Well, ok. But that's a Deist notion of God, which will not do here.

But that's a Deist notion of God, which will not do here. — tim wood

Not do what?

So you're talking about Engels now? Try and focus. Scatterbrains not welcome.

that morality requires God (which it does) — Bartricks

How exactly does that work? If a real God, what would he know, and why would he care, about the good - the good being a human conception? If not real, then an idea, but not necessarily an idea of a divine being, the good being approachable through reason and human spirit.

Engels' article was in Marx's newspaper. And Marx himself said similar things about his generation having to go down to make room for those who were fit for the new socialist world order.

"The revolution, which finds here not its end, but its organizational beginning, is no short-lived revolution. The present generation is like the Jews whom Moses led through the wilderness. It not only has a new world to conquer, it must go under in order to make room for the men who are able to cope with a new world"

https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1850/class-struggles-france/ch03.htm

Engels wrote:

“Darwin, by the way, whom I’m reading just now, is absolutely splendid. There was one aspect of teleology that had yet to be demolished, and that has now been done. Never before has so grandiose an attempt been made to demonstrate historical evolution in Nature, and certainly never to such good effect” - Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, Marx-Engels Collected Works [MECW], vol. 40, 441.

Marx wrote:

“Darwin’s work is most important and suits my purpose in that it provides a basis in natural science for the historical class struggle… “

MECW, vol. 41: 246–47

So, Marx and Engels:

1. Used Darwinism as "the basis for their class struggle".

2. They believed in a new type of man that "could cope with the new socialist world order".

3. And they believed that Slavic nations had to be eliminated.

All three elements are later found in Nazi ideology.

True, people aren't God. But people say that God gave them the laws according to which they act. — Apollodorus

How very convenient. :wink:

How exactly does that work? If a real God, what would he know, and why would he care, about the good - the good being a human conception? If not real, then an idea, but not necessarily an idea of a divine being, the good being approachable through reason and human spirit. — tim wood

How does it work? Water is made of molecules, yes? So, in order for water to exist, some molecules need to exist. And if some water does indeed exist, then some molecules exist. Likewise, for moral norms and values to exist, God needs to exist (why? Because moral norms and values are the prescriptions and values of God). And if moral norms and values do exist, God exists.

But like most, you are profoundly confused about these matters and make an elementary mistake. And that mistake is to have confused a concept with what it is the concept of. Humans - most of them - have the concept of morality. That does not mean that morality is a concept. Morality itself is that which answers to the concept. But like I say, there's a subtlety of mind needed to recognize this that few here possess.

You are confusing this place with a hate site. Go back to 4chan or something.

Lacking much subtlety of mind myself, I’m gonna post this.

Likewise, for moral norms and values to exist, God needs to exist (why? Because moral norms and values are the prescriptions and values of God). And if moral norms and values do exist, God exists. — Bartricks

This implies God to be a psyche, for prescriptions and values pertain to psyches alone. They, for example, do not pertain to Aristotelian notions of a final cause as an unmoved mover nor to Neoplatonist notions of “the One”, neither of which were deemed to be psyches (and thereby to prescribe things and to hold values).

This one supreme psyche termed “God”, then, would hold these prescriptions and values due to him/her/it being under the sway of a metaphysical good that is not of God’s creation - toward which God aspires and conforms - or, else, this supreme psyche, “God” would create prescriptions and values of the Good in a fully purposeless manner - such that they are the products of a senseless caprice which can hold no reason for manifesting in one manner rather than another.

If the former, God is not the creator of the Good - i.e., of goodness proper - but is a servant/subject of it as are all other lesser beings. There then is no reason to believe in God in order to believe in the Good, for the Good is not contingent upon God. (Here tentatively granting there being such a supreme psyche which is labeled “God”)

If the latter, God is the creator of that which is the Good, even to the extent of the Good being that which pleases God. For the sake of argument, here assuming that God being the creator of that which pleases God is not, of itself, logically incoherent … God’s creation of the Good, and of prescriptions and values regarding the Good, has then occurred for no reason, no motive, and no purpose: for these would all necessitate the correctitude of an a priori, uncreated Good toward which God aspires and conforms, and thereby intends, in the creations God brings about. In this second scenario, then, when overlooking its logical incoherencies, what was metaphysically good yesterday could be unadulterated evil tomorrow, or vice versa; bringing about a metaphysical moral relativism pivoted on the caprice of a superlatively amoral despot whose dictums are literally irrational. Here, then, there must be God in order for the Good to be.

So - if no major mistakes of reasoning have been done on my part - how does one go about demonstrating the verity of the Good being contingent upon God, rather than the Good not being contingent upon God?

Likewise, for moral norms and values to exist, God needs to exist — Bartricks

Buddhists don’t agree. They nevertheless hold a moral code based on transcendence, i.e. liberation from rebirth in saṃsāra.

:up:

Human rights were historically introduced as god-given and therefore sacred in both the French Déclaration des droits de l'homme and in the American Bill of rights. You can't do this anymore. You can't say in a secular framework: "Human life is sacred", although it is still said of course, including by secularists. And the reason it is still said, is that we modern secularists miss a sense of the sacred to ground our values. — Olivier5

I do agree with this, and often try to make this point, but it’s usually rejected. I was reading in Pierre Hadot that the notion of the sanctity of the individual was also found in the Stoics. But I agree with your broader point that if the sacred is rejected as a category then human life looses that dimension.

In any case, the point seems clear to me that absent any conception of a summum bonum, an ultimate end or good, then the only moral philosophy can be some form of utilitarianism, the greatest good for the greatest number. I suppose you could appeal to something like eudomonia - but even in Aristotelian ethics, whilst not explicitly theistic, you still find the conception that the ‘highest good’ entails contemplation of the first principles. ‘ Contemplation is that activity in which nous intuits and delights in first principles.’

...moral norms and values are the prescriptions and values of God... — Bartricks

This claim is taken upon faith and faith alone. Some people have moral norms and values despite not believing in God. I personally do not believe that the God of Abraham makes much sense at all given today's knowledge. Back in the day, sure...

God did it.

If one wishes to exalt their own moral values above others' then attributing their existence to some supernatural being is one way to convince others; although I find such claims to be presupposing exactly what needs argued for.

You know what we find when we look at codified rules of behaviour?

People writing those rules based upon individual particular circumstances. I've yet to see any evidence whatsoever that leads me to believe that some supernatural divine entity such as the one described in JudeoChristian or Islamic circles has somehow intervened in some set of circumstances of another.

The problem of evil. The euthyphro problem. Occam's razor.

The holy trinity.

Sorry sir/madam, as the case may be but I just remembered that I wanted to start a thread in a similar vein centered around the quote below,

If there is no God, everything is permitted. — Fyodor Doestevsky (Brothers Karamazov)

Doestevsky's words seem to square with the title of the OP which is "Belief in god is necessary for being good".

As far as I can tell, Doestevesky is spot on. A thorough survey of the philosophy of ethics reveals a stark and disturbing truth viz. no existent moral theory that's made a clean break from theism manages to draw a clear boundary between that which is moral (good, mandatory) and immoral (bad, prohibited). Instead what they give us is only rough guidelines in ethics which land up making nothing compulsory (good) or forbidden (bad) and everything is, more or less, permitted (amoral from a certain perspective) depending on the situation of course. A case in point is killing. For argument's sake let's contextualize killing in utilitarianism (most happiness for the most people). As per utilitarianism, I shouldn't kill a defenseless child but I can off a man who tries to detonate a bomb in a crowded mall. See? Not killing isn't mandatory, nor is killing prohibited, and that makes killing permissible, exactly what Doestevsky is asserting in the quote above.

Consider now a theistic morality grounded in an all-powerful, all-knowing, all-good God. Such a morality would, by token of such wisdom, goodness and power, make a clear distinction beween good (mandatory) and bad (prohibited). There wouldn't, rather shouldn't, be special cases that would require us to relax, or make some concessions in re, the moral laws that (we believe) God decreed. Killing, for example, would always be evil and not killing, similarly, would be good in all situations.

Thus, If God doesn't exist, everything is permitted [amoral or fuzzy boundary between good and bad]. The proof is right under our noses in the form of moral paradoxes e.g. murderer asking for your friend's whereabouts (Kantian ethics), hanging an innocent man to prevent a bloody riot (Utilitarianism).

This then leads us to the gist of Doestoevsky's quote. There's another situation in which everything is permitted, morally speaking, and that's when the axioms/postulates of our moral theory (those that have distanced from theism) are mutually inconsistent or if together they constitute a contradiction. By ex falso quodlibet, everything is permitted. To cut to the chase, Doestoevsky is saying the absence of God is logically equivalent to an inconsistent moral theory that's atheistic and, from the preceding paragraphs, he's hit the nail on the head, right? And if one really wants to push the envelope, Doestoevsky is claiming that atheism is a contradiction!

You are confusing this place with a hate site. Go back to 4chan or something. — Olivier5

That's what neo-Marxists usually say when they are reminded of their prophet's own words. Very predictable.

God needs to exist (why? Because moral norms and values are the prescriptions and values of God). And if moral norms and values do exist, God exists. — Bartricks

Correct. Historically, laws or rules of proper conduct have always been said to have been given to mankind by God. This goes as far back as the earliest written records, like the Law of Hammurabi (1792 - 1750 BC):

"Hammurabi is best known for having issued the Code of Hammurabi, which he claimed to have received from Shamash, the Babylonian god of justice"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hammurabi

The same applies to the Law of Moses, etc.

The idea that laws are not given by God is a modern belief or unexamined superstition that is contradicted by history.

I disagree with the OP. Belief in God is irrelevant to being good, or evil.

Both are a matter of perspective, nothing more. In a nutshell, that which supports or strengthens my position or belief system is good, that which weakens is bad. Change position and that which makes up good or evil also changes. All things are permissible and all things are prohibited, depending on the reference point.

God has no bearing on the matter, unless of course one's behaviour is being attributed to the demands of an invisible and unprovable being, in which case there are other, possibly more pressing, problems to deal with.

I disagree with the OP. Belief in God is irrelevant to being good, or evil. — Book273

I think the point Banno was trying to make is that those who think that belief in God is necessary for being good are poor, ignorant, and right-wing.

Those that think so have a lower income, less education, tend to the political right and are older than those who do not. — Banno

But this actually supports the view that the richer you are, the more you believe in material possessions and less in God. Or as the Bible puts it, you can't serve two masters, you must choose between God and Mammon (Money). The rich tend to choose the latter and Banno's article seems to confirm this.

Belief in god is necessary for being good.

Those that think so have a lower income, less education, tend to the political right and are older than those who do not. — Banno

And this is bad?

Poor people are bad?
People with less edication are bad?
People who tend to the political right are bad?
People who are older than those who do not not believe "Belief in god is necessary for being good" are bad?


Oh, and what is "good"?

the point seems clear to me that absent any conception of a summum bonum, an ultimate end or good, then the only moral philosophy can be some form of utilitarianism, the greatest good for the greatest number. I suppose you could appeal to something like eudomonia — Wayfarer

But then, the end justifies the means and we know that leads to the trampling of human rights. Utilitarianism alone does not suffice. We do need to work toward general welfare, but not at the cost of individual oppression. E.g. the police can't summarily kill an individual without due process, even if his death would make millions of other folks happy.

The solution to our moral and political qualms are never to be found in ONE principle alone, like "work for the greater good". There's always several principles to be considered, including inalienable rights of the individual which society cannot trample on, such as habeas corpus, but also the rights of future generations and hence the moral imperative of environmental sustainability. The basic human Darwinian drive to compete with one's neighbour has also to be acknowledged and room left for it through an ethic of fair and open competition (e.g. in business, sport or science). Utilitarianism is just too simplistic and one-dimensional to work.

Oh, and what is "good"? — baker

Maybe neo-Marxism and Stalinism?

The thread title brings another thought: The belief that belief in god is necessary for being good is itself not good.

I think that was the general idea. The question is whether anyone can actually prove this to be the case.

You are not getting it. Which is worrying, given the point is so simple.

The claim that morality requires God (which is demonstrably true) is not equivalent to the claim that belief in God is necessary for moral behaviour. Indeed, they are so obviously not equivalent that I think anyone who regularly conflates them is a total berk.

My house is made of wood. That claim is not equivalent to the claim that entering my house requires believing in wood. Were I to claim that my house is made of wood, would you respond 'but many people have managed to enter your house without believing in wood!'?

Or if I claimed water is made of molecules, would you reply 'but many people drink water without believing in molecules!'?

So, Marx and Engels:

1. Used Darwinism as "the basis for their class struggle".

2. They believed in a new type of man that "could cope with the new socialist world order".

3. And they believed that Slavic nations had to be eliminated.

All three elements are later found in Nazi ideology. — Apollodorus

1. Marx and Engels developed their historic theory in the 1840's, inspired mostly by recent or contemporary political events: the American and French revolutions, the 1848 revolutions and the like, much before they ever heard of Darwin who published On the Origin of Species in 1859. Marx then simply recognized an objective and obvious similarity between his views of history and Darwin's view of evolution. I don't see what's wrong with that.

2. Yes of course. That's the basic idea: man can and must evolve.

3. I don't think so. Engels was commenting à chaud, in a polemical manner. I don't see Marx planning the final extermination of all Slavs in any of those quotes and links you posted.

There are many other things the Nazis borrowed from the Marxists: the idea of a mass party and ideology, the idea of revolutionary violence as a natural means for progress, the very idea of history having a meaningful direction, etc. etc.

Nazism was a twisted, sad copy, a nationalist plagiarism of Marxism, done by paranoid murderers.

I have never met an intelligent buddhist. Indeed, 'buddhist' means 'bullshittist' I think. So that a buddhist thinks x is not in any way shape or form good evidence that x.

I have never met an intelligent buddhist. Indeed, 'buddhist' means 'bullshittist'. So that a buddhist thinks x is not in any way shape or form good evidence that x. — Bartricks

:sad: When it comes to being good, one's IQ is a hindrance! Buddhism is about pure compassion come hell or high water! Can't think/reason your way out of that one, can you? Just saying...

I am not sure I fully follow you. But if you are asking why moral norms and values will not be arbitrary if they are the prescriptions and values of God, then the following explains.
First, let's be clear what 'arbitrary' means. It means 'without reason'.
Now note that moral norms and values are but a subset of the prescriptions and values of Reason.
Now note that Reason must be a mind, for only minds can issue prescriptions or value things.
Now note that Reason, being a mind, will be omnipotent, omniscient and omnibenevolent, and thus will be God.
Now note that it is not possible for the prescriptions and values of this mind to be arbitrary, given that arbitrary means 'without reason' and these are the precise opposite, for they are the prescriptions and values of none other than Reason herself!

How is it a hindrance? To be intelligent is to be responsive to Reason. And to be good is to behave in a manner, and instantiate traits of character, that Reason approves of. Reason is not going to disapprove of being responsive to her, and the more responsive one is, the more likely one is to be someone she approves of. So intelligence will generally help one to be good, not pose an obstacle to it. It may not be necessary, but it isn't a hindrance.

How is it a hindrance? To be intelligent is to be responsive to Reason. And to be good is to behave in a manner, and instantiate traits of character, that Reason approves of. Reason is not going to disapprove of being responsive to her, and the more responsive one is, the more likely one is to be someone she approves of. So intelligence will generally help one to be good, not pose an obstacle to it. It may not be necessary, but it isn't a hindrance. — Bartricks

Adam, Eve, The Serpent, The Tree Of Knowledge, Original Sin. You do the math.

A reply worthy of a buddhist.