Can the existence of God be demonstrated by logic?

[McCulloch]

I believe that the following facets of my faith can be demonstrated by logical deduction
1. There is a God

Can the existence of God be demonstrated by logical deduction?

[Artie]

But in the end it all comes down to an ultimately selfish morality apart from a belief in God

No it doesn't. How many times do I have to write that what benefits yourself, your community and ultimately the human race is good, what only serves yourself is bad because that is automatically detrimental to everybody including yourself?

- that's what I'm getting at. You said it yourself: "It will automatically become detrimental to you because people will notice you only care about yourself and will be reluctant to cooperate with you." Such morality will ultimately focus only on one's own good rather than others,

No it doesn't. What is good for you and good for others is always the best option.

and do good only for superficial purposes, to be noticed, and avoid doing bad likewise, only to avoid getting caught or punished.

That would be the Christian point of view. Doing good to get to Heaven and avoid Hell, not to be good because it's the right thing to be. You are desperately trying to project this Christian immoral view onto moral people.

I don't see Christianity that way. I see it as a call to love others unconditionally because God loved us that way. I see it as a call to do good for the sake of enjoying doing good. I see it as a call to do what's right because we are made new people, born again, who have natures that want to do what's right and enjoy it. I see it as a call to care about people for who they are rather than societal rank or external factors like Martin Luther King Jr. said, looking past the superficial. The book of James criticizes looking at outward appearance, as did Jesus. I see the New Testament as a beautiful call for people to look past outward appearance, and the lone, good inspiration of any religion to do so, contrary to what else the world teaches.

Of course you see it as a call. That is why religion evolved. Immoral people have to be called to act morally, they have to be explained how to act morally, they have to be told how to act morally, moral people don't need to be called they are moral in themselves.

What I'm getting at though is how do societal constructs like morality "evolve" anyway? It just seems to me like atheists tend to look at everything through an evolutionary mindset, that everything evolves the way microevolution works, over slow gradual periods into greater complexity or refinement. But at the heart of this is an assumption that a process if left to itself will just gradually develop something complex, as though guided by an unseen hand.

One of the "unseen hands" in this case is natural selection. If you read about evolution you will discover how it works.

1. Organisms started cooperating.
2. Organisms that cooperated survived better.
3. Cooperation automatically evolved a common code of conduct called morals.
4. Those codes were expressed in religions and justice systems.
5. Those who were naturally moral and understood and lived by the codes had a better chance of survival so evolution selected for them.
6. Those who weren't moral but managed to at least respect the justice system to some degree had a better chance of survival so evolution selected for them.
7. Those who weren't moral but believed that they should obey what some god says is moral for the reward of going to heaven or not end up in hell also had a better chance of survival so evolution selected for them.

So what I'm getting at, I guess, is whether there's empirical evidence for how religion as a societal construct can develop like this, or even would develop. Because I'm not sure why it would or should develop that way. As a means of population control for morality?

Yes.

Then you must ask why humans or society would want to be moral.

Because people who weren't moral were less likely to survive so moral people or people behaving morally are selected for because they are the ones who survive.

Again, I think governments like China can exist which construct order and governance without religion. I'm not convinced that's the answer to why religion as a concept would be evolved by society.

Of course they can exist without religion. There are plenty of moral people with no interest in religion.

So what I'm trying to figure out is why society as a whole would evolve religion as a concept, especially one that tells people to live to a higher standard like the Bible. Why would people want to be held accountable and told to do what they don't want to, and not to do what they want to? Especially specific things like those in the Mosaic Law?

The same way they evolved the justice system. What to do with immoral people? What if they don't respect the justice system? Just invent a higher authority with a bigger carrot and worse punishment and hope you can get immoral people to behave morally that way. It's simply the next logical step.

Actually, Nazi Germany did that because it did benefit Germany, the Jews held a lot of the wealth and by demonizing them he took over the wealth. By declaring war on other countries he got Germany out of their depression and poverty, and made a lot of his citizens happy (the ones he wasn't murdering anyway). It's a good thing the allied powers stopped him or he'd have gotten away with it. My concern is that that could be justified however under a purely self-interested morality.

Hitler was a Christian and said he just continued the work of Jesus.

"My feelings as a Christian points me to my Lord and Savior as a fighter. It points me to the man who once in loneliness, surrounded only by a few followers, recognized these Jews for what they were and summoned men to fight against them and who, God's truth! was greatest not as a sufferer but as a fighter. In boundless love as a Christian and as a man I read through the passage which tells us how the Lord at last rose in His might and seized the scourge to drive out of the Temple the brood of vipers and adders. How terrific was His fight for the world against the Jewish poison. To-day, after two thousand years, with deepest emotion I recognize more profoundly than ever before in the fact that it was for this that He had to shed His blood upon the Cross. As a Christian I have no duty to allow myself to be cheated, but I have the duty to be a fighter for truth and justice.... And if there is anything which could demonstrate that we are acting rightly it is the distress that daily grows. For as a Christian I have also a duty to my own people.... When I go out in the morning and see these men standing in their queues and look into their pinched faces, then I believe I would be no Christian, but a very devil if I felt no pity for them, if I did not, as did our Lord two thousand years ago, turn against those by whom to-day this poor people is plundered and exploited.

-Adolf Hitler, in his speech in Munich on 12 April 1922"

Hitler was a nutcase and didn't have morals, logic, reason or common sense and so far gone nothing could stop him.

http://www.nobeliefs.com/speeches.htm

[dusk]

I don't see Christianity that way. I see it as a call to love others unconditionally because God loved us that way.

You might also see it as a call to love each other so as to further the ideal of a peaceful and friendly society. God is just the vehicle used for those people that need to personify everything like thy did with death and various other things to help them understand it incorporate it.

Most peope are actually not selfish and many people understand that even if they do not get caught every deed changes society. Death penalty is one such thing. It is considered uncivilized in most countries not because some wouldn't deserve it but because just making a few exceptions keep the mentality around. One corrupt politician can easily get away with it but just one can errode trust in the trade and as soon as one starts with a small bad deed nothing will stop the others.
It is code of conduct and not that hard to understand. Religion and absolute morals with threats like hell and eternal suffering are simply ways to make ignorant people understand or at least act properly according to complex social problems.
People aren't all so selfish. In fact most people are really good when they are treated nice and most people like being treated nice. Most people don't like hypocrits and most people aren't violent but feel pain when others are hurt. Many people feel very good when they can do things for others, when they feel like the others value them.
Atheists as arti and I simple understand that we act moral for us, for the people we like, for our own self esteem, for the ideal world that we wish to live in, the ideal society that we want.

Morality with out social beings, without communities is an empty meaningless term. Imagine we would be all loners like white sharks what is right and wrong for a white shark? Morality is an immanent concept in social structures and not set in stone but dependent on individual and common goals and aspirations.

It is best understood when one looks at what it is really like. What international law truly looks like. The whole idea of absolutist morals are necessary for ignorant or very violent people and they don't work too well either because the evil people simple bend them to their own purposes. It is a way of forcing one set of morals on everybody. The modern day secularists believe that most humans are generally good and want the same thing.
Sometimes religion is also the escape for perceived injustice when the unfairness of this world has to be balanced by the after life. Ironically many Atheist don't believe in god because they think a benevolent omnipotent creator shouldn't create such an unfair place.
Regardless one should worry about which world one wants to be better the one we live in or the balancing eternal after life that is most likely the phantasy of narcist humans that cannot fathom their own non existence.

So what I'm getting at, I guess, is whether there's empirical evidence for how religion as a societal construct can develop like this, or even would develop.

Just look at how our worldly laws have changed over time as communities formed, tribes, nations, civilizations and today.
Religions also have changed over time. They used to be more animist. Now they are more and more abstract. At the end of the day it is still a lot of personification of things. Christians project into Jesus all the ideas of the person. Many people don't even understand the concept of the holy spirit. The religion is even ahead of them.

Actually, Nazi Germany did that because it did benefit Germany, the Jews held a lot of the wealth and by demonizing them he took over the wealth.

They had wealth but that didn't save the day. The point of demonization and not just the jews was to create a common enemy. Nazi have been smart and they simply wanted to unite most or enough of their followers and the easiest way to do that is by focusing everybody's attention on a common evil enemy.

But assume they won the war which they might have if the US would have waited yet a little longer to join and the Barbarossa would have worked a little better. All of europe today would be one powerful nation with tight economic and financial integration. Due to the use of euthanasia they have more and healthier workers relatively. An efficient government with a tight grip. Safety power and pride. If you grew up in that society you might actually like it and think that censorship and harsh laws are good. No different than in many authoritarian countries like china today. The holocaust would be history that is ignored in all history books like so many holocausts and brutal wars that have happend before.
If people think patriotic pride, safety (from crime, other countries..) and an efficient economy is most important they will regard this regime as proper and right. All the laws and rules will be considered necessary evils to further the cause and force people to be good and morally proper.
If people thrive for freedom of expression, freedom more than safety they will keep rebelling against an unjust evil regime.

To some degree that is the same thing today with facists vs. liberals. Some people think certain rules are good and proper because they make the people better and the people are bad. What is good and proper depends on who you ask. The socialist says anyone who shares, the puritans says anyone who works hard.
Other people think most people are sort of good and we all want too many different things in the details and therefore we only need to make sure that people feel the effects of their own actions but not limit them in what their goals, preferences and so are. Liberals they let you smoke pot and watch porn but they also want to make sure corporations pay for the environmental damage they do.

The reality is that what we think is right and wrong depends mostly just on what WE ultimately seek in the society that we live in. Some people want rules and guidance, others more freedom. Some want to protected from everything including their own stupidity others want self reliance and responsibility. Most everybody wants to be treated fair.
The morality in absolutist religions is a phantasy and only reality within their own framework. I.e. I think a lot of the rules in Islam are evil, wrong and stupid because I would despise such a sharia bases society on so many levels. For the Muslim they are the only right ones because these people want guidance. They want to know what is right and not having to worry that they might be wrong.
I on the other hand might one day find out that I really messed up because I didn't see how horribly I treated someone else. Especially in difficult and complex situations this problem has weight. It is easier to go by checklist than be individual case analysis which might require factoring in many factors. In our society courts are responsible for the difficult complex stuff while the police has a very checklist like simple straight forward approach.
Especially fundamentalist and bible inerranists are those that want to be sure. They want things simple so that is how they are. Modern judicial wants to be fair and versatile and account for as many factors as possible and thus is way more complex.

So what I'm trying to figure out is why society as a whole would evolve religion as a concept, especially one that tells people to live to a higher standard like the Bible. Why would people want to be held accountable and told to do what they don't want to, and not to do what they want to? Especially specific things like those in the Mosaic Law?

I hope I gave some answers to that with this long text.
Jeffries an australian comedian once said the 10 commandments are fuck up. Not because they are wrong, they are for the most parts very sensible rules to live by, but because YOU HAD TO HAVE THEM WRITTEN DOWN.
People are told to live to a higher standard so they think a bit further ahead than around the next corner. It is like telling a chess computer program to think a certain amount of steps ahead. Think one ahead, three steps, five steps or play out the entire game before the next move.
Ideals are a way to simplify and compress a complex goal. You don't want to worry that somebody is going to slit your throat while you sleep and steal your money, how can you make that happen together with other people.
In complexity no different than what the Nazis did. We need our guys to stop squabbling and work together. What should we do? We demonize the Jews and unite them behind a common enemy.
Religions imo are in many cases in their specificity often a way to bring those ideas into the population so they can handle them. The bible is written in stories and analogies with lots of words because that is one way to communicate ideas. God, devil, angel, death are all simply personified so people can imagine them better, we like arguing and negotiating even with cars and notebooks (regardless how pointless).

Jesus imo simply had a vision of the kingdom of heaven as he called it and he laid out the simple truth of how everybody must behave to get everyone there. The kingdom is just a metaphor for a peaceful, prosperous, liveable, nice world.
The whole after life stuff is imo fancy phantasies for those that like it or need it but it makes ultimately for this world no difference if one likes it or not. Christians use it as a motivational tool, as special candy. I don't think it is really an integral part.

Buddha said of his own philosophy that it is not some god given revelation like the abrahmic stuff claims (with holy spirit and all) but simple truths in a social context that everybody who sits down long enough and meditates can arrive at.

Good day to you.

[jimvansage]

If absolutist morals are for the childish or weak-minded, can you give an example of when rape might not be considered an immoral practice?

[Fuzzy Dunlop]

If absolutist morals are for the childish or weak-minded, can you give an example of when rape might not be considered an immoral practice?

Consider this purely hypothetical threat: if you do not rape somebody in the next five minutes, I will drop nuclear bombs all over the planet and annihilate the human race.

[dusk]

If absolutist morals are for the childish or weak-minded, can you give an example of when rape might not be considered an immoral practice?

If you read what I wrote that should be obvious.
In case of rape when you want a community where women aren't worth squat and only there to please men. When women have the same value to men as we ascribe to pigs the morals will argue for rape being nothing wrong but absolutely normal. Women in such a society would probably accept it as normal or a duty of theirs. Slaves in Rome had nothing different.
Compare it to how we eat pigs. Vegetarians think that is immoral, maybe in a hundred years everybody will think it immoral to eat animals as smart as dogs.

Rape is absolutely immoral in our society because we respect people and fairness. We do not accept slavery as okay or that one person is allowed to own another. We want people in power especially those that we as a people hand the power by voting them in office or letting them lead organisations to misuse that power and exploit others.

Anything can ever only be (im)moral inside a social community and the extent is related to the ideals that a society holds up and defends. The way society is supposed to look like makes certain things wrong others right and others irrelevant. The people ultimately decide what THEIR society should be like and that changed in the history and therefore what is and was considered right and wrong wasn't always the same either.

[jimvansage]

You're still appealing to an ideology.
Not a superior being or objective moral standard, but respect and fairness.
Why respect and fairness? For the sake of respect and fairness?
But you're saying that if respect and fairness are no longer valued, certain things would be acceptable.

Just because the rules are "absolute" does not mean that the rules will not come into conflict.
If you are hiding Jewish children, and the Nazis knock at your door and ask if you are hiding children, do you:
1. tell the truth (sentence children to their death)
2. or lie

Either way, the exceptions prove the rule rather than prve that there are no rules in place.

[Artie]

If absolutist morals are for the childish or weak-minded, can you give an example of when rape might not be considered an immoral practice?

Sure. http://archive.frontpagemag.com/readArt ... ARTID=1794 "Unveiled women who get raped deserve it."

[dusk]

You're still appealing to an ideology.
Not a superior being or objective moral standard, but respect and fairness.
Why respect and fairness? For the sake of respect and fairness?
But you're saying that if respect and fairness are no longer valued, certain things would be acceptable.

Of course the ideal is needed. If there is indifference towards what a society should be like than there cannot be made any assertions of moral wrongs or rights. They only exist within the framework.
Why respect and fairness? -> See Golden Rule. If you behave unfair and are only out for your own benefit, everyone else will not see a reason to respect fairness either and eventually the entire society will erode into selfish people looking only out for themselves or their closest friends. Some might hate this life but they are forced to play by the rules of the society they and others shaped.
If you don't accept the rules and follow them you cannot expect anybody else to. Everyone that doesn't want their ideals to play an important part needs to start by leading by example.

Ultimately there will always be others with diverging ideas. How much beating of children is acceptable. An the entier safety vs. freedom thing that I already laid out.

If you take a look at history, ideologies and so will see that absolute morals never existed. Different societies had different absolute morals. For me the only reasonable explanation is that absolute morals as a concept are only a tool to force ideologies on people that don't share the same goals or to explain the ready to serve conclusions of the golden rule to people that need simple answers.


If you want to look for differences in ideals, just take a look at things like respect from authority, respect from the flag, blasphemy laws, freedom of speech, value of certain freedoms, value of dignity.

[jimvansage]

Lead by example - you hit the nail on the head there.

Is there really any value at all to believe in an ideal when the reality is that there is no ideal?
Why strive toward perfection (regardless of how one determines right or wrong) if there is nothing perfect to ascribe to?

The fact that we are more than the selfish desires of our genes (surviving as the fittest, propagating our own offspring), that we can choose to sacrifice our own well-being for the sake of others is contrary to any natural process that I am aware of.

I may never be able to prove to anyone that anything supernatural exists:
but it's truth value, by your reasoning, does not matter if it is valued
if nothing is absolutely wrong, it is perfectly acceptable to believe that there are absolutist moral values and live by them

The rules as you call it, may not exist, but why not follow them?
Why not believe them if the only alternative is "do what thou wilt"?

[Artie]

Is there really any value at all to believe in an ideal when the reality is that there is no ideal?

You can for example believe that you can improve something even though you might not achieve perfection?

Why strive toward perfection (regardless of how one determines right or wrong) if there is nothing perfect to ascribe to?

Because you can strive to improve things even though you might not achieve perfection?

The fact that we are more than the selfish desires of our genes (surviving as the fittest, propagating our own offspring), that we can choose to sacrifice our own well-being for the sake of others is contrary to any natural process that I am aware of.

You may not understand it but I'm going to try to explain it to you one more time. If you don't understand it this time I'm afraid the problem lies with you.

1. Organisms started cooperating.
2. Cooperating organisms enhanced their chances of survival.
3. Cooperation evolved a common code of conduct called morals which ensure best possible cooperation and therefore best chances of survival for the community.
4. Vervet monkeys give alarm calls to warn fellow monkeys of the presence of predators, even though in doing so they attract attention to themselves, increasing their personal chance of being attacked.
5. The vervet monkey giving the alarm call might be killed by the predator because it drew attention to itself, but all the rest would have time to escape.
6. The survival of the many is "more important" for evolution than survival of the one because evolution evolves populations and not single individuals.
7. Since more monkeys employing this tactic survived than those who didn't the tactic of self-sacrifice spread.
8. How come Christians have to be explained something that even vervet monkeys understand instinctively?