Do we really need explicit faith in an explicit God to be truly moral?

The argument for God from morality goes,

 

Objective morals exist.

Without God there is no objective morality.

Therefore God exists.

 

By reading this you can see that it hangs in space too much.  You feel it cannot sink it for there are assumptions in there that are not made clear.  It looks like something trying to impress us by seeming profound and deep and if we don't see that the problem is us.

 

It does indeed have unstated assumptions and they are all lies or maybe to be kind we will call them errors. 

 

Error One: We need objective morality and to define it correctly.  Actually what is important is that we have to have an objective morality even if it is not really objective. It is built into us.

Error Two: You need a God who is the personification of goodness so that to honour him is to honour all the moral virtues.  Actually, objective morality can exist without being grounded in a conscious creator. A God who is more like a power would do.  Indeed the god of the religions is more like a power than most realise.  Also God doesn't have sex so how can he help inspire us with the great moral virtue of chastity?

Error Three: It is so simple.  No!!!  Saying God grounds objective morality is a very complicated question.  The argument is too simple.

 

Clearly belief in God is not really important for morality.  If it were then the person who is not believing enough is evil!  You cannot make a morality based on the notion that the top moral obligation is to believe intensely!  Belief does not work like that!  Also, when a moral system needs and depends on a strong view of God and strong faith that will lead to people being pressured and forced.  They will be afraid to say what they really think.  That is not morality but blackmail.

Religion states that those who have a vague sense of something that makes morality obligatory and objective have enough to believe in an objective morality. But the atheist can agree and deny that whatever it is is God. If a vague perception will suffice then religion is behaving disgracefully by stressing that we must believe in God and its version of God to boot!

Religion contradicts itself by saying the argument above proves God and then saying that a vague sense of something will do.

A creator could be about objective morality without being anything like a conscious agent. If objective morality proceeds from the intelligence of a good God then surely it can proceed from an impersonal intelligence too?

Religion will reply that God needs intelligence and to be a person. But if he needs both it follows that if he is just an intelligence and not a person it is better than nothing and gives objective morality some support and some support is enough. If it takes a and b to do it then a or b can do it partly without the other.

One day, computers will judge criminals and enforce the law. Their authority will have to be acknowledged and respected. So why can't an impersonal force be behind objective morality?

God does not have feelings but has intelligence. Religion teaches this. How does his intelligence relate to his moral authority? God knowing what the right thing is the basis of objective morality. But that means he has to see it just like we do. It does not mean morality depends on his authority.

Human nature cannot really relate to a being that stands for a standard that is so unfeeling and emotionless. We like to have our emotions involved in our moral formation.

Fusing an emotionless God and morality will put people off morality if they think they have to. It will make doing good more difficult and doing evil more appealing.

Objective morality simply has to exist without God. The absence or non-existence of God gives morality its objectivity and reality.

 

 
OBJECTION: But God is Life?
 
Some argue that life implies morality and as God is alive then he is morality in that sense.
 
If God exists then God is life. God is alive. Life then is God's most important trait. If we should respect God then we are really respecting life. If there is no God, life still exists. Our values come from wanting to respect life, to live life and to make life happy. We don't need God. Even when people appeal to God to invent their morality the humanism of respecting life is still driving them.
 
The geranium is alive but does that give it moral significance? Certainly not!
 
QUESTION: Does our Moral Nature indicate that God is Morality?
 
The notion that we are moral beings and that suggests that a moral God might have made us that way is interesting. It seems to put a lot of faith and reverence towards our pathetic moral leanings. Our attempts to be fair always fall short - we do not really know how to administer justice to the wicked. We are corrupt and deceitful and we are asked to see our flawed morals as a reflection of a moral God?
 
If God is real to you, you see him as moral and aspire to that. You do not start with your "morals" and try to see a pointer to God in them. That is the cart before the horse and arrogant. If you love your child you will not love him just because you see you in him but you will love him for being him.
 
The believers say 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. God only makes the problem worse. He is not an answer but a contrivance.

You don't know if some naturalistic cause is the reason we think or are inclined to think there is a God - even if there is one. If religion is correct that it is not all blind force the fact remains that some of it is. Nobody denies that. If you believe winning a lottery is planned by nobody you can believe that nature may have implanted the notion of a God in you.
 
Why God's Character?
 
Morality is said to be grounded in God’s character. Why his? Is it because God’s character is perfect? But the perfection should not matter. The ideal is not changed even if everybody falls short including God. If God were imperfect then what standard says that?
 
What if hypothetically God’s character was not perfect but falling short of an ideal? It would be odd to say it is grounded in God’s character just because it is perfect for what does perfect have to do with it? Why can’t our character that strives for an ideal and often falls short not do?
 
It gets personal all right!
 
Religion often says kindness is good and God is kind and God cannot help that for he does not invent moral values. Thus the standard of kindness is not created by God. Kindness is independent of God and it is by chance that God is kind. So kindness and God are distinct and separate - kindness does not need God to validate it. At this point Christians just say out of thin air that it does for kindness needs to be a person, it needs to be God, to be taken seriously. To deny that kindness is independent after saying it is really amounts to saying, "We need to invent morality by saying morality and God are somehow the same". That is saying morality is an invention. It is worse than saying God invents morality for we are say we are inventing morality and calling it God. 
 
If anybody says that you need to believe in God to believe in morality, they mean they are inventing morality. They are bad enough but those who invent morality and call it God - they do it the other way around - are far more controlling and manipulative.
 
MORALITY IS NOT A PERSON IN ANY MEANINGFUL SENSE
 
If morality is a person then what about being free? Morality is not about good things such as justice and love but about enforcing them. For example, if you say there are no moral values then you are saying you value the truth that there are no moral values. So if you try to avoid morality you end up with another version. Morality is a prison in that sense.
 
God himself would be ruled by morality. If morality is a person and that person is God then we should be more accurate and say, "Morality is a victimised person." None of this makes any sense. A person needs freedom and a God who is imprisoned by it needs our compassion. Instead of, "I worship you God of justice and love", it is, "You are forced and thus uninspiring to me. I pity you."
 
FINALLY
 
Morality is abstract and cannot be a person. It is that simple. Your dinner if it is your dinner cannot be a ghost. Morality and person are two different definitions.
 
If God is the person who is morality then why pick him? Why not yourself? To pick a God to rule over you, means you are still the one doing the ruling. Who does the picking? So if you are going to pick yourself then do it but be honest about it.
 
If you don't want people being arbitrary about morality God=morality is not a solution but a new and worse problem.
 
Our understanding of love and justice is too inaccurate and our understanding of what rules to make to serve them is even worse. Grounding a vague morality in God solves nothing.

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