Alot of atheists or non-religious folks like to think their morality isn’t religious yet what is remarkable is that their beliefs assume alot of the same characteristics on reality from historical objective religions.
Here is a list of how secular subjective moralities are no different from the objective religious ones:
It revolves around what is considered the “sacred”. Anything beyond the sacred is considered sacreligious or what the courts deems criminal.
It revolves around what is consider the sacred “good”.
It revolves around the idea that the lives of people are inherently “sacred”.
It revolves around what is considered the sacred “truth”.
It revolves around the idea that men must obey this independent or noumenal existence of constructed morality and ethics.
It revolves around the mythical conception that actions have things-in-themselves.
It revolves around the belief that men must be “good”.
It revolves around the belief that violence and conflict is completely unnatural.
It revolves around the belief that violence and conflict is supposed to be overcomed.
It revolves around the belief that violence and conflict is a primitive obsolete behavior within the confines of society.
It revolves around the belief that there are only certain specific appropiate or righteous behaviors much like how the ancient religions created codes for their “chosen” envisionments of people.
I don’t understand why people don’t realize that all of morality is directly or indirectly spawned from moral lessons (fables/myths/stories) that we learn as children…
I don’t know Realunoriginal and the more I think about it ( Especially with my recent visit to a modern humanist website) I come to think that a large people because of their upbringing will or can never understand such realizations.
Modern philosophy rejects such sentiments and modern biased science constantly tries to affirm the existence of morality as fact.
As much as I don’t like saying this, I am not so sure if this realization will ever come to be fully realized in this world.
‘Sacred’ can have either supernatural significance or not. When it doesn’t, it just refers to what we value highly. As I keep saying, you have values as well. In fact you’re pretty obsessed with your values from what I’ve seen.
“Good” reflects valuation.
See response to point 1.
No, it revolves around what you value.
Noumenal? How so?
No it doesn’t. You’re confused.
No it doesn’t.
No it doesn’t.
No, just contained. Most people are pragmatists.
No it doesn’t. If the belief was that violence and conflict are obsolete, there would be no need for laws.
No it doesn’t. It revolves around the belief that certain behavior is unacceptable according to the values of those with power. All other behavior is acceptable.
I’m siding with Joker’s definitions insofar as we live in the predominantly Secular Christian nation of USA.
What is ‘sacred’ is what is holy and righteous under God.
Morality works the same throughout the world though, so many cross-culture examples don’t need big leaps of rationality to see how what Joker is talking about spreads throughout different societies.
This thread isn’t about what is “holy and righteous under God”. It’s about conflating secular and religious understandings of ethics. As such it is utterly confused.
Morality does not work the same way in different systems of thought.
Fundamentally it does; it is a set of moral lessons that guides behavior based on religious and spiritual beliefs. Yes, they are different from culture-to-culture. Yes, ‘good and bad’ and ‘right and wrong’ justifications across the world are formed in this way. No, it is not necessary to guide a person’s life in this way when clearly other animals aside from humans have no concept of morality and religion.
But you’ve already expressed your inability to see morality as anything other than what you think morality is. It’s circular logic.
Animals live according to what is important to them. If we decide to choose not to live according to what is important to us, then we have in a way made ourselves less like the other animals, not more like them.
Morality is a description of behaviors built on rationales and ideologies. They are arbitrary due to moral relativism.
No other living being has issues with rationality in this way, that we know of. Morality is the prime factor and I see that it is unnecessary in the context of where humans have progressed to. I know it’s arguable, but I still think it’s a strong point and reasonable.
I agree we could be less obsessive regarding morality. It would be good to understand the relativity of moral behaviors.
Maybe so - I haven’t really seen your views on it. I started a discussion with you about it but left it hanging because you were going to write an essay distinguishing ‘morality’ and ‘ethics’ and I still haven’t read that.
I’ve posted to a few other people a better explanation of the difference, but you’re right, I haven’t fully explained the difference to you. Truthfully, I’m still in the process of thinking of the differentiations.
If you pay close attention to how your behavior, attitude, thoughts, and sense of wellbeing interrelate you will learn from experience about how to relate to the world. Your behavior will appear to be no different in many ways from the behavior of moralists, except you’ll probably be happier because it sprang from your own being.
Any cursory look at the various systems of morality reveals an enormous amount of similarity.
Then, why be a moralist? I don’t see that it is necessary.
I don’t agree with this, because too many people die in the name of God, or some other irrational belief strictly based off of morality. The problem is that morality does not necessitate reasonable thoughts or actions… Yes, it is reasonable to die for something you believe in. No, it is not reasonable to die for a belief that is arbitrary.
How do you mean “moralist”? Do you mean judgemental? That is not only unnecessary, but it is immoral according to many worldviews. Do you just mean concerned with moral questions? Because we are subject to delusions, and it can therefore be helpful to us to look to traditional notions of right and wrong for guidance. We could also trust ourselves theoretically to make the right dietary choices. It doesn’t make us happy to be an alcoholic, or to be addicted to junk food. Dietary guidelines help people to become happier. If people trust the dietary guidelines and distrust themselves though, they have gone to the opposite extreme.
By ‘moralist’ I mean somebody who leads their life strictly based on rational/irrational moral lessons learned from birth and refuses to accept that their world view may be flawed. Many moralists then go on to impose their morals on to others through various means to propagate their religion (depending on the culture/society).
‘Traditional’ notions of right and wrong, in America at least, are based on Secular Christianity. Secularism is more subject to reason than more conservative forms of Christianity, but it is not good enough for my tastes.
No, I just think that people should die from their will to power compared to any other reason if they choose to die for a cause.
That’s a lack of vision, or lack of wisdom. It’s not a problem inherent to morality. It’s an inability to rise above moral rigidity.
Not only lack of vision, but also limited morality. It strikes me as largely immoral to impose morality on others. On the other hand there are societal rules of conduct, which protect in a general way the ability of people to pursue happiness, which naturally results from behavior which we categorize as “moral”.
Not good enough for what though? What are you against exactly? Society’s laws? All of them?
Why should they? I don’t like your moral system.
Seriously, it’s just pragmatism. What’s the problem? Why do you have to say pragmatism is religious? It makes no sense at all.
If you say you have ethics then do you still agree with the OP that “secular subjective moralities are no different from the objective religious ones”? If morality by definition implies religion, then what could “secular subjective morality” possibly mean? Wouldn’t it mean personal ethics? Whatever distinction you write up in an essay would be rendered a moot point by the OP. Is it specifically society’s collective ethics that are a philosophical problem for you?
As a formal ideology it is an ideology. The basic approach to living that the ideology formally describes is not itself an ideology. In fact pragmatism can to a large degree be characterised by its decidedly anti-ideological attitude.
