Quote:
Originally Posted by Ghoulish Delight
We have, for instance, a pretty damned good set of laws in the US that do not rely on belief in God. Whether they were inspired by religious beliefs to begins with is irrelevant as to whether belief in God is a necessity for goodness.
|
I wasn't saying one had to believe in God, rather that the concept of rules coming from a transcendent authority, and that are known and predictable, is what has created our successful concept of good and bad. Even though our laws came from religion, what's more important is that people develop a sense of conscience (traditionally through religion) so that they choose to behave well before the law has to be used to reign them in.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ghoulish Delight
as long as I can remember, my sense of morality was, "Be good because it's the right thing to do," not "be good because god said so."
|
But the first thing doesn't make sense without the latter. That was my point about the bus ads: our idea of what "the right thing to do" is didn't just come from nowhere or from instinct, it DID start with "because God said so". (Whether you believe or not as Voltaire said). Without that, we are back to whatever each person feels is good.