If you expect someone to trade “quid pro quo” (this for that) you can’t randomly renege on the deal.
This is, really, two, big problems with god’s morals. First off, it’s hard to say that you’re even dealing with a moral being, if they are transactional. For example, god’s love (which is claimed to be infinite) is conditioned on whether or not you believe. It’s a stretch to say that what “love” is, and it may even be the opposite – god does not love you, unless you do what it wants. I have encountered defenders of christiantity that attempt to justify this by saying that god’s love is incomprehensible to us mortals, or that – since god is the definition of love, by definition, that’s what love is. The first argument is bafflegab and the second is circular. Perhaps I’m a sociopath who merely interprets god’s love, as it is described, as transactional, but I don’t see a more generous interpretation: god’s love is conditional on your belief, just like Big Brother’s love in George Orwell’s 1984.
He gazed up at the enormous face. Forty years it had taken him to learn what kind of smile was hidden beneath the dark mustache. O cruel, needless misunderstanding! O stubborn, self-willed exile from the loving breast! Two gin-scented tears trickled down the sides of his nose. But it was all right, everything was all right, the struggle was finished. He had won the victory over himself. He loved Big Brother.
Orwell, of course, was familiar with christian ideology, so it’s no surprise to see christianity reflected in the totalitarian state that is the villain in his novel. But the point remains: isn’t “love” unilateral? Many of us have experienced the pain of loving someone who does not return it, but none of us would say that it was real love if we could somehow compel that person to reciprocate. Of course, for an omnipotent, omnipresent being, compulsion is so easy that it might be an involuntary reflex – yet the christian god wants to insist that we believe and love it for its own sake, in spite of its obvious flaws, including (but not limited to) its use of torture if you choose to reject its love.
I argue that an omnipotent being that has such a transactional view of love and belief cannot possibly understand either, which means that god’s love is an incomprehensible lie – and a huge one, at that. The christians who purport to believe that god loves them have a really big circle to square: since god’s love is transactional, it is reasonable to expect that, if we do X that god will do Y, yet that is not the case. That’s what I mean when I say that god is unreliably transactional. You can’t trade with a being that’s hit or miss like that because they’re indistinguishable from randomness and therefore what’s the point? I used to enjoy asking christians why it was that believers do not appear to experience better life outcomes in the broad population than non-believers or believers in other faiths. If god really cared about christians, maybe they wouldn’t be such a bunch of assholes, or they’d live longer, or be less violent and rapacious, or their clothes would fit better. Instead, we observe no difference in outcomes between christians and atheists – exactly what we’d expect if god actually did not “love” anyone.
There are many examples of god’s love being conditional, so I think we can take that point as proven, but if you have any doubts, all you need to do is consider god’s treatment of his chosen people, The Jews. It’s a twisted and evil relationship that can only be described as abusive.
When I was a child, I considered religion because many around me claimed to believe in it. But you don’t have to look at christianity very hard to see the glaring problems with its foundational principles. Most notably that god is a really nasty piece of work. My first memories of realizing that I failed to believe any of christianity was when I encountered the sad story of Job. I’m assuming most of you are familiar with Job, who is documented in the bible as “The Biggest Sucker, Ever.” The book of Job is fascinating for what it reveals both about the alleged transactional love of god, and about christian believers in general. Obviously, I think it’s all just a myth, but if I did believe in the story, I’d have to think it was the greatest troll-job against christians, ever – done by god. “I’m going to give you this completely incoherent lesson about my morality, just to top things off, and you’ll have to try to figure it out and defend it to atheists for all time. Bwahahahaha!” Briefly: Job is god’s greatest fan, but god and the devil start a drunken bet in which the devil bets Job will renounce god if pressured enough, but god says “nope” and they fuck Job’s life up something awful. That’s a perfect example of how god’s transactional love is not reliable: you can be his biggest fan ever and he’ll mess with you just to win a dollar bar bet. Even a child finds this story confusing, repellent, and cause for uncertainty – but christian adults really have to bend over backwards to make sense of it: [thebible]
Job explores the difficult question of God’s relationship to human suffering and invites us to trust God’s wisdom and character.
Set during an unknown time period in Uz, an obscure land far from Israel, the book of Job focuses on questions about God’s justice and why good people suffer. It also asks the question we rarely think to ask, why do good people prosper?
See what I mean? Christians have to sort through that great iceberg of half-baked philosophy and try to glean some useful lessons from it. They call it an “exploration” or an “illustration” but, in terms of the clarity of its message the only conclusion anyone can reach is that god’s love is arbitrary and transactional and you can’t trust god as far as you can comfortably spit a live rat.
“He’ll Fuck You Up” made me smile, thank you.
On the love and friendship yes I agree it can’t be too transactional, but neither can it be completely untransactional, neither extreme is friendship nor is it love..
… defenders of christiantity that attempt to justify this by saying that god’s love is incomprehensible to us mortals…
To which I reply that “love” is clearly the wrong word, and we need one expressing incomprehensibility: I suggest “fnorgl” (unless that turns out to mean something in Norwegian or suchlike). God fnorgls us, with both fists.
… god’s love is conditional on your belief…
Belief matters most to the christian version of god; the Hebrew god explicitly demands *obedience*.
… we observe no difference in outcomes between christians and atheists …
Unless the two groups are in opposition, and one has dominance.
… the sad story of Job.
Considered by historians as the earliest text in the Hebrew bible, so arguably formative to the later stories. Alas, I’ve loaned out my “Documentary Hypothesis” books and have struck out in doing a web search to find whether the co-monster in the Job story is El or Yahweh (originally separate gods: Y was a war god of the people of the Negev desert area, while E was a patriarch god hailing from the northern-Israel/southern-Lebanon zone; they got mashed up into one when refugees from Assyrian-conquered Israel moved into Jerusalem and the Judah area about 25 centuries ago).
… Christians have to sort through that great iceberg of half-baked philosophy …
A) You keep leaving out the Jews, who endured (and perpetuated) this conundrum for centuries before christians existed to twist their minds around it and everything else.
B) The concept of a half-baked iceberg is at least as paradoxical as an abusive loving god, but much more 21st-century.
1. I find it amusing to see avowed Atheists discussing the nature of “God.” It reminds me of something I learned in my freshman logic (the branch of philosophy, not the EE kind): all statements about unicorns are true, because unicorns don’t exist. I don’t remember the explanation exactly, but IIRC it was something like that statements about unicorns have as a premise that they exist, and all syllogisms of the form “if [always false condition] then Y” are true, regardless of what Y is.
2. The whole discussion presumes that “Christianity” has a single, well-defined notion of the nature of “God.” However, the population of people who call themselves “Christian” is very, very heterogenous, as are their beliefs. Some would agree with what you assume about “God,” others (probably the majority, though not an overwhelming majority) would say that “God” is nothing like that. There is very little that (almost) all Christians would agree on, and what they would agree on would be so vague as to be, for practical purposes, meaningless. FWIW, the same goes for the Bible: some regard the Bible as the literal and inerrant word of “God” (sometimes even a particular translation), while others see it as “divinely inspired,” and yet others see it as simply a chronicle of the history and beliefs of a particular people. Yet they all call themselves “Christian.”
It seems to me that the Christianity that most atheists like to pillory is the Christianity of large parts of the fundamentalist (now called “evangelical”) wing of Christianity. From what I read, fundamentalist culture is mainly an enshrinement of a patriarchal hierarchal social system, one in which those higher up in the hierarchy have unquestioned power over those below them. E.g., the father of the family over the women and children, the pastor over all in his flock, etc., and members of the community are not allowed to question the dictates or the behavior of those set above them (“by God,” doncha know?) Whatever their betters do is right and moral, by definition. It’s all about power (which is why they — or at least their leaders — flock to Trump.) “God” is basically a stick, a threat to keep people in line. And since you’re not allowed to question anything, what you’re told about “God” doesn’t have to make sense.
Most love is conditional. People love their dogs with whom they share living space, but they don’t love their cockroaches. Our love for an animal depends on conditions like cuteness or specific behaviors from the animal. We love our lovers, spouses, and parents only when they do specific things and have certain personality traits. Even love for children can become conditional, for example, many parents will stop loving their kid if said child grows up to be a psychopathic, calculating, and evil murderer.
Now, of course, in practice a human cannot say, “do this one action every day and I will feel love towards you,” because we cannot consciously control our feelings. But, on some level, what we feel towards another living being does depend on how they behave, thus there are conditions, which will determine whether we love somebody or no.
Most interactions between multiple humans (or humans and animals) are transactional. When we have a party, each of us expects to be entertained by those around us. When we have sex, we give our partner pleasure and expect them to give us pleasure in return.
According to your definition, most people end up being not “moral beings.”
By the way, now I’m wondering about how you define morality and “moral beings.” The way I see it, whether some person is moral and whether some action they did counts as moral depends on how they behave and what exactly they do. What they feel is irrelevant for me for determining whether I’m willing to accept them or their actions as “moral.”
Back when I was 17, I managed get to stuck in a dysfunctional relationship with a guy who routinely said “I love you” but treated me like crap. I suspect that he probably didn’t lie about his feelings. After that fiasco, my next relationship was with a person who never claimed to love me but treated me well (we just skipped all that romantic crap, because neither of us was into this stuff). That’s when I concluded that I really don’t care much about what somebody feels and I am much more interested in their actions.
And here I am thinking that friendship is a transactional relationship. Then again, maybe our definitions for “transactional” differ and I’m not sure what you mean with “too transactional.”
I would not call Trump “transactional,” because he doesn’t keep his word and routinely fails to deliver his end of the bargain. The way I define it, a transactional person (and I consider myself one) is somebody who keeps their word and fulfills their part of the deal. Thus, the way I define it, narcissists or sociopaths or assholes cannot possibly be transactional, because they will betray their friends or lovers as soon as it becomes convenient. Also, “transactional” implies that both parties consent to whatever happens and mutually benefit from the relationship and their relationship is not exploitative. People like Trump don’t care about consent, mutual benefit, and the wellbeing of their friend/partner/lover, they prefer to exploit people instead. For me, mutually caring about each other’s wellbeing is something I would expect from a relationship which I see as transactional.
Allison:
Technically, since atheists (whether or not avowed) by definition don’t believe in the god-construct, their discussion (such as this one) is about the claims made about God by theists.
Yeah, telling, ain’t it?
Obviously, they can’t all be right — but they can sure be all wrong. :)
Yes, but not limited to that. It’s all forms of it, but particularly what’s written in the various Holy Books (you know, the Bible, the Book of Mormon, etc).
—
Re transactionalism, when I was a child in Spain it was the done thing to go to a church and pay for the privilege of lighting small candles in order to sway God to grant some desire. The more one lit, the better!
Some go further, e.g. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/2019/12/every-year-millions-miracle-seeking-pilgrims-visit-mexico-city/
The good Lord gives, the clerics say/
but then, he also takes away.
No matter how you look at it/
he is an untrustworthy git!
I used to enjoy asking christians why it was that believers do not appear to experience better life outcomes in the broad population than non-believers or believers in other faiths.
Oh, but they do. This is the basis of the prosperity gospel. It is just that sometimes the cheque is still in the mail.
“fundamentalist” and “evangelical” are not describing the same sub-species of Christers.
In the USA they pretty much do. Groups that were previously called “fundamentalist” now use the term “evangelical,” probably because “fundamentalist” had acquired a negative connotation.
It is true that “evangelical” strictly speaking means something else entirely and isn’t all that accurate a description of their beliefs and practices anyway, and is moreover used in yet other senses outside of the USA. However, when people speak of “evangelical” groups in the USA, they’re talking about the same communities that were previously called “fundamentalist.”
I was listening to a non-evangelical Christian say that the book of Job is about the supremacy of God.
Apparently God is not transactional. They say he is Supreme and can do whatever he wants and if you’re expect God to answer your prayers he might – he can – but you have to love him anyway if he doesn’t. If you can manage to do this, then you’ll get your reward in heaven. Still sounds transactional, only with a much longer wait.
This is probably familiar to most of you, but still:
“The rain it raineth on the just
And also on the unjust fella;
But chiefly on the just, because
The unjust steals the just’s umbrella.”
I’ve seen various attributions, including Ogden Nash, but apparently it was from a 19th c. English judge named Charles Bowen.
I have a bunch of specific comments I would like to make to some of the comments on this post; I just haven’t had time lately. Sorry!
There’s one point that I’d like to make: I am maintaining a separation between my discussion of god’s morals such as they are represented in christianity, and christians’ morals that are consequences of promoting and claiming to believe these things about god. That’s why I have not engaged with the comments (there have been several so far) that explain religion in the broader context of its being a technique for social control. Of course it is; that is obvious. As a moral nihilist, I am inclined toward Nietzsche’s more extreme position, namely that morality itself is an illusion used for social control and that religion is one of many frameworks for accomplishing that maneuver. Where I think that fits into the picture I’m trying to paint, here, is that if a christian was promoting their religion as a source of morals, and had even the slightest suspicion that they were actually just playing a social control riff, it would be profoundly dishonest for them to continue to do so, without resolving that conflict, first. That’s the core argument of why I say that christian belief is immoral on the face of it: the believer is accepting something that would be so important were it true, as a given, on the shabbiest of evidence – and judging others based on their facile apologetics. That’s disgusting.
chigau@#8:
“fundamentalist” and “evangelical” are not describing the same sub-species of Christers.
Producing a Venn diagram of that relationship would be … interesting. Emo Philips’ famous religion joke pretty much nails it.
Definitions, definitions. You write “transactional” like it’s a bad thing, but to me, “transactional” implies, well, consistency and keeping one’s word. “Lawful”, more or less. If Trump were actually transactional, he wouldn’t cheat workers of their pay. He wouldn’t be such a damn grifter.
I don’t think you can get away from some sort of transactionalism. Moral philosophy asks: “What do we owe to each other?”, implying that there is a potential debt simply by existing. A narcissist/sociopath/entitled person might well answer “Everyone owes me everything I want ; I don’t owe anyone anything”. A generous person might answer “I owe everyone as much as I can give; no-one owes me anything”. Both extremes are untenable in broader society; I think most people are somewhere in the middle, with a hierarchy depending on various factors including relatedness, friendships, current level of resources, psychological states/moods, etc.
I suspect you would get a lot of interesting waffling if you asked a religious person, “Does God owe us anything at all?”
I suspect that theists would say that, no, God loves everyone regardless, but he treats us differently based on his quality of justice, and his ineffable nature. Now, I personally don’t think that makes sense; the whole point of loving someone is to treat them kindly. But this is one of the basic things that has often bothered me about religion: Even without going into the question of the evidence of God’s existence, theists make confused claims about basic terms like “love” and “justice” and “kindness” and “merciful” when applied to God
I think that the book of Job is trying to dance around the point that God is capricious, not that God is “transactional”. God soberly decides, on a whim, to tell Satan to smash Job’s stuff — and then, when Satan technically loses (Job does not curse God to his face after losing all his animals, children, and laborers), God does it again, and tells Satan to hurt Job even more without killing him.
Here’s an interesting deconstruction of Job:
Marcus @#12
Sure. Sometimes the illusion of morality is useful, because it increases the wellbeing of people who form societies (moral rules like “don’t kill,” or “don’t rape”). On other occasions, this illusion that’s used for social control results in harmful consequences (moral rules like “gay sex is bad,” or “love your dictator”).
And here I am promoting human rights, equality, and abolishing all forms of bigotry while being fully aware of the fact that I am actually engaging in an attempt of social control.
Andreas Avester@#15:
it increases the wellbeing
What is this “wellbeing” of which you speak? Is it not a proxy for “good” and, if you attempt to unpack it, you’ll wind up with a circular definition such that it may as well be directly substituted for that?
– No, no need to attempt the exercise, it’s just that I’ve seen a lot of atheoskeptics talk about “wellbeing” as though that’s something that we all recognize, understand, and can reason about. It’s basically the utilitarian maneuver: instead of saying that I have a moral system that allows me to reason about what is right and wrong, I’ll say that I have a moral calculus that does the same thing, but I won’t support how that is something we can all agree to. As usual, one person’s “wellbeing” may be another person’s theft or oppression depending on whose semantics dominate. (omg! the post-modernists were right!)
And here I am promoting human rights, equality, and abolishing all forms of bigotry while being fully aware of the fact that I am actually engaging in an attempt of social control.
At least you try to justify your moral opinions, rather than pinning them on a contradictory and nebulous “god”!
Owlmirror@#14:
I think that the book of Job is trying to dance around the point that God is capricious, not that God is “transactional”.
That’s the second part of my complaint. 1) God is transactional, 2) God is not very good at it. Job is successful and rich and wallowing in hookers, blow, and Lamborghinis because he is god’s #1 MAGAfan and worshipper. I.e.: God gave him all the bling because he was a good fan – that’s transactional: god is generating good fans by buying them with worldly rewards. But then, 2) God undoes his own “generosity” – revealing it not to be generosity at all – on what amounts to a whim.
God could have made an exact duplicate of Job to experiment on, in principle, that would have reacted the same way. But god preferred to fuck Job over because that’s the way gods are.
Owlmirror@#14:
You write “transactional” like it’s a bad thing, but to me, “transactional” implies, well, consistency and keeping one’s word. “Lawful”, more or less.
I made an error if my writing implies that being transactional is a bad thing. In fact, I am trying to argue that being transactional has no moral value other than that you be consistent and keep your word (which god doesn’t). My complaint is not that god is transactional, but rather that god’s transactional “love” is not real “love” (unless one of us wants to argue that you can buy love) it’s temporary and god only pretends to love while the worshipper is banging their head on the ground or whatever worshippers do to buy god’s conditional love. Being transactional is fine (but don’t call it “love”) but being unreliable at transactions is dishonest.
I recently came across some quotes relating to Trump, which I wonder if you had in mind when you wrote “transactional”.
The Atlantic:
But according to sources with knowledge of this visit, Trump, while standing by Robert Kelly’s grave, turned directly to his father and said, “I don’t get it. What was in it for them?” Kelly (who declined to comment for this story) initially believed, people close to him said, that Trump was making a ham-handed reference to the selflessness of America’s all-volunteer force. But later he came to realize that Trump simply does not understand non-transactional life choices.
The Washington Post:
“You seem like fairly talented guys — why would you do that? You don’t make any money,” Trump said, according to the former official, who added of Trump: “Everything is transactional to him.”
With that context, it certainly looks to me like they mean “transactional” to have the connotation of “of immediate or short-term personal benefit”, or something like that. Trump can’t even imagine concepts like sacrifice or duty or generosity or selflessness.
Of course, that having been said, while I don’t think that “sacrifice” or “duty” are necessarily bad concepts, they have been unreasonably weaponized by the military-industrial-political complex to support conflicts where millions of deaths are caused in the pursuit of the generation of ultimate profit of those invested in the military-industrial-political complex, and who never risk their own lives in those conflicts (or if they do risk their lives, do so to ultimately profit themselves: looting). And more cruelly and cynically, the military-industrial-political promotes conflicts to simply bully countries with weaker militaries; to show off military strength.
Marcus @18, I think the concept at hand is ‘altruism’.
(Transactionalism being quid pro quo)
John Morales@#20:
Marcus @18, I think the concept at hand is ‘altruism’.
No. Altruism is when you give something and expect nothing in return except maybe the personal satisfaction of having done so.
Marcus, “real “love”” isn’t altruism?
John Morales@#22:
“real “love”” isn’t altruism?
No, or we’d call it “altruism.” Duh.
And no, I am not going to get into a battle of linguistic nihilism.