posted
I am going to ask a question, please don't answer 42 (you smarmy sons of weasels).
I just finished reading the last book in the homecoming series, and I have to say I love the way OSC gets me thinking about certain topics.
At any rate, here is my question:
In a world devoid of concrete evidence of any kind of supreme being, what is the point to life, and if there is no point other than just being, then why follow any type of moral code, or why not just throw yourself off of a cliff and skip all the agony and pain you are bound to encounter?
I will give my thoughts on this here in a bit, you people can tell me what you think though.
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They had some interesting thoughts on this, but then almost all of them committed suicide.
I think it's basically a "live like a weed, live like flower" proposition. You should live, but being mindful of others, that you don't tread too harshly on their turf.
posted
"In a world devoid of concrete evidence of any kind of supreme being, what is the point to life, and if there is no point other than just being..."
Well, I don't know about you, but I've been ENJOYING my life so far.
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posted
This question came about, because I was having a conversation with my wife on what our purposes here are, and where those purposes come from.
I tend to think instead of killing yourself to avoid the agony I would rather live for the great moments that you would also live through. So that point is right out of the equation for me.
As far as the moral code point goes, I think that this question comes down to how much value you put on civilized society, but then where does that value come from?
Even primates have some form of civilization. so what drives them, what is their purpose other to live and procreate? Are our purposes any different?
More the point, is everything driven by emotion? Do animals as well as humans end up creating these civilizations because we can't bare to deal with losing our young, or our loved ones?
I mean this is the very core as to why so many wars come about. People want to protect the societies that they value from outside changes or intrusions.
In the end do we really have a purpose, or are we just another kind of pack animal with a more sophisticated form of communication that allows us to think we are more than we actually are?
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quote: In a world devoid of concrete evidence of any kind of supreme being, what is the point to life, and if there is no point other than just being, then why follow any type of moral code, or why not just throw yourself off of a cliff and skip all the agony and pain you are bound to encounter?
I think all of us ask ourselves that question from time to time.
I don't know, but I think that the meaning of life is to try and live a meaningful life. Whatever that is.
Or rather, the meaning of life is to try and find meaning in your life.
Or maybe, the meaning of life is to continually search for the meaning of life.
But I might be wrong.
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quote: Well, I don't know about you, but I've been ENJOYING my life so far.
Me too
The question is a bit over dramatized, but you understand what I mean. If there is no point or purpose, then why bother?
There have been studies that show that once people have been cut off from society (lost their job, wife, or some other connection). They have a much higher mortality rate unless they find something else to keep them going (and the study isn't strictly talking about suicides... some people would just die of heart failure, or lack of nutrition and such).
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posted
For me, the meaning of life is LIFE. My beliefs say that life and the experiences you have are the sole purpose or the Soul's Purpose, if you will.
As for moral code and such, I believe that each human being is born with their own innate sense of what is right or wrong for them...However, on a grander scale, I believe there is no "right or wrong", but only relativity. Each experience, regardless if it is deemed Bad or Good is an experience nonetheless and therefore, in my mind, is worth it.
I recommend Conversations with God by Neale Donald Walsh. This book changed my life, my views, and opened my mind and allowed me to remember Who I Am. Take a look...it also appeals to sf fans in the way the ideas are talked about, as well as the ideas themselves.
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quote: Not according to any definition of civilization I have heard. What definition are you using?
I use the term loosely, but perhaps I should just replace it with "society".
There is a certain hierarchy among primates, as well as certain "social rules".
I am not so much comparing our society to theirs, but asking if their perceived purpose tends to be much different than ours.
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posted
[edit to add: This is not necessarily in direct response to Chaz, but rather a more general response to the whole cultural complex that his questions represent to me.]
As I've said so many times on this site, I don't believe that an outside deity gives my life meaning or a reason to be good and yet I find my life exremely meaningful and I don't actually go around killing and/or raping people. These are to me simply natural outgrowths of my character. I am "good" because I choose to be. My life is meaningful because I create meaning by living. These are not things I doubt any more than I doubt the air that I breathe.
The question for me is, how much does your need for an outside entity reflect deformities in your character? Is it just that you never grew past the stage where your parents'/people in authority's approval was your defining aspect or is their actually some validity to your view? For example, if it is true that you wouldn't do the right thing if some outside force wasn't making you, is this actually a property of who you are, or is it merely a reflection of an underlying immaturity that you could grow out of?
It's not really my place to say about one person's individual soul. Maybe you are just intrinsically immoral and weak who actually needs to submit to an outside power to deal with your pitiable state. Or you may be right and I'm deluding myself into being a reasonably good person who finds joy and strength in the meaning that I construct in my life.
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Obviously, I'm overstating my case here. I was trying to be deliberately insulting, in part because I feel like this is actually the dichotomy that exists between our viewpoints, but mostly to illustrate just how insulting the oft-repeated assumptions that, because I don't orient my life around some external force, that I am a monster who lives a meaningless life. Not that I'm insulted, mind you, so please don't feel a need to appologize on my account. It's just that, when you start the question with that as an assumption and disregard any evidence that doesn't fit your assumption, even asking becomes an exercise is self-deception. My life isn't meaningful by your standards, not because it is intrinsically without meaning, but because you start out defining meaning as "centered around an outside force". Likewise, I believe that it is specifically the belief that people are intrinsically evil and need to be forced to choose the right or at least refrain from the wrong that keeps you from maturing into someone who knows the joys and strength of consciously choosing to do the right because you want to. To put it another way, your belief only makes sense to you because it makes sense for you and it only makes sense for you because it has stunted your moral development.
quote: The question for me is, how much does your need for an outside entity reflect deformities in your character? Is it just that you never grew past the stage where your parents'/people in authority's approval was your defining aspect or is their actually some validity to your view? For example, if it is true that you wouldn't do the right thing if some outside force wasn't making you, is this actually a property of who you are, or is it merely a reflection of an underlying immaturity that you could grow out of?
Actually it was a hypothetical question based on other people I have observed, and disregarding my own experience and feelings.
To take it to a personal level, I don't know if there is a supreme being, or whether or not there are any rules set into place by that being that I should follow. Instead I live my life, and treat people with respect and compassion because I believe that they deserve it until they prove me wrong.
As far as my purpose goes, I really have no clue what my actual purpose is. I want to believe that I am here to help as many people as I can whether it is directly or indirectly. But at the same time I think that it would be fairly egotistical of me to believe that that was the sole reason I was put on this planet .
Of course that doesn't mean I will stop trying to help people.
quote:Is it just that you never grew past the stage where your parents'/people in authority's approval was your defining aspect or is their actually some validity to your view?
quote:In a world devoid of concrete evidence of any kind of supreme being, what is the point to life, and if there is no point other than just being, then why follow any type of moral code, or why not just throw yourself off of a cliff and skip all the agony and pain you are bound to encounter?
Well... the point to life is to live!! The point is for our genes to survive. We are the Universe made manifest. We are "star stuff". For myself, I follow a moral code because I recognize that every human and all matter are made of the same things and are all realated. Each individual is a wave in an ocean, individual, but connected to each other and all Creation. For example, to kill another human would be to kill a part of myself.
As for suicide... well that's the point isn't it. We are at a crossroads in our development as a race and society. We will either kill ourselves off or advance to the next step.
I say we owe it to the universe to survive as the only known sentient beings... we are peices of the universe made self aware to explore itself.
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posted
Chaz, For me the problem lies in the question that you're asking, not in the answers that you come up with. Rater than asking "Why am I here?" I think that it's better to accept the reality of your existence and ask "Now that I'm here, what am I going to do?" I realize that this may sound like a simple difference, but it's really a way towards a fundamentally different way of life. Or it least it is for me.
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posted
Chaz, I think if you take Squick's statement in a more general "you = you all", it may better present his point.
kat, realize that the statement you find so disgusting is often the way a religious person's opinion on this matter sounds to others. Except it has more pity in it. Squick was just trying to cut off the inherent bias in the initial question of this thread. That it makes sense that there is purpose to this life if there is a greater authority keeping interest in us, versus the "deity-free" lifestyle That assumption, while widely held, is rather insulting to people of Spuick's opinion, and further, makes Squick have to play on your turf, if he tries to answer it on its own.
posted
It isn't true. It is disgusting. To think it means that the thinker has a complete contempt for those whose motivations they don't understand, and so assigns the most degrading and infantile reasons for feelings they haven't felt. It implies both a lack of imagination and unbelievable disrespect.
It's also wrong. All judgements from such are suspect.
Added: It is wrong to assume that motivation is the only possible one. It may apply to some people. But Squick SHOULD know better than to think it is the only way available or probable.
My wife is a biochemist, and very much the scientist. In the discussion we were talking about what we thought the purpose of life was, or if there even is a purpose. We aren't talking about purpose in just our lives, we are talking about purpose on the large scale of humanity as a whole over thousands of years.
In the large scale whether or not the individual follows a moral code, or says to hell with it and throws themselves off of a cliff, was there really any point to anyones actions ever?
Personally I think there is, as I stated before, a need to help people and be good to people, and as long as I don't think we have some major goal as a race, my goal is to try to make this world a better place for my kids (when I get around to having some) and to raise my children in a way that they will try to do the same. Everyone may not be happy all the time, but I still want to make it a good place for most people to live.
quote: In a world devoid of concrete evidence of any kind of supreme being, what is the point to life, and if there is no point other than just being, then why follow any type of moral code, or why not just throw yourself off of a cliff and skip all the agony and pain you are bound to encounter?
While I think this question is funny, I have never actually thought about the answer all that much. I believe in a supreme being. I honestly have a hard time understanding what the point to life is without a "supreme being" (in my case, the christian God).
So in effect, I want to know the answer to that too. Posts: 4229 | Registered: Dec 2002
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quote: I say we owe it to the universe to survive as the only known sentient beings... we are peices of the universe made self aware to explore itself.
Well, we are the only known sentient beings as far as humanity knows. And when it comes to what humanity knows in relation to the universe, we're not that smart. Posts: 4229 | Registered: Dec 2002
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If not, then why bother with morals or life at all?
The reason I stated it with the "if there is no evidence of a higher being", is because there are many people that feel their purpose in life is to fulfill the purposes of that higher being, and I wanted to weed out those answers.
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quote:If not, then why bother with morals or life at all?
I'm not sure if this is a rhetorical question or not. If not, you may want to read a little about [url= http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner%27s_dilemma]the prisoner's dilemma[/url], especially the iterated version. Extend this simple model to real-world interactions as you see fit.
Another good point of view for a practical understanding of morality is the field of evolutionary psychology. Steven Pinker's How the Mind Works and The Language Instinct are good places to start (good reads, too).
[edit: ubb links. grr.]
[edit 2: can't figure out the stupid url tag. Must be the %27 in the url. Giving up now.]
[ June 02, 2004, 01:49 PM: Message edited by: Mike ]
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quote:Likewise, I believe that it is specifically the belief that people are intrinsically evil and need to be forced to choose the right or at least refrain from the wrong that keeps you from maturing into someone who knows the joys and strength of consciously choosing to do the right because you want to. To put it another way, your belief only makes sense to you because it makes sense for you and it only makes sense for you because it has stunted your moral development.
Nothing you've posted sums up your lack of understanding of how others perceive religion as these two statements. The idea that belief in a diety (or, to be more specific as you've stated in other posts, mainstream Christianity) equals the "need to be forced to choose the right or at least refrain from the wrong" as well as the claim that the belief stunts moral development are remarkably ill-informed and mistaken.
posted
Well, I'll confess that a belief in God probably is all that keeps me from running around robbing banks. That and I lack the personality for effectively intimidating others. But maybe I could read a self help book for the latter.
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posted
Yeah, we actually had a thread that turned to this topic a while ago (a year or so, perhaps?). I remember several people, like pooka, admitted that their behavior would take a turn for the worse if they somehow found out that there was no higher power.
[edit: on rereading pooka's post, I couldn't tell if it was tongue-in-cheek or not. Sorry 'bout that if I misinterpreted.]
[ June 02, 2004, 02:15 PM: Message edited by: Mike ]
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There are all sorts of stages of moral development, both with and without a belief in God. I freely admit that there are people of all ages at all stages. But what Squick is implying is that there are all sorts of stages for people who do not believe in God, but only one for those who do. The lowest one. That's wrong, incomplete, and surprisingly short-sighted and unsightful for someone with any modicum of a sense of humor.
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posted
Dag, It's not the religious beliefs themselves that logically suggest this worldview, but rather the often repeated characterization of people who don't believe in God as necessarily devoid of morals. When people assume that athiests are necesarily monsters, what they are really saying is that they believe that without the external restraints placed on them, they'd be monsters. In fact, at one point or another while we were dicussing this, I quoted a post from someone who said almost exactly this.
Look, I can argue this from the traditional religious viewpoint, and I think it has some validity. I can argue it from probably about 6 or so other viewpoints that I also think have validity. I'm trying to get at a couple of points here.
First, the views that I'm arguing likewise have validity to them. There is a strong current of parent/authority worship in religion. It is not in fact free from the human weaknesses that plauge every other aspect of human existence (I'd argue it's more vulnerable than most). There are a lot of people whose moral development is stunted because they believe that said moral development is impossible. etc., etc. etc. What I'm saying is accurate in many cases. You've come back with, "Well, it's not true in all cases, so you're completely wrong." I'm playing the 80/20 game and you're playing either/or,
edit: Or to add, this is why we see the truncated form of Pascal's Wager so often. That is, you should follow God because if he exits, you go to heaven if you follow him and hell if you don't, but if he doesn't exist, then at most you've just wasted a little bit of time. end edit.
Second, I can argue this from at least 5 angles, probably more. Can you argue it from 2? I don't mind so much if people understand the viewpoint I'm putting out there and decide that it doesn't work for them. What I'm specifically taking issue with is that, by the way they frame the question, they show that don't believe such a viewpoint (or any viewpoint that doesn't conform to their basic assumptions) even exists. Or perhaps that it does exist, but it is not worth an ounce of respect or an attempt at understanding.
I wasn't trying to be tolerant or completely accurate with my response. I was trying to make these points. I don't acutally believe in the same way I wrote. I think that the insulting way I posted my objections does a pretty good job of mirroring the way our cultural assumptions insults others. If you accept that you are as insulting as you felt I was being, if you understand the reason why you felt insulted, I think you'll go a long way towards overcoming your blindness in this matter.
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Again, I'm using the general you. If you feel it doesn't apply to you, then it doesn't.
Absolutely. In fact, I was horrified to learn that people thought this way, or be willing to admit it. It's so completely foreign to my way of thinking.
Squick is being deliberately inflamatory. But I think his point, if rudely conveyed, still stands: there is something implicitly condescending in the assumptions underlying the original question.
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If the original question is "Why do people who don't believe in a moral code handed down from a higher power bother following any moral code at all?", then it is also short-sighted.
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posted
Perhaps it is that Squick is less tolerant of ignorance than I am. I think my links above (on the prisoner's dilemma and evolutionary psychology) do pretty well to answer the question, at least for some of us. Once you understand the answer, though (or one of the many other possible answers -- or that a rational answer exists at all), it's not much of a stretch to see why the original question could be interpreted as insulting.
I was not insulted, though. Just a little amused.
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posted
Chaz, Again, we're running into a problem of reference. Your questions don't really make sense from the point of view I'm espousing.
Does life have a purpose? No, not intrinsically. I don't think that there is some set thing that you have to live up to or else you're failing your purpose. As a general thing, I think that people should try to increase and improve themselves as much as possible.
My idea of purpose or meaning is only partially about some future goal. Most of it is about living. You live in the present and that's also where you find meaning. Central to this is that, again, there is no intrinsic meaning. Human beings have the ability to see and react to the world in different ways. We have the ability (to a large extent) to choose the world we live in. To mangle a quote: "Two men looked out of prison bars. One saw mud, the other stars." We are beings not just of conciousness, but of creative conciousness.
To give a fanciful explanation of this, I play around with a story concept that people are a form of theogenic sperm, that the gods create us so that, by use of our creative abilities, we create new gods. While probably not literaly true, I actually think that this has a sort of metaphorical truth.
As to why people should have morals and try to live and such, part of that is just assumed values that I freely admit that I'm imposing on the situation without rational basis, but I think a larger part of it is that this conforms better with reality than not doing so. While people have a lot of creative latitude over the type of world they live in, I think that there are also many things held constant, among them the requirements for health. The way the waorld and people are constituted, I think that they are both quantitative and qualitively better if they live this way. This could be the result of a divine plan, human choice, evolution, or just blind chance. Why it is isn't really all that important to me. The fact is, it is that way (well, maybe not necessarily fact, but I'm willing to treat it as such).
Do we as a race have a purpose? Not my job to answer that. Frankly I don't really care that much. I walk my path. Hopefully by doing so, I help others walk their path, which could and in fact is almost required to be quite different from my own. I can't fly, I can't know the secrets of the universe or the ultimate reality, and I can't know if this is or what the overall purpose to human existence is. Frankly, these inabilities don't both me much. Even if I knew the "human purpose", if it violated my path, I'd still choose my path over it.
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posted
I am personally interested in the answer to the question. That seems more productive than the casual denunciation of those you don't understand.
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I can't say exactly what I would do with a non-deist perspective, but I can try to imagine. My take on it can best be summed up with a quote from Tagore:
"It is the privilege of man to work for fruits beyond his immediate reach, and to adjust his life not in slavish conformity to the examples of some present success, or even to his own prudent past, limited in its aspiration, but to an infinite future bearing in its heart the ideals of our higher expectations."
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quote:I am personally interested in the answer to the question.
Which is one of the things that make you as cool as you are.
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My personal take on this is that things are as they are because they just happened to come out that way. Which is not to say that everything is accidental -- we don't have flying elephants or perpetual motion machines for a reason. But within the space of possibility (a very, very large space) what we experience is only one point. Things are complex. Even very simple rules produce strange, unpredictable behavior when repeated many times (Wolfram, anyone?). Life as we know it, and humans, and human morality are results of the process of the universe.
Whether or not there is an overseer to the whole thing seems (at least to me) irrelevant. Others will disagree.
That's my general view, anyway. On a more personal level I tend to wonder about why the survival of humanity feels important to me. Actually, in recent years I've started caring a little less about humanity as a whole, but I'm still conscious of the resources I consume and I still pay attention to the "big" things, like the impending energy crisis that may or may not actually materialize. But if humanity will certainly perish before the heat death of the universe, why should I care if the sun engulfs the planet or if we're struck by an asteroid or if we blow ourselves up in a nuclear holocaust? I honestly don't know.
I suspect it has something to do with what OSC touched on with his hierarchy of familiarity. On some level I must consider humanity to be my family. Maybe it was too much Asimov when I was growing up. I was smitten by the zeroth law.
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quote:MrSquicky said: It's not the religious beliefs themselves that logically suggest this worldview, but rather the often repeated characterization of people who don't believe in God as necessarily devoid of morals. When people assume that athiests are necesarily monsters, what they are really saying is that they believe that without the external restraints placed on them, they'd be monsters. In fact, at one point or another while we were dicussing this, I quoted a post from someone who said almost exactly this.
Which makes me wonder why you responded the way you did. Chaz asked a question – you chose to interpret as requiring an insulting reply, but your “flip-side” questions don’t mirror his original question. He asks, “What’s the point of being good without God.” This is an opportunity to explain. The idea that people require God to be good does not imply that people “wouldn't do the right thing if some outside force wasn't making you.” This is the utterly frustrating part about whatever your thesis is about “mature religion.”
quote:MrSquicky said: Look, I can argue this from the traditional religious viewpoint, and I think it has some validity. I can argue it from probably about 6 or so other viewpoints that I also think have validity. I'm trying to get at a couple of points here.
First, the views that I'm arguing likewise have validity to them. There is a strong current of parent/authority worship in religion. It is not in fact free from the human weaknesses that plauge every other aspect of human existence (I'd argue it's more vulnerable than most). There are a lot of people whose moral development is stunted because they believe that said moral development is impossible. etc., etc. etc. What I'm saying is accurate in many cases. You've come back with, "Well, it's not true in all cases, so you're completely wrong." I'm playing the 80/20 game and you're playing either/or,
And here’s where you enter the world of speculation, especially with regard to this supposed 80/20 ratio. Based on your characterizations of the beliefs I and many other people hold, I can only conclude your speculation is based on a faulty understanding of what deity-based moral systems actually mean.
quote:MrSquicky said: edit: Or to add, this is why we see the truncated form of Pascal's Wager so often. That is, you should follow God because if he exits, you go to heaven if you follow him and hell if you don't, but if he doesn't exist, then at most you've just wasted a little bit of time. end edit.
But how often do we really see this? I think Pascal’s wager is largely a tool used by drunk philosophy students and people over-simplifying religion (which can be proponents as well as opponents.)
quote:MrSquicky said: Second, I can argue this from at least 5 angles, probably more. Can you argue it from 2?
I can probably argue it from 20. But you’re not arguing from 5 angles. You’ve consistently stated an opinion of religion that is based on a consistent misunderstanding of it.
For example, I’ve never seen you even acknowledge the possibility that the monotheistic tradition is in some sense factually accurate (that is, that there is a single Creator responsible not only for the existence of the world but also for its ethical and moral framework, that humans used to have direct knowledge of this but somehow lost it through there own actions, and that moral and ethical philosophy since then has been based on the remaining echo of that knowledge.) In this scenario, even the ethical knowledge understandings of diehard atheists would reflect the morality of the Creator. Maybe this is true, maybe it’s not. But it is one logical way to address the potential argument that the existence of ethical and moral atheists/agnostics/etc. demonstrate the inaccuracy of the core monotheistic tradition.
Don’t pretend you’re just trying to express a variety of ways of looking at this issue. You’ve had a consistent, central thesis you’ve been advocating based on your own viewpoint and assumptions. Which is fine, such discussions are one of the reasons the board exists. But please don’t pretend you have some unique inner knowledge of what constitutes a mature or immature belief system.
quote:MrSquicky said: I don't mind so much if people understand the viewpoint I'm putting out there and decide that it doesn't work for them. What I'm specifically taking issue with is that, by the way they frame the question, they show that don't believe such a viewpoint (or any viewpoint that doesn't conform to their basic assumptions) even exists. Or perhaps that it does exist, but it is not worth an ounce of respect or an attempt at understanding.
He asked a question. From the way he asked it, it’s clear he doesn’t understand how it’s possible. Here’s an opportunity to state how it’s possible.
quote:MrSquicky said: I wasn't trying to be tolerant or completely accurate with my response. I was trying to make these points. I don't acutally believe in the same way I wrote. I think that the insulting way I posted my objections does a pretty good job of mirroring the way our cultural assumptions insults others. If you accept that you are as insulting as you felt I was being, if you understand the reason why you felt insulted, I think you'll go a long way towards overcoming your blindness in this matter.
So seeking the opinions of others is blindness? Asking people the source of their ethical beliefs is as insulting as outright telling them that they are morally stunted?
And the fact remains, even in posts where you’re not trying to be extreme for effect, you’ve shown that you don’t understand the concept of a morality derived from a deity. Chaz doesn’t understand the opposite. If there’s blindness here, it’s at least mutual.
posted
Okay, okay, okay, can we just talk about the question, please? Let's drop this whole "I'm insulted" thing and get into the more interesting stuff. Really now.
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posted
"Well, I'll confess that a belief in God probably is all that keeps me from running around robbing banks."
See, I doubt this. I keep hearing this from religious people, but NONE of the areligious people I know feel this way. Must we assume that religious people have a less-evolved moral fiber, or simply that they don't actually recognize the source of their own morality?
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posted
*shrug* the question is silly, for all that its plagued philosophers for ages. No matter what "cause" you suppose for morality/humanity, there's always the question: what cause the cause?
One can say: well, God is the source of our purpose and our morality. But whence God? Who causes God? Well, if one says nobody causes God, then we have the same conundrum we get from just saying "morals and purpose just are". Its not any better or worse, it just comes down to which one you believe.
Now, its also perfectly possible to have a logical moral system without believing in any absolute morals, lots of people do it. They just try to do things which make them happy (at least, that's the most common goal of choice). Not because its "right", but because they like feeling happy. What need for purpose, then, particularly if you think that without life you will not feel happy, but will rather feel nothing at all?
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posted
Oh, and it was my impression that in the LDS belief system God was not the source of morals, but merely a perfect follower of an absolute moral system that just is. This puzzles me in conjunction with some of the posts in this thread, but I could very well be wrong.
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posted
I think it's a really interesting question. I can't answer for everyone, obviously, so I'll just answer for me. I'm an agnostic, which basically means I'm still trying to figure things out. This means, of course, that I can't look forward to a reward in Heaven because I don't know if there is one.
I've found purpose in having a family and being a contributing member of society. It doesn't make me feel less purposeful b/c I don't know for sure about God. When bad things happen, I attribute it to life, which is unpredictable and often intelligible. I look for beauty in the world around me, and feel like I'm fulfilling *something* (don't know if it's purpose or not) when I take the time to notice and appreciate it.
Though I don't feel strongly connected to a religion, I do feel strongly connected to the planet I live on and the people I share it with. My sense of right and wrong comes from my heart, and sometimes my gut. I respect and treat others kindly, including animals. I respect laws because I know that (most of the time) they work to keep society safe due to the fact that some people have no sense of right and wrong. That for me is the big quandry - why are some people bad? I've never understood that.
posted
To sum up what has been said so far concerning the question of Why a Moral Code:
Bok: "I think it's basically a "live like a weed, live like flower" proposition. You should live, but being mindful of others, that you don't tread too harshly on their turf."
Elphie: "As for moral code and such, I believe that each human being is born with their own innate sense of what is right or wrong for them...However, on a grander scale, I believe there is no "right or wrong", but only relativity. Each experience, regardless if it is deemed Bad or Good is an experience nonetheless and therefore, in my mind, is worth it. "
Telp: "For myself, I follow a moral code because I recognize that every human and all matter are made of the same things and are all related. Each individual is a wave in an ocean, individual, but connected to each other and all Creation. For example, to kill another human would be to kill a part of myself."
Squicky: "While people have a lot of creative latitude over the type of world they live in, I think that there are also many things held constant, among them the requirements for health. The way the waorld and people are constituted, I think that they are both quantitative and qualitively better if they live this way. This could be the result of a divine plan, human choice, evolution, or just blind chance. Why it is isn't really all that important to me. The fact is, it is that way (well, maybe not necessarily fact, but I'm willing to treat it as such)."
Mike: "On some level I must consider humanity to be my family...morality is what works. With the additional caveat that most of morality is probably unconscious, and heavily influenced by our genetics."
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Telp and Mike seem to have the same idea: The moral code usually governs how we treat one another, and how we act matters because we are all connected.
Squick seems to rely on the efficacy of behaviors - acting morally matters because it works. He's not questioning why it works, believing the answer to be unknowable, but is acting as if it does, and his experiences are bearing this out.
Is this an accurate summary? I would be most interested in some elaboration.
posted
Note that what I said was a little stronger than "morals and purpose just are". There are real, understandable causes behind why we have morals. I do not speculate on the causes behind the causes.
Also, I think you'll find that for most people happiness is not the only thing on their list or reasons they do things. High on the list, perhaps, but certainly not the only thing. We tend to be a little more complex than that. Besides, morality is mostly an unconscious process, so rationalizations of moral relativists (or anyone else, IMHO) tend to be just rationalizations.
I think the question is not silly, so there. Posts: 1810 | Registered: Jan 1999
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quote:Okay, okay, okay, can we just talk about the question, please? Let's drop this whole "I'm insulted" thing and get into the more interesting stuff. Really now.
If you think this exchange has been about "I'm insulted" then you didn't pay attention.
quote:See, I doubt this. I keep hearing this from religious people, but NONE of the areligious people I know feel this way. Must we assume that religious people have a less-evolved moral fiber, or simply that they don't actually recognize the source of their own morality?
That question can be turned around to suggest that areligious people are not aware that their moral and ethical beliefs come from God.
Which is why in at least one important respect fugu's right: the question is silly. The fact that most atheists have ethics doesn't prove that they're fooling themselves about the existence of God, nor does the existence of ethical atheists prove that all morality does not derive from God.
In other words, the underlying difference of opinion is not about to be solved on this board because we're considering this question.
quote:Oh, and it was my impression that in the LDS belief system God was not the source of morals, but merely a perfect follower of an absolute moral system that just is. This puzzles me in conjunction with some of the posts in this thread, but I could very well be wrong.
If this is true (I'm not overly familiar with LDS beliefs), the fact that God is a perfect follower of this system is what enabled him to reveal this moral code to human beings, and thus morality could still be said to come from God. This is very much not my own belief, so this is only one possible way to reconcile your statement with others in this thread.
posted
[edit: this is in response to kat's synopses above.]
Kat, that's actually more a personal view of mine, one that probably isn't extremely common. Not that it doesn't have an effect, it just doesn't seem to be the primary cause of morality. Mine is much closer to your synopsis of Squick's view -- that morality is what works. With the additional caveat that most of morality is probably unconscious, and heavily influenced by our genetics. (But please, let's not debark on the nature vs nuture argument.)
[ June 02, 2004, 04:10 PM: Message edited by: Mike ]
Posts: 1810 | Registered: Jan 1999
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