"Why Believe in God" ad campaign

[flippyshark]

Originally Posted by David E

Regarding Islam, I don’t accept No 1, but I support Islam as it is practiced in America, which has been compatible with our value system, (probably more with 5 than 4). For example, if practicing Muslims dominated an American city, I would feel safer about leaving my car unlocked and worry less about my daughter being killed by a drunk driver than in a secular dominated city. American freedom of religion has led to good manifestations of it.

Actually, I recently visited a vast city, one of the world's largest, in which the crime rate is incredibly low, and where strangers will go out of their way to help you if you are lost or return your wallet if you have left it behind. It wasn't at all a Christian city, or even an Abrahamic one. It was Tokyo. (Which, I guess, falls somewhere around category 4 - essentially secular, with ceremonial observance of Shinto and Buddhism.) I would feel safer about leaving my car unlocked there than any other city I have visited. (Though, given the exemplary public transport, I wouldn't have a car there.)

Willingness to defend seems important to your value judgement of a society, and I guess I understand that. It has to survive if it is going to continue to offer value. So, I don't see why a country couldn't be officially secular (tolerating all religions and beliefs within it but not endorsing any of them), and still committed to a strong defense. In fact, I know plenty of secularists who believe that is exactly what the USA is supposed to be.

The monotheistic religions carry a great deal of cultural capital (even with godless folk like me), but I can't find a fixed set of values (personal or institutional) in any of them. Endless wars have been carried out within these religions, endless splits and schisms, reforms and reactions. Have you yet specified which values, and if fixed, by whom?

[Ghoulish Delight]

Still feeling the effects of last night's dose of NyQuil, so forgive some level of incoherence in this post

Originally Posted by David E

Saying religion should be abolished because of its historical abuses is like saying you want to abolish car travel because of accidents.

And saying that religion should continue to be accepted because it's the contextual basis of our current morality is like saying slavery should be reinstated because it's the contextual system under which our country was made as strong and powerful as it is.

Just because something produced a positive result by one definition of positive does not make it a good thing.

But let me be clear on a few things.

1) I am not arguing that religion should be "abolished". I'd prefer it if people would move beyond it and stop teaching it, but I would never support any sort of legal authority to abolish it.

2) It's not because of historical abuses that I prefer people move beyond religion. It's because of future ignorance. Religion, by definition, promotes irrational thought and requires flatly ignoring observable fact.

Israelis and Palestinians are killing each other. Why? You can trace it right back to the fact that both sides are certain that their religion gives them justifiable claim to a chunk of desert and that any deaths resulting are a small price to pay for doing god's work. And if you think that's just from the Palestinian side, you are sorely mistaken.

STDs and unwanted pregnancy continue to be a major issue in this country because we can't have an honest, open discussion with our children because sex is dirty and wrong because god said so.

Irish schools remain segregated by religion, perpetuating centuries old hatreds that result in bloody deaths.

These aren't "historical abuses". These are real, palpable consequences of the absurd notion that the world should be separated by which invisible deity you pray to.

So here's the calculus that I see.

Without Religion - A continual social discourse on what morals we should ascribe to. Individuals will disagree, individuals will purposely attack that morality and act without it. As a society we would be continually evaluating new knowlege and how it might help better promote morality and well being

With Religion - A continual social discourse on what morals we should ascribe to. Individuals disagree, individuals purposely attack that morality and act without it. Those individual are given extra ammo to act immorally based on their belief that they have moral superiorty granted by god. As a society, we are afraid of new knowledge and actively work to slow its progress because it doesn't agree with the version of the world laid out in contradictory texts.

It bears repeating that there is no evidence that the morality that you are arguing for can be attributed to religion. Religion mimics morality. Religion has changed as morality has changed. Religion doesn't cause that change, if anything it resists it until it begins to lose its influence, and then it changes to garner back more followers.

[€uroMeinke]

I don't know, I guess as a moral relativist I have a hard time getting on board the objective morality train becasue I don't believe it. For me to advocate it becasue it seems to work better by some "relativist" standard still seems disingenuous to me. Placebos seem to only work when you believe in them, so for a system of objective morality to work, you'd have to send me to the death camps or otherwise silence or intimidate me.

[David E]

Originally Posted by flippyshark

It was Tokyo. (Which, I guess, falls somewhere around category 4 - essentially secular, with ceremonial observance of Shinto and Buddhism.)

See, but I don't think the Buddhist influence is just ceremonial. It's the basis for their sense of morality. And the fact that there is ceremonial participation indicates that there is more of a connection than in a more secular place where you would worry about your wallet, like Detroit. And the difference between these two cities illustrates that there is not a common biological morality that doesn't need nurturing, as Gouhlish Delight thinks.

Originally Posted by flippyshark

Willingness to defend seems important to your value judgement of a society, and I guess I understand that. It has to survive if it is going to continue to offer value.

But it's not just self preservation. If you see someone being mugged or bullied, don't you think the right thing to do is to help them if you can, even though you yourself are not being threatened?

Originally Posted by flippyshark

So, I don't see why a country couldn't be officially secular (tolerating all religions and beliefs within it but not endorsing any of them)

I totally agree. That's the idea of the US. The founding fathers envisioned a secular government and a religious population. (Federal government to be exact. States were allowed to be set up according to how people saw fit with Maryland being Catholic and NH Protestant, there was more religious endorsement at the state level, but it was not so much through laws as ceremony).

Originally Posted by flippyshark

The monotheistic religions carry a great deal of cultural capital (even with godless folk like me), but I can't find a fixed set of values (personal or institutional) in any of them.

You mean that makes sense for you right? You are not denying that each has a known set of values (I pointed some out in my 1-5 list.)

Originally Posted by flippyshark

Endless wars have been carried out within these religions, endless splits and schisms, reforms and reactions. Have you yet specified which values, and if fixed, by whom?

Here again, these splits have been more over theology than values, and I am not arguing for any particular theology.

[David E]

Originally Posted by €uroMeinke

I don't know, I guess as a moral relativist I have a hard time getting on board the objective morality train becasue I don't believe it.

Even though I know this is common, it's pretty alien to me and I can't see how this would play out in your daily life. Are you saying you really think there is no objective right or wrong? What happens when you have jury duty, is that institution wrong in your eyes (see, I can't get away from it), er, how about, is it irrelevant and meaningless? After all, the jury system's whole purpose is to evaluate the circumstances behind an event in light of a fixed standard society is trying to enforce.

[David E]

Originally Posted by flippyshark

Morality has to be universal? I'm not so sure of that. It seems to me more like an ever-shifting consensus.

By using the word “universal” I mean absolute (vs. relative) morality, that is, if stealing is wrong, it applies to everyone, like I tried to explain in my reply to Prudence. By universal, I don’t mean built-in biologically to all humans; we have already discussed and agreed somewhat about how people can be fundamentally different. Maybe you are talking about what i called Situational Ethics, which is how to apply that morality in difference circumstances.

I agree with your comments about Oprah, but unfortunately it’s not just her audience; many educated intelligent people, especially academics and artists, cling to this same idealistic notion that people are naturally good and the same. (I should write something soon about secular vs. religious dogma.)

[€uroMeinke]

Originally Posted by David E

Even though I know this is common, it's pretty alien to me and I can't see how this would play out in your daily life. Are you saying you really think there is no objective right or wrong? What happens when you have jury duty, is that institution wrong in your eyes (see, I can't get away from it), er, how about, is it irrelevant and meaningless? After all, the jury system's whole purpose is to evaluate the circumstances behind an event in light of a fixed standard society is trying to enforce.

Well, on a jury you are making judgment based on Laws not ethics or morals, though when asked by a judge if I can follow the law, I have sometimes responded, "if they are just laws." Of course, I have yet to be seated on a jury so maybe you have something there.

[Ghoulish Delight]

Originally Posted by David E

By using the word “universal” I mean absolute (vs. relative) morality, that is, if stealing is wrong, it applies to everyone, like I tried to explain in my reply to Prudence. By universal, I don’t mean built-in biologically to all humans;

And here's what's pretty alien to me. If you don't believe in god, where does your definition of this supposed universal morality come from?

And to answer your jury analogy, a jury is relevant and meaningful within the context of the system that created it. It's a product of a society that agreed to those rules, and so it makes perfect sense to enforce those rules. But that doesn't mean those rules are universal truths.

[Ghoulish Delight]

Originally Posted by Ghoulish Delight

And here's what's pretty alien to me. If you don't believe in god, where does your definition of this supposed universal morality come from?

Let me be more explicit than that. "It came from my religious upbringing" isn't what I'm looking for. Because that doesn't answer the question. It explains why you believe in it, but it doesn't answer the question of where it comes from if you think it exists. If you got it from religion, where did religion get it? And the only end to that questioning is god.

But you don't believe in god. So this "universal" definition of good and bad is not, afterall, universal. You'd LIKE it to be universal because you feel like it works pretty well, but it simply isn't, unless you believe in god (and even then, if you believe in god and think his word is universal, then his word doesn't match your definition of the universal good, but that's another story).

And so the genesis must have been human. There must have been enough people who WANTED the idea that not negatively affecting others is good to be universally held. So religion was created to explain and reenforce that desire. And despite the fact that Darwin has given us a far simpler and sustainable explanation for that, people are reluctant to accept it because relgion "has worked so far", ignoring all of the ways religion certainly hasn't worked.

Sigh, I bet I'm really pissing off some religious people reading this thread.

[flippyshark]

You may be pissing others off, but you're delighting the heck out of me.

Anyhow, David E., looking back at your first post within this thread, I notice that you say your thoughts about this issue were spurred by comments from Don Wildmon, who you say you know nothing about. Well, I sure do. He's the founder of the very right-wing American Family Association (originally known as the National Federation for Decency.) He started the ball rolling on the boycotting of Disney (for allowing gay days, the horror!), led the charge on the protests of The Last Temptation of Christ, has campaigned steadily against gay rights, abortion rights, Blockbuster Video (for carrying NC-17 titles), you get the picture. He's got a major ideological axe to grind when he says that society functions better with religion. It's a big power grab for him and his ilk. (His son Timothy runs the organization these days, and is cut from much the same cloth.) I know this has no bearing on the merits of the argumjent in and of itself, but you are the first agnostic I've ever heard propose it. (On the other hand, I've very often heard it from religious apologists, whose views I spend a surprising amount of time examining.)