posted 06-14-99 12:57 AM ET        

I (of course) disagree with that notion, and also take exception to the notion that morality is about rewards and punishments. Morality is about doing what is "right". I contend that a "moral" person would do the right thing whether or not they were being rewarded or punished for it (indeed, a truly moral person would do the "right" thing, even if that involved punishment).

Now, the question obviously is "what is morality?". Some religious people might argue that morality is adherence to God's laws of behavior. Personally, I find that very dissatisfying (and not just because I don't believe in God ). I think that real morality can only come from within. Witness this scenario:

A) I will not kill Mr. Example because God will send me to Hell if I do, and from the descriptions, Hell is not a comfortable place, and I don't like being uncomfortable.
B) I will not kill Mr. Example because I know that I would object if Mr. Example tried to kill me.

or

C) I have no claim on Mr. Example's life. Mr. Example holds sole claim to his own life until such time as he forfeits that claim by breaching certain pre-agreed to conditions of society (e.g. "don't commit genocide") or otherwise gives such claim voluntarily. Since I have no claim, I cannot take Mr. Example's life by killing him.

Of these three, A is obviously (to me) the least moral.

posted 06-15-99 06:52 AM ET            

Now, this holds for a person considering him/herself as moral or immoral. Things get more complicated when you consider whether another person is moral. Do you think one is moral when one does what one thinks is 'good' or when one does what you think is 'good'? I guess that ultimately people judge others as moral or immoral according to their own conceptions of morality. This means that people have the illusion that somehow their own subjective ideas are in fact objective facts. In my opinion this is not true. My view on morality is no more 'right' or 'true' than yours, nor does the rule of addition applies on this issue, i.e. if two individuals have the same concept of morality this doesn't make it more valid than the view of a sole individual.
Now of course all the Christians in the forum will haunt me flourishing their Bible and insisting that true morality lies in there but whatever Jesus said about 'right' and 'wrong' is no more valid than my or anybody else's view on that.

To answer you last question (about the guy that carries out that ritual): he is a moral person in my view, but I still consider his actions 'wrong', 'bad' and therefore immoral. I hope you can understand what this means, 'cause I surely can't( ).

As for your scenario Octopus, I agree that A is the least moral option (always subjectively of course). I think that B and C are of approximately equal moral value.

CrackGenius

posted 06-16-99 11:30 AM ET            

"Now of course all the Christians in the forum will haunt me flourishing their Bible and insisting that true morality lies in there but whatever Jesus said about 'right' and 'wrong'"

That's difficult to do, at best. Or more specifically: it's over-easy. I can cull from the Bible verses that would get Mr.Example exempt of punishment from genocide (Joshua anyone? It's exactly the same thing the Serbs were trying to do to the Kosovars). I think the safest thing to do is to take one part from the Bible (well, I had to flourish it somewhere, right? ): "Love your neighbor as yourself." Slightly in-between B and C: I do not kill Mr. Example because I would not kill myself. I treat him as an equal deserving the same love and respect.

"A) I will not kill Mr. Example because God will send me to Hell if I do, and from the descriptions, Hell is not a comfortable place, and I don't like being uncomfortable."

Unfortunately it requires a carrot like this to get some people to "Do the Right thing," so God in his infinite wisdom decided to create Hell. No, seriously, this is an argument no serious religious person will use as their excuse to do the right thing. I mean, substitute Hell with "prison" and you'll get our purely secular deterrent to criminals. But (religious boosterism mode}, at least in the Presbyterian religion, God has already selected who's going to be saved and not. So doing good works to get into heaven is not the issue; it's being nice to God and following his laws since he was such a chum that is.{/RBM}

"Morality was a concept devised as a means to stop people doing things that felt good."

Nope. So you don't like the God says what is good and bad idea? Try this secular view on for size than: Societies evolve just like animals. The societies that proved most fit for creating as many new members of the society as possible as well as not being conquered survived. Societies that ran around killing anything that moved did not last long. Societies that stole things like crazy never had a productive economy. So, all the societies that survived had inhibitions against doing things like that. As a result, people remembered that as "morality." Even if there was no God and no religious moralists, a purely secular morality would have developed.

"Is it possible to have objective morality?"

Yes, but rare. When morality is applied in the societal context (see above), they're called laws. Perhaps not as objective as they should be, but getting there.

And of course, God is the ultimate objective judge. Too bad he refuses to come down to the temporal plane and judge our Supreme Court, imagine what wonder he could do for our judicial system...

Let's not forget Nietzche's morality.

D)You kill Mr. Example to show that you are the master, and setting up a new "Master Morality-" the Master does what he thinks is right.

posted 06-16-99 11:32 PM ET            

I'm distressed that anyone's god has such a low opinion of us. Why would somebody worship someone like that? I, for one, don't need your "eternal reward" to be a moral person.

"No, seriously, this is an argument no serious religious person will use as their excuse to do the right thing."

I've seen several people suggest that an atheist society would collapse, presumably because they feel it would have no moral compass. Granted, some of these comments were over at Apolyton, where they seem to have some sort of right-wing crackpot recruitment campaign, or something, because they sure have way too many of them.

"at least in the Presbyterian religion, God has already selected who's going to be saved and not."

How exactly does He make that determination? Your actions on Earth don't make a difference at all?

SnowFire, your equating of laws and morality is misguided at best. What moral component guides how long someone holds a copyright until it becomes public domain? Nothing. However, this is an important legal question, and does affect the smooth and successful operation of society. I'm sure we've all heard of examples where rigid adherence to the law has seemed a morally reprehensible act.

"And of course, God is the ultimate objective judge."

posted 06-17-99 12:07 AM ET            

As for religion and morality, religion does play an integral role on the morality of a society. I seriously doubt that all atheists would come to your conclusions, Oct. Some (like a certain Mr. Nietsczhe) would argue that might makes right, and that which is moral is whatever the strong decide. Why do so few people think that way? Simple, regardless of their faith, people in the modern world are of cultures with deep roots in inherently pacifistic religions (Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism, Hindu, and Islam are the biggies here). Many without a faith hold human life as valuable because of the culture to which they belong. Nowhere in the (respectable) media do you see people advocating genocide or other debasements of human life, in fact those who commit such afore mentioned debasements are deplored. If our culture were different, having roots in an inherently militaristic philosophy (such as Nietzsche's), our concepts of morality would obviously be different.

posted 06-17-99 12:52 AM ET            

Why don't you back that up instead of making a blanket statement (which you claimed you didn't like the the Ahteism thread ). How many immoral atheists do you know? How many moral atheists do you know? How many members of the Christian Coalition support the death penalty (which you say is immoral)? I'd wager, in fact, that you'd find that a greater percentage of atheists opposed the death penalty than the general population... (Although if true, it's probably a trick of demographics...).

posted 06-17-99 12:59 PM ET            

Um... I was being sarcastic before. I honestly am still undecided if there is a hell. And I go to agree that strictly "fear of hell" is not a good reason to do the right thing (that no serious religious person would use this as an argument quote).

I've seen several people suggest that an atheist society would collapse

I never said that. In fact, I said that a system of purely secular morals would develop without any religion due to society.

How exactly does He make that determination? Your actions on Earth don't make a difference at all?

Good question. Perhaps God is a good enough judge of character that he knows who is going to follow his laws. In other words, your actions don't count, but if you're the type of person who would abuse the privelege and not do good deeds, than God probably didn't choose you. But hey, I'm not really up on my theology as much as I'd like to be, so perhaps I can give you a better answer later.

And oh yes- sorry if I confused law and morality. Yes, I'm all for their separation as well; and I also don't believe all laws are morality laws or all morality things should be laws. That's not the impression I tried to give.

posted 06-17-99 05:19 PM ET            

For the Bible thing you are right. There are so many different stuff in there that would provide the material for several moral systems. I do like the 'love thy neighbour as thyself' principle and I think that Octopus is right to point out that it 'simply one way of verbalizing the concept of subjective morality'.

Can you give an example of what you consider true or objective morality and show how you reached that conclusion?

CrackGenius

posted 06-18-99 12:41 AM ET            

I did, see, I added in the Nietzche thing . I'm simply saying that if someone was an atheist and seperated from a culture which has religous values, that they would not neccesarily come to your conclusion, which, of course, a few have.

How many immoral atheists do you know?

All the openly atheistic people I know, IRL, are gloomy mansonites or angst ridden disillusioned kids. Their behavior to me is not exceedingly immoral, yet not exactly what I'd call model behavior.

How many moral atheists do you know?

By my definition of morality, only a handfull from these forums.

How many members of the Christian Coalition
support the death penalty (which you say is immoral)?

Too many. I'm against the so-called "Christian" coalition. Biggoted and ignorant are the kindest words I can use to describe them.

I'd wager, in fact, that you'd find
that a greater percentage of atheists opposed the death penalty than the general
population... (Although if true, it's probably a trick of demographics...).

I admit that you're probably right here. Anyone opposed to societal evils like that is moral enough in my book

I'd like to see you offer up some real examples to show the religion/morality correlation
you claim exists that can't be explained in other ways (e.g. standard of living, etc.).

I'm not quite sure exactly what you're asking, though no, materialistic standard of living is more of a factor of high technology and a healthy economy. Anyway, what does standard of living(in the materialistic, as I'm assuming you mean it) have to do with morality?

posted 06-18-99 12:59 AM ET            

Ah, but they are definitely religious, so the "more religious" implies "more moral" connection isn't universal (or maybe these are the few exceptions, and most other religious people are more moral?).

"I'm not quite sure exactly what you're asking, though no, materialistic standard of living is more of a factor of high technology and a healthy economy. Anyway, what does standard of living(in the materialistic, as I'm assuming you mean it) have to do with morality?"

I'm asking for an unambiguous example of the religion/morality correlation that you claim exists. A bad example would be to say "city A has lots of crime, city B has little crime, and a greater percentage of the population in city B goes to church", when in point of (hypothetical) fact, city B has a booming economy while A is economically depressed (so economic conditions, rather than "lack of morals" might account for the crime difference).

This, however, brings up the question of what a good measure of "morality" might be (the horrible example above is even more horrible because "crime rate" would be a pretty bad example...). I would say that political corruption might be a good measure of "morality", but there are very few openly atheist politicians that I'm aware of...

In general, most atheist people that I have known have done a lot more soul searching about issues like this than religious people I have known (who, for better or worse, just accept their church's spin on right and wrong). This, in my book, puts the atheists I have known far ahead of the other side (and I freely admit that people I've discussed this with are not a representative sample of the public at large ). The ability to question the morality of one's own moral system is a strong indicator of a very moral person.

posted 06-18-99 01:12 PM ET            

Just a guess, but how about happiness? Sure, there are stern monks who never crack a smile, and there are wild 20's partygoers who have a smile eternally plastered on their faces (but not moral by any strench of the imagination). But in all of those run-down future movies (don't laugh), everyone's a mercenary and no one seems to smile. While in the utopias, people are nice to each other, and everyone smiles without having to go to alcohol stills.

The ability to question the morality of one's own moral system is a strong indicator of a very moral person.

Second the motion.

what percentage of the population is actually immoral?