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Points out that religious morality comes from God’s will. Whatever God says is good, is good, even if it means killing your own son.
Points out that rational morality teaches you how to live and achieve happiness, based on the facts of man’s nature.
A collection of questions and answers from the Ayn Rand Institute on the issue of reason vs. faith.
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Scottcs Mar 12, 2008 9:24:33pm |
Thing is, God is consistent and will not contradict Himself….therefore, since He says, “You shall not murder,” He will not have you murder. Very reasonable.
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Student of Objectivism Mar 12, 2008 9:34:49pm |
re: #1 Scottcs
Thing is, God is consistent and will not contradict Himself….therefore, since He says, “You shall not murder,” He will not have you murder. Very reasonable.
I will let the mystics show their own open irrationality
| 4 |
Scottcs Mar 12, 2008 9:43:11pm |
Hmmm….takes more faith to believe there isn’t God then to believe there is….and then, if you don’t believe, you’d better hope you’re right.
| 5 |
Student of Objectivism Mar 12, 2008 9:47:47pm |
re: #4 Scottcs
Hmmm….takes more faith to believe there isn’t God then to believe there is….and then, if you don’t believe, you’d better hope you’re right.
read: “I don’t have any evidence for my beliefs, and I hope you feel guilty for even wanting to have prove for yours and I hope you feel intimidated”
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TalkinKamel Mar 13, 2008 9:33:27am |
Yes, I believe a system of ethics needs G-d (or the Tao, or the “Circle of Life”) or whatever you want to call it—-the Being who created man, the universe, and sets up the rules.
Otherwise, no matter how well-intentioned, the whole question of good and evil tends to devolve into something like a maxim of Al Capp’s Mammy Yokum; “Good is better than evil ‘cuz it’s NICER!” That’s not much to sustain an ethical system. When it comes to niceness and evil, evil usually wins. And yes, I’ve known some decent atheists——but they seem to be operating on the capital bequeathed them by their parents (who invariably had some sort of faith), and they seem incapable of passing on such moral capital to their own children—-to use another old maxim, they just don’t have a leg to stand on!
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FoolsMate Mar 13, 2008 9:35:22am |
re: #4 Scottcs
Hmmm….takes more faith to believe there isn’t God then to believe there is….and then, if you don’t believe, you’d better hope you’re right.
It’s no different for the believer, who must cross his fingers and hope it’s his religion that’s the true one.
| 9 |
FoolsMate Mar 13, 2008 10:11:45am |
Morality and law evolved as men learned to live together in communities. Every stable society had prohibitions on murder, theft, etc. The ten commandments was not the original source of the non-religious moral imperatives contained in it.
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ParanoidPyro Mar 13, 2008 4:01:57pm |
To begin, I am religious, and do not feel that reason and faith are mutually exclusive, although at times they appear to be to some (Atheists look down on religions for belief in a higher “imaginary” power, Muslims look down on Christians for not making women to be their slaves, etc.)
That being said, I think the main crux of the argument always comes down to this: to what authority do you appeal to make a point? Christians have the Bible, Jews have the Torah, Muslims have the Koran, Hindus have the Vedas, etc. So while morality does not necessarily require a god-head figure, it does require some type of constant to which you can appeal.
| 11 |
FoolsMate Mar 13, 2008 4:58:41pm |
Science and religion do not have to be mutually exclusive, but they are in conflict whenever the supernatural is invoked to explain physically observable phenomena. Religion has been and continues to be embarrassed again and again when it intrudes into reason’s sphere.
| 12 |
Student of Objectivism Mar 13, 2008 8:02:56pm |
re: #10 ParanoidPyro
I appeal to the facts of reality to guide my life, not scribbles on paper or ghosts. When I need to act, I use my mind, not my blind feelings.
It is either reason or faith. They are polar opposites. Some people try to use both, meaning, using faith sometimes and reason at other times, but one is more fundamental than the other, and one is more important than the other.
If you are consistently religious, then everything is dependent on faith— from science, to morality to government. There is no appeal to your senses, reason, or logic. To imply that religion somehow doesn’t fear reason is a gravely mistaken way to secularize and sugarcoat religion.
| 13 |
Student of Objectivism Mar 13, 2008 8:03:56pm |
re: #11 FoolsMate
I disagree. Faith has no “sphere”. It has nothing, because it is nothing and doesn’t relate to man’s life as a rational animal. Man survives by his mind, not faith.
| 14 |
FoolsMate Mar 14, 2008 10:40:58am |
re: #13 Student of Objectivism
Based on obvious facts of reality, surely you must concede that religion has enormous influence over people’s lives. A reasonable person can acknowledge the existence of religion’s sphere without ascribing any fundamental truth or virtue to it.
| 15 |
nikis-knight Mar 14, 2008 2:15:21pm |
Points out that rational morality teaches you how to live and achieve happiness, based on the facts of man’s nature.
But why is happiness a goal worth pursuing? And why should I care about your happiness, specifically?
Now, I happen to be inclined, I think, to want others to be happy, but rationality and reason can’t tell me what ultimate goals to persue, just how best to do so.
It is either reason or faith. They are polar opposites.
Nonsense, they are the twin pillars of western civilization.
The Christian religion birthed the enlightenment and the scientific revolution. Belief in a God of goodness and consistency who invited man to know him and understand the world he put him in was critical to the development of a scientific worldview.
Islam is all faith. Inshallah, what ever Allah wills is what happens, and not even logic can constrain Allah. This is part of why science in the ummah is stuck where it is.
Communism was all “reason”—materialism, this matter is all that there is. A society was created that lived by the creed God is dead, even with an ostensibly ethical bent—provide for everyone’s needs—and failed utterly from corruption top to bottom.
It takes both.
To imply that religion somehow doesn’t fear reason is a gravely mistaken way to secularize and sugarcoat religion.
To state categorically that it must is to show a rather shallow understanding of faith.
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FoolsMate Mar 14, 2008 2:58:28pm |
re: #15 nikis-knight
Happy people usually don’t rob or murder you, or kidnap your children for ransom. Also, I’ve never encountered someone before who had to ask: why is happiness worth pursuing?
| 17 |
nikis-knight Mar 14, 2008 4:00:59pm |
why is happiness worth pursuing?
well.. yeah, I guess I phrased that stupidly.
But I could perform a risk-reward analysis as to how soon the unhappiness of strangers far away would come back to affect me, versus what I could gain from mugging a few people. The thought is reprehensible, but only because I see those people as having the same rights as I, because they are made in God’s image. Without God, what is the reason the strong do not rule the weak?
Don’t get me wrong, I’m perfectly cool with athiests developing ethics that lead to a society I’d call good; but when someone says faith has no place… faith (+ reason) built me society, and it is the best one seen on earth.
| 18 |
FoolsMate Mar 14, 2008 4:27:11pm |
Without God, what is the reason the strong do not rule the weak?
The law.
| 19 |
nikis-knight Mar 15, 2008 3:23:43pm |
Really? What law kept Saddam from putting people in shredders? How did law end the holocaust? etc. Law is a tool like reason, which can be wielded in many ways, for good or ill. The morality of thsoe who make law is what determines it’s value. This country’s laws were created for the benefit of all by God-fearing men (theists or deists, irrelevant for this discussion), employing their faculties with deliberation and humility. What did the French revolution bring? Or any other revolution in the name of, rather than using appropriately, reason?
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