignificant reflection.
  
• There is no logical way to the discovery of elemental laws. There is only the way of intuition, which is helped by a feeling for the order lying behind the appearance.
  
• The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift.
  
• The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious; It is the source of all true art and science.
  
• We should take care not to make the intellect our god; it has, of course, powerful muscles, but no personality.
  
• Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of Truth and Knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the Gods.
  
• When the solution is simple, God is answering.
  
• God does not play dice with the universe.
  
• God is subtle but he is not malicious.
  
• A human being is a part of the whole, called by us Universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest-a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole nature in its beauty.
  
• Nothing will benefit human health and increase the chances for survival of life on Earth as much as the evolution to a vegetarian diet.
  
• The man who regards his own life and that of his fellow creatures as meaningless is not merely unfortunate but almost disqualified for life.
  
• Only a life lived for others is a life worth while.
  
• The human mind is not capable of grasping the Universe. We are like a little child entering a huge library. The walls are covered to the ceilings with books in many different tongues. The child knows that someone must have written these books. It does not know who or how. It does not understand the languages in which they are written. But the child notes a definite plan in the arrangement of the books---a mysterious order which it does not comprehend, but only dimly suspects.
  
• The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing. One cannot help but be in awe when he contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality. It is enough if one tries merely to comprehend a little of this mystery every day. Never lose a holy curiosity.
  
• What I see in Nature is a magnificent structure that we can comprehend only very imperfectly, and that must fill a thinking person with a feeling of humility. This is a genuinely religious feeling that has nothing to do with mysticism.
  
• The finest emotion of which we are capable is the mystic emotion. Herein lies the germ of all art and all true science. Anyone to whom this feeling is alien, who is no longer capable of wonderment and lives in a state of fear is a dead man. To know that what is impenetrable for us really exists and manifests itself as the highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty, whose gross forms alone are intelligible to our poor faculties - this knowledge, this feeling ... that is the core of the true religious sentiment. In this sense, and in this sense alone, I rank myself among profoundly religious men.
  
• The real problem is in the hearts and minds of men. It is easier to denature plutonium than to denature the evil spirit of man.
  
• True religion is real living; living with all one's soul, with all one's goodness and righteousness.
  
• Intelligence makes clear to us the interrelationship of means and ends. But mere thinking cannot give us a sense of the ultimate and fundamental ends. To make clear these fundamental ends and valuations and to set them fast in the emotional life of the individual, seems to me precisely the most important function which religion has to form in the social life of man.
  

[swain_forkbeard]

So is this meme learned or inherited?

[Mr. Silverback]

To believe that what we have is an accident requires a high degree of gullibility.

And a spiritual veil.