By Joseph

Hello again. With spring break looming around the corner, we’ve got decisions, both good and bad, to decide on for our week of milk and honey. I figured, why not write about morality?

We all got a sense of this morality. It doesn’t matter what your background is or what religion (if any) you adhere to, every social being will abide by a code of ethics in their societies. It’s been debated countless times if morality is objective or relative. If say, morality is objective, then there is a moral system that can determine what is truly right or what is truly wrong, but if morality is relative, then there really is no right or wrong that any moral system can truly determine. Most believe that there is objective morality and have attributed it to divine word, but attributing it to that will not remove the relativism inherent from one moral system to another. This relates to Euthyphro’s dilemma (sometimes called Plato’s Dilemma). Here’s a variation of the dilemma, “Is an action morally right because god commands it or does god command an action because it is morally right”? I’ll leave you, the reader, to figure this one out. Sarah came across this video from God is not Good which is a scene of religous jews in Auchwitz discussing the actions of their god. In the scene, the one reciting passages from the Old Testament concluded that their god is a terrible being with no compassion for their suffering or anyone elses. This reminds of Epicurus’s quote:

“Is god willing to prevent evil, but not able?

Then he is not omnipotent

Is he able to prevent evil, but not willing?

Then he is malevolent

Is he both able and willing?

Then whence cometh evil?

Is he neither able nor willing?

Then why call him god?

For those of you who believe in a god and are religious, you don’t need to believe or submit to a god to be moral. Having a sense of cooperation and respect for others will make you moral, no god required. Those who say you need to sumbit to their god to be moral are either misunderstanding morality or are out to convert you to their brand of belief for more converts. While atheism may not solve the problem of moral relativism, it is consistent in that there is no contract with deities whose commands determine right and wrong on their whim.