If God doesn't exist, is everything allowed?

Question

This a more or less accurate quote from The Brothers Karamazov, by Dostoevsky, where it was assumed rather than questionned by one character.

Please note that this is posted in the philosophy section, so it would be much appreciated if the biggots could keep their proselytism in check.

Answer 1

For something to be allowed, you imply that some governing mechanism allows it. With God out of the picture, or any deity of choice for an individual, one simply has no governing body other than one's own conscience. Now, in today's society people can't run around naked and cut people's heads off with machetes unchecked, so the society surrounding the individual will act as the governing body. This is why we have laws. Laws impose regulation on those who choose not to regulate themselves. So the society of the individual acts as his 'God' whether he wants to believe in the laws or not. He will be disallowed from doing anything he pleases by being put in jail or executed.

Now, imagine yourself in cro-magnon times and living as a rogue individual relying on oneself to survive. There are no laws and you have no clue as to what a God is. You don't know who or where your parents are. They abandoned you at birth. You've been on your own since. You make your own weapons, and you hunt for sustenance. Occasionally you stumble across another human.

Everything is allowed. What would you do?

Answer 2

Without considering the existence of God, society still needs rules and regulations to follow. If everything was allowed in a "Godless" society where people had no reward to do "right", society would be complete chaos.

The church has been incredibly powerful. It has instilled morals and values into people because of the belief that doing the "right christian thing" will get you to heaven. If those morals and values were not there and the idea of heaven was not instilled it would be a complete dog eat dog society.

Whether God is real or not, I think that the church is doing a great thing by spreading "faith". The created "faith" (not only the "faith" associated with the belief that has no empirical roots but the "faith" of doing what is right to live a longer and healthier life) has helped society function better.

I think that the better question should be "If faith in God doesn't exist, is everything allowed". But the answer is still no.

Answer 3

The question posits that if God exists, his role is assumed to be as a "disallower of certain unspecified things." So my answer is simple. The same things that are allowed now, would be allowed then. Just as there are immutable natural laws of the physical universe, there will continue to be laws for right conduct between and among the conscious beings of all-existing Nature, because moral law is immutable as well. Simply stated, do unto others as you would have others do unto you. Or, as it has been otherwhere restated, "Love and do what thou wilt, shall be the whole of the Law". Son, when you post a question about God, you must realize that people of profound passions will line up on various sides of the argument. I hope my answer was to your liking. Sincerely, UC Steve

Answer 4

If we ignore mundane laws etc then yes, everything is allowed. However, it is allowed if there is a god, just punished in the hereafter. My view is that without an after life how we treat each other on Earth becoumes even more important. We should all be working to create the best world to live in in the here and now not keeping our churches happy in the hope of a reward later.

Answer 5

The significance of Good and Evil as a paradigm is present only on human scale. So too the the construct of morality and ethics and all forms of Goodness are valid and significant only on a human scale. It is a construct we refine and define over time and to throw it out is to fail in the continuity of our social evolution towards a better kind of mankind. Whether God will hold us accountable to our own standards is really irrelevant, are we children who only do what is right because dad is home and might be watching? Once we all agree on what is right, we need to follow it for our own sense of cleanness. Like keeping the dishes from piling up, it is just good housekeeping.

Answer 6

The question implies that humans are incapable of morality without god and that if our existence were due to nature, that we would be no more than savages. A feeble position to defend. There is a distinct line of descent from the ancestral, innate mammalian urge to nurture their young within communities of related, mutually altruistic individuals, to the development of human civilisations. Human civilisation as an advanced form of mammalian social interaction, can only have survived this long due to that innate sense and the foundation it provides for our greater (learnt) morality.

Answer 7

We are so attuned to recognising figures of authority around us that we also like to imagine God as a grand figure of authority. We like to see God as a grand being living with us in this universe - a being with all the power and authority but separate in existence. This approach works very well long as we just believe in God and do not question, but soon we try to search for God and try to actually find Him we run into all sorts of philosophical and intellectual problems. We search but do not find God. We are told that God is everywhere but we do not find Him anywhere. We then think – may be God does not exist after all. This thought can be followed by other thoughts, thoughts of new possibilities of things that we can do now, and we were afraid to try before.

You see God exists and the proof of this is in our own existence. If we exist then there is existence, and if there is existence then there must be the best, and the best way to experience the best. We know our best in terms of God, and we believe the best way to be the way of God’s love and fear. We know and define God the way that is best suited to our own condition. The highest, the absolute, the ultimate in our lives is the God – the totality of our existence.

Now, if we assume that God does not exist, then we know that there is a limit. It would mean that we would be able to see all that is there, which is not possible. The limits we know are attributive only to shapes and forms of existence whereas the existence itself is free from the condition of attributes for it to be. In terms of absolute reality things exists or they do not. All things are expression of a single continuum of existence. Nothing in the world is powerful enough to exist as a limited totality in its own right.

Just like all other things, we too cannot exist without realising and feeling that we are part of a limitless and timeless continuum of existence. This is the reality of our life. Just like us, nothing else would have existed if not a part of the same essential existence. All things are expressions of the essence of their existence – the God Almighty.

One may argue here saying that since everything is an essential part of existence therefore there is no distinction between good or bad, and nothing in terms of the best or the worst is possible. This would be a subjective statement, undermining or ignoring all specific and peculiar human forms or states of existence.

Although the existence as I said before is free from the conditions of shape and form, we need to see from our own certain view point the good and the bad very distinctly. We cannot see the good and the bad both in one point and still be ourselves. We need to see the good, the best and the absolute in everything good as the God Almighty to believe in ourselves, to illuminate the darkness of the unknown with certainty and belief, and to eliminate doubt and uncertainty once for all. Nothing would have been possible if there were no God, this is all we know and should know, and as a matter of fact can know.

Answer 8

God and Everything, I think, are synonomis terms; I also think exists and allowed are also synonomis terms. And no, I do not think God is necessarily a person because there is no way "we" can tell if "we" (or people) exist [Immanuel Kant (one kind synopis of course of his work)]. So, your question could read as follows: "If god does not exist, does god exist?" or "If everything doesnt exist or is not allowable, do things (still) exists or are things (still) allowable?" This is a question we could not ever possibly answer because in its simplest terms the question is "If there is no existence, is there existence?" How could a thing, or a person actually answer this question, since things and people, of course, exist?

Answer 9

Its a comment about how some people assume that ethics are necessarily attached to religion. I think that ethics are independant of religion and although many religions talk about morality and adopt that as their unique sphere of influence, it isn't so. Just because you don't believe in a God doesn't mean that you shouldn't believe in being a good person and doing the right thing.

Answer 10

That would be the logical conclusion. Might make right and whatever you can get away with is fine because there is no absolute moral standard.

That's the direction of Post Modernist thinking. What's "right" or "wrong" for you don't necessarily apply to me. Of course when you confront such thinking with hypothetical situations it soon proves to be untenable.

For instance if you tell someone that "In my eyes it's perfectly OK if I break into your house and tie you up while I rape your wife and murder your children in front of you" they seem to have to back down from their original position.