Do we need God or the laws of a God to be moral?

I would like to see what are your thoughts on God and do we need God in our life to be moral.
As an Atheist I don't believe in God or do I see it fit to worship a higher figure to be right in life.
This site speaks for me.
What We Believe
I also like this quote by Ayn Rand.

Ask yourself whether the dream of heaven and greatness should be waiting for us in our graves – or whether it should be ours here and now and on this earth.

Top 25 Ayn Rand Quotes

I believe that the "laws of God" you are referring to are universal laws, different but the same as magnetism or gravity. For example, if you get deep into the concept of Jesus Christ dying for our sins, he had to appease the law of justice on our behalf, because the law of justice had to be appeased. We make mistakes that are discordant to the laws of the universe, and there are consequences. Call it commandments, call it Karma, call it a non-theist social code, but in the end we are all working towards the same goal, which is to be in harmony with the universe.

So to answer your question, no, I don' think we need to be living 'God's Laws' to be happy...but it so happens that those laws are actually just an example of laws that are deeper than God.

reply to post by blamethegreys


Well I doubt God's or any other God's existence in the Universe. The same with having another person sacrifice themselves. But hey that's what you believe in.

reply to post by Romantic_Rebel


I would appreciate it if you would actually write out some of your OWN opinions instead of linking me to another site.

My personal view is that no, one does not need faith in God to be moral. I have known many moral atheists, and many immoral religious folks. To me religion is sort of a double edged sword, helping many lead more fulfilled/moral lives, and also turning some into blind fools, intolerant of anyone that does not believe the exact same thing.

reply to post by abrowning


I apologize. The admins prefer if you use a comment from another site you have to include the link from the site.
Anyway I like your views!

Personally I don't believe you have to believe in God to have morals. Most Christians only believe in a god because they want to escape hellfire & damnation anyway, regardless of what they claim otherwise. I think that some christians display a lower sense of morals because of their beliefs. They believe they have "dominion" over the earth & all it's creatures.
I think it's an evolutionary step (so to speak)....to display a high sense of morals, especially when it's of ones own accord, and not because of fear of divine retribution.
Why would someone have morals? Perhaps as an effect of compassion towards others, the ability to think of the cause/effect of the situation & not wish to cause anyone to suffer in any way because of our actions?
The christian god speaks of morals, yet rewards being "born into sin" with an eternity of hellfire. Seventy years of sinning worth eternal punishment. Right. That's moral. Killing all the males in a region under two years of age. Not moral. Causing a man to sleep with his daughter. Not moral. Having an extremely overinflated ego. Nope.

Originally posted by Romantic_Rebel
I would like to see what are your thoughts on God and do we need God in our life to be moral.
As an Atheist I don't believe in God or do I see it fit to worship a higher figure to be right in life.
This site speaks for me.
What We Believe
I also like this quote by Ayn Rand.

Ask yourself whether the dream of heaven and greatness should be waiting for us in our graves – or whether it should be ours here and now and on this earth.

Top 25 Ayn Rand Quotes

Absolutely, not! Mankind can be moral without resorting to God! Well, I prefer to call myself agnostic after I went all through the major Christian faiths in my youth (orthodox, catholic, protestant) No, I have my own moral compass and usually I stick to it! My shrink, once said when you 're dead you 're dead, ain't no after-life, sorry! But what did he know? He was abusing alcohol at the time ... Yep, definitely, we need to band together and make heaven and paradise here on earth instead of hell and wars and so on ...

reply to post by Romantic_Rebel


Sorry, I know the rules about linking to another site. I guess what I meant was that all I read of your opinion was

As an Atheist I don't believe in God or do I see it fit to worship a higher figure to be right in life.

and I think it would be interesting if you expand on that. Even if it's just a few ex-quotes from the page you linked.

Originally posted by Romantic_Rebel
reply to post by blamethegreys

 

Well I doubt God's or any other God's existence in the Universe. The same with having another person sacrifice themselves. But hey that's what you believe in.

I absolutely respect your beliefs, and sorry if I injected too much theology into that. The point I was trying to hit was that what we know as 'god's laws' are imo higher universal laws that we don't fully understand, but that we all strive to follow. I don't know if as an atheist you could subscribe to the concept of 'Universal Laws', but I can imagine them in a scientific light, rather than a religious one.

So I may follow "Thou shalt not kill" whereas you may come to the same conclusion through logic and reason, but in the end, we are both choosing to live in harmony with something bigger than ourselves.

I just want to pop back in and say that I am greatly enjoying seeing a civil thread about morality, God and atheism. I'll be paying more attention to all of you.

reply to post by abrowning


I'm a man of few words in life. lol.
Sometimes I'm not in the mood to type. It's just I get bored and slack off. :/
Sam Harris
I like this article by Sam Harris and it speaks to me. Maybe you like to read it.

reply to post by Romantic_Rebel


I'm with you. In conversations with friends I've brought up the fact that The Ten Comandments should be common sense. Thou shalt not kill and so on, but then as the saying goes "common sense is not common place". Maybe it's because I was brought up going to church(hav'nt been i a long time) or maybe there is more to it.

Personally I do not believe that one needs a belief in a God to have morals or do the 'right' thing. That statement depends a bit on what you consider the 'right' thing as many have differing views on this, but in my opinion the 'right' thing is the smart thing. One can make their decisions in life based not on what they are told is right or wrong, but rather based on the information they have access to. If you are faced with a decision then analyze all of the information related to the subject that you have access to and come up with an intelligent decision based off of that information, decide using your own brain what would be the healthiest thing to do. I believe everyone has a brain and thus everyone has the capability of knowing what is a healthy decision and what is not, a big problem is that a significant portion of the public have been duped into thinking they are not smart enough to trust their own brain and so they put their decision making capability in the hands of others.

On the subject of God I actually made this post on that subject yesterday: www.abovetopsecret.com...

...if there had ever been an example of a god that was worth a hoot, i might have been more accepting of the moralistic directives some humans claim are their god's laws - but - that wasnt the case... so, no, i dont need a self-absorbed jerk in a fairy tale to tell me whats right and whats wrong...

Originally posted by blamethegreys
in the end we are all working towards the same goal, which is to be in harmony with the universe.

...we are?... ALL of us?... really?...

...i still have some goals i'm working towards but being in harmony with the universe isnt one of them - never has been and i've been taking up space on this planet for nearly 60years...

...i have (many times) felt at peace with my surroundings but, imo, its arrogant to believe the universe gives a damn about a mere mortal's feel-good notions or need for an all inclusive harmony...

...if the universe is capable of some kind of thought processing, it probably perceives us as irritating fungus (at best)...

reply to post by Wyn Hawks


You are probably right about the irritating fungus theory! lol

Don't get hung up on my fancy wording, my 'harmony with the universe' isn't meant in a touchy feely, rub my crystals kind of way. Its not that the universe is sentient, or that it cares about us in the sense you are talking about. I won't try to rehash my ideas again, (you're welcome ) but I suppose I could give a straight answer to the OP's original question:

No of course not. There are great moral people from all walks of life, be they hindu or atheist or whateverists.

reply to post by Romantic_Rebel


Do we need God or the laws of a God to be moral? Currently, I don't think you need to believe in any god to have morals, I could be wrong, but I thought morals were what is considered "good" and "bad", and as far as I know, atheists can have morals. However if God is needed for mankind to exist, in a way you do need it for morals, if there was no morals without mankind. Also if by "laws of God" you mean morals, you need them to have morals. Another thing that I sometimes wonder, is do murderers and other high end criminals have morals, or do they just go against them.

reply to post by Romantic_Rebel


There's a saying "to err is human to forgive is devine".

Have you ever heared of the famous law of forgiveness (Matt 6:12)?

It goes this way "forgive our trespasses as we forgive those who trespassed against us"

Or this way "and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors."

other translate it this way "and forgive us our sins, just as we have forgiven those who have sinned against us."

Romantic_Rebel - do you forgive those who crossed you? Have you ever forgiven anyone who wronged you?

If yes, why?

Is it a moral thing to do?

What good will that do to you?


Consider this story:

A very old lady was asked how she survived the cruelty and the badness of her captors. Why she was not bitter after coming out of her captivity? Her response, she forgave those who persecuted her because she said (with a smile) if I started hating them back then I would probably had died long time ago. Besides, she said, what good will that do to me - I'll be hurting myself instead of them. My God will not let me do that and I cannot let that happen.

The old lady was freed from one of the Nazi Germany's concentration camp.

So yes we need God's laws to be moral.

Note: those who say they beleive in God but does not obey his laws - Jesus the son of God says "Get away from me you workers of LAWlessness" -Matt 7:23

ty,
edmc2

I don't know...it's hard to say since our modern day "morals" are derived from religion.

Now, you may argue that...but you got your morals from somewhere...your parents, your school, your society, or your religion...either way...you have been taught morals.

And all of those above, if you follow them back in history long enough...they most likely still come from a religion.

Ask yourself this...do your "morals" significantly differ from modern day religious morals?

Don't Lie, Don't Steal, Don't Murder....Those are the basics...all others can be derived from them.

Or do you have some sort of unique "moral" code that has nothing to do with the 3 basic ones above?

reply to post by edmc^2


Are you a Christian and do you believe Jesus is the only one capable of forgiving sin? Didn't God say it earlier he would forgive sin without the help of a blood sacrifice by anyone or anything? Yes!
Then the LORD said, 'I do forgive, just as you have asked.
Numbers 14:20 (NRS)
As an Atheist I kind see it irrelevant that I have to believe in something in my life and not understand it to be better or moral. Where's the pride? Religion to me is more about faith. While both people of religious and non religious and what not can be moral and respectful.

Originally posted by Romantic_Rebel
reply to post by edmc^2

 

Are you a Christian and do you believe Jesus is the only one capable of forgiving sin? Didn't God say it earlier he would forgive sin without the help of a blood sacrifice by anyone or anything? Yes!
Then the LORD said, 'I do forgive, just as you have asked.
Numbers 14:20 (NRS)
As an Atheist I kind see it irrelevant that I have to believe in something in my life and not understand it to be better or moral. Where's the pride? Religion to me is more about faith. While both people of religious and non religious and what not can be moral and respectful.

That, we are on the same page. You are 100% correct that God and Jesus are both forgiving, but their forgiveness is conditional and goes beyond what is moraly accepted by virtue of our nature.

Notice this very clear command: (Matt 5:44-48)

"However, I say to YOU: Continue to love YOUR enemies and to pray for those persecuting YOU; that YOU may prove yourselves sons of YOUR Father who is in the heavens, since he makes his sun rise upon wicked people and good and makes it rain upon righteous people and unrighteous. For if YOU love those loving YOU, what reward do YOU have? Are not also the tax collectors doing the same thing? And if YOU greet YOUR brothers only, what extraordinary thing are YOU doing? Are not also the people of the nations doing the same thing? YOU must accordingly be perfect, as YOUR heavenly Father is perfect."

Thus, God's forgiveness is conditional on OUR PART (not thiers), that is, we can only gain this forgiveness if we also "forgive those who tresspassed against us".

As for what you said "

"Didn't God say it earlier he would forgive sin without the help of a blood sacrifice by anyone or anything? Yes!"

Yes and NO. Before Jesus death or came to earth - the Israelites were commanded to offer up a sacrifice by means of the blood of the animals. This is to remind them of their need for forgiveness of their sins, but the blood of bulls or animals did not removed thier sins - it only 'covered' them. The ONLY way to remove or take away their 'sins' or for that matter the sins of the world is through the 'blood of Christ'. Jesus needed to give his PERFECT SINLESS BODY (symbolized by his blood) in order to "ransom" us from sin and death and thus gain complete forgiveness. That is why Jesus is known as "the lamb of God that takes away the sins of the world" (1 John 1:29).

As for morality, it is interesting to note that even those who do not believe in God had in them a sense of morality. Any idea why? And no one can escape from it no matter how bad a person becomes. It's in all of US - we call it 'conscience'. Any idea why it's there? Did it just happen to be there? A product of a mindless chance or did God put it there in order to guide us from what is moral - a sense of right and wrong?

Sadly, because of wanting to be independent from God, man's moral sense became warped. But by constant 'training' - application of God's word man's moral compass can be restored.

So if a person who professes to be a Christian and does what is condemned by God after knowing it, he is worst than those who have no FAITH. In fact he has trampled the blood of Christ and rendered it useless.

On the other hand those who willingly choose not to have FAITH after hearing the word of God then they already judge themselves.

Q: Is obeying a traffic law different from someone commiting let's say theft?

Are they both punishable according to the law of man - if so what about according to the law of God?

Where did the law of man based its laws from?

ty,
edmc2