Wednesday

Practical Morality



When religious people say "without religion, how do you know whats right?" its another way of saying "I can't think for myself and need a book of rules to follow". Just like bureaucracy, the rules of religious can hinder when people don't think for themselves. What about practical everyday morality?
DiggIt!
By Infidel at 11:32 PM
Labels:

9 comments:

  1. I think you're misunderstanding the question. We don't mean, "how could you possibly choose what you think is right or wrong?", we mean, "how could you possibly think that what you've decided is right or wrong is any more significant that the temperature and consistency of your most recent bowel movement?"

    We're asking, "what's the difference between eating a banana and eating my two year old daughter?" They're both just a particular configuration of chemicals, right? What are your objections? And why should anyone else care?
    ReplyDelete
  2. Without dictation from a higher power, is that really what it would come to? Without God you would be eating your two year old daughter next time you're hungry and there's nothing left in the fridge? Of course you wouldn't, you'd still have morals, the question of where they came and why they matter would just be more difficult to answer.

    Does having morals in itself stop being significant? If you're asking for a universal, eternal significance, I can't disagree. Things get more complicated when you have to think for yourself instead of relying on dogma, which is my point.

    My take (and granted, any atheist you meet may have a different one) - the life of a baby is so significant, so worth preserving, because it possesses what the banana does not - a particular configuration of chemicals that gives way to the most meaningful and amazing phenomenon in the universe, conscious thought. Without conscious thought, nothing in the universe can ever matter, so
    conscious thought itself must be what matters, the only possible meaning.

    As for morals themselves, we evolved them to best aid in our survival, and that includes the survival of our fellow man. These evolved gut reaction morals can also be supplemented or overcome, with logic and reason.

    Why should anyone else care? Atheists may not have threat of eternal fire at their disposal to spread moral fortitude, but they have something much healthier and less biased in the long run - a free and thoughtful mind.

    There's lots of good in the bible, but also lots of bad - sexism, homophobia, intolerance, etc. Following it blindly is the easy and ignorant way out of very difficult questions.
    ReplyDelete
  3. I think you are dodging the question. You have sat down and typed up a response to me and you have used words such as "logic" and "good", by which I'm assuming that you believe in these things. But you have also confirmed to me (correct me if I am wrong) that you think you are nothing more than a collection of deterministic processes that are largely regulated by the chemical reactions that occur in your brain.

    So I'm reasonably perplexed. One one hand, you are nothing but material. On the other hand, you believe in things that have no material components (good and logic) and you claim that one of them (logic) can be used to understand and make true statements about the physical world.

    You believe in a purely physical world that is governed by certain universal laws (such as the laws of logic) and you say at the same time that Christians, who by your standards are merely chemically driven creatures have somehow got it wrong.

    What I'm asking is, how do you justify all this? Show me an atom of "right" or "wrong" or "incorrectness" or "illogic", or at least explain to me how someone who believes that we are nothing but material believes in these very real universal things that have no material.

    Am I making sense to you at all? (I don't mean that pejoratively, but as a serious question)

    btw, I'm the same person at http://thepreacher.cac2.net
    ReplyDelete
  4. I answered the question, it just wasn't YOUR answer. There are no atoms of right and wrong. You're asking for a higher authority, and I'm saying we are the highest authority.

    You repeatedly use the word "nothing more" when describing matter that forms consciousness. Apparently that's how you would see the universe without God? A conscious mind, a mind capable of understanding the universe and even the process by which it came to be can be justified in its own right.

    What is it about God that gives his rules so much meaning? His omnipotence? His omnipresence? If God was these things but was not conscious, would he still be the ultimate authority through which all life has meaning? I don't think so, and I'd hope you would agree. You're asking me to find a higher power to appeal to, but for the same reasons I am appealing to myself, to conscious thought, because there is nothing higher.

    I can say with confidence that Christians have it wrong because they are appealing to an authority that by all likelihood doesn't exist. Christianity is dogma that evolved through the natural selection of ideas, and sheds no more light on meaning of life than its counterpart, a biological virus.

    You are making sense, but only as one of the religious taking the easy way out.
    ReplyDelete
  5. Let me ask you a different way. How is belief in God "wrong"? In what context do you mean the word "wrong" to be defined? Logically?

    And then, what is your basis for your belief in logic (for example) based on how you define the universe to work?
    ReplyDelete
  6. Infidel,
    What do you think happens when you die?
    ReplyDelete
  7. gymbrall - Belief in God is wrong in the same way that belief in fairies is wrong, a.k.a not factual. I'm not saying I know the answers with absolute certainty, but I am saying all evidence points towards the Christian God and fairies being man-made.

    Science has so far proven to be the only reliable way of knowing the universe, which is where my basis for belief in its method lies.

    Anonymous - Remember when you weren't born yet? You don't of course, and that's exactly what it's like to be dead. What are you getting at?
    ReplyDelete
  9. Sorry for the long delay. We had a baby.

    You keep trying to use things that you can't justify to claim other views are wrong. Probability is not a thing. It is a convention of your mind. Or are you suggesting that probability is a real universal law? Logic is not a thing. It is a convention of your mind. Or are you suggesting that there are universal non-material entities that regulate the material world? This is what I thought you didn't believe in.
    ReplyDelete

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)