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I was thinking about the argument that without the threat of eternal damnation many humans would be incapable of restraining their sociopathic tendencies. Perhaps moral atheist give our fellowmen too much credit for being able to live godless but moral lives.
Just think of all the theist who claim that fear of losing god's love, fear of god's damnation, or the promise of eternal life as the reason for pursuing moral lives. Maybe they are right that they and other humans could not live such lives without any supernatural restraints.
I was thinking about the argument that without the threat of eternal damnation many humans would be incapable of restraining their sociopathic tendencies. Perhaps moral atheist give our fellowmen too much credit for being able to live godless but moral lives.
Just think of all the theist who claim that fear of losing god's love, fear of god's damnation, or the promise of eternal life as the reason for pursuing moral lives. Maybe they are right that they and other humans could not live such lives without any supernatural restraints.
Statistically, very few of us have sociopathic tendencies. We evolved a sense of empathy, and altruism, and fairness. One can observe those traits in many social animals, including dolphins, and chimpanzees.
Besides, I really don't think a belief in god stops many criminals. I have worked with both incarcerated adults and juveniles, many of which believed god disapproved of the sorts of behaviors they were incarcerated for, but that didn't stop them.
It would be wrong to think theists are all in agreement on morality. Theists aren't a big monolith.
People wouldn't be sociopathic without religion or God. Theists who think that either don't have a good understanding of the word "sociopathic" or understanding of humans. However most theists aren't all 11-14 years old in intellectual/spiritual development, roughly speaking when many seem to go along the path of abandoning religion or theism, so their understanding of morality or God is more nuanced than many atheists understanding.
Some main objections of theists I can think of include
Morality would be subjective because there would be no authoritative teacher or anyone to make certain what's right. It would all be human opinion. And although you could go on the consensus of opinion, atheists here are pretty clear that "consensus of opinion" could be a fallacious "argument from popularity" so proves nothing.
Morality would largely be based on pleasure/pain, of self or others, as other forms of morality are harder to justify rationally. In particular ones concerning purity or reverence. For an example if you find your long-lost identical twin why is it wrong if you two decide to have sex? It's homosexual so there's no issue of creating a kid with recessive traits. Early-childhood-imprinting, that normally would make sibling sex psychologically damaging, is not an issue as you weren't raised together. So why is it wrong? People who contain irrational or illogical thinking can cite its "ickiness" or that religious prohibitions on incest are absolute. But what's rational people to do?
People would be aware of morality without God, but would have no reason to act on if it's not in their self-interest or the self-interest of those with whom they feel a connection. This is closest to your example, but I'm not meaning sociopathy here. I'm meaning people who have empathy for others and are capable of regular human emotions. They just have the fairly common tendency to not "go out of their way" to do stuff, to be kind of self-involved or involved in "their own little world" or just lazy. (And I'd agree many many Christians fit that) There are Christians though who died after helping diseased-ridden strangers. St. Katherine Drexel gave up all her wealth to help poor American Indians and African Americans. Without a belief in the hereafter or a loving God or whatever would people really risk death or poverty to help totally unrelated strangers? Well maybe. (I've heard there's plenty of atheists in the Peace Corps) Still it seems like to me it'd be far less likely. Maybe you'd get less Torquemadas without theism, but also less Drexels or Dorothy Days or Martin Luther Kings or what have you.
Some curious ones I've thought of at times are
Morality would actually be stricter without God, way too strict. All judgments have to be made by people in this life, not God or the Cosmos or Fate or what have you, so there could be a tendency toward being very interventionist or perfectionist. Because God is not going to "change people's hearts" or punish their "secret wrongdoings" or whatever we have to do things on those. So you get security cameras everywhere, bans on hate speech, sterilizing alcoholics, or other things I know occur/occurred in highly atheistic nations.
Moral actions would ultimately have a lot to do with what the State deems right or wrong. In the absence of any "Higher Law" the State would be the law. It would be God, well sort-of, as it's the highest thing above the individual. In a democratic system this might be okay, but even then there could be issues of minority rights. If the people of a nation vote in the idea that all male homosexuals should be castrated by what authority do you oppose that? It "works" in affluent nations because we're all too enlightened to deny minority rights, but on the other hand are we? Can we really say there's no minority that modern nations would treat badly or restrict in a way they find onerous?
It doesn't seem legitimate. How many people believe in a higher power? Like 80-90%? Most of those people are just living their lives (or trying to). The difference between the crazy and not crazy may be chemical imbalance or bad parenting.
I can usually talk to somebody for 5 minutes and determine pretty close to as how they were raised, either in the fear of God or not, by what type of language they use and their worldview.
I was thinking about the argument that without the threat of eternal damnation many humans would be incapable of restraining their sociopathic tendencies. Perhaps moral atheist give our fellowmen too much credit for being able to live godless but moral lives.
Well, I just don't buy it. My sense of morality has changed zilch since I became a non-believer/agnostic.
I simply don't see any connection between moral behavior and an alleged higher power.
I can usually talk to somebody for 5 minutes and determine pretty close to as how they were raised, either in the fear of God or not, by what type of language they use and their worldview.
Sociopaths are identified in various areas of society, in both high and low socioeconomic classes, including business.[32]
Robert Hare has suggested that the rise in antisocial behavior disorder that has been reported in the States may be linked to changes in cultural mores, the latter serving to validate many of the sociopath's behavioural tendencies.[33] While the rise reported may be in part merely a byproduct of the widening use (and abuse) of diagnostic techniques,[34] given Eric Berne's division between active and latent sociopaths - the latter keeping themselves in check by attachment to an external source of control like the law, traditional standards, or religion[35] - it has been plausibly suggested that the erosion of collective standards may indeed serve to release the latent sociopath from their previously prosocial behaviour.[36]
Morality would largely be based on pleasure/pain, of self or others, as other forms of morality are harder to justify rationally.
While off topic, let me say that your argument is baseless since I would contend that morality has always been based upon, using your phraseology, pleasure/pain of self and others. In short, morality as defined is a social contract that set normative values that allow societies to cohesively function. Now whether that social contract is enforced by threats of eternal damnation or salvation, banishment from the group, autocratic dicta, or codified legal codes.
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In particular ones concerning purity or reverence. For an example if you find your long-lost identical twin why is it wrong if you two decide to have sex?
Is this the equivalent of if we allow gay marriage why not bestiality? Anyway just out of curiosity I did a quick Google on the question and found extensive literature on the issue, including one gay forum where the consensus was that it was just flat wrong, gross, icky, and "oh so wrong on so many levels". Perhaps every more does need a rational basis, just that people don't like it.
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People would be aware of morality without God, but would have no reason to act on if it's not in their self-interest or the self-interest of those with whom they feel a connection.
Now that we have returned to the subject of the thread, it is nice to read that you agree with my premise, although I find it sad that as human beings some of us cannot see beyond or own self-interest without the fear or reward of god standing over our shoulders. To me that is social retardation since it appears that other sentient "beast" seem perfectly capable of doing so without cognizance of big daddy in the sky.
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