Final+Draft+Morality+Vs.+God

Morality vs. God: Only Non-theists can be Genuinely Ethical Myriam E. Vijil Escuela Internacional Sampedrana

**Abstract**

A commonly debated topic has been “Can you be good without God?” The following response suggests to consider not only goodness, but also morality. Non-theists do not acknowledge the existence of God and are thus not governed by His rules. Therefore, they are the only ones who can be genuinely ethical, since only they can decide for themselves what is good and what is not, based on their own morality. Only atheists and agnostics have an authentic moral sense. One rhetorical question that is brought up comes from Plato’s // Euthyphro // dialogue in which the following question arises: // Does God command the good because it is good, or is it good because it is commanded by God? // ( Technokinetics, 2008  ). It then develops into providing three counterarguments and responses against those, trying to convince the reader, that only non-theists are genuinely ethical beings.

Many people use the words “ethical” and “good” as synonyms, but it must be noted that a discrepancy exists between them. To be good is to act in a way approved by society, but not necessarily understanding why you act that way.To be moral is to be able to freely make and understand your own decisions (Ages, 2000). The term “God” is used to describe a supreme deity that is believed to have created everything in the universe, including mankind. __(__ Paquette, 2003  ). To believe in Him is to accept His existence and to live by his norms and commands. I hereby suggest the following: people can be good without believing in God, but they can only be genuinely ethical if they don’t believe in God. To begin with, people can be good if they believe in God. He has set a boundary between good and bad, and has elaborated rules, such as the Ten Commandments. If people respect His boundaries and follow His commandments, they are being good. If someone lives according to the Bible, then he or she will be fulfilling God’s expectation of goodness. Now, even if you don’t accept God’s existence, you can act properly (Epstein,2009). There have been studies that show atheists and agnostics have similar beliefs of good deeds as religious people. The research of Dr. Pyysiainen and co-author Dr. Marc Hauser, from the Departments of Psychology and Human Evolutionary Biology at Harvard University, suggests that intuitive judgments of right and wrong seem to operate independently of explicit religious commitments. (Cell Press, 2010) Someone may not fear going to hell, but he or she can fear jail or the death penalty, so that person would still behave and act in a way approved by society. Goodness, after all, is just an outward and superficial appearance. It’s just conforming to society. Just as a child can learn to read and write, by coercion and rewards he can learn to behave. Furthermore, there are several atheists and agnostics that have improved human kind. Among them are John Watson and Francis Crick, who co-discovered the structure of DNA and won the 1962 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine; Thomas Edison, who invented the incandescent light bulb; Susan B. Anthony, a Civil Rights leader; and Warren Buffett and Bill Gates, who donated billions of dollars to charity (Cline, 2010). None of these people followed God’s rules and still made great deeds for humanity led by their individual morality.
 * Morality vs. God: Only Non-theists can be Genuinely Ethical**

An atheist is a person who believes that there are no deities (Agnes, 2000). An agonist thinks that the existence of any deities is unknown and probably unknowable. (Agnes, 2000). Morality is a creation of man, so you don’t need to believe in God to possess it. Even more, if you do believe in God, from a point of view, you cannot be moral because you will not be able to make moral choices on your own. You will be ruled by God’s rules, not by your own conscious decisions. Your “morals” will depend on what God ordains, so they won’t be morals at all because you will not be making your own choices of what is right and wrong; rather God has already made them for you, He has already set a line between good and bad and right and wrong. People who believe in Him don’t have the freedom to question. They can’t really decide for themselves what is god and what is not. These people are ruled by God’s rules, not their own. They do things because God says they are good, but they can’t tell for themselves, so in reality they are not being ethical. Being that morality is a creation of man, God has nothing to do with its authenticity, and only these two kinds of people can be truly ethical, because they are the only ones not biased by His commands. Some may argue that people cannot be good if they don’t accept God because He is the one who sets the boundaries and if someone does not accept or know these boundaries, that person cannot be good. But, as Plato questioned in his //Euthyphro// dilemma, are things good because they are favored by the gods or do the gods favor them because they are good? (Beaty, 1998). One side of this dilemma is that God commands things because they are good. This would mean that he then bases his decision what to command on what is already morally good. Moral goodness, consequently, must exist before God issues any commands. If moral goodness exists before God issues any commands, then moral goodness is independent of God’s commands. This implies that God’s commands aren’t the source of morality, but merely a source of information about morality, meaning morality itself is not based in divine commands. ( Technokinetics, 2008  ) Others may say society bases its norms in religious beliefs even though they don’t believe in God. They would argue that indirectly God creates morality and people abide by it even if they don’t acknowledge His existence. Laws in most cases are restrained to a morality which we would all agree God considers rightful. However, not everything that religion says can be considered moral because it sometimes instigates violence, which is not a good deed. There are laws that dictate the exact opposite of which God ordains, for example, homosexual marriages and drugs are made legal by laws which were passed by a society that has a very different morality perspective as God’s. Even others can argue that unless someone’s ultimate goal is to reach heaven, one can’t be trusted morally because one’s ethics are misguided. Therefore, they may argue, only believers are moral. But, if you strictly believe in God, you can make irrational choices because you’ll be an absolutist, taking only what the Bible says at all times. Morality is about logic; it’s about how people view right and wrong and about how they create authentic decisions based on their personal beliefs (Barnett, 1998). Atheists and agnostics are the only ones that can be truly moral because their logic and reason is not biased. Yes, morality may differ from person to person, but it’s safe to say that non-theists can openly decide whether their actions are moral or not. In short, someone doesn’t have to believe in God in order to be a good person. Also, people can act in a manner accepted by society and not be moral, if they do not have their own unbiased perceptions of good and bad choices. To be considered moral, one must be able to understand why he makes the choices he does, and not just follow orders. If you do believe in God you can’t be entirely moral because you can’t make decisions for yourself. Thus, both theists and non-theists can be good, but only non-theists can be truly ethical.

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 * Sources**

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