Moral without God? Video of debate
April 17, 2010 by Michael Nugent
I recently debated with John Murray, director of the Iona Institute for Religion and Society, on the motion that one cannot be truly moral without God. The debate took place on 30 March 2010 in Maynooth University, and was organized by the Maynooth Christian Union and the Maynooth Literary and Debating Society.
(if you can’t see any of these videos, please go here to the original post.)
Here’s my opening contribution:
And here is a playlist of the full debate, which takes about an hour and forty minutes:
If you want to skip to any particular section, you can use the arrows on the right and left of the above playlist to view any of the following parts of the debate:
Opening speeches
1/12 – John Murray opening speech
2/12 – Michael Nugent opening speech
3/12 – Student speeches for motion
4/12 – Student speeches against motion
Questions and answers
5/12 – Relative morality in the Bible
6/12 – Can we live without God?
7/12 – Interpreting morality in the Bible
8/12 – Human rights and true morality
9/12 – Can we be moral with God?
10/12 – Science, morality and animals
Closing speeches
11/12 – John Murray summary
12/12 – Michael Nugent summary
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Mmmm, Mr Murray employs the usual theistic circular argument, he didn't really enlighten, despite his fine presentation. His argument didn't appear to stray outside the 'Human morality' and failed to address the social grouping that forms morality in humans AND other animals. I pointedly make the statement "AND other animals" because Mr Murray labours under he illusion that humans are a higher life form, we are just fortunate that our brain has evolved much more than any other animal on the planet.
What theists fail to recognise is that morals are simply societal conditioning, what is moral in western society most definitely is not moral in many eastern societies and vice versa. Societal conditioning is evident in animals too, most notably in pack animals, which is what humans are of course, and even Piranha fish display some sort of morality in not eating each other.
What we like to call morality is social conditioning, which in animals is simple and easy to identify, but humans have made it complicated in complex social groupings, added to which we have religions setting social rulings that confine groups with groups to codes or rules that define morality.
The wording of the motion is hardly perfect from the pro side especially. To imply that lack of belief in one God prevents people from being truly moral implies that those who do must by default be moral. Can a person be truly moral if they believe in 20 gods!
How did the vote go or did they had one?