Benazir Bhutto down

Oops, missed. Sorry.

 

Indeed, but it was an idea that the pro-religionists used for many
centuries to suppress any notions of atheism.

The basic flaw is to assume that only belief in a vengeful deity will
keep us on the straight and narrow and stop us committing unspeakable
acts, while failing utterly to understand that the idea of a moral
code is actually a basic human concept, and in fact a prerequisite to
the idea of religion itself.

--
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Ha! I spit on you and your so-called infallibility!

--
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the facts of the earth being flat and the sun revolving around it were also
"well known".

 

Which is more moral? Doing the right thing out of a wish to do the
right thing, or doing the right thing out of fear or in exchange for a
reward?

 

<bottom lip quivers>

You mean.....?

D.
--
des
French Biking Vocabulary: http://minilien.fr/a0kg0p

'Kaiser: "Can you prove to me the existence of G-d?"
Bismarck: "The Jews, your Majesty. The Jews"'

 

"I have gained this from philosophy: that I do without being commanded
what others do only from fear of the law."
Aristotle.

 

"Refrain from crimes not through fear but through duty"
Democritus

 

And it's about as accurate as equating Pi to 3..

The following applies to mass moral codes - personal moral codes are
different and vary enormously within each of the categories. My moral
code (for example) is quite different from that of a follower of the
CofE because of my upbringing and background. So you can't really treat
personal moral codes in the same way as societal (is that a word?) moral
codes.

My take: religions contain moral codes (usually more observed in the
breach than the commission) and very very few religions don't expect
their followers to conform to their moral code.
Human societies also have moral codes - most are fairly similar to the
religious ones (do not murder, do not steal etc) and they are (again)
usually more observed in the breach than the commission.

So I guess what I'm, saying is that religion quite clearly isn't a
requirement for morals (or ethics) but humanists tend to have a wider
choice of moral standards to choose from. The important points are that
a) both are very rarely fully observed by their practicioners and b)
the moral authority differs - the religious one says: "behave like this
because God/the gods say so" whereas the humanist ones generally say
(but not always): "behave like this because society says so".

The other point is that humanist moral codes are easier to change than
religious ones - for example 100 years ago to commit adultery was a
social death sentance (especially for a woman) and this was based on
the mores of the then-society (which were derived - in part - from a
religious moral code - but modified to suit) whereas now it is much
less penalised (and glamorised to a certain extent). So the prevailing
moral code has shifted based on the prevailing social setting. In
theory moral codes derived from religion shouldn't change - in practise
they do (we don't burn heretics nowadays!).

And finally - both can be seen as punishment-based. Humanistic moral
codes (at a society level anyway) are enforced by punishments as are
most religion-based codes.

Phil.

 

Eratosthenes calculated the size of the earth over two thousand years ago.
Nobody seriously believed in a flat earth after that.

 

I think you'll find you are wrong.. how many Middle Ages people would
have heard of Eratosthenes?

And one of the stated objections to the first circumnavigations was
that they would fall off the edge..

Phil

 

anyway, the point was not so much the validity of the claim, but rather
why serf decided to raise it as a straw man at the same time as keeping
it at arm's length.

it smacks more than a little of modern spin politics, like repeatedly
mentioning al-qaeda and saddam hussein in the same sentence while
stating as a footnote that you never precisely said that they were
connected.

 

Apart from the catholic church, you mean?

--
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\`\ | /`/ DS#8 BOTAFOT#3 SbS#2 UKRMMA#13 DFV#8 SKA#2 IBB#10
`\\ | //'
`\|/`
`

 

Most Catholics of my acquaintance believe that Mary is still a virgin.

 

Just occasionally, you can be quite coherent.

D.
--
des
French Biking Vocabulary: http://minilien.fr/a0kg0p

'Kaiser: "Can you prove to me the existence of G-d?"
Bismarck: "The Jews, your Majesty. The Jews"'

 

The question is: did the idea of morals predate religion (I'm unaware of
any evidence that it did) as you seem to claim, and also: why did 'good'
become the 'default' for humankind? In the absence of any 'absolutism'
(which is what the rabid atheist fundamentalists like Lucifer claim), i.e.
if G-d (or any other deity you please) did not define good and bad, then
why did man's default moral behaviour 'tip' in that direction and not the
other? Why is it considered 'wrong' in every society on earth to kill and
to steal? If there are no absolute morals, why did the balance not tip in
the other direction?

Your post above is just waffle and hot air. You postulate that a moral
code is a 'basic human concept', but offer no explanation, much less
evidence to suggest why. 'It's like this, and that's all there is to it',
seems to be all you're capable of.

I'd be tempted to entreat you to limit your posts to subjects of which
you're not entirely fucking ignorant, but I suspect that this would limit
your output to one post per year.

D.

--
des
French Biking Vocabulary: http://minilien.fr/a0kg0p

'Kaiser: "Can you prove to me the existence of G-d?"
Bismarck: "The Jews, your Majesty. The Jews"'

 

Sure - the incidence of serious breaches is very low (fear of
punishment!) but trivial breaches (speeding?) is high.

I guess it all comes down to how closely you map morals onto laws.

To a certain extent I agree - but does that attitude come down to
attitudes formed from childhood and based (partly) on fear of
punishment? I can remember an ethics talk where the lecturer was
basically saying that humans bought up in isolation do things that are
utterly repugnant to us - and that to a very large extent our morals
are determined by very early influences. Do you don't murder because (I
assume) you consider it wrong to take a human life - but that this is a
programming engendered by attitude and teachings that you inherit from
your parents (primarily) and other society factors.
Again - it comes down to how closely we map the moral code into laws.
There are people (deluded!) who would insist that speeding is immoral.
Or that drinking alcohol to excess is immoral.

This is true and goes back to my point that humanistic moral codes vary
more quickly than religion-derived ones.

Phil.

 

or -0.002

or offer our daughters for gang rape or human sacrifice, stone people to
death for picking olives on a saturday, or, without provocation, slaughter
wholesale neighbouring tribes with the sole exception of their virgin
females (to be enslaved and raped, obviously) - important moral precepts of
the old testament, but probably not even tv evangelists would admit them.

arguably, of course, the moral codes prescribed by religion *don't* change,
it's just that believers decide for themselves which ones they will choose
to obey and which ones they will conveniently ignore - using moral
criteria which must therefore necessarily be independent of religion.

 

I'm not disagreeing with you here necessarily but the two are
potentially moral issues. For a small segment of the population anyway.

Which was what he was talking about (children raised by wolves for
example don't see anything wrong with attacking people who they think
are going to encroach on their food). He then tried to extend this to
anarchic system but (from memory) failed completely.

I'd put that as 'interacting with others' which is slightly different.
Some societies (ie Ancient Rome) it was considered moral behaviour to
beat ones slaves if they disobeyed. Or for the Pater Familias to
exercise lethal authority on his children/spouse if he had sufficient
cause.

Indeed. People will make their own based on religion, survival
imperatives (leaving the old and sick behind on migration for example)
and (sometimes) the whim of the leader.

Phil.

 

Err.. I don't recall most of those are 'moral precepts' in the OT -
some of them (rape or human sacrifice) are contradicted explicitly. Most
of the ones that are commandments are there to ameliorate behaviour
that was more extreme.

Indeed. We get back to absolute vs relative truth - if you believe that
something was the word of God why should it change? Answer - it
shouldn't - and we then have absolute truth.

I disagree (in this instance) - moral codes derived from religion
*should* be constant. The fact that they are not is not a flaw in the
code - it's a flaw in the observence. Just as it's not a flaw in a
humanistic code when someone goes against it.

It could be argued that when the believer decides to break the moral
code that at that point it ceases to be a religious code and becomes a
human one. Which would (taken to extreme) mean that there are very few
active religious moral codes and many human moral codes derived from a
religious base.

Phil.