How do you derive moral principles from theism?

niwrad - Thank you for the post. It seems to suggest that there is some type of association with knowledge and "goodness"; the notion is that the more a being knows, the more "good" they become, or should I say, the more sensible it seems for them to choose to do good over evil. Take metaphysical Lucifer as an example - purportedly a being with immense knowledge; yet according to the Biblical account his nature is diametrically opposed to God, the opposite of "Love"; he represents hate incarnate. Using this example it doesn't follow that the more one "knows" the more sense it makes for them to "love" and "be good". Just wanted to hear your thoughts on this. DinoV

I merely point out you can creatively reinterpret Einstein's writings how you want but it's no longer possible to ask him to clarify. I also wonder why Einstein's personal religious views should be of particular importance. Alan Fox

Sure, Reynard. The library Einstein spoke of just contained randomly assembled books full of random mumbo-jumbo. Go to the top of the class. Axel

Not accepting in/ believing in a personal God does not mean Einstein didn't accept that the universe was designed/ created by God. Joe

Modern science’s best-kept secret, Chris.

So secret that not even Einstein knew. Lucky we have Axel and Doyle to communicate Einstein's thoughts from beyond the grave! ;) Alan Fox

...'he knew, like all of the greatest scientists who ever lived, that it must have been designed.' Modern science's best-kept secret, Chris. Axel

...which knows no dogma and no God conceived in man’s image...

!!! Alan Fox

Sorry Axel, I didn't mean to steal your thunder! Einstein did have peculiar - and basically wrong - views about morality. This was because he didn't believe in free will. Once you ditch free-will, you remove moral responsibility and effectively ditch morality:

I am compelled to act as if free will existed, because if I wish to live in a civilized society I must act responsibly. . . I know that philosophically a murderer is not responsible for his crime, but I prefer not to take tea with him.

What he didn't appreciate was that free-riders can, and do, live in a civilized society and they can break the rules whenever it suits. And, no-one can blame them because, he said, "Human beings in their thinking, feeling and acting are not free but are as causally bound as the stars in their motions." If a great man like Einstein can get morality wrong because he rejected theistic morality, then what chance do the Internet Atheists have? Still, where he disappoints in moral philosophy, he more than compensates in Intelligent Design science. He was too clever to accept that the universe made itself by accident: he knew, like all of the greatest scientists who ever lived, that it must have been designed. Chris Doyle

'With which I entirely agree. If Einstein counts as a theist, so do I. If he counts as a pantheist, so do I. If he counts as a humanist, so do I.' You keep some very shabby company, Elizabeth. No wonder, Einstein found the idea of God as a Judge, increasingly antipathetic. Einstein abandoned two families, didn't he? Not to speak of his first-born, a mentally-deficient lad. Being a genius in one or more fields, alas, is no guarantee of the possession of wisdom, even though his professional wisdom as a deep thinker, knocked that of his 'peers' into a cocked hat. Like Max Planck, he clearly was no admirer of the Consensus of his day, to put it mildly. I remember being appalled that there seemed to be fashions of literary criticism even in universities. 'The penny dropped', when I realised that T S Eliot was being held up as the number one Shakespearean critic, when he was to the magnanimous Shakespeare, what Alfred J Prufrock would have been to Holden Caulfield - he and his also virulently antisemitic pal, Ezra Pound, were spiritual pygmies. So it goes... (I've always wanted to conclude a screed with that curiously sententious little banality). Axel

Ha!Ha! Chris. I see you beat me to it! No, Elizabeth, Einstein was certainly not a pantheist (god co-extensive with the universe), and was annoyed that atheists kept claiming him as one of their own. To begin with, the idea that the universe had not been designed would have been too risible for words to him, since he frequently eulogized about in this kind of vein: '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.' Note: 'The child knows that someone must have written these books.' By casting a child as the protagonist, he is, of course, saying that to the clear, pristine, totally disinterested mind, the notion that world was not intelligently designed would be beyond foolish. He was closer to a panentheist, in that he believed, that as well as being co-extensive with the universe, the 'illimitable, superior spirit', to use his own words, also transcended it. However, unlike most panentheists, he did not believe that, in the words of Theopedia: 'God is intimately connected to the world and yet remains greater than the world. In this view, events and changes in the universe affect and change God, and he is therefore a temporal being. As the universe grows, God learns as he increases in knowledge and being. He is quoted as once having referred to this spirit as 'The Old One'. I think we would translate it as, the Ancient of Days, the eternal Judaeo-Christian god. Axel

How about quoting a little more (I am quoting from Wiki - I do not have access to the original):

Your question [about God] is the most difficult in the world. It is not a question I can answer simply with yes or no. I am not an Atheist. I do not know if I can define myself as a Pantheist. The problem involved is too vast for our limited minds. May I not reply with a parable? The human mind, no matter how highly trained, cannot grasp the universe. We are in the position of a little child, entering a huge library whose walls are covered to the ceiling with books in many different tongues. The child knows that someone must have written those books. It does not know who or how. It does not understand the languages in which they are written. The child notes a definite plan in the arrangement of the books, a mysterious order, which it does not comprehend, but only dimly suspects. That, it seems to me, is the attitude of the human mind, even the greatest and most cultured, toward God. We see a universe marvelously arranged, obeying certain laws, but we understand the laws only dimly. Our limited minds cannot grasp the mysterious force that sways the constellations. I am fascinated by Spinoza's Pantheism. I admire even more his contributions to modern thought. Spinoza is the greatest of modern philosophers, because he is the first philosopher who deals with the soul and the body as one, not as two separate things.

He also wrote:

When one views the matter historically one is inclined to look upon science and religion as irreconcilable antagonists, and for a very obvious reason. The man who is thoroughly convinced of the universal operation of the law of causation cannot for a moment entertain the idea of a being who interferes in the course of events—that is, if he takes the hypothesis of causality really seriously. He has no use for the religion of fear and equally little for social or moral religion. A God who rewards and punishes is inconceivable to him for the simple reason that a man's actions are determined by necessity, external and internal, so that in God's eyes he cannot be responsible, any more than an inanimate object is responsible for the motions it goes through. Hence science has been charged with undermining morality, but the charge is unjust. A man's ethical behaviour should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear and punishment and hope of reward after death.

With which I entirely agree. If Einstein counts as a theist, so do I. If he counts as a pantheist, so do I. If he counts as a humanist, so do I. His conception of God seems identical to mine - I don't really mind what you call it. Finally:

The individual feels the nothingness of human desires and aims and the sublimity and marvellous order which reveal themselves both in nature and in the world of thought. He looks upon individual existence as a sort of prison and wants to experience the universe as a single significant whole. The beginnings of cosmic religious feeling already appear in earlier stages of development—e.g., in many of the Psalms of David and in some of the Prophets. Buddhism, as we have learnt from the wonderful writings of Schopenhauer especially, contains a much stronger element of it. The religious geniuses of all ages have been distinguished by this kind of religious feeling, which knows no dogma and no God conceived in man's image; so that there can be no Church whose central teachings are based on it. Hence it is precisely among the heretics of every age that we find men who were filled with the highest kind of religious feeling and were in many cases regarded by their contemporaries as Atheists, sometimes also as saints. Looked at in this light, men like Democritus, Francis of Assisi, and Spinoza are closely akin to one another.

Exactly. Elizabeth B Liddle

Hi Lizzie, I disagree. So does Einstein:

“I’m not an atheist and I don’t think I can call myself a pantheist. We are in the position of a little child entering a huge library filled with books in many languages. The child knows someone must have written those books. It does not know how. It does not understand the languages in which they are written. The child dimly suspects a mysterious order in the arrangements of the books, but doesn’t know what it is. That, it seems to me, is the attitude of even the most intelligent human being toward God.”

(my emphasis) Chris Doyle

Apologies, messed up the tags again. My response is from "No..." onwards. Elizabeth B Liddle

Chris:

Einstein recognised the Creator behind physics: Everyone 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…. In this way the pursuit of science leads to a religious feeling of a special sort, which is indeed quite different from the religiosity of someone more naive No, that is not what that passage says. Read the bolded carefully. And read also, here, other writings on the subject by Einstein. Religious views of Albert Einstein. He called himself a "pantheist". It's the word I would choose to describe myself, but you would probably call it "atheist".

Elizabeth B Liddle

Niwrad thinks it is immoral to kill animals for sport.

Absolutely. You do realize that humans are animals. I go even furthur and say it is wrong to killl animals for food. That is because we do not need them for food. Joe

Axel #28

It seems to me that holding the basic truths of morality relating to empathy and compassion as self-evident, needs the follow-up question, ‘Why are they self-evident?’ And that this is why the materialists are not satisfied with it.

An even more basic question is what do we mean by self-evident? Someone made the good point that it is not that everyone agrees it is true. A good definition might be on the lines – the truth of the statement is not established by evidence or argument but is immediately apparent if you understand the statement. The trouble about this is what happens if not everyone agrees it is true? Then we have a statement which is open to dispute but not evidence or argument!

Which reminds me to apologise to you, Mark. If anyone has a vicious tongue they are prone to use in moments of weakness, against individuals it’s me. And, of course, that’s no joke.

Axel – thanks for this. I am not aware that you have a vicious tongue (or assuming you are operating a keyboard in the conventional manner – vicious fingers) but if have then I am sure it was in the heat of the moment. I occasionally lose my cool as well – but old age helps one keep calm. In any case yours is a negligible contribution to the fairly continuous stream of accusations of dishonesty, stupidity and occasionally immorality against atheists. I enjoy this debate – why else would I do it – and I know that the internet almost always leads to flaming – but it seems worthwhile to try to minimise it. Mark Frank

5for #27

Niwrad thinks it is immoral to kill animals for sport. He has derived this from the word of god. I guarantee many theists here disagree. If morality derived from theism is not subjective how can this be?

In my opinion, a theist is inconsistent if he thinks that to kill animals for sport (or other "minor" violence) is moral. His concept of God is poor if he thinks that animals can be killed without good reasons. Animals are of God, who else. What right have we to kill them for play? Have we the right to destroy the property of others? No, to greater reason we have no right to destroy the domain of God. niwrad

It seems to me that holding the basic truths of morality relating to empathy and compassion as self-evident, needs the follow-up question, 'Why are they self-evident?' And that this is why the materialists are not satisfied with it. I don't mean that their own position in the matter is rational generally, but it does seem to me that, ultimately, our morality is personally based - and that, on the person of God, our Creator, our law-giver, and above all our divine breath of inspiration. The very questions that arise in our minds concerning morality hark back to this provenance. And, in fact, Augustine's precept that Grace builds upon nature is why we have both Old and New Testaments, isn't it? Not that we won't find striking, and I suppose, inevitably beautiful, references to the sovereign virtues of compassion and charity in the Old Testament. Which reminds me to apologise to you, Mark. If anyone has a vicious tongue they are prone to use in moments of weakness, against individuals it's me. And, of course, that's no joke. Axel

Marks question above is a good one. Nirwad thinks it is immoral to kill animals for sport. He has derived this from the word of god. I guarantee many theists here disagree. If morality derived from theism is not subjective how can this be? Also could makeWJM or mabye Chris Doyle please list the self evident truths? I think all i have heard so far is that killing babies for pleasure is wrong. 5for

Einstein recognised the Creator behind physics: Everyone 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…. In this way the pursuit of science leads to a religious feeling of a special sort, which is indeed quite different from the religiosity of someone more naive Chris Doyle

#22 niwrad

Our friends atheists/evolutionists are not bad guys after all. They come here and ask questions. They sincerely investigate and in the same time they test us.

Thanks. I sincerely appreciate that given some of the comments I read.

Words are easy to give (also for me who don’t know English).

Your English is a lot clearer than many native English speakers. Mark Frank

You'd think that someone as smart as Einstein would realize there is an easy way to cure oneself of the "delusion of consciousness" and attain "peace of mind". William J Murray

Einstein derived it from physics:

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. The striving to free oneself from this delusion is the one issue of true religion. Not to nourish the delusion but to try to overcome it is the way to reach the attainable measure of peace of mind.

Elizabeth B Liddle

William J Murray #4,6 Thanks for your comments. Sorry if I have somehow "invaded" a field where you (but also vjtorley, kairosfocus and others) wrote many excellent articles and comments. Our friends atheists/evolutionists are not bad guys after all. They come here and ask questions. They sincerely investigate and in the same time they test us. What do we give them? Words. Words are easy to give (also for me who don't know English). To convince atheists Christ gave words + blood + body + life. Obviously that is a thing that only who is already arrived to the end of the unification way can do. There were saints who worked somehow at an intermediate level. For example, an Italian saint (of Rome), S. Gaspare del Bufalo (1786-1837), during his sermons, used to self-fustigate until he bled. With his method he converted many bad people, also brigands and assassins. I am glad you find rational my post. After all also reason is a way towards God (here stays also a possible effect of ID). "The ways leading to God are numerous as the breaths of the creatures" (traditional dictum). niwrad

Mark Frank

So the principle of love that you extol would include non-violence of any type. I imagine that a lot of your Christian colleagues would disagree. How did they come up with such a different principle from the same God?

I don't think my Christian colleagues would disagree so much or would come up with very different principles from the same God. Once one recognizes the One and understands that anything comes from Him, then he feels admiration and respect for anything in the universe. From galaxies to aunts one sees an immense theophany of signs and symbols pointing to the One ("in anything there is a sign that He is unique", traditional dictum). From admiration and respect derives love and non-violence, which, sensu lato, should be applied to all levels of the cosmos: from environments to populations, from beings to things. There is in fact also an "ecological application" of love of course, in the respect for the planet we humans have received as a gift and of which we should be the good administrators. niwrad

#18 niwrad So the principle of love that you extol would include non-violence of any type. I imagine that a lot of your Christian colleagues would disagree. How did they come up with such a different principle from the same God? By the way I don't actually deny it is possible to derive moral principles from a concept of God. I just think it will always involve a subjective decision if analysed closely. Mark Frank

Love is hard, when you don't want to. Mung

Mark Frank

I am having a bit of trouble following the principle. It sounds like you are saying violence is morally permissible at some stages on the way towards Unity but not at other stages. Is that correct?

No. Evidently I expressed not clearly my thought. Sorry Mark, my fault. I retry, I mean, non-violence should be a must also at the first step, the exoteric one. But at this step, some could still erroneously believe that violence against animals (e.g. to kill animals for sport) is a tolerable thing, not a sin after all. niwrad

#16 niwrad I am having a bit of trouble following the principle. It sounds like you are saying violence is morally permissible at some stages on the way towards Unity but not at other stages. Is that correct? Mark Frank

A corollary of love is non-violence. On the way towards Unity there is a step beyond which violence against living beings, even against animals, is truly not even conceivable. Absolute non-violence becomes the rule. Some Buddhist monks even pay attention not to accidentally kill little animals (insects, aunts, spiders, mosquitoes...). There is another more advanced step where the witness of the sufferance of others living beings (also animals) is hardly tolerated, because the identification with the victim - via Unity - is really strong. In the universe any victim is a manifestation of the Unity himself, what else. In this sense the entire universe is a giant sacrifice, which the One does, when enters the realm of multiplicity, and in which He is, in the same time, the sacrificier, the victim and the sacrifice. niwrad

JDH 13 and 14

Given materialism ( or any other philosophy which denies libertarian free will and the divinity necessary to implant it ) all principles are based on “natural” desires.

#13 I don't think morality is based on principles at all. They come later. But setting that aside I agree that all morality is based on natural desires. But this true whatever your philosophy. What other desires are there? Even the desire to be unified with God or whatever is natural. If you want something you desire it. But that doesn't mean they are all on the same basis. The desire to eat nice ice cream is quite different from the desire to rescue a child from poverty. #14

even if these people would loudly protest to the ends of the earth that they thought they were doing something morally right, it does not change the fact that they are just finding some way to allow their intellect to go along with their base desires. The fact that they justified their base desires with religious language does not change the fact that the root cause of their behavior is both “natural” and abhorrent when incorrectly applied

You and I may have abhorred their behaviour but I very much doubt they abhorred it. Let us concentrate on the 9/11 bombers. The question is were they genuinely following what they believed to be right or were they pretending it was right when really they were looking forward to a few milliseconds of glory before their certain death. (I am assuming that they believed they would only be rewarded in an after-life for genuinely moral behaviour) Neither of us can be certain but there is zero evidence for your theory while at least my theory conforms with what they said. Mark Frank

And Mark, even if these people would loudly protest to the ends of the earth that they thought they were doing something morally right, it does not change the fact that they are just finding some way to allow their intellect to go along with their base desires. The fact that they justified their base desires with religious language does not change the fact that the root cause of their behavior is both "natural" and abhorrent when incorrectly applied. JDH

Mark - You fail to see the main problem with your argument. Given materialism ( or any other philosophy which denies libertarian free will and the divinity necessary to implant it ) all principles are based on "natural" desires. So, your denial of theism, makes all of your principles on the same footing. Call it "natural" call it "moral" they all must come about from molecules. This makes your entire argument moot. JDH

#10 Axel

Why don’t you have a stab at answering your own questions?

OK. 1. Moral imperative to resist the rise of non-believers and their immoral behaviour. 2. Moral imperative to find and eliminate heresies which are hateful to God (and with luck save the soul of the sinner) 3. Moral imperative to rid the city at the core of Christianity from the unbelievers who have polluted it for so long. 4. They are grown ups and they know how I ought to behave. Mark Frank

'Mark – Why do you ask such simple questions in words that would seem to represent them as profound or difficult.' You have a wicked tongue, JDH. Axel

My two penn'orth would be: * Proximately: hatred * Proximately: hatred * Proximately: hatred * Proximately: hatred Ultimately, they all relate to wars of one kind or another, geopolitics, viz territory and/or natural resources. Why don't you have a stab at answering your own questions? Axel

#8 JDH Is it not just as plausible that each of these groups thought they were doing what was morally right? How do you know they weren't? Mark Frank

Mark - Why do you ask such simple questions in words that would seem to represent them as profound or difficult. Fortunately all of the answers to your question fall into essentially the same camp. 1. Pride - the natural desire of a being to prove himself better. 2. Tribalism - the natural desire of a being to find like beings to form a group that is better or more deserving. 3. ( For lack of a better phrase ) Honor-wanting - the natural desire of a being to want others in his tribe to revere him. I am sure, given these natural desires, you can take all those examples and fill in the blanks. JDH

JDH

Bad principles, whether from theism or from atheism, become dangerous precisely because they appeal to ( hatred, selfishness, greed, gluttony, ) or any other of our base desires.

Which of those base desires were the following appealing to: * The 9/11 bombers * The inquisition * The crusaders who massacred most of the inhabitants of Jerusalem at the end of the first crusade * The Taliban child suicide bombers Mark Frank

Well, maybe "foolproof" too strong; it is at least very compelling. I have long resisted the idea that "love" is an innate component of god's nature, but your reasoning of "love" as the experience of unity is really remarkable. William J Murray

And if we suppress those reactions because of theist principles or indeed any other principles we are on the road to doing things that we or others will eventually describe as horrendous.

IMHO this is a truly ignorant statement and shows the great danger of non-theism. Certainly it is true that someone can advance principles such as Nazism, communism, racism, slavery ( i.e. insert great evil that has caused many deaths or immense suffering ) and that wrong headed principle can put a society on the road to "...doing things that we or others will eventually describe as horrendous." But for you to blame this on theism seems to indicate to me why you are able to maintain your non-theist position in spite of the massive amount of evidence to the contrary. Im my opinion, your ignorance ( and please excuse me for the condescension, but I am amazed that someone would make such a statement ) comes from an inability to accurately assess the reason for mass tragedy. Bad principles, whether from theism or from atheism, become dangerous precisely because they appeal to ( hatred, selfishness, greed, gluttony, ) or any other of our base desires. Morality must be learned. The suppression of the natural base desires is not a bad principle that leads to disaster. Rather it is the proper choice of what natural desires to suppress that fends off chaos. Man left to himself without moral guidance does not produce Utopia. Golding's book was popular and award winning, not because it was improbable, but because it was perfectly reasonable that disaster would occur with children left on their own without any moral guidance. "Ralph wept for the end of innocence, the darkness of man’s heart, and the fall through the air of a true, wise friend called Piggy." JDH

niwrad, I agree that you've offered a virtually necessary derivation of morality from a unity monotheism, but that's not a necessary derivation of morality from "theism". I would say that if one rationally (and without a priori bias) examines their experience of the moral state they find themselves in, they can then infer that a unity monotheism is the only kind of theistic worldview that justifies that experience, and from that premise what you argue above (morality derived from that prmeise) is foolproof. Unfortunately, it's not "free will proof". Free will can be employed to deny anything. William J Murray

Mark Frank

Suppose I have two children and one is much easier to love than the other – happy, attractive, positive in all things – while the other is withdrawn, rejects my love, and appears unhappy – then I can do the most loving by concentrating my efforts on the first one. But somehow this seems morally wrong.

Yes, you do the most loving by concentrating your efforts on the second one. In fact the second one is unhappy because he is more distant from Unity. More you are near Unity, more you are happy.

Some people pour immense amounts of love into their dog or cat while neglecting people. While harmless and, perhaps, endearing, this doesn’t seem to be very moral.

Yes, loving animals while hating people is somehow contradictory. You are right that love is difficult and sometimes the situations are so complex that one is unable to do the right moral thing. However if your strategy is trying "to reintegrate Unity" always, everywhere and with all beings you are on the right track. Even you will see that your "enemies" disappear and you will fear nothing. niwrad

Mark Frank - What you call "love" is a preferential feeling towards something. You seem to be ignorant of the "agape" Love which comes from a Unity which niwad described. For example to favor a dog or cat at the expense of doing the correct thing is not Love it is selfishness. I don't fault you for this ignorance, I should not expect a non-theist to understand love as anything more than a preference. It's not that the principle of Love should admit "..no question of accommodating the principle to difficult examples..." It's that those who misunderstand the concept of Love misapply it. "The fear of God is the beginning of wisdom." JDH

“love” is also the first moral principle in practice because it is what helps more the beings in their path towards God.

Loving sounds like a good thing - most of us are in favour of it - but is hard to turn it into a satisfactory moral principle. A couple of examples. Suppose I have two children and one is much easier to love than the other - happy, attractive, positive in all things - while the other is withdrawn, rejects my love, and appears unhappy - then I can do the most loving by concentrating my efforts on the first one. But somehow this seems morally wrong. Some people pour immense amounts of love into their dog or cat while neglecting people. While harmless and, perhaps, endearing, this doesn't seem to be very moral. Now my point is not to start a moral debate. My point is that we use the examples to test the principle - not the other way round. Only the most committed theist would not at least try to clarify how love would fit in with our usual moral judgements. But if love really were the first principle there should be no question of accommodating the principle to difficult examples. The only thing that makes them difficult is because we have a moral reaction to them which is not based on love. Our natural (subjective!) moral reactions are deeper and more fundamental than any principles(theist or otherwise) and we can't help judge any principles by those reactions. And if we suppress those reactions because of theist principles or indeed any other principles we are on the road to doing things that we or others will eventually describe as horrendous. Mark Frank