By Slugsie, on April 28th, 2009Without a moral law giver, how can you have morals? Without an overseeing deity, how can you know what is good or bad?
These are common accusations of the religious. They fact that it’s obviously fallacious seems to completely pass them by. If the only measurer of good or bad is Yahweh, then how do peoples and cultures who have never had anything to do with Christianity get by? How come they haven’t managed to kill themselves because they were unaware that they shouldn’t?
To ask the question ‘Can you be good without God?’ is akin to asking ‘Can you have tasty food without salt?’, or ‘Can you produce light without electricity?’ To anyone not indoctrinated into the religious fallacies, the answers to all three questions are easy – and the same. I won’t argue that salt brings a new dimension to the taste of our food, and that electricity makes it so much easier for us to have illumination in our homes. Similarly, I won’t argue that being religious and believing in the All Mighty brings a new dimension to how you might come by your moral compass. But they are none of them essential, and furthermore if used incorrectly might even prove dangerous.
So, I’ll ask again – ‘Can you be good without God?’
April 28th, 2009 | 
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I had this discussion with a good and clever, yet indoctinated, friend. He came with the usual argument and we talked about the problem of getting any kind of morale from the bible. In the end, we agreed it’s not possible to gain any “moral facts” from it without interpreting and rating the actions of the protagonists.
The Koran is even worse, since if read straight from the book, many – from a pacifist human point of view – cruel things would be allowed.
(btw: it’s annoying that the captcha requires javascript
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It got him away a bit from his indoctrination, I’m glad intellect can win over years of fairy-telling.
Yup, those who cite the Bible as a pinnacle of virtue and moral guidance have probably not read it properly. There are so many, many acts that unjust, immoral, and plain evil that you really do have to jump through huge hoops of interpretation so begin to justify it.
(Sorry about your problems with the Captcha. I’m trying to keep the comments as spam free as possible right from the start, so its a necessary evil. JavaScript really isn’t so bad, 99.99% of the time having it enabled shouldn’t inconvenience you. If I find a site that uses JavaScript for those very intrusive ‘slide-over’ ads etc. I just don’t come back again.)