RELIGION HAS
A
GOD THAT INVENTS MORALITY
If we want to believe in God we must want it for it is best for us or moral and because God gives us standards to live up to. This view implies we must obey God.
There is a problem with God and moral commands. Does God make these commands because they are good? Or are the commands only good because he says so and for no other reason?
Does God command what is right
because it is right? Then God is not God
or boss for he has to obey moral law but he doesn’t make it. He only conforms
to it. In that case, belief in God or
non-belief has nothing to do with morality.
You can be moral without God. You
would even have the right to disagree with God on right and wrong for it’s independent of him!
Does something become right
simply because God commands it? If the
answer is yes then he invents it and has the power to make raping babies for no
reason good. Good has nothing to do with
what is best but doing what God wants. This
view is against commonsense and if belief in God requires it belief in God is
evil. In that case there is no real
morality but we just pretend that God’s wishes are morality.
Christians do not like the view that morality is independent of God. If morality is independent of God, there could be circumstances in which God does not want us to believe he exists. It might be bad for us. Truth sometimes is bad for us.
Because of atheist criticism, some of them have started to reject the view that the cruellest and most worthless act of hatred would be right if God commands that it be done.
So some Christians have started to say that both of these options is unacceptable and bad (page 76, The Handbook of Christian Apologetics*).
They claim that it is wrong to think that we have to choose one or the other. So they have come up with a third option which they say is the only real one.
The third option is that morality is based on the way God is (page 76). Morality is God’s character and it cannot change for God cannot change. To put it another way, somehow God and morality are one and the same. This view contradicts the Christian idea that God comes first and God alone matters because if God is morality then it follows that the atheist who behaves morally is having a relationship with God but just doesn't realise it. God coming first implies the divine command theory which has caused so much hatred and division and bloodshed is true.
The idea that morality is God's character solves nothing at all. It still takes us back to the other two options.
If God is morality, God either makes the moral law or he doesn’t. If he doesn't then it exists whether there is a God or not. For example, if there were no God or anything it would still be true that murder is bad even though there are no people to be murdered. Belief in God denies this truth for it denies that morality is independent of God so the Christians in fact, despite pretending they don’t, do actually believe that morality is invented by God. To say morality is not independent of God but is his character and one with him is the same as saying that God invents morality except the idea that he is this morality makes it worse. A God that invented morality would be bad enough but one that was identical with this invention would be worse. Belief in God is intrinsically evil. Saying God is morality solves nothing. Even if God is morality: the question, is God the maker of morality or is he not, is still left unanswered. The Christians are deceiving us with their strange answers that are not answers at all but just nonsense dished up in the hope that we will stop asking questions.
The Future of Atheism, Alister McGrath and Daniel Dennett, SPCK, London, 2008 page 160 tells us that God does not have moral obligations because he is already perfect. So he doesn't need moral laws for he just does good naturally. By doing good, he is not keeping moral laws or moral obligations. He is not a moral agent. This view says that it is not the moral commands God gives that make him worthy of worship, it is the fact that he is perfect and doesn't need to keep such commandments himself for he does it naturally and doesn't need to be compelled by laws to do it (page 158). So they say that we should not be asking if God commands morality because it is good or because he invents it but asking, "Is God's character good just because it is God's or is it good because it fits some standard of good?" The Christians of course reply that God's character is good just because it is God's. But we must observe that only a good character makes good moral commandments. So telling us we should forget about God commanding and focus on his character is rather pointless.
So anyway, the Christians say that just because God's character is God's it is good.
A startling conclusion appears. God does not consider anything good unless he values it. But his valuing it does not depend on its being good (page 158). In other words, this is indeed the divine command theory with the wording changed. It is the divine command theory because it says what God values is good but its being good has nothing to do with his valuing it. What if he valued child abuse? Would it become good then? A God who values things and doesn't worry if they are good is a God that is arbitrarily inventing good and evil. If God values something and doesn't care if it is good or not, then he is inventing good.
It is obvious to the Christians that God either does good because it is good whether he sees it as good or not or he does what he pretends is good. They know fine well that there is nothing else on the menu but these two options. To invent a third option that doesn't exist is just vicious and underhand and insulting to atheists. And it is intolerant for it expresses the view that you need to believe in God before you can really believe in morality or in right and wrong. Nobody in their right mind would expect you to tolerate somebody that holds views that threaten the whole fabric of decency. Tolerance has to have a limit. The teaching subtly incites to hatred against atheists and doubters.
The person who does not admit the problem or make the problem of supreme importance and attempt to concentrate on it before doing anything else is doing evil by going ahead and then trying to prove the existence of God or to show that there are reasonable grounds for believing in God. You need to prove that Hitler is good before you can tell people they have a duty to believe in his authority. We do not want to be promoting a belief in God for it to turn out that it demands the divine command theory - that God can make child abuse holy by simply ordering us to abuse children. Many a Christian paedophile was consoled by the vile doctrine.
A God who does good naturally can hardly attract us as moral agents. He would only attract those who want the benefits of being pally with him. A God who struggles to do the right thing and who manages to do it can be a role model for aspiring moral agents. Our worship of a God who doesn't struggle and who doesn't have moral laws to guide him is simply fake. We would then be more interested in deluding ourselves than really worshipping.
To say that God is the same thing
as kindness is ridiculous for kindness is not a thing or a power but an
abstract quality. It doesn’t exist any
more than the number two exists. Yes we
know what kindness is but it is not a thing like a Christmas cake. If God is kindness then God doesn’t exist as
a being.
To say that God and morality are the same is to say that there is no morality without belief in God. It is to deny the fact that they are not the same for even if there was nothing, hurting people for no reason would be bad. This in itself shows more concern for God and believing in him than in morality. Its evil. The only moral justification for believing in God is to help yourself and others and him. Not caring about right and wrong means that the reason you believe in God is not because you care about him so its not a good reason you have for believing!
Believers say that if we suppose that there is a law of right and wrong that even God must obey then we must ask, is what is good commanded by this law because it is good or is there another law that decides that? Those of them that say that God's goodness is about his good character not about the rules he makes have the same question to deal with except it will be phrased: Is God's character good because it is God's or God's nature or is there some other standard that even God's character has to match to be good? (page 159, The Future of Atheism, Alister McGrath and Daniel Dennett, SPCK, London, 2008). Suppose God can't be good unless his goodness matches some standard. What about the standard? How do we know it is good? Perhaps there needs to be another that decides that? What about this new standard? Perhaps there needs to be another that decides that? Perhaps there needs to be yet another and so on and on to infinity. Where do we stop? They say there is a need to stop somewhere. They say they choose God as their stopping point - but they admit given their reasoning that this is arbitrary (ibid page 160). Again, we see them left with the problem that if a moral authority is decided arbitrarily and chosen arbitrarily then the morality itself is no better than invention. Again, they are back to the idea of a God that invents morality after all. They want to accuse disbelievers in God of being arbitrary while they are arbitrary themselves.
They think God is the law of right and wrong or good and evil not some law outside of him. They deny that God has to keep up to a standard he does not make. They say it is God's nature to be good. But why should God's nature be considered to be good just because it is God's? Why not say that Zeus's nature is good just because it is his?
There is a baby. Should we torture the baby for fun? There are reasons why we should not. These reasons stand for themselves. There is nothing arbitrary about it. To say what is good is good even if there is no God to command it is to say our stopping point is those reasons. We can't choose God as the stopping point for that would mean if he commanded us to abuse the baby it would be right to do so. What the believers are saying is another proof that they are supporting the divine command theory and thus insulting decent people.
If we need belief in God before we can see that we must not torment a baby for fun then we are monsters.
The view that because God made us we owe him and so we must obey him out of gratitude seems to be saying that God invents morality and we must do what he says regardless if we think it makes sense or not. It would be evil to do good not because it is right but because it commanded.
The believers say as well that if morality or good and evil have nothing to do with God then it wouldn't account for our becoming morally responsible beings if we just had naturalistic and non-divine causes. But why should this be a problem? We don't have answers to lots of questions. Plus if we really need to believe that God is morality and God invents it then we are only hypocrites and not morally responsible beings.
Belief in God is not about
morality but about religious self-interest of the worst and most devious and hidden
kind. God is just worshipped as a cover
for self-interest.
Conclusion
The God-belief is a danger to
our standards of right and wrong. Those who
say it is essential to believe in God before one can believe in any of these standards
are lying for there is nothing in this book that hasn’t been constantly said to
the Church by its critics over the centuries.
Belief in God is bad for us therefore to promote the belief is bad. To say we must believe in God to be moral
implies that the evil doctrine that "an act is never good in itself but needs a
God to approve of it to make it good" is true. This is because it implies that
even child rape, for instance, would be good if God allowed it. If good is
independent of belief in God then no big deal should be made of God. It would
mean that good is good whether there is a God or not. We have enough
trouble trying to work out right and wrong without religion adding to the
difficulties and making a laughing stock of our efforts.
* Handbook of Christian Apologetics, Peter Kreeft and Ronald Tacelli, Monarch Publications, East Sussex, 1995
The Future of Atheism, Alister McGrath and Daniel Dennett, SPCK, London , 2008
Ethics: The Fundamentals, Julia Driver, Blackwell Publishing, Oxford, 2007
The Cambridge Companion to Atheism, Edited by Michael Martin, Cambridge University Press, New York, 2007