What is Morality?

[Wusti]

For the record, I am staunchly agnostic, but am married to a devout Catholic. I was schooled at a Methodist (later Uniting) Church school which, to its credit, made Religious Education a real study of world religions which I found fascinating.

The responses were pretty much bang on the mark of what I expected. Further pontification and demonstration of the tragic sense of superiority that infects some people, that believe adherence to a faith system makes their opinions worth more than others.

I found the Machiavelli quote amusing by the way, and Octavious has always been a supercilious tit.

With that said, my post remains true: I did nearly vomit and found the last few pages of this discussion cringey. A statement of that opinion made me feel better, but strangely, not like a badass - however you choose to define it. I do have a predilection for throwing grenades though, granted.

As to the matter at hand, and my statement that morality is outside religion and not bound to it, again I stand by it. Once you get over your affront and indignation - think about it.

Unless you are a complete sociopath, everyone, atheist, believer, or agnostic, has an in-built sense of morality. Religion can come later and give it more structured form, but it is something that comes from within and can be moulded by society and experience before becoming hard-wired.

Converting this discussion to one about religion misses the point, and claiming its foundation to be a gift from a higher being cannot have objective validity, when various religions hand down different flavours and beliefs. Any argument that the differing moral codes are influenced by different religious teaching is mistakenly allocating that influence to faith, rather than societal influence.

In my youth I had a very strong sense of social justice. When I read the bible and saw crystallisations of more nebulous thoughts I had already formed (do unto others, those without sin cast the first stone, etc), it didn't convert my morality from innate to religious.

Religion helped to voice it and structure it, but it was not of the religion. It was already there. I believe it is part of normal human nature, not of or bound by religion, and frankly, the fact that I am not a Christian per se, is utterly irrelevant to the value of my belief.

On that basis the religious ramblings, and the laying claim to basic human components as from God, and thus perfect, I find sickening. This is partly because so many of the worlds woes, and most heinous acts, were committed in the name of religion. Now if Morality is of religion - we're all doomed.

[Jamiet99uk]

Thanks Wusti, I agree with this viewpoint.

[CaptainFritz28]

So, if I understand you correctly:

Morality cannot have anything to do with religion because some people come to moral conclusions without religion, because religions disagree, and because religions have been used to justify evil?

Sure, you can come to moral conclusions that are correct without religion. That doesn't refute or disagree with my position.
Sure, religions disagree. That doesn't refute or disagree with my position.
Sure, some people use their religions to justify evil. That doesn't refute or disagree with my position.

You are right, morality is outside of "religion" if you define religion as being any set of beliefs that include a god. This is because morality is objective, and so it doesn't matter if religions disagree, or if some religions go against it, or if some people come to morally objective conclusions without religion.

All I'm saying is that the ultimate objective moral standard is the Bible. Not that all religions are correct. Not that everyone who calls themselves a Christian will always do everything right or have the correct interpretation of the Bible. Not that you can't agree with the Bible without having read it. Just that it is, and will always be, for all people, true.

[CaptainFritz28]

This is partly because so many of the worlds woes, and most heinous acts, were committed in the name of religion. Now if Morality is of religion - we're all doomed.

What does it matter if some terrible acts have been done in the name of certain religions? That doesn't mean that a religion can't be true. Many good acts have been done in the name of other religions.

Using your logic, I could say that my case is partly because so many of the world's joys, and most honorable acts, were done in the name of religion. Now if morality is of religion - everything will be perfect.

You see how that is a part to whole fallacy that I just made? That's what you did.

[Crazy Anglican]

For the record, I am staunchly agnostic, but am married to a devout Catholic. I was schooled at a Methodist (later Uniting) Church school which, to its credit, made Religious Education a real study of world religions which I found fascinating.

The responses were pretty much bang on the mark of what I expected. Further pontification and demonstration of the tragic sense of superiority that infects some people, that believe adherence to a faith system makes their opinions worth more than others.

Okay, quotes please. That last part was so far and away different from what I really believe or intend, I’d like to know what I wrote to give you that impression.

I found the Machiavelli quote amusing by the way, and Octavious has always been a supercilious tit.

Seems like a good guy to me.

With that said, my post remains true: I did nearly vomit and found the last few pages of this discussion cringey. A statement of that opinion made me feel better, but strangely, not like a badass - however you choose to define it. I do have a predilection for throwing grenades though, granted.

I’m guessing that this was directed at Esquire Bert, but you don’t think he’s a Christian do you? He’s stated several times that he’s an atheist (or at least that he doesn’t believe in God).

As to the matter at hand, and my statement that morality is outside religion and not bound to it, again I stand by it. Once you get over your affront and indignation - think about it.

Oh believe me I am far from outraged or indignant. Things are going by pretty much as I had expected as well. Perhaps when you get over your disgust, you’ll think about what I’ve said?

Unless you are a complete sociopath, everyone, atheist, believer, or agnostic, has an in-built sense of morality. Religion can come later and give it more structured form, but it is something that comes from within and can be moulded by society and experience before becoming hard-wired.

You realize you just said, “Unless you’re born without morals; you’re born with morals”? That was funny, sorry.

Converting this discussion to one about religion misses the point, and claiming its foundation to be a gift from a higher being cannot have objective validity, when various religions hand down different flavours and beliefs. Any argument that the differing moral codes are influenced by different religious teaching is mistakenly allocating that influence to faith, rather than societal influence.

First Capt. Fritz started this thread, so it isn’t as if Christians came along and highjacked it or anything.
Secondly, you’ve made a claim, but not really supported it with anything other than this anecdote.

In my youth I had a very strong sense of social justice. When I read the bible and saw crystallisations of more nebulous thoughts I had already formed (do unto others, those without sin cast the first stone, etc), it didn't convert my morality from innate to religious.

I could give a contradictory anecdote of my experiences, would you simply accept it as true evidence and stop arguing? Probably not, right?
How do you know this natural impulse toward morality isn’t a gift from God? Because you don’t believe in God, right? I’m not claiming that it is; I’m just pointing out that your argument isn’t really supported by any evidence that I could see as truly relevant.
If I related an anecdote where a friend of mine and I randomly gave concert tickets to guy and his family only to find out later that the guy was dying of kidney disease, and they were out as their last hurrah together [true story by the way]. You’d say that was just coincidence and doesn’t prove anything, right?

Religion helped to voice it and structure it, but it was not of the religion. It was already there. I believe it is part of normal human nature, not of or bound by religion, and frankly, the fact that I am not a Christian per se, is utterly irrelevant to the value of my belief.

This seems to echo Christopher Hitchens famous quote, “Human decency isn’t derived from religion, it predates it.” There is a reason that he’d put that in his closing’s you know. That way he wouldn't have to support it, because it’s bollocks. There is archaeological evidence of religion going back far before the written word, the Gobekli Tepe site alone dates back, what, five thousand years before writing came about. We can imagine all the moral cavemen we’d like, but you just cannot prove that morality predates religion.

On that basis the religious ramblings, and the laying claim to basic human components as from God, and thus perfect, I find sickening. This is partly because so many of the world’s woes, and most heinous acts, were committed in the name of religion.

Okay, so forgive me, but this is trite; and my response will be as well.

Yes, yes, and lots of history’s most beautiful creations and selfless acts as well. How are we doing in the past two hundred or so years though? By my reconning communists alone have killed tons more in the past 100 years than Christians in the previous five hundred. The difference is that we’re showing improvement, lots of those religious wars and such are handled much more peacefully now. Are you really going to go to a body count argument?

Now if Morality is of religion - we're all doomed.

We’ve done okay for the past several millennia, why are we doomed from this now?

[mOctave]

Religion can come later and give it more structured form, but [morality] is something that comes from within and can be moulded by society and experience before becoming hard-wired.

Okay, I think I generally agree with what you're saying here, except for one point: what is "within"? That implies that it was either given to you by somebody (either your parents, the natural laws of the universe, or God), or existed as some sort of soul of yourself before you did.

Converting this discussion to one about religion misses the point

I'm interested. What is your definition of religion, exactly?

Religion helped to voice it and structure it, but it was not of the religion. It was already there. I believe it is part of normal human nature, not of or bound by religion, and frankly, the fact that I am not a Christian per se, is utterly irrelevant to the value of my belief.

Do other "great" apes also have a sense of morality? Maybe, maybe not. To me, most of them which do not demonstrate a level of sentience don't really care about much more than their own genes surviving.

On the other hand, lots of dogs are religious: they view their owners as a divine being come to earth whom it is their duty to serve.

Certainly, morality predates Christianity, but Christianity ≠ religion. Personally, I believe that any set of beliefs involving morality is a religion in itself. As I said above, an atheistic definition of morality is not that far different from a definition of a god.

On that basis the religious ramblings, and the laying claim to basic human components as from God, and thus perfect, I find sickening. This is partly because so many of the world’s woes, and most heinous acts, were committed in the name of religion.

Okay, so forgive me, but this is trite; and my response will be as well.

Yes, yes, and lots of history’s most beautiful creations and selfless acts as well. How are we doing in the past two hundred or so years though? By my reconning communists alone have killed tons more in the past 100 years than Christians in the previous five hundred. The difference is that we’re showing improvement, lots of those religious wars and such are handled much more peacefully now. Are you really going to go to a body count argument?

My personal opinion here is that there is a roughly equal amount of "good" and "bad" in the world. Our morality is structured that way: if we did more good acts then those actions would be less potent in their goodness, and if we were truly despicable in our actions, then the tiniest good in our actions would be considered far better.

Therefore, it seems reasonable to me that any organization is likely to cause roughly the same amount of good as evil, especially if it is thousands of years old. Christians have done horrendous things, but as with CA's anecdote, that doesn't mean that the sole effects of Christianity are bad.

The difference, of course, is that we are much more likely to remember the bad things. If I asked you what you had for breakfast a week ago, you probably wouldn't remember. If it was something incredible, you might remember it, but you'd still have trouble remembering which day you ate it on. If you had stopped at a coffee shop and been given a greasy, mouldy, half-frozen piece of mush, you would be very quick never to recommend that coffee shop.

Additionally, we like to remember those things that confirm our existing biases. I believe it was Fritz who said earlier that Christianity had done an overwhelming amount of good: that's because they get to see the good things Christianity causes, but ignore the bad because it doesn't align with their beliefs. You, on the other hand, find it easy to believe the worst about Christianity, and so latch on to the obvious headline-type evidence. These are both two extreme viewpoints, and I think the truth (if there is an objective truth) is somewhere between the two.

[CaptainFritz28]

I believe it was Fritz who said earlier that Christianity had done an overwhelming amount of good

I should note that what I meant (if you are referring to the quote which I think you are) was that while many bad things have been done in the name of religion, many good things have as well, meaning that what people do with a belief does not necessarily reflect the morals of the belief itself.

Hence, while I agree that things like the Salem Witch Trials, Spanish inquisition, nd atrocities of the Crusades were done in the name of Christianity, I do not believe them to be a reflection of the Bible's actual instruction.

Put simply, I believe that there is objective meaning to the Bible, and that it is our job to determine what that is. We use our God-given skills of logic, including the analysis of Biblical context, to determine what that meaning is, and we also have the Holy Spirit to aud us in discernment. However, that doesn't mean that everything everyone does in the name of the Bible is actually in line with the objective meaning.

[Wusti]

Hahaha CaptainFritz28 - you are a troll. There are so many holes I could punch through your bullshit. The fact that you have a coupe of cheerleaders doesn't make you right.

Oh and don't bother replying I won't be coming back.

My last word on this: Blessed are the cheesemakers.

[Esquire Bertissimmo]

Hahaha CaptainFritz28 - you are a troll. There are so many holes I could punch through your bullshit. The fact that you have a coupe of cheerleaders doesn't make you right.

Oh and don't bother replying I won't be coming back.

My last word on this: Blessed are the cheesemakers.

What a prick lol, glad that's over.

[CaptainFritz28]

Hahaha CaptainFritz28 - you are a troll. There are so many holes I could punch through your bullshit. The fact that you have a coupe of cheerleaders doesn't make you right.

Oh and don't bother replying I won't be coming back.

My last word on this: Blessed are the cheesemakers.

Nah, I'll reply anyways.

If there are so many holes, go ahead, punch them. I have no fear to defend my arguments, but you appear to have fear to defend yours. If you wish to hide as a coward, by all means, do so, but you will only prove that through your insolent and unfounded claims and unwillingness to back them up, you are, in fact, the troll.

[JustAGuyNamedWill]

Hahaha CaptainFritz28 - you are a troll. There are so many holes I could punch through your bullshit. The fact that you have a coupe of cheerleaders doesn't make you right.

Oh and don't bother replying I won't be coming back.

My last word on this: Blessed are the cheesemakers.

Dont join a discussion just to leave once you actually have to argue your point…

[JustAGuyNamedWill]

I think Wusti has made some decent points, but Im not convinced, and I would love to hear his argument for the sake of the discussion

[Esquire Bertissimmo]

I think Wusti has made some decent points, but Im not convinced, and I would love to hear his argument for the sake of the discussion

Wutsi said a lot but made very few actual points. Most of these points had already been debated in this thread, which he obviously did not read (fair enough, it's a long and repetitive thread).

He claimed the religious folks in this thread feel superior to everyone else, which is mostly just him projecting. Some things Fritz has said earlier in this thread could certainly give this impression, but no one was making this argument.

He made the supposition that morality stands outside religion twice, but gave no supporting arguments for it other than positing our in-built sense of morality and offering a personal anecdote about how he, a person in a Christian society with a Christian upbringing, read the Bible and found parts that accorded with his "innate" morality (go figure). I actually agree on this point with him, but there are real arguments to make here, many of which have already been made in this thread.

He posited, without supporting arguments, that "societal influence" is the source of moral codes, not religion. This is a non-point, as there would be no way to distinguish between "societal influence" and religion.

If there's any value in these arguments we could debate them in Wutsi's absence. I feel these are not the strongest arguments and, even though I'm also agnostic, I think CA and CF had good responses to them.

As an aside, if there is a gold medal for cringiness in this thread it would be a tie between Jamie for still saying "sky daddy" or Wutsi for saying "blessed are the cheesemongers". Maybe in the 80s and 90s these phrases helped athiests/agnostics to get the attention of a more-religious society. The non-religious are winning in 2024 lol and phrases like these are lazy, embarrassing, and demonstrate a lack of good faith engagement with your debate partners' actual beliefs.

[JustAGuyNamedWill]

What is CA and CF?

[Esquire Bertissimmo]

What is CA and CF?

Crazy Anglican and Captain Fritz

[CaptainFritz28]

I wish to clarify, for anyone like Wusti (or if Wusti comes back for any reason):
I am just as sinful and flawed as anyone else, and claim no superiority to others. I think that what I believe is true, sure, but so does everyone else, and I don't think that there is some sort of secret knowledge that I have that no one else can. I think that what I believe can be deduced by a reading of the Bible and the use of some logic, but it also helps to have others to discuss with. Most others on this thread would claim something similar about their beliefs.

[Crazy Anglican]

Yeah, pretty much what Capt. Fritz said, I think that you test the plausibility of your opinions by exposing them to critique.

[MajorMitchell]

Hooray, more squabbling about religious beliefs and M
orality which is fun
I liked some of the comments from M0ctave

I suggest m0ctave consider changing his member pseudonym to m0ctavious
Tomorrow night, Wednesday 24th January is the first performance of my new comedy act at Rhino Room in the 3rd South Australian heat of the Australian National RAW Comedy Competition at Rhino Room.
RAW Comedy Competition is restricted to amateur comedians and linked to Melbourne International Comedy Festival.
State and Territory final winners are invited to perform in a big comedy show that is part of the Melbourne International Comedy Festival
It's a pathway for amateur comedians towards earning an income as a comedian.

Second performance will be at Chuckles Comedy show at Wakanda Bar on Saturday 27th January

[CaptainFritz28]

Comedian? MM is a comedian?! Well, now, this is quite the interesting news. First of all, I hope you do well, and second...

Tell us a joke!

[JustAGuyNamedWill]

Comedian? MM is a comedian?! Well, now, this is quite the interesting news. First of all, I hope you do well, and second...

Tell us a joke!

Do it! Do it do it do it!