Oh, no, I just meant cruelty, or barbarism as I put it, seems to be more an aspect of human behavior than of any particular morality. Although some moral systems do sanction some pretty cruel shit, religious or not.
Yes, they were. I originally said that there couldn’t be a distinction, you asked “why?”, presumably challenging my initial argument that there could be no distinction made, and I was defending my original statement.
Ok, but now I think you are unintentionally you are changing the tack of the thread a little. Let me try and make my case clearer (one of my favorite parts of message board philosophy is the ability to ‘negotiate meaning’ like this).
My original post was about the misnomer of branding of religious morality ‘bad’ and secular morality ‘better’, with the argument that the two are far from being distinct, and that events commonly attributed to one or the other are often, in fact, a result of a complex morality which both religious and non religious thinking have played a part in shaping, and that therefore ‘religion’ is not to blame for many of the things it is traditionally ‘blamed’ for in the arguments against religion.
There is clearly an attempt, in the modern secular humanist movements, to label all religious morality as being subversive.
If you want more concrete references, chapter 8 of ‘the God Delusion’:
Actually, Dawkins leaves the link to Christianity here entirely implicit, but the inference is clear: religious ‘morality’ is responsible for this suppression of homosexuals. My argument applied here would be that, evidently, neither the old testament nor the new testament ‘introduced’ anti-homosexuality. Morevover, seeing as they say, overall, very little about the issue and much more about the importance of not judging your neighbors, the texts could well have been interpreted as encouraging people to be accepting (as they now often are). The hatred of homosexuals was not, therefore, purely a result of religious thinking. You might say that religious thinking ‘objectified’ this morality, but then, it seems like we are doing exactly the same thing when we outwardly declare that homophobia is wrong: we, too, state our moral beliefs as if they were objective decrees (whether or not we believe that they are).
This is the kind of argument I am talking about. I do, honestly, appreciate your concerns about the philosophical basis of religious ethics. I just don’t think that these concerns paticuarly affect the issue I’m talking about.
To put it another way, its like the split made when people claim there is a ‘genetic fallacy’ being made, only here I am deliberately talking about the origins of morality rather than its justification. For my part, then, this thread is about where morality comes from and what actions/events are considered moral. It is in these two areas that I am arguing that religion and secularism are, and will remain, heavily intertwined. However, I am not arguing that this is the case in a third (meta-ethical) sphere, what is the overall justification for our morals, which I think is perhaps what you are mistaking me as arguing.
I was never religious. The rest is incidental.
‘The rest’, as you call is the subject of this thread. It’s unlikely that you somehow invented your own, brand new morality. Your morality is influenced heavily by the morality of the society you grew up in - inevitably so.
Again, I’m not saying that you justify your morality with religious concepts. I am saying that the things that values you hold as moral have at some stage in history been influenced by religion.
To which I say, “Oh well, I don’t give a hoot!”
Which is like saying “omg history is influenced by da past!!!:!!:!!!one!!!#@^$&*%#($”
This thread was a case against a common line of thinking in anti-religious arguments. Nobody forced you into joining in this discussion. If you ‘don’t give a hoot’ and feel that the main message of the thread was obvious, you could have just not responded.
It’s not that I don’t “give a hoot” about the thread, it’s that the argument is uninteresting and not compelling. It gives absolutely no creedence to anything relating to any religion or religions. It’s a matter of historical curiosity at best.
Well I find the thread interesting, if that matters a hoot …
a thread can be interesting without making interesting or compelling arguments
Well stop letting us down captaincrunk, and post an interesting and compelling argument …
I’ll get you started. Were humans moral before the advent of writing and reading … before “books & records?” If so what was it based upon?
how the fuck would I know? there’s no record, what the fuck do you expect me to say?
lol … rotflmao … right answer … can’t slip one past you, can I?
But you could make a compelling argument that, of course they were moral, or humans would have become extinct before they learned to write.
that would be a pretty dumb argument. squirrels aren’t extinct or moral
But squirrels don’t commit genocide. Also, I’ve seen squirrels play with both dogs and cats, teasing them, so squirrels might be more moral than we know. Don’t they love and protect their young?
Aren’t you presuming that things like “protecting your young” is a moral virtue?
It would be a Christian moral and virtue, but is it a Secular moral? And by what reasoning?
All social animals have moral systems. Reading and writing is irrelevant.
We could debate the morals of critters until the cows come home when we call them by name. But because humans are animals we can safely say animals are moral.
However, it’s clear that the human animal have morals, and only they, of the animal kingdom, commit genocide. So what good is either secular or religious morals?
Thanks St. James. Like clockwork you are faithful to hold my feed to the fire. Luv ya bro …
a computer destroyed nuclear weapons data in Iran, does that make it moral?
Reading, writing and making speeches are where humans justify and present as rational their squirrel-like decision making processes. After sales marketing. though once they have done this, they can manage to make other squirrels, I mean humans, do things AGAINST their squirrel-like decision making processes. Like genocide. You need reading and writing and speeches to get genocide going. A squirrel wouldn’t know what the fuck you were talking about and anyway would get bored long before the concentration camp was built and have gone back to chasing its mate about the trunk of an oak.
Squirrels are not social animals as far as I know.
Morals can be communicated verbally or non-verbally so reading and writing are not necessary for morality.
Animals have slaves. I don’t know if genocide is part of animal behavior (besides humans).