Absolute morality?

Posted: Mon Apr 09, 2012 6:08 pm

The EA homosexuality in games debate started by Pacino the other day got me thinking should religious influences factor into social law?

I decided to start a new thread since the topic is different but correct me if I shouldn't have please.

Anyway, two nations I am quite familiar with are the UK and the USA so I will use them as examples (sorry Australians and elsewhere but I don't know enough about your society's to comment!)

Obviously both nations allow religious freedom but the structure of both nations is based on Christianity. I'm not going into detail but there are a few points I would like people to debate on.

1 - The morals of these countries are largely based on biblical scripture. I think this is flawed as, from a non believers point of view, the bible is a series of books written by men who lived in a different time and less evolved society's and are therefore filled with non-evolved laws and morals. Even looking over the past 100 years we can see how the moral body of society has evolved. Below are a few examples:

- In the early 1900's black people were commonly (and legally) used as slaves. A large body of people supporting slavery were 'Christians' using religious arguments and biblical scripture to affirm the belief that slavery was 'moral'. Now we call them racists.

- In the same era women were not allowed to vote and were allowed no part in the governing of the nation. Actually my research shows that it was rare to see a woman in a position of any responsibility at all! This male domination was also based on religious texts and can still be seen in society today among some religious circles. Just look at some Islamic culture or a minority of Christian denominations who refuse to accept women as ministers. Regardless it is ludicrous now to think that women don't have a right to vote or even be president or whatever.

See my point is that morality should be defined by a social consensus of the people who are actually alive within the society and by the progression of mankind as a whole. Nothing should be absolute as the world is ever changing and people are constantly evolving. I'm pretty sure in 100 years time we will look back at those opposed to homosexuality and what not and think it as ludicrous as my points above.

That's what I think anyway! And remember I have put this in the debates section because all views expressed are opinions so please don't be offended by my views instead just debate them. And I'm not knocking religion here, I know plenty of religious people and love them all. Actually I'm the only one in my family not religious.

Posted: Mon Apr 09, 2012 6:26 pm

Reminds me of this thread here...
http://ca.isohunt.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=52457

Interesting if you want to see the thoughts of our older members.

My personal feeling is absolutely not under any circumstances. I'm going to use Islamic law from Afghanistan as an example here but there is a law that states that if a woman is raped the she must marry her attacker or she will be imprisoned. Yes really. Also when I was in the army I was told a true story by a friend who who saw a soldier lift up the burkka of a local woman. Despite looking everywhere this woman was never seen again. Putting aside the woeful disrespect of the soldier, this is a country where a woman is seen as an adulterer if a man looks at her.

I'm not trying to bash Islam but it is the perfect way of answering this question and showing religion should have no bearing on actual law.

Posted: Mon Apr 09, 2012 6:40 pm

My friends dad works in the U.A.E and he told me that in Saudi Arabia a woman was raped and then stoned to death for adultery. More over the stoning occurred at a public sports event. It is sickening.

The point i was trying to make though is that, weather religious or not morality should solely aim towards the progression of society. Murder is bad for society and ruins lives so it's immoral. Rape too etc. Homosexuality does not hinder the advancement of society society or ruin lives (actually it makes them better in most cases) and so it should not come under moral objection.

That doesn't mean that moral is always right and immoral is always wrong. The bombing of Hiroshima was immoral but weather it was right or wrong stands for debate. That's how I've always viewed it anyway.

By the way I'm really high so I have probably missed my point entirely...

Posted: Mon Apr 09, 2012 7:25 pm

I think the problem is the view of morals in general. I see that there is more than one type of moral. You have morals which are about seeing to the safety of people, so don't kill, or don't steal - generally speaking these are the morals that are good for legal and societal systems. It helps to ensure the continuation of the people, not to mention the growth of taxes and such.

You have the other type of moral which is about spiritual safety, no sex before marriage is common, as it is seen as being destructive to your spiritual state, hinders your access to any good afterlife and such. These particular morals are usually about what happens after your death, protecting your immortal soul and whatnot, and honestly I cannot see how that should have anything to do with life law and societal standards.

So you have these two sets of morals, the morals of the people and the group as a whole, protecting everyone (hopefully) and then you have the egocentric morals. The first should be and can work well in societal standards, the second works well within a personal setting, but only ever in a personal setting, but it does nothing to help the continuation of our species. My having sex before marriage is not going to destroy your immortal soul, and certainly isn't harming the human race. Same goes for homosexuality, womens rights and responsibilities, racial inclusion rather than exclusion.

And when you think about it, from a religious viewpoint, the egocentric morals should not be in our legal systems, as following the law to avoid jail is very different to avoiding "sin" on your own behalf - making these morals into laws makes it easier to follow them, and therefore is no proof that your soul is good, just proves you don't want to be punished in life. It's a cheats way of being moral - there is a difference between acting within the law and being moral. And I am one who thinks that we don't have the right to physically judge another persons egocentric moral behaviour, judge in your mind all you like, but punish physically?

I find it interesting how group morals are ignored by egocentric morals. Do not kill is a law within many religions, but if someone breaks a moral law then killing them is fine. It's a rather skewed way of following morals really, and that's the thing that really needs to be changed.

Posted: Tue Apr 10, 2012 4:04 am

all I can say is go buddha go

Life if led upon a principle of basic moralities as
Do not take from another unless offered or given.
Do not harm others by word or deed if it can be avoided
and finally try to understand or know as assumption is truly the mother of all f**k ups.

Religion in my opinion is not an evil but possibly a manner of offering social laws in days when society needed some form of cohesion and an underlying principle by which to live together in ever larger communities.
Is religion Moral is a question ?? in many respects yes.
Is this morality being perverted by those that take upon themselves positions of power in governments and use the religion to contro where law does not. ?
My answer would be YES.
Morals and law are two different things.....basically people that live by basic and fair morality have no need for laws as laws are passed for a select number of reasons.
Some to protect the property of those that have from those that have nothing.
Some laws are made to protect idiots and the entire community must suffer. think laws about drugs ?? Some may use a substance on the weekend and return to work on a monday others will destroy themselves as they have no self control.
Some laws are made to protect.....I think of laws that prevent children being used as labour to do things as sweep chimneys......laugh if you wish but it is still a fact that nobody really knows how many 5 6 and 7 year old kids died in victorian days cleaning the chimneys.....
Now what has the above to do with the question ???? actually everything because in the UK and USA if we were to truly live a christian lifestyle we would never need such laws and no child would fall and break their neck in a victorian chimney.
We would not need to protect our property as everyone would theoretically have enough as religion always states that we should show compassion charity and kindness to our fellow man.
Sad reality the charity was so that the priests/leaders were fat and the farmers starved.
Throughout history the common man was educated to accept hunger humiliation and suffering as the afterlife would be their reward. I find this type of attitude to be void of any moral integrity.

Posted: Tue Apr 10, 2012 4:40 am

Interestingly I saw a debate thingy last night with Richard Dawkins and Australia's cardinal George Pell, the atheist and the theist, one of the questions put to them was does religion hold a monopoly on morality, does one need to be a good christian to be a good person, George Pell said no, the church does not hold this view. The other thing I gleened from it, Dawkins himself admitted that sometimes he is an Atheist, other times Agnostic, admitting the word "Atheist" had a bigger punch. Pell out did Dawkins because he under estimated him and his intelligence, it was a good watch. The thing is though it reiterated a point I try and make, Atheist and Theist are exactly the same, they are both convinced they are right when neither knows the truth and both are lacking something in their life, one needs to fill with an imaginary friend, the other needs to spend all his time convincing us why there is no imaginary friend, making them both immoral for not wanting us to believe in what ever we want.

Posted: Tue Apr 10, 2012 4:59 am

The German philosopher Frederick Nietsche believed that morality is a just a fiction used by the herd of inferior human beings to hold back the few superior men...

It "is" worth noting that he died of syphilis though Smile

(Thank you Sheldon Cooper for putting it more eloquently then I ever could have Smile

)

Posted: Tue Apr 10, 2012 5:09 am

A Shaved Wookie wrote:

See my point is that morality should be defined by a social consensus of the people who are actually alive within the society and by the progression of mankind as a whole.

I do agree with this wholeheartedly.

Over the years, "members of society" have redefined moral issues to control people. Every mainstream religion today can trace it beginnings back to someone or some group using religion to define its laws. It gives that society a baseline in which they can run their society. It is mostly people of ignorance that follow their religions "moral" codes blindly.

The one phrase ... that every person should follow is "Do onto others as you would have them do unto you". I think if this is followed... you can toss every religion out the window. And all of society would come together on a moral consensus.

And the way I look at it... is that any God worth believing in would over look the small details of getting his name right (God, Allah, Jehovah, etc)... as long as my moral convictions were sound.

Posted: Tue Apr 10, 2012 7:13 am

johnno23 wrote:

Now what has the above to do with the question ???? actually everything because in the UK and USA if we were to truly live a christian lifestyle we would never need such laws and no child would fall and break their neck in a Victorian chimney.

I disagree with this in some areas, although you do make some good points. Christianity evolves constantly, just look at how traditional churches worship with psalms and no instruments with a 30 minute sermon based around 2 or 3 verses and then look at some modern pentecostal churches who don't know what a psalm is, use rock instruments and sum up an entire chapter in a 10 minute sermon.

Actually have a look at this modern day Christian church. http://www.collegehumor.com/video/6293140/god-bams-new-hip-into-lady

My point is there is no 'true' Christian lifestyle. A true christian 100 years ago was against woman's rights but now christian morals have changed. Most Christians now I know are anti-gay but how soon will that change? So a 'true' Christian 500 years ago would probably look like a complete asshat to a 'true' Christian today. If everyone person was a 'true' christian then society would never need to change and as a whole our moral body would be in the same i.e perfectly in accordance with Gods law.

I haven't really expressed my point very well but do you see my point that the Christian society compromises to appease the natural evolution of society so their laws today are more based on appeasement than they are scripture (which is a good thing I think).

In the middle east a true Muslim hasn't really changed in modern history and now we view some of their action as immoral like adultery with women and whatnot. Christians would be the same if they didn't compromise.

Posted: Tue Apr 10, 2012 8:36 am

Fred-Bear wrote:

The one phrase ... that every person should follow is "Do onto others as you would have them do unto you".

Amusingly that particular moral conviction is a religious view. I do agree though, it is one of the best there is really. But it does show that sometimes religion has its place in societal moral views. Religion isn't all bad. Unfortunately, in religion, the emphasis is on morals that are more about our personal immortal souls rather than morals that affect society as a whole. Thats the problem, not the morals in general, but which morals are given more importance. It is a sad thing when consensual sex (pre-marital or homosexual) is seen as more evil than someone being raped.

Posted: Tue Apr 10, 2012 3:56 pm

trollster wrote:

Interestingly I saw a debate thingy last night with Richard Dawkins and Australia's cardinal George Pell, the atheist and the theist, one of the questions put to them was does religion hold a monopoly on morality, does one need to be a good christian to be a good person, George Pell said no, the church does not hold this view. The other thing I gleened from it, Dawkins himself admitted that sometimes he is an Atheist, other times Agnostic, admitting the word "Atheist" had a bigger punch. Pell out did Dawkins because he under estimated him and his intelligence, it was a good watch. The thing is though it reiterated a point I try and make, Atheist and Theist are exactly the same, they are both convinced they are right when neither knows the truth and both are lacking something in their life, one needs to fill with an imaginary friend, the other needs to spend all his time convincing us why there is no imaginary friend, making them both immoral for not wanting us to believe in what ever we want.

Atheism is the lack of belief in deitys, any atheist who claims there is certainly no god is a moron. However the burden of proof is on the one making the claim, since the atheist makes no claim they have nothing to prove. Also, as an agnostic atheist, i can assure you these are not mutually exclusive terms, pretty much every atheist is also agnostic. gnosticism has to do with knowledge, theism with belief - since i have no knowledge of gods, and dont believe in any, i am an agnostic atheist. Hope this clears up a common misunderstanding.

As for the topic, morality doesn't come from religion, we have it in spite of religion. If people really took morality from the bible, they would be murdering people for working on sundays - and this would be legal(as per the bible). Women would also be beaten for back talking, and blacks would not earn a wage. The bible( and other religious texts) are the primary source of immorality in the world

Posted: Tue Apr 10, 2012 8:20 pm

A Shaved Wookie wrote:

johnno23 wrote:

Now what has the above to do with the question ???? actually everything because in the UK and USA if we were to truly live a christian lifestyle we would never need such laws and no child would fall and break their neck in a Victorian chimney.

I disagree with this in some areas, although you do make some good points.

No problem as this is a debate and we express our personal opinions

Quote:

Christianity evolves constantly, just look at how traditional churches worship with psalms and no instruments with a 30 minute sermon based around 2 or 3 verses and then look at some modern pentecostal churches who don't know what a psalm is, use rock instruments and sum up an entire chapter in a 10 minute sermon.

This is exactly why I regard religion and specifically Christian as having no rights to dictate what should be seen as morally correct or having impact upon law.

Quote:

My point is there is no 'true' Christian lifestyle. A true christian 100 years ago was against woman's rights but now christian morals have changed. Most Christians now I know are anti-gay but how soon will that change? So a 'true' Christian 500 years ago would probably look like a complete asshat to a 'true' Christian today. If everyone person was a 'true' christian then society would never need to change and as a whole our moral body would be in the same i.e perfectly in accordance with Gods law.

Here I agree as the question could be put as "Is it truly Christian morality that has changed or has the Church simply given in to the demands of the people that have more say and control over their own morality."
In many respects people have for countless centuries without knowledge of other cultures races or creeds lived relatively harmonious lives within their society. Morality is probably more natural than imposed. Moral codes are a fabric by which a society can operate and therefore the essence of sharing and commonly accepted rules are a natural response to survival. Within the animal kingdom it is quite apparent that among our fellow creatures, dogs cats dolphins and even cattle share a particular set of rules morals that determine the safety and strength of the herd. This balance is generally upset by outside interference.

Quote:

I haven't really expressed my point very well but do you see my point that the Christian society compromises to appease the natural evolution of society so their laws today are more based on appeasement than they are scripture (which is a good thing I think).

I think you did quite well. But to answer you fully I need to move to the last sentence

Quote:

In the middle east a true Muslim hasn't really changed in modern history and now we view some of their action as immoral like adultery with women and whatnot. Christians would be the same if they didn't compromise.

Many Muslim people are charitable have compassion and show great kindness to their fellow man regardless of the colour or creed. What we see is that some lands of the Muslim faith are ruled by religious leaders that have considerable power and then impose the scripture of the past upon the present day society as Law.
Christianity has had 2 thousand year to try and separate church from state.
Within Christianity we have choice. The new testament is filled with heretical ideas as
One must choose to believe......
It is in faith that salvation is found.....
Two things that even Christianity for hundreds of years ignored and tried to impose faith as Law upon the people and the freedom of choice was removed.

Posted: Thu Apr 19, 2012 6:17 pm

I wanna share my experience on how moral and religion dont work together. From my point of view on this present day, i consider myself a good person but i got schizophrenia at 26 years old im 29 rightnow i was send to a mental institute for a week, ok so this institute im talking about is managed my nuns (evil nuns) i was a good person with them i even went to church, theres a small church there and try to please the nuns, but then 1 of the nuns started to saying that i was gay which im not and only for that some of them wanted to kill me there, i had to call my dad to pick me up or im pretty sure i was gonna die there, i live in Mexico, and believe me gay ppl die here everyday is a common thing.

Posted: Tue May 01, 2012 8:02 pm

Having it imposed upon an individual that they must abide by the societies laws down to every letter destroys individuals.. Most of which these laws revolve around "God" and the ideas of a 2-5k year old dusty tome. It's only through mans ignorance that the idea of god still survives in society today, only through complete selfishness and disregard for banal rules can our society become elevated above the singular focus towards only survival for which it has become.

If you haven't personally deconstructed it within yourself, today you more than likely carry around the morality society has imposed upon you, it isn't real, take a good long look at it.

Posted: Tue May 01, 2012 11:57 pm

Balgias.....might I say....welcome back.
good to see a member of such a long term membership making time to post.