Nietzsche, God and the Search for a Rational Morality

In 1885 Fredrick Nietzsche declared that God was dead. Regardless of whether or not you accept his premise, the theoretical absence of a deity creates an interesting dilemma.

You've all heard the old riddle about a tree falling in a forest. Well, if a man lies or steals or kills and there is no God around to judge it, is it a sin?

This is more than just idle speculation. We live in a world beset by the endless clashing of moral codes. Right, left, religious, secular, traditional and progressive, view good and evil in decidedly, different ways. The source of this conflict is the belief in an absolute morality, an ethical code that cannot be questioned, merely accepted or broken.

The problem with such a belief system is that at the heart of its infallibility lies the obvious conclusion that all other philosophies must be wrong.

All it takes is an examination of our diet to see the truth in this. Jews and Muslims will eat beef but not pork. Hindus hold the cow as a sacred. Most Americans will eat pork and beef but would be disgusted by the idea of consuming a dog which is considered a delicacy in many parts of Asia. This might seem like a minor question of culture, rather than code, but many of the manifestations of morality in our societies are merely reflections of the culture that gave birth to them.

Far more dangerous are the world’s divergent attitudes, towards, abortion, promiscuity, homosexuality and the role of women. The sides in these debates are absolutely convinced that they are right and the origin of that certainty lies in the divine pedigree of their moral convictions.

It wasn’t always like this. The old polytheistic religions did not imbue their gods with moral infallibility. The gods of old possessed the same desires and foibles as the men who worshiped them. Zeus was no paragon of virtue. He was lustful, vain and vengeful. The same is true of Native American and African gods. Despite their powers, the early gods were recognizably human in their behavior. They were gods with flaws, desires and personalities.

Even the early Judeo/Christian God was far from an icon of moral perfection. The God of Genesis was, in his own words, “A Jealous God”. He demanded worship, sacrifice and obedience. He said nothing about moral codes. It wasn’t until Exodus when Moses brought the Ten Commandments to the Hebrews in the desert, that the concept of God as the source of all morality was introduced.

This is where the trouble begins because as soon as moral truths become absolute, you are faced with a myriad of conflicts both internal and external.

The internal problems come because, while opinion can evolve and change over the years, absolute truths should not. If the bible is the absolute word of God, then, the only rational response would be to follow that word absolutely, without interpretation or equivocation. Of course, nobody, not even the most devout Catholic, follows everything to the letter. If we did, stonings would be required for everything from taking the Lords name in vain to working on the Sabbath. Instead, we pick and choose. We interpret and update. The religion followed by Jews today bares little resemblance to that practiced by the Hebrews who wandered the desert for 40 years and yet it is still treated as absolute truth.

If the inconsistencies merely existed between the modern world and the past, the problem would be one of personal faith. Can you believe in an absolute truth, which is constantly changing?

The problem, however, has a far more dangerous, external manifestation because these varying interpretations evolve on divergent paths, so that after a few generations the absolute truth of one branch can barely recognize that of the other. Catholics and Protestants, Shi’a and Sunni might share the same Holy Books but that hasn’t stopped them from killing each other.

And, unfortunately, absolute beliefs leave little room for discussion, logic and compromise. This is because God does not need a reason for his commandments. If he says not to kill, not to steal, or not to comb your hair to the left, they are all God’s will and to disobey any of them is a sin. “Because God says so” might be the true origin of morality but it is not an element of rational discussion.

Is it possible that one of these interpretations is actually correct and all the others are wrong? Of course it is. But it is in our nature to always believe that that correct interpretation is the one we were raised with and a whole world of people who think that is a dangerous place indeed.

What’s so tragic about this is that most moral codes are far more similar than they are different. There are restrictions against theft, and violence. Elders are generally respected. The responsibilities of the young are increased as they age. If the only source of morality is God, how is it possible that so many disparate religious cultures follow such similar ideals? Is it possible that morality emerges, not from heaven but from us?

So, let us, for the moment, accept Nietzsche’s premise. Let us speculate on a world where there is no God, no divinely inspired vision of right and wrong and see where it leaves us. Is there still such a thing as morality? Sin? Is an ethical code based on non-mystical, rational thought even possible? If so, what form would it take? What would its precepts, postulates and pillars be. How would it balance the rights of the individual versus the needs of society? How would it treat free expression, sexual preference and non-conformity? Without the power of God to back up our moral precepts would the human race simply tear itself apart?

Personally, I don’t think it would. After all, we did not spend our days killing, raping and stealing before Moses brought those tablets down from the mountain. There were laws in China, philosophers in Greece and governments in Egypt long before morality was linked to divinity.

I believe that a rational morality is possible. In fact, I believe that rationality is the true heart of morality. Most of the basic, ethical guidelines, which we all subscribe to, have their origins in rational thought. They are survival tools. We are social animals. We depend on each other for food shelter, protection and companionship. A society without behavioral codes will not thrive and might not even survive.

If that is true, could we then define morality as simply those behaviors which help a society to thrive? If we accept that definition (or one like it) it could form the basic foundation for a logical system of right and wrong.

A rational, non-mystical approach to morality could have serious advantages over a mystical approach. Within such a framework it would no longer be enough to simply say something is “wrong”. You would have to say why it is wrong. Premises would have to be tested. Theories could be presented and debated. There would be room for adaptation, and compromise.

This quest for a rational morality is no easy task and I doubt that any final solution is really possible, particularly since our lives are constantly changing and any rational code would have to be able to change with them. More importantly, we are all flawed, irrational creatures, forever, chained by the shackles of our own perspective.

In fact, there is only one being wise enough to fully understand the mysteries we are attempting to explore and he, according to Nietzsche, is dead.

But despite, the obstacles, I believe it is a worthwhile quest. To study right and wrong is to peer into the heart of the human condition. And who knows, maybe if we shed enough light into that deep, dark mystery we might find within ourselves, the real purpose of our lives and see, for the first time, the true face of God.

Reflections on the Team

It was halftime. The Stanford band was on the field, posing and goofing in their usual way and we were booing and screaming in ours. Then a Cal fan, bolder than the rest, began to climb the chain link fence that separated the fans from the field. We laughed as he evaded the security guards. We cheered as he swung over the top of the fence. We screamed as he hit the field and ran, flat out, towards the Stanford mascot, a ridiculous tree that bopped and weaved with no sense of style or rhythm. Every Cal fan in the world hated that tree. As he ran, we noticed he was carrying something in his hand. We couldn’t see it clearly but whatever it was, you knew it was going to be good. He was almost there now. A wild hysteria had burst across the crowd. He raised his hand and for the first time we saw what he was holding.

It was a baseball bat.

The cheer died in my throat. I watched, in shock, as he raised his bat and brought it down again and again. Who knows who was inside that costume? Boy, girl? Strong, frail? Maybe it was the sweetest kid at Stanford. The mascot was on the ground now and the Stanford band was trying to pull the assailant off as he struggled for one last swing. I turned to my fellow Cal fans, expecting to see the same shock and horror I knew was on my face. They were still cheering. My brothers in blue and gold, the strangers I had felt so close to a moment before, were actually cheering.

I’m not making this up. This really happened.

At some point in life we choose sides. We pick our allegiances like options on a car or dishes at a restaurant. There is no limit to the number of teams you can join. I am a man, a Jew, an American, a Cal Fan, etc. Pick a team and suddenly, you are connected with hundreds, thousands or even millions of people and they are connected to you. You belong. It’s a powerful feeling. When soldiers in the field are asked what is really motivating them to risk their lives, the answer isn’t usually country or ideals, it’s the guy in the trench next to him. It’s the unit, the platoon, and the team.

And of course, our teams are special. They are “The Chosen People”, imbued with manifest destiny and blessed by God. (One is forced to speculate, however, on the value of God’s blessing when, if you listen to us, he bestows it on Christians, Jews, Muslims and both teams before the super bowl.) Joining a team makes us part of something special. The problem is, the moment you define what you are, you also define what you are not.

Racism, Sexism, Anti-Semitism, Homophobia and a thousand other examples of man’s inhumanity to man are inextricably tied to our allegiances and associations. After all, it is a basic human imperative to look out for your own first and everyone else second. In fact, the presence of an opposition can be a very strong motivator. Hitler united a broken and defeated German people by manufacturing an enemy out of the Jews. Ethnic cleansing in Bosnia or Rwanda, have at their heart the certain knowledge that one group is good and the other evil, and that for one to survive the other must be destroyed.


So, where does it come from, this need to divide up the world into us and them, right and wrong, friend and foe?

I used to believe that we did this because it was the only way we could comprehend the world around us. Our minds simply can’t contemplate, trillions of stars or billions of years, or even millions of people. There are almost six billion people on this planet, each with their own, history, aspirations, fears, and loves but to think of every individual is beyond our capability. We can think of India, but not every Indian. We can think of Christianity but not each Christian. And so we divide up the world, making decisions along the way about the character of each of our divisions and since everyone is doing this, a world of allegiances is formed.

But I have come to believe that there is another reason, a deeper reason. A need, which emerges from the moment of our birth and haunts many of us until the day we die.

It’s not just that we don’t know the world. It’s that we don’t know ourselves. We are looking for more than a team. We are looking for a reflection. After all, how can you know who you are without a mirror?

When you are born, you know almost nothing about the world and you look to your surroundings, your parents, siblings and friends to define who you will become. Without even realizing it you adopt a thousand details of behavior, how to eat, walk, speak, humor, manners, tastes, God. We are sponges for behavior, constantly adopting and adapting new modes of speech, dress, and action. Most of us don’t walk about with a constant identity, an ideal self that never changes from situation to situation. We are, in fact, constantly shifting, blending in with current circumstances.

So, who are we really? What is the truth hiding beneath the shifting fog of our artifice? Maybe we don’t know. Maybe we can never really know. And so we reach out to our reflections in the world, those others of our perceived kind, and we know our identity through them. I am a man, a Jew, an American, a Cal Fan. I know how to dress, speak, act properly within those groups and when Cal wins, I win and when the Jews loose, I loose. Attack my team and you attack me.

But it is important to remember that all of us are, for the most part, the product of our circumstances. We have all adapted to the world we find ourselves in. The odds are, had we been born in Nazi Germany, Stalin’s Russia, or the Taliban’s Afghanistan, we would not have fought against the conception of the world that we were presented with. We would have lived, worshiped, fought and hated along with everyone else. There are occasionally exceptional people who rise above their surroundings and fight against the common will, but those people appear far to infrequently and they rarely survive for long.

This “us and them” view of the world seems so natural we hardly ever think to question it, but question it we must.

The world today teeters on the brink of a culture war. Each day we hear of another death, another bomb, another tragedy. Each day our world seems to shrink and hope disintegrates into the mist.

So, as we stare at the stranger on the other side of field, the enemy whose very existence is a threat to ours, we must remember that he too is simply a reflection of his environment. He is a human being, just like us, struggling to find his way through a difficult world. We might not understand his motivations but he does have them. Christians and Muslims. Rich and Poor. Black and White. Republican and Democrat. The truth is they have far more in common than we care to admit.

Maybe if we can learn to focus on our similarities rather than our differences we can find our way onto a much greater team. And if there is God, and if he were to single out one team for his blessing, let us hope it would be this one.

The human race.

Because the truth is, we are all members whether we like it or not. All the other teams are just the illusions of our limited imaginations.

So, when I am filled with anger at the player on the other side. I try to remember that halftime, so long ago, when I watched one of my brothers attack one of theirs and all I can think is, “that could have been me, dressed in that ridiculous costume that day”. After all, I applied to Stanford. I just didn’t get in.