Ethics isn't ethics once you lose the compassion to follow it. People advocate religion because it is their choice- what individual reason that led them to their choice is irrelevant. However, when it comes to explaining their choice without rousing too much attention, ethics just seems like the best choice. The ethics are secondary in religion. You could have a code of ethics, and still not be religious. Please, know more before you act like you know about religion. People don't 'advocate' religion 'because' of morality.
We can still be moral through our natural instincts, such as being able to understand the pains of the poor, being able to feel remorse out of doing wrong, and being able to feel sorry for those who are not well. I find your statement lacking in sound logic. There's nothing extreme that needs to be done. The world works, and it will continue to work without extremity plaguing the world.

Groundless opinion; please extrapolate.

Not soley because of morality no, that is not what I was communicating. But people like to bring up morality a lot when defending religion; and don't try to tell me different - I know from experience.

And this sentence right here is exactly why people cannot use morality as a defense for religion.

ROFL, I find this to be lacking in logic. The world works eh? You honestly think extremity isn't present already? You honestly think the world is A-OK just the way it is? This sort of thinking I find appalling, and thankfully your not the majority - otherwise the feminists would still be suppressed, the minorities would still be suppressed, all the scientific discoveries would still be suppressed, etc. etc. etc. You are suffering from the logical fallacy known as: Appeal to Nature. Just because the world is the way it is now doesn't mean it "works".

In a sense, ethics is what we choose to follow- within that, we require a reason to follow a code of ethics. For a religion, you follow its ethics because in part, you believe in the contents of its beliefs, and thus you follow its ways, and so on. However, when you lose the necessary reason- there is no reason to follow a code of ethics, and thus is no longer a viable 'ethic'. Everything is a perception of us, it is not necessarily the product of objectiveness within the world.

Actually, no. You haven't experienced it all, and you're trying to generalize a closed circle to an infinite ocean. You just happened to meet people that use morality to defend religion.

It doesn't mean there is no morality within the religion. And religion includes ideals that a non-religious person might have. There's more to it than just morality.

The world doesn't necessarily have a single answer for all of its problems. One set of logic could be right at one time, and not at the other. But at this moment, it is right. If you look at the common direction the world took was to let people live under their own will- as such freedom. That balances the power between liberality and conservativeness. It provides a necessary tension for the world to be directed in the right direction. If you however, limit the freedom of belief once again, then you are trying to revert what we have already done. That's not the extremity we want.
What I'm truthfully saying is we don't need stupid extremities- such as removing religion. It might also help if you calmed down.

And, the world works alright. We aren't on the brink of destruction by ourselves. Of course, many of us are starving. But many of us are not starving at all too. You can't have all of them to eat well. It doesn't work like that. To have one, you must have the other. And no matter what change was done, that was sort of the done deal for the start. If you could prove that we'll somehow fall apart at this moment, then please make yourself ludicrous.

He is not trying to generalize anything, there are people who use morality/ethics to defend God/religion (See http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/kant-religion/#3.2 for an example). If you do not think that morality is a valid argument then agree with Pinky.


This comment is not constructive. Either refute his statement with a valid argument or don't say anything, do not say he is wrong with no argument to back it up.

[/quote]

A few things here:

First I am not sure what you mean by a set of logic. There are different logics but I do not think that is what you intend here. I think a better wording is that sometimes we do not have all the required information and we must reevaluate our position from time to time and therefore we can be wrong at times.

Second, the direction the world has taken is less and less freedom, not more. At the beginning we could do what ever we wanted, there were no laws, no government, no structure. We have slowly over the past few thousand years implemented more and more structure in our lives limiting what is and is not acceptable to our communities and even trying to enforce our structure on others. Religion actually played a large role in this.

Finally, let us say that currently the world works. That does not mean that it could not be better, we could improve the lives of many people in the world. Should we not strive to make our world a better place?

I'm not sure what you mean at all. If you have interpreted my words right, I do not agree with Pinky.

Why do I have to absolutely refute his statement? Also, where do I say he's wrong? It's rather hard to explain to someone who didn't notice his logical failure. But alas, I shall.
Because there can be morality with and without religion, morality is completely independent of religion. This is what Pinky is trying to say. But when morality is a concept that encompasses too much, one can never be too sure. There can be morality that are indigenous to religion.
Although, it's not too hard to find wrongs in this kind of thought- because most religion promotes morality. You cannot say there is no connection between the two when one promotes something. It's not that he's wrong because I have not refuted, but because he assumed too much. It's a good way to be wrong. Just like how you're randomly interpreting my words to your likings.

No, what I meant was exact and accurate. We don't carry out a single logic at one time. We always use more than one logic in combination. Most easily exemplified, 'Because A is B, and because B is C, A is C, and I can back it up by a1, a2, a3, a4....' and so on. That was just a singular example out of many combination of logic.

This is controversial. If you want to talk about the social contract theory, it is not on topic. But according to the theory, we have gained more freedom because there are laws, government, and structure.

Such random words from a random idealist. Those who say things like these always lead the world into a worse place. Like Marx, and Hitler. Watch when you say 'better', because perspective decides whats better or whats worse. It's all made up, by us.

Oh really? Take a look:
Try posting with a different purpose than the one you've been using and you will avoid making stupid mistakes like this.

As BeDazed has tried to point out: Religion answers the "Why" question, whereas morality answers some of the "What", as in "What to do". Religion provides a purpose to take an action, and without a purpose what reason is there to follow the morality? May I ask you why we should extract and teach the morality that comes with specific religions? Why do you believe they are right? You must have some sort of belief or purpose you are following in order to decide that morality should be taught and passed along, and that is very similar to what many religions do: provide an answer to why.

Thank you.

Yes, you have proven my point perfectly. Morality is completely independent of religion. In fact, morality came before religion; it was a trait that was promoted in our evolution via natural selection. It is not indigenous to religion. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_of_morality That is why there is so many sections of the Bible that we ignore or reinterpret, because our morality is innate in us. It comes from within, not from a book.

All that you said, you cannot deny that our world still has much room for improvement. Tempz is right, we should strive to make our world a better place. Practice makes perfect, and we are far from perfect. I cannot see how you can possibly argue against this, we are not at the pinnacle of human civilization, we can always raise the bar - always.

Yes, religion answers the why. Why be moral? Because GOD TOLD YOU TO. If you don't obey him - you ROT in hell for ETERNITY. The concept of acting morally because someone is COMMANDING us to do so and we are doing it out of FEAR I find a distinctively IMMORAL prospect. The realms of common decency and human compassion is not the sole province of the believer. I can behave morally without any threat of punishment or prodding of a divine dictator, as can many others - anyone who says we need this to behave moral I believe is a distinctly immoral person. I ask of the believers this: if you were to find out tomorrow, somehow, someway that God absolutely definitely 100% did not exist - would you immediately go on a murdering/raping/torturing spree? Do the bounds of your behavior rest solely on your fear of punishment? If you answer yes: then I would consider you an immoral person.

There does not have to be a why, in order to have to do something. If God does not exist, and I do not think he does. Then morality is not something empirical or external - it comes from within. Morality is a human construct. We try our best to be moral because it is productive towards society and as a result productive for ourselves. If we all threw away morality we would be right back in the dog-eat-dog natural world. No, we evolved, we escaped the clutches of the brutality of nature. And I say we do not go back!

We do not need to give ourselves a why in order to make ourselves feel better about it - we simply do it because it is productive for our species and in addition - makes us feel GOOD about ourselves. How DARE any theist say I need someone to tell me how to be moral!

I think first, you'd better read what I say correctly. I have not proved your point. There are similarities, but there are differences. As pointed out above. Morality is a subject far too large to be held under one assumption. The world doesn't revolve around absolutes. That is what I said. And you blatantly ignore others words while you repeat what you say post after post. Some logic for someone who promotes rationality.

Again, that is not what I'm trying to point out. There are many ways the world can 'become' better. And the methods may vary. And I highly distrust and disregard those who do not respect what others believe in. 'Getting rid of religion'? Regardless of what other people have to say? We don't call that better. Most would call that worse. Most would call that trampling on the rights of the people, it's what people have been standing for. And you were trying to advocate the method to downgrade ourselves.

Prove it. Back it up with an evidence that I can agree upon. Morality can be both empirical, external, and be innate. There are different depths, and kinds of morality. It encompasses many actions and in- actions. Also, a theist could say what they want to say to you, just like how you're saying anything you want to say to me- or anyone else for that matter.

Post has been edited 2 time(s), last time on Jun 3 2010, 9:12 am by BeDazed.

I am arguing that religion is not necessary for morality. You proved my point with this:
I then showed that there is no indigenous morality to religion with the evolution of morality. How morality existed before religion, and religion plagiarized that (even if this wasn't the case, the ten commandments, among other things, are taken from the Egyptian book of the dead, so Christianity can't even claim that either!).

Your agreeing with me here. Christianity claims there is one set of external moral laws that everyone must follow, and if you don't follow them, you are immoral. I say morality is subjective, and it looks like you agree. Deontology, Consequentialism, Virtue Ethics, take your pick.

We only respect what others believe when what they believe does not impact the well being of others. Religion does just this, halting scientific advance (stem cell research), causing the suffering and misery of millions through their dogmatic views on morality (getting AIDs is preferable to wearing a condom), and claiming that they are infallibly correct and that everyone else is wrong, yet having no evidence to back up these claims.

I don't mean getting rid of religion like how the Soviets did. I mean explaining to everyone how asinine and fatuous religion truly is, and people will see the world would be much better off without it. Dogma, in any shape or form, needs to be REMOVED.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Jun 21 2010, 2:25 pm by Pinky.