Christianity is a poor source of moral guidance

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Many Christians* perform deeds which make people happy, or reduce suffering - deeds which might be called 'good'. These include charity or missionary work, or simple everyday things. Performing good deeds is part of being a good Christian. But the reason for this (I think) is that the Bible, or the church, or maybe even God himself (if you believe in Him) tells Christians that they should perform these deeds, and that they are good deeds. I remember from Sunday school being taught something like... if a homeless man asks for your hat, give him your coat as well. Christians perform many good deeds because Christianity tells them to. They may desire to perform good deeds, and this may lead us to think that they are 'good people'. But their desire to perform good deeds depends on their religion telling them to. If they desire to perform good deeds, often this is only because they desire to be good Christians.

This is a de dicto sort of desire, as opposed to a de re desire. To understand what these terms mean, imagine I have written down a list of foods, and that you desire to eat every food on the list. There are two ways in which you could have this desire:

(1) De re. I just happen to have written down foods which you already desired to eat, perhaps by observing your eating habits and keeping a record of foods you like. So your desire to eat each food on the list is independent of the fact that they are on the list, and if I deleted a food from the list you would still desire to eat it.

(2) De dicto. For some strange reason, you have a desire with the content: 'to eat whatever is on the list'. In this case I could add 'cat urine' to the list, and you would immediately desire to eat cat urine simply because it is on the list; the list is what determines your desire.

Christians must often desire de dicto to perform good deeds, and not de re, because their desire to perform them depends on their desire to be good Christians. If the Bible happened to say, "thou shalt kick homeless people in the face because this is a good thing to do", then many Christians would desire to do so.

Some moral philosophers call this 'moral fetishism', and see it as a bad thing. This is plausible when we consider the case of a man having to choose between saving a stranger or saving his wife from drowning. If he chooses to save his wife, we should hope that he does so because it is his wife. He should have a direct, de re desire to save his wife (because he loves her, perhaps). If he sat down, did some working out, came to the conclusion that it would be 'right' to save his wife, and then did so, this would arguably lack a certain quality which we attribute to a good deed. Good deeds are supposed to done out of a genuine desire to, say, prevent someone from suffering, and not out of a general desire to adhere to a moral code. Atheists sometimes perform good deeds because of a de re desire to do so. For example, they might volunteer for a charity organisation because they genuinely care that people are suffering and they really want to help out. Arguably, Christians who perform missionary work often do so out of moral fetishism. Of course, I don't doubt that Christians often do genuinely care about other people, and often perform good deeds out of a de re desire to do so.

So what am I complaining about? Well, there is a problem now for the claim that Christianity is a source of morality. Christianity and other religions are often defended because they tell us how to live, and give us moral guidance. It is often argued that (roughly) atheism doesn't work, or is undesirable, because without God we can have no morality. It is implied that Christianity can give us morality. But the problem is that the morality offered by Christianity can only be adhered to if you behave as a moral fetishist, and perform good deeds because God says so, and not because you want to. Christians can be good people, and have de re desires to perform good deeds, but then their religion becomes redundant. The church just tells you what you should do; it does not give you de re desires to do it. It is possible, and very common, to perform good deeds without even believing in God, so clearly one's de re desire to be good does not come from Christianity.

So Christians face a dilemma. They can be good Christians, and act as their religion tells them to, but then the 'good deeds' they perform will be acts of moral fetishism, rather than genuine good deeds such as feeding the hungry because they are hungry (and not just because the Bible says to). Or they can try to be good people, and perform good deeds because they have genuine de re desires to do so, but then their Christian morality becomes redundant; they already want to feed the hungry, so what's the use in being told that it is 'right' to do so?

What does Christianity actually have to offer in terms of morality? If we use the Bible as a moral handbook, we become moral fetishists. If we perform good deeds out of a genuine desire to make people happy, then we don't need a moral handbook. In the domain of morality, Christianity is useless.

*All of this may apply to members of other religions, but I'll stick with Christianity for the sake of argument.

N.B. I am an atheist, but just so that you know, I don't think atheism is a good source of moral guidance either. In fact, I am an error theorist about moral realism (google it). I believe that all moral claims are false. The purpose of this thread is to debunk the claim that Christianity has something to offer that atheism does not. I believe that you can't find morality anywhere at all. You have to invent it.

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religions get around this moral dilemma by making stuff up as they go along as they always have.

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Yeah yeah, Christians are zombies that would drink cat urine if the Bible told them to.

Or maybe....

Maybe their ideas about how would should interact with the world led them to the teachings of Jesus and they found a community of like minded people who thought they could affect change by doing good works so they joined together with these like minded people to feed the hungry and drink cat urine.

Or maybe not.

I don't know. I'm not a Christian.

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There is a deep, basic disconnect between most practicing christians and your description, Boom. The evidence of scripture is that the putative Jesus was devoted to the idea of "works"--i.e., that one must love his fellow man and do good to those who harm one. Additionally, there is a good deal of inferential evidence that if there actually was a "Jesus," he was an Essene, a Jewish cult community which lived somewhat apart, and who valued strict adherence to the law (Mosaic law) and good works above all else.

But almost all modern christian sects, and especially those which are "fundamentalist" and charismatic, stress faith over works. I'd have far more respect for organized christianity if they valued good works over faith--however, the opposite is true.

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Christianity might be a poor source of moral guidance, but Islam is worse imo.

Where is "love thine enemy as thyself" equivalent in the Koran...

or "turn the other cheek".

Of course the Old Testament is full of smitings plagues floods and wars etc, which is why small boys enjoy reading it so much. But the New Testament is all peace love and forgiveness isnt it? Nowhere near as exciting.

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Hands that help are better than lips that pray.

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I know you're right, Setanta.

<brushing Hope's feathers from my soul>

Many Christians seem so busy not doing what Jesus asks of them that I don't foresee them lining up to drink cat pee any time in the near future.

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Re: Christianity is a poor source of moral guidance

agrote wrote:

So Christians face a dilemma. They can be good Christians, and act as their religion tells them to, but then the 'good deeds' they perform will be acts of moral fetishism, rather than genuine good deeds such as feeding the hungry because they are hungry (and not just because the Bible says to).

I don't understand this. If the Bible commands Christians, in general, to do good deeds (say, e.g., helping the homeless), and a certain Christian, acting solely upon that command, does a good deed, how is that not a "genuine" good deed?

Is it because the Christian, all other things being equal, would prefer not to perform the good deed? If that's the case, then my next question would be: so what? I don't see how the good deed performed de re (for its own sake) is substantively different from the good deed performed de dicto, so long as the deed is not performed for bad motives.

For instance, suppose Driver is commanded by the state to obey the traffic laws. Driver, however, all other things being equal, would prefer not to stop at the intersection when the light turns red. Yet he does, solely because he does not want to break the law. Can we thus consider Driver to be law-abiding? I think the answer has to be "yes."

In the same way, if Christian gives a dollar to a beggar because he believes that God would command him to give that dollar to that beggar, then I see no reason to think that he is being anything other than a good Christian by giving the dollar.

There's no dilemma here. Christians who obey the mandatory commands of their religion are, by definition, "good" Christians. If Christianity commands its followers to perform good deeds, then obedience to that command is adherance to the faith, which would seem to me to be the sole criterion on which one is judged to be a "good" Christian or not.

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boomerang wrote:

I know you're right, Setanta.

<brushing Hope's feathers from my soul>

Many Christians seem so busy not doing what Jesus asks of them that I don't foresee them lining up to drink cat pee any time in the near future.

I know he's right too. RexRed actually posted on this site, only a couple of weeks ago, something along the lines of the path to heaven is through "grace , not works". Gives them the freedom to sit on their hands and judge.

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Morality is not a matter of following religious doctrine, but rather depends on your state of consciousness. Those strongly identified with ideology reflect an egoic position -- they equate truth with thought (their mind), in an unconscious attempt to protect their identity. However, it is your state of consciousness (freedom from mind identification, or ego) that determines how you act in the world and interact with others. As the ego dissolves, a transformed state of human consciousness emerges and moral action becomes natural and spontaneous.

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The Driver analogy is a good one, joe.

By obeying the laws within our community, and our communities within the community, we buy ourselves the right to participate.

That "faith, not works" thing bugs me too, Wilso.

I kind of get where you're coming from, IFeelFree but I think when ego dissolves you might become a rampaging gunman shooting up your classroom too.

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IFF is a johnny-one-note when it comes to his consciousness claptrap. He fails to recognize that his obsession with the excellence of his having achieved "a higher consciousness" actually makes him the ultimate egoist--he is focused on himself to the exclusion of the world around him. He has nothing but a string of one unsupported dictum after the other upon which to base his silly statements regarding "consciousness." I assure you he will attempt to turn this thread into a discussion about his claims regarding consciousness, and that he will show no interest in the actual subject.

I have a quibble with Joe, when he writes: If Christianity commands its followers to perform good deeds, then obedience to that command is adherance to the faith, which would seem to me to be the sole criterion on which one is judged to be a "good" Christian or not. It seems to me that this statement ignores the distinction between works and faith which so many (primarily Protestant and non-ritualist) christian sects routinely make, with the claim that salvation is attained through faith, and not works.

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Setanta wrote:

I have a quibble with Joe, when he writes: If Christianity commands its followers to perform good deeds, then obedience to that command is adherance to the faith, which would seem to me to be the sole criterion on which one is judged to be a "good" Christian or not. It seems to me that this statement ignores the distinction between works and faith which so many (primarily Protestant and non-ritualist) christian sects routinely make, with the claim that salvation is attained through faith, and not works.

Well, my assumption, based on agrote's initial post, is that Christians are commanded to do good works. If that were not true, then much of agrote's argument wouldn't make sense, at least in the context of Christianity (it would still work for other religions -- Muslims, e.g., are enjoined by the Koran to perform charitable works as an article of faith).

It's true, however, that the Calvinist strain of Protestantism emphasizes faith over works. If a Calvinist, then, performs a good deed, we might assume that he or she is acting purely out of a desire to do a good deed, rather than out of a desire to please god (or out of a fear of displeasing god). Whether that makes the Calvinist's deed any more "genuine" than, say, a Catholic's is open to question, but I think the initial post assumes that all Christians are commanded to perform at least some acts that might otherwise be performed voluntarily and which might be described as "good deeds."

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Re: Christianity is a poor source of moral guidance

joefromchicago wrote:

I don't understand this. If the Bible commands Christians, in general, to do good deeds (say, e.g., helping the homeless), and a certain Christian, acting solely upon that command, does a good deed, how is that not a "genuine" good deed?

It's still a 'good' deed in the sense that it still, say, reduces suffering. But I don't think we'd want to call it a 'genuine' good deed unless one is, for example, motivated by a genuine concern for the well-being of homeless people. I think one's motivation is very important. If I am carrying a sandwich, and I trip over, and my sandwich flies through the air and lands in the mouth of a homeless man, that doesn't make me a good person. I haven't really done a good deed, I've just tripped over.

Similarly, a Christian who feeds the homeless because the Bible tells him to is not, essentially, setting out to feed the homeless. I was setting out to walk along eating my sandwich, and a consequence of that was that I fed the homeless. A Christian sets out to abide by what Jesus taught, and a consequence of this is that he, perhaps, feeds the homeless. Neither of us is really performing a good deed, just because our actions are having positive effects. You might think that my tripping over was just a matter of circumstance - I didn't intend to trip over, so that's why I didn't really perform the deed of feeding the homeless. You might think that since Christians do intend to feed the homeless (whatever their motives), they do perform a good deed.

But the fact that the Christian feeds the homeless is just as much a matter of circumstance. If the Bible happened to say, "kick the homeless", then that is what a lot of Christians would be doing. My deed depended on there being something for me to trip over, whereas the Christian's good deed depended on the Bible saying "feed the homeless" (or whatever it says) instead of "kick the homeless". What's the difference? I don't think either of us has performed a good deed. Christians essentially just trip over Bibles and drop sandwiches in tramps' mouths.

Quote:

...suppose Driver is commanded by the state to obey the traffic laws. Driver, however, all other things being equal, would prefer not to stop at the intersection when the light turns red. Yet he does, solely because he does not want to break the law. Can we thus consider Driver to be law-abiding? I think the answer has to be "yes."

In the same way, if Christian gives a dollar to a beggar because he believes that God would command him to give that dollar to that beggar, then I see no reason to think that he is being anything other than a good Christian by giving the dollar.

There's no dilemma here. Christians who obey the mandatory commands of their religion are, by definition, "good" Christians. If Christianity commands its followers to perform good deeds, then obedience to that command is adherance to the faith, which would seem to me to be the sole criterion on which one is judged to be a "good" Christian or not.

You seem to think I'm arguing that people who adhere to Christianity are doing a poor job of being Christians. That would be a very strange claim, and I'm not making it. I'm claiming that people who adhere to Christianity are doing a poor job of being 'good'. And by 'good' I don't mean Jesus-abiding. A good Christian would be Jesus-abiding, just as a good cyclist would be good at riding bikes. But 'good' in the sense of 'good person' is different.

I mean that, while Christianity does tell us to do certain things which might be considered 'good' by most people, it tells us to do those things out of fetishism rather than out of kindness, or empathy (or de re concern for the well-being of others), and I think that a lack of kindness or empathy conflicts with the ordinary notion of 'good'. Of course, I'm sure that lots of Christians are kind and do have empathy, but it is not a function of their being Christians, and in fact the more they follow Christianity the less they are motivated by kindness or empathy and the more they are motivated by doing whatever the Bible says. So Christianity replaces what would normally be called 'goodness' - feelings of empathy or kindness that produce altruistic behaviour - with moral fetishism, derived from a desire to please God or get to heaven.

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boomerang wrote:

I kind of get where you're coming from, IFeelFree but I think when ego dissolves you might become a rampaging gunman shooting up your classroom too.

Ya think? That wouldn't exactly be "moral", would it?

What do you believe is the basis of morality -- following the rules?

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I recognized that aspect of your statement, Joe. I'm just riding my own hobby horse here, in order to emphasize that among Calvinist (largely, the Congregationalists and the Presbyterians), German and Dutch Reformed, Moravians and some other Protestant sects, faith without works can possibly lead to salvation, but works without faith is doomed.

My position is that the teachings of the putative Jesus, as described in the "gospels" calls for works, and implies that salvation is not possible if faith is not accompanied by works. What we know (from Josephus and Philo of Alexandria) of the Essenes tells us that they expressed no concept of "faith," and insisted upon adherence to the Law and works. Upon that basis, i find the increasing insistence on faith rather than works so common among fundamentalist and charismatic sects to be a disgusting perversion.

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Re: Christianity is a poor source of moral guidance

agrote wrote:

It's still a 'good' deed in the sense that it still, say, reduces suffering. But I don't think we'd want to call it a 'genuine' good deed unless one is, for example, motivated by a genuine concern for the well-being of homeless people. I think one's motivation is very important. If I am carrying a sandwich, and I trip over, and my sandwich flies through the air and lands in the mouth of a homeless man, that doesn't make me a good person. I haven't really done a good deed, I've just tripped over.

I agree. This might be merely a semantic problem, but I still have some difficulty with this notion of a "genuine" good deed.

agrote wrote:

Similarly, a Christian who feeds the homeless because the Bible tells him to is not, essentially, setting out to feed the homeless.

That's true, the Christian is acting in accordance with god's command. But then wouldn't that make the deed "good?" If one's definition of a "good deed" is a deed done in conformance with god's command, then the Christian's act of feeding the homeless is most definitely a good deed. On the other hand, if you require that a "good deed" be done out of purely altruistic motives, then it might not qualify. But then you'd have to argue that there's such a thing as pure altruism, otherwise no deed would truly be "good."

agrote wrote:

But the fact that the Christian feeds the homeless is just as much a matter of circumstance.

Not so. You compare an act done purely accidentally with one that is performed intentionally. I think that takes the latter out of the category of "circumstance."

agrote wrote:

If the Bible happened to say, "kick the homeless", then that is what a lot of Christians would be doing. My deed depended on there being something for me to trip over, whereas the Christian's good deed depended on the Bible saying "feed the homeless" (or whatever it says) instead of "kick the homeless". What's the difference?

Volition.

agrote wrote:

I mean that, while Christianity does tell us to do certain things which might be considered 'good' by most people, it tells us to do those things out of fetishism rather than out of kindness, or empathy (or de re concern for the well-being of others), and I think that a lack of kindness or empathy conflicts with the ordinary notion of 'good'.

Are you suggesting that good deeds can only be performed by purely disinterested people? Suppose Husband sees Wife drowning in a lake. He rescues her because he loves her and would be very sad if she died. Did he perform a good deed? What if, instead of his wife, he rescues a stranger, but does so because he thinks he will get a medal for heroism. Would that be a good deed?

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Re: Christianity is a poor source of moral guidance

agrote wrote:

joefromchicago wrote:

I mean that, while Christianity does tell us to do certain things which might be considered 'good' by most people, it tells us to do those things out of fetishism rather than out of kindness, or empathy (or de re concern for the well-being of others), and I think that a lack of kindness or empathy conflicts with the ordinary notion of 'good'. Of course, I'm sure that lots of Christians are kind and do have empathy, but it is not a function of their being Christians, and in fact the more they follow Christianity the less they are motivated by kindness or empathy and the more they are motivated by doing whatever the Bible says. So Christianity replaces what would normally be called 'goodness' - feelings of empathy or kindness that produce altruistic behaviour - with moral fetishism, derived from a desire to please God or get to heaven.

I agree. If a person acts out of desire to gain something -- please God (in order to win His favor), get to heaven, etc. -- how can we call that truly moral behavior? The "feelings of empathy, or kindness that produce altruistic behaviour" are the basis for a natural morality. I would argue that this natural morality requires letting go of self-definitions (I'm a Christian, or Muslim, or Jew, so I should such and such) so that you can respond to the needs of the moment. Instead of reacting against situations that arise, the solution arises out the situation itself. Moral behavior is action that is appropriate to the whole.

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IFeelFree wrote:

boomerang wrote:

I kind of get where you're coming from, IFeelFree but I think when ego dissolves you might become a rampaging gunman shooting up your classroom too.

Ya think? That wouldn't exactly be "moral", would it?

What do you believe is the basis of morality -- following the rules?

No, it wouldn't be moral. But you said....

Quote:

As the ego dissolves, a transformed state of human consciousness emerges and moral action becomes natural and spontaneous.

I'm saying immoral action might become natural and spontaneous by dissolving your ego. Just because you said it works the other way doesn't prove to me that it does. I just don't have that kind of faith in you.

I don't pretend to know what the basis of my own morality is. I don't think it has anything more to do with dissolved ego than it does with Jesus.

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boomerang wrote:

IFeelFree wrote:
boomerang wrote:

I'm saying immoral action might become natural and spontaneous by dissolving your ego. Just because you said it works the other way doesn't prove to me that it does. I just don't have that kind of faith in you.

I don't pretend to know what the basis of my own morality is. I don't think it has anything more to do with dissolved ego than it does with Jesus.

Moral behavior is inhibited when we act in order satisfy the desires of the ego. That is the very definition of selfish behavior. It means that I do what I (as a separate self) want, as opposed to what the situation requires. Acting without ego means to act according to the need of the situation. It is right action that is appropriate to the whole.

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Christianity is a poor source of moral guidance

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