Godlessness And Ethics God Is Dead Philosophy Essay

deitylessness And Ethics God Is all of a sudden Philosophy EssaySimon Blackburns Ethics, A Very Short Introduction identifies cardinalsome curses to the field of philosophical inquiry know as Ethics. First among these threats is the demise of God. What is meant by this term is that for a considerable portion of human being history, the suspense of what was considered ethical or moral was answered by acetifying to religious scripture. It follows then, that for those who turn to God or the matinee idols for answers to dilemmas of an ethical nature, the death of such an entity would present a ab surface vexing problem. Without this elysian keystone, the entire arch of their holiness would dilapidate under the compounding pressures of everyday life. But not for Blackburn, and certainly not for me.As it was mentioned previously, Blackburn placed the death of God as the first of seven threats to ethics. But to read beyond what a moron in a hurry would interpret as his true mea ning reveals that the death of god was placed as the first threat to underscore the argument he makes that while superficially, godlessness may be seen as undermining ethics, in actuality it does to a greater extent than to act as a catalyst for a new origin in the field of ethics. Blackburn sees the death of god as a haughty thing, buttressing his claim by saying that Plato tells us that the ethical laws cannot be arbitrary whims of personalized gods. Maybe instead we can make our accept laws (Blackburn 16). Blackburn proposes that humanity would be better served making our own ethics quite than following the booming edicts of a capricious, anthropomorphized, invisible sky-daddy. Thusly, it follows that Gods death is in feature cause for festivity and represents a false threat to ethical inquiry. However, this celebration may have to be postponed, for if Gods death is the false threat, what then is the sincere one? The real threat that ethics face from this front is not Sh ivas wrath, Zeuss lightning or Yahwehs Judgment. Rather it comes from those who believe in the reality of the aforementioned. It was Voltaire who said it best, when he wrote that those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities. This threat, the threat godliness poses to not only ethics, but humanity as a whole, is best defeated by claiming and defending the assertion that atheism offers a human basis of ethics and morality with greater potential to reciprocate those who it was designed to serve, namely us.This dumbfound is not without precedent, and it was Socrates who first applied logic to the religious convictions of his fellow Greeks (particularly the ethical conviction that morals must be followed because it is what the religious figure commands) and showed them to be not only conceptually muddled but built on a shifting foundation. While avoiding his fate, his footsteps argon ones that many have followed. I would like to mention at this doom t hat I am not merely making use of God of popular, modern, Western Judeo-Christian tradition (Though any religious references will most likely be to this conception of God, as it is most familiar to both author and audience). Rather, I mean to say that moral atheism offers a superior alternative to (among countless others) Jesus, Anubis, Baal, Izanami, Zeus, Vishnu, and Quetzalcoatl.As mentioned previously by Socrates, the rejection of divine command lies at the heart of moral atheism. Here I show that following a command to behave ethically is not in itself ethical behavior, but rather obedience that results in a mimer of true ethical behavior. Secular humanism in turn, offers a morality that is thought out, argued and reasoned. By having a moral basis in unsanctified humanism, atheism possesses a distinct advantage. This is because, this ethical base, standing as it is, after-school(prenominal) whatever religion it happens to find itself near, can have a bun in the oven at wha t is creation commanded by divine authority in a demeanor that allows it to more easily evaluate the command itself. This superiority then allows atheistics the ability to look at the command, say perhaps, the arbitrary violence of Ezekiel 94-7 where the God of that religion commands his (as George Carlin once said, God must be a man, no womanhood could or would ever screw things up so badly) followers collide with utterly old and young, both maids, and little children, and women but come not near any man upon whom is the mark fill the courts with the slain go ye forth. And they went forth, and slew in the city.Once the command is looked at, presumably with horror, it is the moral atheist who is more inclined to reject the actions as unethical because they have already been able to find the command immoral.I would like to draw to a close by offering a quick concession to the theists out there. Many of the worlds religions hold out the promise of redemption, the hope that if a h uman being has violated morality in such a way that no amends are possible, many of the worlds gods have the ability of mildness or forgiveness (often conflated, they are similar put not the same). This is something that atheism does not afford. The logical consequence of this is that an individual is forced to make choices with the acquaintance that each and every single one of those choices is adding up to the only rate they can ever hope to have in their life. To write this, does not, as the theist may assume, fill the author with a sense of crush insignificance and nihilism. Rather, it is a great feeling of importance, the weight of each choice is not that of a burden. It is finding the human condition from the moral atheist position to be one were decency, morality and ethics arise without the expectation of penalisation or rewards. With one life to live, what choice do we as a species have but accept that and exult in it. God is dead. considerable live us.