Who's More Moral?

I don't know. How can we judge quality if not by performance? If people's reactions are disparate, then the observors have to decide who is more moral. Just the fact that a person claims this or that doesn't mean they are following their conscience. That was what I asked!Actually, we don't judge. God judges. Since only the individual knows whether s/he follows her conscience, it is impossible to ask who is more moral. I asked, but only since it keeps coming up elsewhere.Edited by anastasia, : No reason given.

I will try to be more gentle.We all question each other. None of us can judge anything with certainty about another. We can judge results, but not efforts.Still, I can ask this question because it is what you said about yourself. You, ICANT, will question another person's salvation if they do not have works. Since I am conversing with you, I don't know why I can't ask your opinion of how this is possible.A...they have works and aren't saved.B...they have none and you are not sure if they are saved.It seems that you are only asking which comes first. I think it is over-kill to say works aren't needed at all. I disagree, but again its not that important here.Or, maybe it is.You are a God-fearing man. You do not think one morality is better than another as far as atheists' and theists'. Yet at one time you say that we don't need morality to get to heaven, then say it is good to keep the commandments of God. Are they commands, or suggestions?You believe we should keep the commands, but not because God said so, only because you might want to?Oh, I know I am going to be somehow putting words into your mouth again. I don't think I have very bad forum etiquette, so if this is too much for you just let me know.

(I don't need to email you for now, but thanks for the offer. I am sure we will run into each other again where this is not OT.)Anyway, if these commands are truly commands and not suggestions, what happens if we fail to keep them?I don't mean entirely, perfectly at every second, but I do think you know where I am going here. There may be some mushy theological problem about works alone producing salvation, but it is clear to me, that works are exactly what God requires of us. Morality IS required. The main argument against God-based morality is, after-all, 'God told you to do it'.Edited by anastasia, : No reason given.

I see what you were saying about performance now. Ringo, I believe, was speaking not about individual performance, but of the over-all usefullness of the morals one uses. It's just the same old duality if you ask me. We always WANT to follow our own moral standards.This tells us something very easily.The naturalistic explanations for morality show why we want to do one thing. At one point these things were 'good' for survival. Morality is above and beyond survival to me, although it may still have its goal there. Morality is the function of free will that can choose the best option rather than go with instinct in all cases. This still helps us to survive, but is very different than the 'rape is a survival mechanism and therefore ok' point that I have seen here.When we are following our own moral codes, we are following one brand of instinct and being purely human. This reverts back to the sermonistic. The 'new man' of Christianity is simply the person who can do what is 'better' in a situation through use of intelligence.Christian morality is a short cut. It is useless to a person who does not 'own' it. It is like handing a child a calculator and asking them to solve a problem without giving them instructions.I could speculate that a moral atheist has in some cases not taken the short cut to morality. They don't start with the list. Whatever they end up with is the product of their own reasoning. I am not sure what is absurd about your example. It is exactly the type of thinking that went on for hundreds of years. You can see that even those who opposed Galileo had someone's greater good in mind! The only thing that is different today is that we don't allow laws and rules made which concern salvation of another. At one point we did, because in certain societies there was not much diversity of opinion, and those who were a 'threat' to the salvation of another were persecuted.At this point in time it is only bodily harm that is considered to be a threat.This is why some will say that we are 'less' moral. If less equals fewer rules, I agree. If less means it is harder to live as a Christian, I agree a bit too.But you say 'society's standards are the only ones that can act as a yardstick', and this behaviour of ousting dissidents went on for so long because christianity was society's standard! It was the will of the people until the people's will changed, until the society became diversified, and new freedoms became popular.Morality today is the same for Christians and non, as I have said before, minus the salvation bits. Minus the do unto God.

Glad you found the thread Stile.I understood what you meant, theoretically.I don't know if you have a religious background at all. This I wonder only because this theory of leaving morality to chance does not seem to me consistant with what I feel as a religious person. What exactly can not be shown to others? What is 'made up'? Specific morals? Or the purpose in following them?You say morality is based on God, and God can not be shown to you. I just don't know practically speaking what 'based on God' is.Based on the Bible? The Commandments? The structure of humanity leads to us believing each other. I hate to bring this up, but in all reality, can ANY of us show that abortion is or is not painful or murderous?In general, much of religious teaching is something that can be shown to another. There are reasons for everything. Your average Chrsitian might not know the long, long process from a to b. Sure, some things are taken as fact, as in a deity. But when you get down to the nitty gritty of morality, I would like some example of morals that can't be shown to another person. Well, again, have any specific 'thous shalts' that we can consider?

Sorry for not getting back to you sooner. I got tied up elsewhere.It's better this way because I do now see where you are coming from. Things still come back to woning your morality.If a person or church imposes rules upon me based on 'God said so' or 'God wishes this to be so' it CAN seem that there may turn out to be no real basis for the rule.What is important is to understand the rules, and decide for yourself if they are valid or just. If you agree with them, then there is no 'chance' element.For example, we can agree that being good to others has useful consequences in and out of religion. It might seem frivolous or silly to worry about eating meat, or praying, or being against certain actions, if it turns out there is no God. St Paul also warns about rules that are too strict and turn licit behaviours into no-no's. There are morals that can be shown, in a way, yes. Everyone relates to kindness and can see that kindness is a desirable thing. Well, I don't think that, for the most part, people follow a religious moral without personal conviction of its validity. In other words, women in and out of religion can feel abortion is wrong based on what their body tells them. Some people can stay away from things based on trust of another person's rendition of a dusty old book, but there are not too many morals that we have to just accept on faith. If someone told me that I can only wash my car once a month and with distilled water, I could question that! if there is no reason behind it. I have found that most religious morals have some reason behind them that are not empirical per se, but can still be shown sufficiently to me to allow for belief in their worth. This is as I said above. I don't find that it is true in many cases if at all. God says keep holy the Sabbath. There are still many reasons why a religious person would benefit from doing this apart from what God says.There are not so many reasons for a secular person to not work on Sunday or to attend church. But still this 'moral' is capable of being shown to Christians as 'good'. I am not going to get uptight about the 'before marriage' part. It is more about having sex without commitment. You I am sure can see that this would be immoral if a child will not be cared for as a result.Birth control does not make this problem disappear entirely. It is not fool proof, not safe for all women, not proven safe long term. There have been many bad varieties that had consequences to the fertility of female children. Then, of course, there is still that question of whether it is murder. There is still that question of whether sex SHOULD be used for fun. You will find that to some people, it is very important to save sexual activity for a commited relationship even for mental reasons. So yes, it is not empirical either way IMO, it depends on the individual's convictions. I don't think that people will practice abstinance without some sort of belief in its validity. (not just a God says so)

Where do you get your stats from? It's not that I have any real stats either, except the talks I have with people who are religious. The religious people I know DO understand their morality and follow it from agreement, not ignorance. I have no idea what the 'most' people do. Methinks they just ignore the morals they don't understand. You say this but I have also seen otherwise. I have seen the more secular of girls turn completely 'religious' about their own offspring. I try to base my posts around experience, not a feeling, in these things. Hm, what about the 'sex is for procreation' factor? So you would rather not find any other answer than the one you made up? Well, I for one do not work or shop on Sunday. Still, it is irrelevent to the conversation whether any Christian follows a 'rule'. There are Christians who do not have this rule, who do rest on Saturday, etc. There are also Christians who do not 'own' their morality, as in, believe it is worthy of following. As I said above, they do not understand the meaning of the morals. Don't try to educate me about Christianity! Sunday has become our Sabbath, Saturday is fine as well. Well, do you think it is a valid reason? Do you think people should follow rules that they don't understand or agree with? 'God said so' is the biggest complaint that I have found against religious people!

It has to do with the 'showing' that you mentioned. Some people could believe in a thing without proof of its 'goodness'.Say God said, 'don't fly a plane tonight'. You might listen. If someone showed you that there would be bad weather, you would 'understand' the rule. There would be no chance element. Man, you are hard to please! You won't follow a moral because God said so, too chancy. Now you won't follow a moral because you believe it is valid! What WILL you follow? Well ok, I know you mean that YOUR conviction is useless without the concensus of society, but that is not the point. The morals of religion are well backed by society, as in they have a great amount of believers. Now obviously I could 'show' you a woman who enjoys being beaten, and you are free to determine if it is right or wrong in this case. I would still say it is wrong, but I couldn't physically show you! What? You must be able to see that something is good before you agree to do it! You must also be able to see that it is good in itself regardless of the circumstances. There are a lot of good things that we do that no one even notices. The point is Stile, that there is no empirical moral. They are all subjective. I don't think we all have to agree, but as long as I have enough reasons to do what I do involving sex, and you have enough to do what you do, these things can be said to be shown to us as good, rather than just accepted on faith. There will always be some element of chance, because morals are set up to be proactive rather than reactive. We don't know that there will be a bad consequence, but we believe that what we are doing is the best things we can do now.