Small-d democratic consensus is a reasonably good start. Simple common-sense rules like the Golden Rule will carry you far. Natural human instincts are also a guideline. But open discussion and debate – like what we’re doing here! – on the basis of reason and intelligence, is (probably) the best of all.
Plato wanted the same for his Republic. The Philosopher-Kings would make the laws based on logical principles…but the ordinary man-in-the-street would be fed a myth about how the gods wanted him to behave.
(One of the many things wrong with Plato’s reasoning, at least by today’s standards.)
To paraphrase Megamind, you guys are so naive! You’re all living a fantasy. There is no Easter Bunny, there is no Tooth Fairy and there IS no Queen of England!! This is the real world, and you all need to wake up!
Well, the real issue there, I think, is that a belief system can’t be established and then just left for thousands of years. Surely (were there a god) the message and allegorical devices would need periodic updating based on the development of the people you’re trying to reach. How you explain tough concepts to a three year old is different than how you do with a 15 year old, and by 20 you expect the person thinking for himself.
I believe that one of the best arguments against God is that the vast majority of religions are based on a set of direct from creator communications a long-ass time ago, with no periodic refresh or update.* Back to the child analogy, you don’t hand a two year old a copy of “Everybody Poops” and declare “My Work Here is Finished,” never to return
*I’m no expert on Mormonism, but it seems to me that conceptually, the idea that the Christian God would circle back around for a refresh makes sense. That said, I would bet that the Mormon powers that be over the next few centuries consider their current understanding paramount and permanent.
I think Plato’s philosopher-kings were supposed to base laws on a mystical vision of the idea of the Good, which they saw in the absolute realm of ideas. That doesn’t strike me as too different from letting God talk to you.
Reasonable, give-and-take discussion about what’s right works when all the participants share certain basic premises, like it’s wrong to hurt others. Without that—I have yet to see a purely logical argument against being a sociopath. We all have unproven moral premises, theist or not.
So do christians and religious jews, with less volatile literal human bombs and less of a supremacist streak where all other faiths and beliefs and historical relics are to be bulldozed and put in their lesser place.
Apologist: But my muslim friends surrounded by an ocean of western culture and values do not exhibit the worst of what we see with a critical mass of muslim believers in other areas of the world.
Salvor: Great, I’m grateful those muslims are BETTER than their own religion, I am glad both the men and women are better examples of human beings than that cesspool of a man named Muhammad. Continue to be better than he ever was, my continued concern is for the muslims who are NOT better than him, and worse, want to follow his putrid beliefs and example, all of them, including the toxic bits, of which they are legion.
Wait- I thought we were more generally bashing religion as the basis of morality in the modern era, and jerking off to some humanist paradise… If we’re bashing Muslims specifically then I’m not on board. I realize mine is still an anti-religion bigotry, but at least it’s fair. And for the record, I support anyone’s right to practice their religious beliefs regardless of which flawed system they want to follow.
He tends to favor this concept of reason and science giving credible answers, focusing on things like “human flourishing”
Of course that begs the question, flourishing by whose standard?
I do not think his foundations are on as firm a ground as he thinks, but I’d still take his over “because GOD said so”
Which could be copy pasted before the act of donating to the poor just as easily as sawing off the head of an infidel. It is an utterly empty and arbitrary standard. And one of the dumbest counters I’ve heard to the problems with it was from Dennis Prager, who proclaims that if HIS God commands it, it is good and just because that is the source of all goodness. No one bothered to tell him the Islamists think the same thing about their own source of moral sanction from God/Muhammad.
You can be neutral if you wish, I’m not. I think all religious beliefs and ethical foundation based on “because god said so” are foolish, but I see Islam as far worse in modern times because the subject of what god commands to them is so pockmarked and awful. And we see the murder spread all across the world. But I understand, there is an egalitarian streak in too many liberals that FALSELY extends to the realm of ideas and beliefs as well. The idea that no belief systems are better or worse or more prone to violence and chaos than any other. If I had the power to swap the beliefs of a population, I’d snap my fingers and replace the Islamic beliefs of all muslims with Zoroastrianism or christianity, or better yet, buddhism or jainism.
And this gets to the false charge that when people like me focus in on muslims that we are against them as people. No, it’s actually the opposite, it’s the people who pretend there is nothing outsized in the destructiveness with the muslim population when it comes to religious violence that are the real purveyors of suffering upon them. I want muslims to be free of Islamic dogma more than any other religious group, because I believe their particular strain of belief causes more harm to more people now than any other.
So your charge to me comes across as a doctor put off by the fact that I am focused on the ebola virus instead of a more generalized assault against viral pathogens in general, like say… the viruses that cause common cold.
Now I’d rather all peoples be free of all of these viral pathogens, but I REALLY want the people infected with ebola freed from that disease.
Exaggerated example? yes, but the point should be clear.
Where have you shown that Islam is Ebola and Christianity is the common cold? You need to show, objectively, it’s worse before we can declare it worthy of special attention. I don’t see one as worse than the other. Prove it.
Destroying abstract concepts like a command from God is tough. In old mythology, modern fantasy fiction, or video games the heroes usually trap or kill gods by collecting legendary artifacts. Here’s what I came up with:
A lock of Nietzsche’s moustache
Hume’s dinner fork
A fossil of Tiktaalik
Carl Sagan’s sweater
Stephen Hawking’s wheelchair
Gold plated copy of “Imagine”
A vial of Christopher Hitchen’s flop sweat
Such a liberal would have difficulties arguing for their own cause. They couldn’t criticize conservatives for banning gay marriage or closing abortion clinics. No better, no worse than any other ideology. That’s just how they do it down there in Alabama. I think what’s more likely is Islam being used as a cudgel to bash the real outgroup of American liberals, which is American conservatives.
My personal belief has nothing to do with the issue in this thread: Your OP is an incredibly ill-informed and groundless broad-brushing of religion in general. I’m still awaiting why you singled out Islam in the thread title but said nothing about it in your OP.
As to what is the ethical foundation of the religions of the world: You just may have that backwards. Many religions are syncretic, arguably seeking to validate with some type of authority, or at least to codify, the ethical system developed in their societies.
Well, your OP shows that you think all religions justify/rationalize/excuse behavior with “God says XYZ”. That simply is not the case as can readily be seen by noticing one very simple and obvious fact: not all religions postulate deity.