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dhw says in the Introduction to An Agnostic's Brief Guide:
"Agnosticism, in contrast to atheist assumption and religious dogma, only believes what is known, and admits to ignorance of the rest."

I judge from the rest of this essay that by "known" dhw means known according to a scientific process of observation and reason. "Believe" is clearly being used to mean something different from "know". I take it that the distinction is to do with commitment and trust. For a Christian, belief in God is not merely intellectual assent to his existence. It implies a pledge which will make a radical difference to how the person will live, by acting on his word. An atheist will live as if God does not exist, i.e. without religious observance and without relying on the texts or leaders of any religion for moral guidance. - I wonder though how agnostics live? It is possible to suspend conscious intellectual commitment, but it is not possible to suspend life. Can an agnostic really only believe what is known (in the above sense of "known")? - I suspect that most agnostics are atheist in practice, but perhaps not all are fully so. Some attend church from time to time.

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Mark quotes my statement that "Agnosticism, in contrast to atheist assumption and religious dogma, only believes what is known, and admits to ignorance of the rest." He takes up the distinction between "believe" and "know", and wonders how agnostics live ... suspecting that they are "atheist in practice". Atheists live "without religious observance and without relying on the texts or leaders of any religion for moral guidance". He asks: "Can an agnostic really only believe what is known?" - My remark was strictly within the context of atheism versus theism versus agnosticism (which = the impossibility of knowing ... or, in the more general modern sense, the inability to decide ... whether God exists). I certainly didn't mean it to be applied to any other area of life, such as moral guidance. After all, if we only believed what we knew, we wouldn't even sit down and eat our breakfast. (I believe the chair is solid, I believe the egg is good, I believe no-one has poisoned my coffee.) - There are, I suppose, no objective criteria as to where belief turns into knowledge. Even the "scientific process of observation and reason" can come up with "knowledge" which later turns out to have been (false) belief. But there are some kinds of fact that are (almost) universally recognized, and so we have a tacit understanding that they do constitute knowledge: I know that today is Thursday, that Paris is the capital of France, that 2 + 2 = 4. To be specific, in our religious context, if a Christian says "I believe/trust that there is a merciful God", I see no problem, but if he says "I know that there is a merciful God", I will ask where are the objective criteria that turn belief into knowledge. There are none. And in contrast to 2 + 2 = 4, this is not (almost) universally recognized as a fact. - This brings us to your question: how do agnostics live? Without religious observance and without moral guidance from religious texts and leaders is probably right in most cases, but both the past and the present teach us that religious texts and leaders often provide moral guidance that is repugnant to those who believe in humanitarian values. Neither atheism nor agnosticism prescribes sets of moral values, because by definition they are only concerned with the existence or non-existence of God. But disbelief or non-belief in God does not mean the absence of personal or social ethics, and indeed these may well coincide with religious ethics. Even the atheist Dawkins lends full support to a code which he quotes from an atheist website, and which I have also reproduced in the "guide": "Do not do to others what you would not want them to do to you. In all things strive to do no harm. Treat your fellow human beings, your fellow living things, and the world in general with love, honesty, faithfulness and respect. Do not overlook evil or shrink from administering justice, but always be ready to forgive wrongdoing freely admitted and honestly regretted. Live life with a sense of joy and wonder." (http://www.ebonmusings.org/atheism/new10c.html). - Of course, not all atheists and agnostics abide by that code. Nor do all Christians. But my point is that atheists and agnostics are perfectly capable of living good, productive, responsible lives without the guidance of religion.

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OK, I understand. There are things which you believe which you do not know as facts verified by scientific enquiry. I just wanted to check that you were not claiming to live on the basis of such facts alone. - May I ask whether your agnosticism is because of a lack of proof? Do you require a scientific kind of certainty? Or is this also an area where you are open to belief if the weight of evidence led you one way or the other? If it is the former, then you have closed off the possibility of ever changing from your agnosticism. If it is the latter, then maybe one day... - Two other points which you raise are worthy of separate threads, and I had and have in mind to pick them up from elsewhere in your essay in due course, namely:
1) Whether I can say "I know that there is a merciful God"
2) Morality without God

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Mark asks if my agnosticism is because of a lack of proof. "Do you require a scientific kind of certainty? Or is this also an area where you are open to belief if the weight of evidence led you one way or the other?" - Categorically the latter. Science can neither prove nor disprove the existence of God, and I would never have set this website up if my mind was already closed. However, the problem is not confined to God's existence. It's difficult to summarize the situation without repeating the 50 pages of argument and speculation that constitute the "brief guide", let alone the discussions we've already had on this website, but I'll try. - First, I cannot embrace atheism because I do not have sufficient faith that chance could put together the ingredients that first gave rise to the astonishing complexities of life. Nor am I prepared to discount the masses of documented (though not scientifically provable) evidence that there may be life after death. I'm also mystified by the existence of love and other emotions, intelligence, the impact of the arts and all the other extraordinary manifestations of being which seem to transcend the limitations of pure physicality. - All of these leave me open to the possibility of some kind of supreme intelligence that created us. But that does not lead me to God. It leads me only to speculate on what such an intelligence might be like ... or might have been like, because it's perfectly possible that it no longer exists, or that it has simply abandoned us. The random cruelty of nature certainly doesn't fit in with any concept of a loving, caring father figure. I would argue that if life was produced deliberately, then the creator must have had some sort of intention, but his creation of evil, of disasters, of suffering does not suggest an all-embracing goodness or goodwill. Of course, love, beauty, humour, joy are all there as well. He created a mixture, which suggests that he too is or was a mixture. In this respect, the established religions are no help at all, and I am left with a lot of confusing options. - But faith one way or another is still possible. For instance, if science could prove that there is a simple way in which life can spontaneously form itself, then it might tip the balance towards atheism. If I had a near-death experience as described by van Lommel, or some sort of direct contact with a different form of life or a different dimension, that could tip me the other way. An incontrovertible argument could do it. The weight of evidence need not be scientific, but whatever it is will need to be sufficiently powerful to create an inner conviction.

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Agnostics and atheists are not inconsistent in choosing any ethical code they please. Their only problem is in finding objective justification to say that a conflicting ethical code is ethically inferior or wrong.

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Cary writes that the problem for atheists and agnostics is that they cannot find "objective justification to say that a conflicting ethical code is ethically inferior or wrong." - Perhaps it's worth pointing out that theists have a similar problem. Although Jews, Christians and Muslims have what they believe to be the Word of God (the Bible, the Koran) as an objectively existing reference, texts only come into operation through subjective interpretation. That is why there is no consensus between religions - or sometimes between subdivisions of individual religions - on such matters as abortion, homosexuality, contraception, the role of women, or even the sanctity of life.

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Theists do not have anything like the same problem. They believe that there is an objective moral code. Atheists may make up their own. The differences between the moral codes of the major faiths are nothing when it is considered that an atheist could freely devise any rules (or abandon all) without there being any authority outside himself which could make him think otherwise.

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Mark has argued that theists "believe there is an objective moral code", whereas an atheist may make up his own "without there being any authority outside himself which could make him think otherwise." - The argument that atheists can make up their own codes ignores the fact that atheists live in society, just like everyone else. They are not only subject to the laws of that society, but they are also subject to ethical codes which are generally recognized by that society. As an agnostic (but this goes for atheists too), I do not say to myself, "It's OK for me to lie, cheat, steal, kill, because there's no God to punish me." Humanistic values are based on respect for others. If a religious person behaves morally, I would hope that it is not solely through fear of God but also through love of his fellow humans, and that is absolutely not the prerogative of the religious. The authority outside atheists and agnostics is the wellbeing and judgment of one's fellow humans. - This is not in any way meant to denigrate the moral codes laid down by the great religions. But non-belief in God should not be taken to imply non-belief in those same moral codes, the majority of which offer us a sound basis for a smoothly functioning society. However, if those codes are not interpreted according to humanistic principles, you get atrocities committed in the name of God, reaching from the Crusades and the Inquisition right through to modern Islamic suicide bombers.

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To summarise the above from dhw and me: - Mark: Atheists are free to make up their own moral code
dhw: But they don't - It is true that theists and atheists broadly agree on what is right and wrong. My point was that atheists can find no basis for their morality other than to state as a brute fact that it is part of our nature. There is nothing else which tells them that they should live that way. The fact that it is part of our nature is not of itself a compelling reason. Atheists explain both this moral sense and religion with the theory of natural selection. They know that we can choose not to follow what has been bred into us. They discard God but accept the moral sense. However, the decision to accept the moral sense is reduced to a mere personal preference. There is no difference in kind, that I can see, between an atheist's decision to be against murder and his decision never to walk around on all fours.

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Mark wrote: "It is true that theists and atheists broadly agree on what is right and wrong." They most certainly do not! - Even theists do not agree between themselves on what is right and wrong. 
What are your views on: homosexuality, condom use to combat aids, circumcision, adultery after marriage break-up, punishment of children, telling pious lies for the church, teaching about creation and evolution, euthanasia, abortion, contraception, stem-cell research ... and so on, and so on, and so on. - I've never read such piffle! Do you not read the news?

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George, I think you know what I meant. There is broad agreement that murder, theft, lies, rape and adultery are wrong. Few would disagree with "love your neighbour". Yes, there are other points of disagreement. I didn't say that there were not. But they do not amount to a fundamental difference. For the purpose of the argument in my post (the substance of which you do not address) it was necessary for me only to assert that there was a core area of agreement. You say you have never read such piffle, and you wonder if I read the news. I wonder if you are so frustrated with the Church that your emotion hinders your ability to engage in rational debate.

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Mark, your idea of what "broad agreement" amounts to appears to be your own idiosyncratic version, not anyone else's, it is not the same as "a core area of agreement" as you allege. Draw yourself a Venn diagram! Core is the central area. Broad is across the whole area. You can't dismiss the rest as merely "other points of disagreement".

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Mark's summary of our discussion so far is more a travesty than a summary: - Mark: Atheists are free to make up their own moral code.
dhw: But they don't. - Mark goes on to argue that "atheists can find no basis for their morality other than to state as a brute fact that it is part of our nature. There is nothing else which tells them that they should live that way." - You have totally ignored virtually everything I wrote in my posting on 08 June at 7.57 am. I pointed out that atheists and agnostics are subject to the same legal and moral codes as everyone else in the society in which they live. The basis of all these codes is the smooth functioning of society, and anyone who breaks them will face the judgment of society ... whether institutional or personal. - You have also ignored my reference to humanistic codes. You seem to think that someone who does not believe in God is also incapable of loving, respecting, considering, caring for his fellow human beings. If you only refrain from evil because you are afraid of God and not because you love your fellow humans, your religion will be pretty barren. Indeed, as I pointed out before, religion without humanistic principles can lead to atrocities such as Islamic "martyrdoms". - I'm grateful to you for raising this important issue, but perhaps instead of regurgitating and ridiculing Richard Dawkins' Darwinian theories, you could respond to the points I have raised. Let me offer you a summary so far: - Mark believes that atheists are free to make up their own individual moral code. 
DHW argues that they are subject to the same social, legal and moral codes as everyone else in their society, and are perfectly capable of love and respect for their fellow humans without believing in God. - I notice that in your latest posting, you are also avoiding the issues raised by David Turell.

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dhw: Mark believes that atheists are free to make up their own individual moral code. 
DHW argues that they are subject to the same social, legal and moral codes as everyone else in their society, and are perfectly capable of love and respect for their fellow humans without believing in God.
 - I am honestly not consciously ignoring what you write. It is very difficult in these discussions not to end up talking across each other. I shall try again, based on your summary which I quote above. - Yes, a resident of the UK is subject to the law. There will also be felt an expectation from society to behave a certain way even beyond the law. Yes, atheists are capable of love and respect. But my point is that their agreement with the social, moral and legal code, their agreement that love is a good idea, is a personal decision. A choice. It is not because there is anything out there which objectively says it is good and right. - As for my response to David Turrell - I assume you mean by question about human dignity - I hardly think that asking for clarification on what he has said amounts to evasion.

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Mark says that the agreement of atheists with "the social, moral and legal code...is a personal decision. A choice. It is not because there is anything out there which objectively says it is good and right." - Two things seem to have got confused here: the decision and the code. An atheist's agreement to abide by the moral code is indeed a personal decision. So is a Christian's. You chose to be a Christian and obey what you believe to be God's code. I chose to be an agnostic and obey a humanist code. - You think, however, that your code is objective and mine is not. With the more obvious moral laws that we all agree on (see your own list posted on 9 June at 00.06), society provides guidance that is independent of the individual. But that is the nearest any of us can get to objectivity. One of the points that you have not responded to in my own and in David Turell's posts is the fact that we do not have direct access to God. We have texts that you believe to be God's word. These can only come into operation through subjective interpretation (my point), and were written by humans, assembled by the decisions of committees, translated and, in the case of the Koran, transcribed at the dictation of an illiterate who could not check the transcription (David's point). Not only are the texts and their interpretation the product of subjective human processes but, as George has pointed out (8 June at 22.53), there are also masses of moral issues on which theists themselves cannot agree, or keep changing their minds, which again shows there is no objectivity. - For instance, as a theist you may have to decide whether to celebrate your son's homosexual wedding, to instruct millions of people not to use condoms, to kill someone for insulting your God, to blow yourself up and take a few other theists and non-theists with you. God won't tell you what to do. Only the little voice inside you will tell you, and your little voice may tell you something quite different from the little voice of your theist neighbour. - To sum up: each of us takes a personal decision as to what moral code to obey. Some areas of the code are generally accepted by society ... independently of religion. In all other areas, individuals must make their own subjective interpretation of the code they have chosen to obey. Nobody has direct access to any objective authority that can tell us what is good and right. - On a totally different matter, I sympathize when you say it is sometimes difficult to keep track of the various arguments, and that is why it is important for all of us to quote or summarize (accurately, please) the points we are responding to. As regards evasion, I was complaining that you had not responded to David T.'s point mentioned above about the non-objectivity of the Bible and the Koran, or to the equally important point about humanism. Your only response was to ask what he meant by human dignity. But we have a lot of ground to cover and time to cover it!

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My apologies at the start for a long post, but there's no alternative if I am to explain myself. - I agree that a decision is involved for both Christians and atheists in following a Christian and a humanistic moral code respectively. - I agree that there are core areas of agreement on morality between Christians and atheists. I agree that there are areas where they disagree. And I agree that both Christians and atheists disagree amongst themselves. There are areas where the Christian Bible and tradition are unclear, ambiguous or silent. - I am not claiming that Christians have direct access to God on all moral matters. When I raised the issue of objectivity I did not have in mind the certainty with which we can have moral knowledge. I was commenting on the nature of moral truth, more on which below. - If your challenge to me on the human input to the Christian tradition was because you believe that I was claiming that divine commands gave certain knowledge, then my clarification below on objectivity should answer. If your challenge was at a tangent to the question of morality, asking how Christians can have any knowledge of God and his law given the human mediation and origin of the Bible, then please say, and I can address that separately. - (As an aside, I am trying hard here to answer appropriately. I am aware that I can misunderstand you, and I can fail to express myself properly, so you end up misunderstanding me. I wish to engage as closely as possible and evade nothing. I am not in this for the satisfaction of winning arguments. I genuinely wish to know how others think.) - Now, on objectivity: - dhw says: "You think, however, that your code is objective and mine is not. With the more obvious moral laws that we all agree on... society provides guidance that is independent of the individual. But that is the nearest any of us can get to objectivity."
The question I am concerned with is whether moral truth is objective in the sense that it has reality outside of human minds. Is it real? - "The earth rotates around the sun" is a statement everyone at one time would have disagreed with. That did not make it false. The statement is true whatever humans think. It is objectively true. We would now consider anyone who disagrees to be irrational. I would challenge such a person. - However, if someone said to me "These peanuts are tasty" I would not challenge them, even though I strongly dislike all peanuts and could not make the statement myself. The difference is that this statement is subjective. It is not expressing, nor claiming to express, an objective fact to which all should assent. It is equivalent to "I like the taste of these peanuts". - The issue is this: what kind of statement is "Murder is wrong"? Does it express something real, such as "The earth rotates around the sun", or is it equivalent to "I like it when people do not kill each other"? - If you agree with the latter, you are a moral anti-realist. The problem then is that you do seem to be able to choose your own morality and no-one can say objectively that you are wrong, no matter how much they disagree with you. Intuitively I find this unacceptable. (It may be objected that you can't choose whether you like murder any more than you can choose whether you like peanuts, but I feel free to try a peanut from time to time, just in case I may develop the taste.) - However I must now correct an assertion I made in an earlier post: that atheists may make up their own morality. I was assuming that atheists must be moral anti-realists, but that is not so, I have since learnt. - Nevertheless, I do think the moral realist atheist has a problem. Just what kind of reality is a moral truth such as "Murder is wrong"? What kind of stuff is "good"? Does it arise from matter? If so, how? If not, where from? What is the foundation for this authority? And what is the purpose of it? And I cannot see how materialists, which most atheists are, I think, can be other than moral anti-realists. For how can science deliver a real moral truth? - Of course, you can ask about the origin and foundation of God. But I find it far easier to believe in God who has a will and a purpose for the world. And I am not saying all this as a proof. I do not see it as a proof. It is an attempt to see what follows from disbelief in God, and I would be fascinated to know how people cope with it.

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Mark asks "whether moral truth is objective in the sense that it has reality outside of human minds. Is it real?" - Firstly, Mark, I did not think for one minute that you were only after the "satisfaction of winning arguments". I hope none of us are. Second, let me say that while siding with atheism in the context of this discussion, I am not an atheist. - I would question your basic premise. It presupposes that reality is only to be found outside the human mind. I don't want to move into the Berkeley mode of "subjective idealism" (virtually the opposite of your premise), but I don't see how we can get round the problem of what constitutes reality. This boils down to a kind of consensus. - We can agree that the earth rotates round the sun. Scientists have observed it, no scientist disputes it, and for the purpose of our discussion you and I can say categorically that the sun and the earth exist independently of ourselves; this is as objective a truth as humans can hope for. - "Murder is wrong" refers to a totally different kind of reality. If there were no humans, there would be no murder. If there were no humans, there would be no wrong. But if there were no humans, I think you and I would agree that the earth would still rotate round the sun. My point here is that some realities are independent of humans and others are not. A parallel might be the rules that govern football. They don't exist outside humanity, but in order to play the game, we all acknowledge their "reality", though as with moral codes, we change them when they no longer serve their purpose. Think of society's changing attitude towards homosexuality, illegitimacy, debt. - In the case of "murder is wrong", there is a consensus throughout the human world that murder is against the interests of society ... it is too harmful to be allowed. Even here, though, there is a degree of subjective latitude in the definition: if a Muslim had killed Salman Rushdie, I would have regarded it as murder, but the killer would have considered it a justifiable religious act. Ditto the fundamentalist suicide bombers who kill the people around them. But "Murder is wrong" remains a common human judgment and ... to answer part of your question ... this is what provides the foundation for its authority, and it is the smooth running of society that constitutes its purpose. Atheists live in society, and their materialism is irrelevant to society's moral codes, while it is not the business of science to "deliver... moral truth". - However, you have actually combined two questions in your posting, and the second of these takes me out of the atheist camp and into my agnostic neutrality: "What kind of stuff is 'good'? Does it arise from matter? If so, how? If not, where from?" Once we have human society, we have to have moral codes in order to function, but how inanimate matter could come to life, could become conscious of itself, form concepts, feel emotions, question its own existence...this is a mystery that makes it impossible for me to discount the idea that there is a supreme intelligence at work. We can include in the list love of one's fellow creatures, which in my view should be the basis of all our moral codes but unfortunately isn't. Once again, though, let me stress that atheists are just as capable of this love as theists are. In other words, I am suggesting that while morality is a reality that requires no references outside humanity, our ability to devise such codes remains a mystery. - You end your posting by saying that you are trying to see "what follows from disbelief in God". I can only tell you what follows from my own non-belief (not the same) in God: I adhere to the same moral codes as you, except that I centre them on humanity and not on God. However, I also gaze every day at the beauty of the world and marvel at the magnanimity and ingenuity of God - if he's there; then I look at the suffering of the world, and wonder what the hell he's playing at - if he's there.

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dhw: I would question your basic premise. It presupposes that reality is only to be found outside the human mind. - Philosophers use the word "real" in this way. I did not make up the terms "moral realism" and "moral anti-realism". I used these labels as they are used in philosophy. However, I can understand your objection. If someone is in pain they would not take kindly to me saying that their pain is not real because it does not exist outside of their mind. This quibble with the word "real" doesn't change my argument though. Invent a word which means "existing independently of human minds" and substitute. - dhw: If there were no humans, there would be no wrong. - If you mean there would be no acts of wrong then, excepting any other moral life forms, I would agree. If you mean that there would not be such a thing as wrong (or right), then I assume you are aware that I cannot accept this. I just want to check that you are not asserting this to be self-evident. As a Christian I believe that there are such things as right and wrong independently of whether humans exist. I believe that God is the ultimate good and that his being depends on nothing apart from himself. - dhw: But "Murder is wrong" remains a common human judgment and ... to answer part of your question ... this is what provides the foundation for its authority, and it is the smooth running of society that constitutes its purpose. - I take it from this and the rest of your post that you do not believe that morality has any existence outside of human minds ... that you are a moral anti-realist (if I may risk using the term just one more time, by way of reference to my previous post). - As you have said in your reply to Cary:
"I know my moral code is not objective. It is based on humanism, human dignity, social functioning and love, and I try to conform to what I think it is." - It is helpful that you have made yourself clear on this. It seems that it is not in itself a difficulty to you that morals are all subjective. I still would say that I find the moral claim on me to be unselfish to be something more than an opinion within me or the opinion of others. - A minor point on language ... when you say that your moral code is "based... on human dignity", you must really be saying no more than that you believe, as a starting point, and with no reason, that humans have dignity or value. You will make it a basis for moral calculation that humans have value. You do not accept that humans objectively have value. Ask a humanist why he believes humans have dignity and I think all he can say is "because we do, it just so happens that most of us think that way intuitively." - I'll try to push further. You speak of "the smooth running of society" as the purpose of law, and "social functioning". I'll now try to show why to a Christian the good of humanity is not the ultimate purpose, and that many others may feel the same pressure. - Imagine if a desperate situation developed whereby the only way to save the world from destruction was if you horribly tortured an innocent child. Let's say you then also had to kill the child. Let's say also that you died whatever the outcome, and if the world was saved it knew nothing of the torture, thinking only that you had gloriously sacrificed your life, so that humanity is left with no destructive sense of guilt. What would you do? I would allow the world to end, not because I was going to die anyway, but because I believe it would be the morally right decision. - Now you could object that this is an extreme and totally unrealistic case, not worth thinking about. It is extreme, but the principle is one that we apply in lesser cases ... that we should not use a human person as a means to an end. It demonstrates that maximizing human happiness or valuing human life are not adequate bases for morality. - Just what is being valued here? What makes the torture such an offence in comparison with the sum of human life lost? I would say that as I meet my neighbour the moral claim upon me is God in my neighbour. Any offence against my neighbour is directly an offence against God. - What would a humanist think? If he would torture the child, then this would confirm my suspicion that humanism is more free to slide down the slippery slope. If not, then I would ask why not? What principle is being applied? It cannot be the valuing of human life. It cannot be for the sake of some ideal, for ideals only exist in human minds which are all to be destroyed.

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Mark, I don't think we need to look for new terms, so long as we agree that "real" has different connotations. - I argued that if there were no humans, there would be no wrong. You believe that "there are such things as right and wrong independently of whether humans exist." You also believe that "God is the ultimate good and that his being depends on nothing but himself." Leaving aside the possibility of other life forms, if God is the ultimate good, in what context could wrong exist without humans? What need would there be for wrong, who would have the choice, and to whom would God say which choice was right? Of course, if I put myself into my theist mode, I must acknowledge that God is the ultimate arbiter, the all-powerful judge, the creator of right and wrong, but without us humans, to whom does he apply his morality? His all-good self? - Mark: "It seems that it is not...a difficulty to you that morals are all subjective." - You use "subjective" in the sense that it depends on human minds, and I accept that, but the term carries connotations of arbitrariness and individualism. That is why I stress the importance of the social function of morality: it matters to me (a) what I think of myself, but also (b) what others think of me. Perhaps it matters more to you what God thinks of you, but since you can't know what he thinks, your code of morality is equally subjective, bolstered only by the belief that it is based on something objective. In a moment, I hope to explain why in fact I think your subjectivity is far more dangerous than mine, but first let's deal with your next point. - Mark: "Ask a humanist why he believes humans have dignity, and I think all he can say is 'because we do, it just so happens that most of us think that way intuitively'." - I agree, we don't know where our "intuitive" values, our consciouness, conscience, emotions, aesthetic sense, inventiveness etc. come from. Maybe from God. Maybe from electrical impulses sparked off by chance combinations of matter gradually honed by physical, mental and social evolution. I don't know. As I have mentioned many times, this is one reason why I am not an atheist. - To illustrate your argument, you present us with a scenario which I will try to summarize. In order to save the world, I must torture and kill an innocent child and then die myself. You believe it would be morally right to allow the world to end. And this, you say, "demonstrates that maximising human happiness or valuing human life are not adequate bases for morality." To be frank, I am shocked. Do you honestly believe that exposing approximately 6 billion people, including millions of children like the one I am to kill, to a death maybe even more horrible than his/hers would win you God's approval? God, who according to Christianity was willing to sacrifice his own son in order to save the world? You say that if a humanist did torture and kill the child, it would show that "humanism is more free to slide down the slippery slope..." because "any offence against my neighbour is directly an offence against God." What about the other 6 billion neighbours? Don't tell me they're all atheists, so they don't count. I would, I must confess, have great difficulty torturing and killing the child (and myself), but if I believed wholeheartedly in God, I have no doubt that I would pray to him to give me the strength to go ahead. I can only reverse your argument and say that your choice is an illustration of how your subjective theism is more free than my subjective humanism to slide down the slippery slope: you would sacrifice 6 billion for two in the belief (I hope deluded) of winning God's favour. If you put God's favour before the lives of 6 billion people, I see no difference between your morality and that of the suicide bombers who believe that God will approve if they kill themselves and take lots of innocent bystanders with them. No, thank you, I'll stick to humanism.

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dhw: Leaving aside the possibility of other life forms, if God is the ultimate good, in what context could wrong exist without humans?

I'm not sure we're really disagreeing here. Clearly, if nothing other than God existed then there would be only good. There would be no wrong acts. I think the only point I wanted to make is that I believe that good exists whether or not humans do. - You say that in theist mode you "must acknowledge that God is the ultimate arbiter, the all-powerful judge, the creator of right and wrong". In response, anticipating the Euthyphro dilemma which you may put my way, I would say that God's goodness and his being come together. "God is love" is not merely an emphatic way of saying that God chooses to love. It is to say that love is of his essence. Love is what he is, not just what he does. So you should not think that a theist must regard God as someone who can arbitrarily, from moment to moment, on a whim, decide what is good or bad. Nor is the moral law something outside God to which he is subordinate. - On the torture, let me first give a couple of quotations, not because I think you'll feel obliged to defer to the sources, but to demonstrate that my thinking is not eccentric amongst Christians: - C S Lewis: "We must resolutely train ourselves to feel that the survival of Man on this Earth, much more of our own nation or culture or class, is not worth having unless it can be had by honourable and merciful means" - Archbishop Rowan Williams: "If the power of argument proves not to be universal after all, sooner or later we are back with coercion; and when that happens it becomes harder and harder to hold firm to the classical liberal principles that are at the heart of the Enlightenment vision, harder and harder ... for example ... to maintain that torture or the deliberate killing of the innocent in order to protect the values of society can never in any circumstances be right. It is one of the great moral conundrums posed by the experience of recent years: what if the preserving of civil liberties and the preserving of the security of a liberal society turn out not always to be compatible?" - The scenario I presented is shocking, and either option has the capacity to shock. Clearly the 6 billion weigh heavier with you. So let me remove a few noughts. - A deadly virus evolves to which children are particularly susceptible. Tens of millions of children are dying around the world. The scientists say that the only way to find a cure is to allow experimentation on healthy children. A group of 100 must be taken to a laboratory. Many will undergo extreme suffering and many will die. However, they are sure that it will yield the answer. Would you approve? - Removing all the noughts ... you are on a bridge overlooking railway tracks and have spotted a runaway trolley bearing down on six workers. The only way to stop the trolley is to throw a heavy object in its path. And the only heavy object within reach is a fat man standing next to you. Should you push the man off the bridge? - dhw: "Don't tell me they're all atheists, so they don't count."
No, of course I am not saying that, and I am sorry you felt you had to check. - dhw: "God's approval... God's favour... God's favour... God will approve"
What you suggest about my motive is a complete misrepresentation of Christian belief. Christians do not do good in order to win God's favour. It is fundamental to the Christian faith that God's love precedes any good on our part and is unconditional. "God proves his love for us in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us" (Romans 5:8). The motive to do good is not to achieve some personal gain in this life or the next. The Christian ideal is that we love as God loves. To achieve this is the ultimate goal of humanity, made possible by God's gift of himself offered to each one of us. - dhw: "God, who according to Christianity was willing to sacrifice his own son in order to save the world?"
It is interesting that you raise this as an argument in favour of your decision. I am more used to this being used against Christianity, arguing that it makes God out to be cruel. Either way the perspective is wrong, for in the sacrifice of Christ, God is both the giver and the gift. Unlike the child, who is used as an instrument, in the cross God is the judge and the judged.

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Mark agrees that without humans there would be no wrong, but "good exists whether or not humans do". - This is like saying that God, who is all good, exists independently of humans, and apart from the obvious agnostic "if", I can hardly disagree. - But we are still miles apart on the issue of humanist versus religious principles of morality. As an example, you offered me the choice of torturing and killing a child and myself in order to save six billion people, and you had no hesitation in letting the six billion die. The other examples you have given knock off a few noughts, but I think we should stick to your extreme scenario, because it is more clear-cut. The problem is not a choice between right and wrong, but between two wrongs ... the lesser of two evils. Your Rowan Williams quote suggests that he too has a major problem with what he calls these "moral conundrums", though I'd be amazed and horrified if he chose to sacrifice six billion people rather than kill two. - Perhaps you will allow me to give you a much more realistic scenario. Your wife is being brutally raped by a complete stranger, who says he will kill her and next he will rape and kill your daughter. Do you stand by and quote Matthew: "Resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on the right cheek, turn to him the other also"? - You say that "Christians do not do good in order to win God's favour", and "the motive to do good is not to achieve some personal gain in this life or the next." Are Christians superhuman? If you did something of which you thought God disapproved, would you be happy? If you do something of which you think God approves, do you not get a feeling of satisfaction? All of us have to live with ourselves, and personal gain is not just a matter of making a profit. - You say "It is fundamental to the Christian faith that God's love precedes any good on our part and is unconditional." What does that mean? Will he love us even if we break his moral code and fail to repent of our sins? How unconditional was God's love for Noah's contemporaries, or the people of Sodom and Gomorrah? And aren't we told that "the wages of sin is death"? What about the billions of non-Christians: "He that believeth on him [Jesus] is not condemned; but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten son of God" (John 3, 18)? I don't wish to sound offensive, but frankly, that's not my idea of unconditional love.

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Part 1 of Reply to dhw post of Monday, June 16, 2008, 08:39 - dhw: "...I think we should stick to your extreme scenario, because it is more clear-cut."
Are you really saying that the others are not completely clear cut? Do you even have to think about whether you would push the man off the bridge? - There are two issues regarding your "more realistic scenario": 
1) how to understand the verse you quote 
2) what I would do - As with much of the Bible, there is a range of interpretation. However, the most widely held view is that the focus of Jesus' command is against retaliation. The context suggests this. St Paul reiterates Jesus' ethical teaching whilst also upholding the right of state authorities to use force in exercising judgement. Furthermore, this is an instance of an assault on oneself, unlike in your scenario. - So what would I do? I'll remove it to the third person, if you don't mind, to discuss what anyone should do in such circumstances. I do believe that it would be right to use all reasonable force to stop such an attack. I am not a total pacifist, and I am not absolutely against the use of force. That was not the position behind my thinking in my own extreme example of whether it would be right to torture a child to save the world. - It may clarify if I combine parts of the two scenarios. Imagine if the only way a man could stop the assault on his wife and daughter were to threaten and begin to rape and kill the assailant's own daughter. It would then be wrong to do so. Even if twenty of the man's daughters were with the assailant, inaccessible, and he could only be called off by being shown by video the same being done to his own daughter, I believe that would be wrong. - Which prompts me to be more specific with my original scenario: do you really believe that the Archbishop of Canterbury would think it right to rape and murder a child in order to save the world? - My original scenario is derived from a scene in Dostoyevsky's novel The Brothers Karamazov: 
'Imagine that it is you yourself who are erecting the edifice of human destiny with the aim of making men happy in the end, of giving them peace and contentment at last, but to do that it is absolutely necessary, and indeed quite inevitable, to torture to death only one tiny creature, the little girl who beat her breast with her little fist, and to found the edifice on her unavenged tears ... would you consent to be the architect on those conditions? Tell me and do not lie!'
'No, I wouldn't,' Alyosha said softly.
'And can you admit the idea that the people for whom you are building it would agree to accept their happiness at the price of the unjustly shed blood of the little tortured child and having accepted it, to remain for ever happy?'
'No, I can't admit it, Ivan,' Alyosha said suddenly with flashing eyes. - Here, this challenge is from Ivan, an atheist, to Alyosha his brother, a novice Christian monk. The story is most commonly used to knock down the all too easy Christian response to the question of suffering which argues that the good outweighs the evil. The tale is taken to illustrate most starkly the injustice of founding all the good of the world on evil. - There is no doubt that the most powerful objection to the Christian idea of God is the question of evil and suffering. It is therefore interesting that your own reaction to my extreme scenario - your own decision when you are allowed to play God - rather lets God off the hook.

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Part 2 of Reply to dhw post of Monday, June 16, 2008, 08:39

dhw: "Are Christians superhuman? If you did something of which you thought God disapproved, would you be happy?..."
I am not saying that there is no reward or satisfaction from loving God. I am saying that our love for God is not what elicits God's love for us. A child should not feel that his parents' love depends on how much he pleases them. A good parent will love a child whether or not that child behaves in a way that pleases. Christians are not superhuman, but they believe that the path to becoming fully human is the way of the cross: "If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake, and the gospel's will save it." Mark 8:34,35 - dhw: "Will he love us even if we break his moral code and fail to repent of our sins?..."
God loves us ... full stop. However, the basic human problem is self-centredness, or sin. God offers us the way out of this, through Jesus Christ. However, since his way with us is love, he cannot force us. If he did then it would not be love, either from God to us, or from us to God, and we would be a very different kind of being, certainly not made in the image of God. There is therefore not an inevitable contradiction between God's judgement and his love. Judgement is what we bring on ourselves if we continue to refuse God. Alongside that must be put God's infinite patience. - You refer to the stories of Noah, Sodom & Gomorrah and John 3:18. This raises the issue of how to read the Bible, which could itself fill several threads. I'll just make a few points. 
1. For a Christian, the Old Testament can be taken as only a partial and preliminary revelation of God. It still stands as Scripture, but it is not the whole story. 
2. I do not take all such OT stories as historical fact. The Bible doesn't claim to be an inerrant piece of history in the sense in which we now understand history. The literature of the Bible has to be understood with sensitivity to its genre and provenance. 
3. The Bible is a collection of writings upheld as Scripture in the sense that uniquely through them God is able to speak today to the church. The faith cannot be understood by studying the Bible in isolation from the church and its traditions of interpretation. The church existed before the Bible. 
4. Different parts of the Bible emphasise different things and can sometimes contradict. Doctrine cannot be and has not been developed by giving full weight to each passage in isolation. The stories of Noah and Sodom & Gomorrah are consistent with the sense of God's holiness pervading the Bible, but not the last word on how to understand disasters. John's style is to be black and white. He doesn't do caveats and qualifications, so he presents starkly the challenge which Jesus brings. He is not there discussing the issue of those who have not heard of Jesus, so the church at its wisest does not force his words to apply to contexts which were not considered. If that were done with John, then one would have to say that everyone BC is lost, and it is absurd to believe that John thought this.

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Part 1: Mark (12 June at 17.06) put me in a situation in which I had to choose between torturing and killing an innocent child (and then dying myself) and allowing the world to come to an end. Mark would allow the world to end. - All the scenarios are, of course, absurd, but the others (fat man and medical research) have added complications (ditto the new rape scenario) and if I go into those, we will be sidetracked from our real issue, which is my interpretation of humanist ethics versus your interpretation of Christian ethics. - We need to clarify a few things. Firstly, you say that my decision to torture and kill the child "lets God off the hook". Whether it's God, Professor Moriarty or Goldfinger who has given me this ultimatum, he is responsible and he is the ultimate evil force whom I condemn with all my might. However, you only asked me for my decision, not for my judgment. I am the one on the hook. Secondly, let's be explicit about what is "wrong". In torturing and killing the child, I am doing wrong. In signing the death warrant of 6 billion people I am doing wrong. I can only choose between two wrongs, and I see torturing and killing the child as the lesser of the two evils. Why? The survival, welfare and happiness of 6 billion people, not to mention the continuance of the human race, is just about the biggest responsibility I can imagine. I don't want to torture the child, and it would take enormous courage and self-sacrifice to do so, and I would not want to live afterwards anyway ... but to cause the suffering and death of 6 billion people by not doing so would be an even worse crime. You said earlier that "any offence against my neighbour is directly an offence against God." You are about to offend against 6 billion of your neighbours. Does it ease your conscience to say: "It's God's fault, not mine"? - The Dostoyevsky scenario is different from yours, as the inducement is happiness, not survival, and the world knows the story. No-one could be happy knowing that this has only been made possible by the torture and slaughter of an innocent child. But let's face it, if it really happened, and as time went by, the torturer would go down in history as a Judas-type traitor to humanity, and the little girl would have churches erected in her name as a glorious, Jesus-type martyr (after all, Jesus did not nail himself to the Cross). I'm not saying it's all OK. I'm just pointing out that the church has its own way of coming to terms with God's apparent cruelty. - Part 2: In your post of 14 June you stated that "the motive to do good is not to achieve some personal gain in this life or the next". I challenged this by pointing out that you would not be happy ... which means personal gain ... if you did not do good, but your response is "our love for God is not what elicits God's love for us". I was not talking here about God's love for us. I was trying to find out why you do good. My own motive for doing good is that I feel unhappy if I do something wrong, I feel at ease with myself if I help others, and I enjoy the recognition that comes from them. Similarly, I could not live with myself if I tortured a child, and I could not live with myself if I condemned 6 billion people to death. It all boils down to my relations with myself and with other people. If God wants us to do good, who do we do good to? I can only measure good and bad in terms of the happiness, relief of suffering, welfare etc. of myself and my fellow creatures.
 
We began this discussion with a disagreement about the possibility of an objective moral code. I have the impression that you are measuring good and bad against a raft of written prescriptions that are wide open to interpretation and centre on what the interpreters think might be what God wants. This certainly explains the confusion that the church now finds itself in when confronted by the Archbishop of Canterbury's "moral conundrums": homosexuality, abortion, contraception, euthanasia, the erosion of civil liberties, the role of women, the role of multiculturalism etc. etc. You want to know how agnostics live. I can only answer for myself: by a humanist code that enables me to take decisions according to what seems to me most ethically beneficial to my fellow humans and myself. And to be honest, I find the church's position on some of these issues quite repugnant ... but so, I gather, do some members of the church. - I want to temper these remarks, though, because I realize that they must in part seem offensive. I have the utmost respect for those who hold genuine beliefs like your own, based on the principle of doing good for whatever reason, and I have to recognize that your criteria may be closer to the objective truth than my own. I'm only trying to untangle what seems to me like an unholy mess.

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dhw: "All the scenarios are, of course, absurd, but the others (fat man and medical research) have added complications (ditto the new rape scenario) and if I go into those, we will be sidetracked from our real issue, which is my interpretation of humanist ethics versus your interpretation of Christian ethics."
I don't think the fat man and medical research are sidetracks. I would be very interested to know your view on them. They are related to the point of my first torture scenario, which is to try to show that a simple maximization of human happiness is inadequate. You constantly mention the 6 billion. The numbers seem to matter. I also think the rape scenario was helpful to consider as it supported my point, with my modification of it. It also helps to focus the original torture scenario as a child rape. However, I agree we can only go so far down any track before it seems more helpful to try a new angle of discussion. - You ask me why I do good.
dhw: "If God wants us to do good, who do we do good to? I can only measure good and bad in terms of the happiness, relief of suffering, welfare etc. of myself and my fellow creatures."
I can understand what you are saying, and to a degree I think this drives us all. But I would say it is inadequate simply because a lot of the time we are not able to determine the consequences of our actions. It makes for a rather short term view. It is not surprising that we differ on this since I have an eternal perspective. If all I were interested in was maximizing happiness, then I couldn't be sure that murder is always wrong or honesty always right. I need principles to live by. Raskolnikov thought the world would be better off without the pawnbroker in Crime and Punishment. Consequentialism is not enough. - dhw: "I have the impression that you are measuring good and bad against a raft of written prescriptions that are wide open to interpretation and centre on what the interpreters think might be what God wants."

Christianity is not simplistic. I'm not claiming that. It can be hard work for the church to know what is good, and, of course, even harder work to do it. Atheists have nothing like this discipline. Indeed, an interesting point is how atheists allow any disciplined formation of moral character. It isn't something that is "practised" in the way that Christianity is, with a pattern of prayer, reading, listening, community accountability.

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First, there are points in an earlier post that Mark asked me to respond to:
 
Mark: "My point was that atheists can find no basis for their morality other than to state as a brute fact that it is part of our nature. There is nothing else which tells them that they should live that way." - George: Reason, Logic, Evidence. These are the criteria by which truth is found. Ethics or moralty is about finding what is best for us to do. Best that is for us as Individuals, for us as Society, for us as Human beings, for us as Life-forms, for us as part of the Universe. Reasoning these things out is of course a difficult process. - Mark: "Atheists explain both this moral sense and religion with the theory of natural selection." - George: Some may take that view, but it is not mine. Evolution has no doubt given us empathic abilities, and loyalty to the species. However recent ethical developments, like abolition of slavery, development of ideas of human rights, etc, are down to the Enlightenment movement, based on Reason. - Mark: "There is no difference in kind, that I can see, between an atheist's decision to be against murder and his decision never to walk around on all fours." - George: You have a nice line in insults! - ====== - Now to the more recent post: - dhw: "If God wants us to do good, who do we do good to? I can only measure good and bad in terms of the happiness, relief of suffering, welfare etc. of myself and my fellow creatures." - Mark: "I can understand what you are saying, and to a degree I think this drives us all. But I would say it is inadequate simply because a lot of the time we are not able to determine the consequences of our actions. It makes for a rather short term view. It is not surprising that we differ on this since I have an eternal perspective." - George: If I may say so this shows an extraordinary arrogance! - Mark: "If all I were interested in was maximizing happiness, then I couldn't be sure that murder is always wrong or honesty always right." - George: They aren't always wrong/right. We authorise soldiers to kill for us under suitable conditions, and we used to authorise judges to order executions. - Mark: "I need principles to live by." - George: We all live by such principles, but they are not commandments never to be disobeyed, they are codes of practive, rules of thumb, civilised customs. - Mark: "Christianity is not simplistic. I'm not claiming that. It can be hard work for the church to know what is good, and, of course, even harder work to do it. Atheists have nothing like this discipline." - George: Another straight insult. As I've noted above, being ethical in our lives is hard work, for everyone. - Mark: "Indeed, an interesting point is how atheists allow any disciplined formation of moral character. It isn't something that is "practised" in the way that Christianity is, with a pattern of prayer, reading, listening, community accountability." - George: As I've pointed out before, "the church" does not have a clear moral stance on any number of issues. They are split down the middle on many of the most important current questions.

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Mark set me two moral conundrums in addition to my having to torture and kill a child to prevent the end of the world: 1) millions of children are dying, and scientists say they can only find a cure by experimenting on (and causing immense suffering to) 100 healthy children; 2) 6 men are about to be killed by a runaway trolley, and I must push a fat man off a bridge in order to stop the trolley. - The reason why I was reluctant to deal with these two was that there were extraneous factors that would sidetrack us from the issue of humanist versus Christian ethics. There is no way that scientists could guarantee finding a cure by experimenting on healthy children, and there is no way that I can guarantee being able to push the man off the bridge, let alone make sure that he will fall in the path of the trolley. In my new godlike position, I therefore prefer to consider only the clear-cut scenario. However, it's not a matter of numbers but of moral criteria. There will always be borderline cases, and not even Christians know where to draw dividing lines. My guiding principle in all situations would have to be which is the lesser of the two evils, by which I mean the one that will cause less harm to humanity at large. There were no ifs and buts in the original conundrum: God/Goldfinger had his finger on the button, and I had to choose. I tortured and killed one of God's children, and you sentenced 6 billion of God's children to death. I have told you my criterion, but I still don't know yours. - I asked you why you did good, and pointed out that I could only measure good in terms of the happiness, welfare etc. of my fellow creatures. You say this is a short term view whereas you have an "eternal perspective". I'm not sure what this entails. What "eternal" good can you do that does not involve helping people in the here and now? You say you need principles to live by, which suggests that atheists and agnostics have no principles, but society itself lays down principles without which it cannot function. You are right in so far as atheists/agnostics do not have patterns of prayer, reading, listening etc. But you are, if I may be so bold, wrong to say they have no "community accountability". Atheists are social beings just like Christians, they depend on relations with their neighbours just as Christians do, and are just as capable of loving their neighbours as Christians are. Once again, let me refer you to the code I quoted in my posting of 5 June at 21.02 under this thread. Can you find fault with it? - My complaint against theistic codes is that they are based on what various interpreters think might be what God wants, and not on what seems best for humanity. I keep pointing out ad nauseam that the consequences of this are atrocities that range from the Inquisition and the Crusades to suicide bombings. (One might also mention the ban on the use of condoms in an AIDS-ravaged society.) But I don't want to swing the pendulum too far. In an ideal world, everyone would abide by the humanist code I have quoted, and it would make no difference what religion or non-religion they followed. The fact that the world is not ideal is not the fault of religion, and it's not the fault of atheism or agnosticism. It's the fault of human nature as God and/or evolution made it. - (P.S. I had drafted this before reading George's latest posting, and am broadly in agreement with him, which makes a nice change!)

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George finds two of my remarks insulting and another one arrogant, which I am sorry about. I did not intend to give offence. I had expected that this site would be a forum which tolerated robust debate without the degree of sensitivity which forces people to be so careful that they cannot be open, or so precise that they cannot make an assertion without endless qualifications. And one of the most helpful methods of debate is to reflect back our understanding of the other's position. Sometimes we will get this wrong, and thereby we may be corrected, learn and move the debate on. There has been no shortage of misrepresentations of Christianity on this site, in my view, but I have not taken offence. - I said: "There is no difference in kind, that I can see, between an atheist's decision to be against murder and his decision never to walk around on all fours."
An atheist does not believe in objective morality. There is nothing out there which is the basis for moral laws. It comes down to personal preference, likes and dislikes, aesthetics. Some atheistic philosophers have argued that we should discard normal moral language such as "ought", and that is a consistent position, I believe. - George argues that reason is the basis for morality. How can reason get you started on morality? If you say, for example, that we need to maximise human happiness, then I agree that reason can get you some way towards rules which help. But reason cannot tell you that human happiness is desirable. There is a parallel here with the Stenger argument! - I said: "Christianity is not simplistic. I'm not claiming that. It can be hard work for the church to know what is good, and, of course, even harder work to do it. Atheists have nothing like this discipline. Indeed, an interesting point is how atheists allow any disciplined formation of moral character. It isn't something that is "practised" in the way that Christianity is, with a pattern of prayer, reading, listening, community accountability." - dhw has responded claiming that there is community accountability for atheists, and George has said that living ethical lives is hard work for everyone. To a point I accept this. However, would you agree with me that while there are differences in ethics between people, humanity's greater problem is that even when we know what is right we are inclined to do what is wrong? The flaw is in our nature more than in our rules. Christianity is based on hope of the renewal of humanity for which help is needed from beyond ourselves. Atheism seems relatively optimistic about humanity. It is all very well to state the fine rules which dhw refers to, but naÃ¯ve to think that's all we need. The Church, at its best, is a hospital for sinners. Do atheists have hospitals? - My comment about an "eternal perspective" was a bit cryptic. I made it in the context of a discussion of consequentialism. My point was that when we attempt to determine morality from consequences then we cannot see very far ahead. We can't predict the weather, let alone human behaviour. The abysmal failure of planned economies is testimony to our inability to use reason to calculate our way to human prosperity. So I try to follow what I believe are God's laws, trusting that he has a perspective which transcends everything. Raskolnikov may well have been right that the world would be a happier place without the pawn-broker, but I would consider that judgement according to reason to be far more "arrogant" than a humble trust that God knows best. - By the way, dhw, I think you have evaded the killer virus and runaway trolley cases, but the fact that your reservation is due only to a lack of certainty that the pushing or experimenting would work seems to be a giveaway.

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Mark: George finds two of my remarks insulting and another one arrogant, which I am sorry about. I did not intend to give offence. - George: No offense taken. In fact I found the insults amusing. - Mark: An atheist does not believe in objective morality. - George: There are many different sorts of atheists. Atheism - not believing in gods - does not imply any one particular view of morality. Atheists can be Marxists or Capitalists or believe in all sorts of other things, entirely separate from their views about religion. - Mark: There is nothing out there which is the basis for moral laws. It comes down to personal preference, likes and dislikes, aesthetics. - George; I have already argued that there is an objective basis, namely reason. If a doctor has a choice of two treatments for a patient, he makes the choice on the basis of evidence of what is likely to be the best outcome for the patient, not one hopes on which colour of medicine he prefers. - Mark: George argues that reason is the basis for morality. How can reason get you started on morality? If you say, for example, that we need to maximise human happiness, then I agree that reason can get you some way towards rules which help. But reason cannot tell you that human happiness is desirable. - George: As a human, and a humanist, it seems perfectly valid to me to base my ethics on the needs of humans in relation to the rest of life and the universe around us. It seems to me that you are trying to deny your own humanity and seeking to become some sort of "superhuman" species or like some kind of "ethereal" being (an angel perhaps?). - Mark: Indeed, an interesting point is how atheists allow any disciplined formation of moral character. - George: The discipline for a rationalist is to be objective, to base one's decisions on the evidence available, not on personal wish fulfilment. - Mark: ... while there are differences in ethics between people, humanity's greater problem is that even when we know what is right we are inclined to do what is wrong? The flaw is in our nature more than in our rules. Christianity is based on hope of the renewal of humanity for which help is needed from beyond ourselves. Atheism seems relatively optimistic about humanity. - George: Christianity does have this problem with "original sin" or "the fall" from some sort of original perfection as envisaged in the garden of Eden. Humanists accept that we are the product of evolution. - Mark: The Church, at its best, is a hospital for sinners. Do atheists have hospitals? - George: Yes, they are called hospitals! Assuming that you are using the term "sin" to mean moral falure, rather than in its religious sense, people who are addicted to drugs or cannot control their behavour are treated there if possible, or else in prison. - Mark: I try to follow what I believe are God's laws, trusting that he has a perspective which transcends everything. - George: I prefer reason based on evidence. "God's Laws" are only what certain men have claimed are God's Laws.

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I don't want to duplicate George's responses (with which once more I am largely in agreement), so I'll confine myself to those areas he has not covered. - In my posting of 28 June, to which you have just replied, I wrote: "The fact that the world is not ideal is not the fault of religion, and it's not the fault of atheism or agnosticism. It's the fault of human nature as God and/or evolution made it." You now ask: "Would you agree with me that while there are differences in ethics between people, humanity's greater problem is that even when we know what is right we are inclined to do what is wrong? The flaw is in our nature more than in our rules." Clearly you agree with me, and so I agree with you. However, you then go on: - "Christianity is based on hope of the renewal of humanity for which help is needed from beyond ourselves. Atheism seems relatively optimistic about humanity. It is all very well to state the fine rules which dhw refers to, but naÃ¯ve to think that's all we need." - I'm not sure what you mean by "renewal" here. If you're referring to an afterlife, then of course we need God, and if you're referring to improving life on earth ... a kind of climb towards ethical happiness ... I agree that most of us need some kind of help from beyond ourselves. I have no problem with the suggestion that religion may provide it, but other human beings may also provide it. Atheism has nothing to do with optimism or pessimism about humanity ... atheism is merely a disbelief in God. And as for the fine rules, no-one ever said we only needed the rules in order to be good! You agreed with me and so I agree with you that human nature is the problem, and so far in human history no code, religious or non-religious, has yet managed to overcome its flaws. - "The Church at its best is a hospital for sinners. Do atheists have hospitals?" It's a nice image, though you're right to stress "at its best". As an agnostic, I wish I could also enjoy the benefits of the treatment. But the fact that atheists and agnostics cannot gain the same spiritual comfort does not mean that they have no code of morality! Your idea of the typical atheist seems to be based on a character in a 19th-century Russian novel, who himself reflects Dostoyevsky's (in my view erroneous) belief that if God did not exist, everything would be permissible. This is an extreme case ... which usually makes for the best literature ... but it is no more typical of atheists than Robert Mugabe is of Christians or Osama bin Laden of Muslims. You have asked how agnostics/atheists live, but you seem to be convinced that we are all potential Raskolnikovs! The atheists that I know are non-murderous human beings leading non-murderous social lives and enjoying non-murderous human relationships. They simply don't believe in God. No doubt the way in which you "try to follow what you believe are God's laws" is admirable, and I'm sure you disapprove as much as I do of religious fundamentalists who say the same. I have no quarrel with your ideals. I only object to your apparent denigration of the notion that agnostics/atheists can also try to follow equally ethical precepts. - Your cryptic comment about an "eternal perspective" came in response to my question about why you do good. The fact that we can't predict all the consequences of our actions does not answer my question. I'm sure you don't withhold your help from people because you can't foresee the future. The question is crucial if you are to understand "how agnostics live". If you do not get personal satisfaction from helping people and from their reactions to your help, then I can only conclude with George that you are trying to deny your humanity. If you do get personal satisfaction, then you should be able to understand how and why agnostics and atheists can do the same good deeds without having recourse to God. Love is not a Christian invention! - You say I have "evaded" the killer virus and trolley scenarios. Since the information you have given me is totally inadequate, and therefore other options are open, I will say no in both cases. On the other hand, I have asked you several times to explain why you are prepared to condemn six billion of God's children to death in order to spare yourself the agony of torturing and killing one of them. Your only reply so far has been: "Any offence against my neighbour is directly an offence against God", as if the six billion were not your neighbours. Evasion on your part? Incidentally, Christians themselves cannot agree on how to cope with such moral conundrums, so I don't know why you think the decision somehow reflects a difference between Christians and agnostics/atheists.

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Excellent point. If there is a personal Supreme Being, then the values of that being are not only an objective standard for ethics, but the only possible objective standard. If such a Being ever chose to communicate that standard to humans, what can we conclude, given the data we've seen? - If such data is in the Torah, then the standard is necessarily subject to upgrade. The law of blood vengeance was once endorsed by "God", then revised gradually in favor of state law. If it was revised once, we can't conclude that the most recent revision is final for all time. - If such data is not in the Torah, then the Christian update is irrelevant, and the Koran only raises the question of why it took "God" so long to speak up, and why He didn't annihilate the false and misleading religions that had claimed to represent Him. Though admittedly we have to give the Moslems credit for trying. - Back to the first possibility: It may be that "God" revealed stuff to the people to whom it was applicable, and continued to reveal updates. It may also be that "God" is sitting back with His objective ethics and allowing humans to guess at ethical approximations. Maybe He tinkers with history in favor of the ethical codes He likes, and maybe He just lets it evolve naturally. No way to know. - What we can know philosophically is that if there is an objective standard for ethics, the only people who can lay claim to it are those who assume that a personal Supreme Being exists. Such people can be confident of doing the best they can do if they at least try to obey Him. - Would a personal Supreme Being allow sincere people to think they are obeying Him, and be grossly wrong? If a personal Supreme Being exists, we are forced to either that conclusion, or to conclude that the Crusades, Inquisition, 9/11, etc. are somehow moral acts. - The final conclusion is that if we want objective ethics that make sense to us, then a just personal Supreme Being must exist, despite all the apparent evidence to the contrary.

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Perhaps it's worth pointing out that theists have a similar problem. Although Jews, Christians and Muslims have what they believe to be the Word of God (the Bible, the Koran) as an objectively existing reference, texts only come into operation through subjective interpretation. - It is more than subjective interpretation. The Bible (both parts) was written by people, and sections included were decided upon by committees. Humans have their fingerprints all over the words themselves. Interpretation just adds another layer of uncertainty as to the authority. As for the Koran, it comes from the words of an illiterate who dictated it to scribes. How did he check the result? - Really we have human dignity and the ability to think for ourselves as to what is best for societies and individuals. The Humanists certainly have a point. One does not need religion as a foundation for ethics and morals.

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David, what does an atheist mean by "human dignity"?

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Human dignity is human dignity. I am a panentheist, who doesn't think much of organized religion, but I think there is a dignity in most humans.

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If so, here's the bow: - If you don't acknowledge a personal Supreme Being, you can't say your moral code has an objective foundation, or that a conflicting moral code is wrong. You can only say you don't like a conflicting code, or that the majority or society doesn't like it. But the majority couldn't objectify a moral code even if that majority was 99%. Even survival doesn't objectify a moral code, because there's nothing to say survival is good. - If you do acknowledge a personal Supreme Being, you can say your moral code has an objective foundation, but you can't prove it or even know it, because you can't prove or know your "God" is the real Dude. If a real Dude exists, it's obvious that He doesn't want us to know, because He hasn't offered us anything but faith packages. - NOBODY is denying that an atheist can have a moral code, or that his moral code may be more moral than a theist's moral code. In fact, an atheist may accidentally have the objectively correct moral code, but he would have no way to know it, and he would be wrong about atheism if he had it. Atheists in general have less motivation to be moral than theists, because atheists don't expect an afterlife with rewards/punishments. Of course, a theist's moral code may be totally fubar if he serves an evil God. - Humanism, human dignity, social functioning, and love are all side tracks that do nothing to clarify this issue. They only add unnecessary complications. - Conclusion: If you want to claim an objective moral code that makes any kind of sense, your only option is a just God. That means you trash all Scripture inconsistent with a just God, and make whatever sense you can of the rest. FYI, I don't claim to know my moral code is objective. I just assume one exists, and try to conform to what I think it is. Based on that assumption, I do claim to know that some moral codes are so far off as to be definitely and objectively wrong. - I summarized this in my post of 2008-06-09, 03:53, but nobody responded. Either it was unclear, or you guys just weren't ready. Are you ready now?

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Cary writes: "If you don't acknowledge a personal Supreme Being, you can't say your moral code has an objective foundation." - I never said it did. - Cary: "If you do acknowledge a personal Supreme Being, you can say your moral code has an objective foundation, but you can't prove it or even know it." - Or even be sure that your subjective interpretation of it is objectively correct. - Cary: "Humanism, human dignity, social functioning, and love are all side tracks that do nothing to clarify this issue." - We seem to be talking about different issues. Mark wants to know how agnostics/atheists live, and I have put the humanist case. That is not a side track, it is a direct answer. He asked whether "moral truth is objective in the sense that it has reality outside of human minds. Is it real?" I pointed out that something can be real even though it is a product of the human mind, and I suggested a parallel between moral codes and the rules that govern football. I even pointed out that the earth's rotation round the sun was "as objective a truth as humans can hope for". Objectivity and reality are not the same thing (see your own concept clarifier under "real" 4: "often used sloppily to mean absolute or objective"). - Cary: "I don't claim to know my moral code is objective. I just assume one exists, and try to conform to what I think it is." - I know my moral code is not objective. It is based on humanism, human dignity, social functioning and love, and I try to conform to what I think it is.

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OK, I should have specified that humanism, human dignity, social functioning, and love are extraneous to the issue of the foundation of a moral code. But I agree that they are relevant to his original question about how agnostics live. - I assume you have no disagreements with my summation of the issue of the foundation of a moral code, right?

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Cary: "I assume you have no disagreements with my summation of the issue of the foundation of a moral code." - Your summation concerned the foundation of an objective moral code (the only option being a just God). I agree that an objective code can only be founded by God, and I hope that his idea of "just" is the same as mine! - You claim to know that some codes are "definitely and objectively wrong". You can't know that unless you have a hotline to God.

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>You claim to know that some codes are "definitely and objectively wrong". You can't know that unless you have a hotline to God. - I should clarify that claim to know that some codes are definitely and objectively wrong on the level of inconceivability of the contrary.
www.sanityquestpublishing.com/essays/knowledgeout.html - e.g. If Stalin's moral code was not definitely and objectively wrong, then I'm totally insane, and can't be held accountable for claiming to know what I don't know.

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Cary claims to "know that some [moral] codes are 'definitely and objectively wrong' on the level of inconceivability of the contrary." - You have referred us to your website for an explanation of this: - "Just because my mind can't conceive of something doesn't mean it's impossible, but it may be so improbable as to be unworthy of consideration." - I find it absolutely inconceivable that a just God (by my subjective understanding of "just") would send down a Flood to drown every man, woman, child and baby except for the family of one drunkard whom he happened to like (substitute any "Act of God" you care to think of). I find it inconceivable that a just God would approve of the Crusades, the Inquisition, Islamic suicide bombers, or my sacrificing six billion people in order not to have to torture and kill one child (see Mark, How do agnostics live? 12 June 17.06). But I certainly would not dare to say that those who believe in this kind of justice are "totally insane", or that their code is "definitely and objectively wrong". I don't know God's code, and God holds all the aces. - Here's a titbit for you: "The postulation of a 'designer' to guide these processes [= the origin of life] is just so over-the-top in improbabilities as not to be worth considering" (George Jelliss, Teapot Agnosticism, 3 February 16.52). According to your essay on knowledge, then, George knows 'definitely and objectively' that there is no God.

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>I find it absolutely inconceivable that a just God (by my subjective understanding of "just") would send down a Flood to drown every man, woman, child and baby except for the family of one drunkard whom he happened to like... - I would agree, except that I can conceive of the possibility of an afterlife where everyone who got unjustly shafted is justly compensated.
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>I find it inconceivable that a just God would approve of the Crusades, the Inquisition, Islamic suicide bombers, - Total agreement. - >or my sacrificing six billion people in order not to have to torture and kill one child - Total agreement. Dilemmas like this are resolved by weighing everything on a scale of emotional economics. If emotional pleasure/displeasure can be quantified, then justice is possible ... given enough time.
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>But I certainly would not dare to say that those who believe in this kind of justice are "totally insane", or that their code is "definitely and objectively wrong". - Total agreement. But there do exist moral codes (Stalin example) which if not definitely and objectively wrong, then I must be totally insane - which is what I said. 
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>(George Jelliss, Teapot Agnosticism, 3 February 16.52). - No problem. If George is telling the truth, then he knows 'definitely and objectively' that there is no God.

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If you don't acknowledge a personal Supreme Being, you can't say your moral code has an objective foundation, or that a conflicting moral code is wrong. You can only say you don't like a conflicting code, or that the majority or society doesn't like it. But the majority couldn't objectify a moral code even if that majority was 99%. Even survival doesn't objectify a moral code, because there's nothing to say survival is good.-This brings us back to the Euthyphro dilemma. Is something good because the gods favor it or do they favor it because it is something good?-Even if some variety of deity were proven to exist, this does not prove the existence of an objective morality. They are two completely separate issues. To be unfashionably post-modern for a moment, the Author's intent is not the only interpretation of a text. Perhaps the same is true of morality.- 
>In fact, an atheist may accidentally have the objectively correct moral code, but he would have no way to know it, and he would be wrong about atheism if he had it.-Not necessarily. If moral truths have a different ontological and metaphysical status than deities, then it is possible to have both atheism and objective morality.-> Conclusion: If you want to claim an objective moral code that makes any kind of sense, your only option is a just God.-Or Plato's conception of Agathos (the Good).->That means you trash all Scripture inconsistent with a just God, and make whatever sense you can of the rest.-This is what some deists and freethinkers have done in the past.

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shanoxilt: If moral truths have a different ontological and metaphysical status than deities, then it is possible to have both atheism and objective morality.-You have responded to a post from Cary Cook, who abandoned us nearly two years ago, so I'm afraid you won't get a reply from him. However, I'm intrigued by the above statement. You seem to be suggesting that moral truths might have an existence that is independent of subjective humans and of any possible deity. Perhaps you could explain.

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