Morality without god

Depends on what you want your moral system to be used for.If you want your moral system to be used for "the average person, but nobody specifically..."
Then, yes... your method would be decent for this purpose.If, however, you actually cared about the specific, individual people you have an affect on... then no. 100 "others" or 100k "others" doesn't make a difference. They are simply unable to judge.
What's wrong with saying "Hey, I cannot judge this moral issue because I do not know if the person had a positve or negative reaction."? I do not agree that we can ever objectively know how much harm an action will cause.
I do agree that we can objectively know how much harm an action caused to an individual. (Just ask them).But the data for "future calculations" is kind of useless. Sometimes people just change their minds.A guy works with a lady and opens the door for her one day. It was a nice thing (she liked it).
The same guy continues to open the door for her every day from now on.
She likes to do things on her own sometimes, she does not want someone to open the door for her every day.
After a week or so she no longer likes it.Is it moral to open a door for this lady?Objectively, the answer was "yes." Then, objectively, it became "no."
It's quite possible that she could change her mind again in the future.We can make our best guesses... but we cannot ever formulate some sort of calculation that will account for personal taste. Because personal taste changes. Sometimes simply on a whim. Sure.
But if the quantification doesn't remain consistent... then the mathematical principals would give us inconsistent results. So what's the point? I certainly agree that the Golden Rule is easer for good people trying to do good things.
But why would good people need an easy route for being good?The point of changing the golden rule to being about "how others want to be treated" isn't meant for good people.
Good people don't need the golden rule or anything else, they'll get along just fine on their basic use of empathy without needing to think about any rules.
Changing the rule is meant for preventing abuse of the rule... it's meant for restricting the ways the rule can be rationalized in order to hurt other people.If we take the golden rule to it's extremes and abuse it... we can end up hurting other people.
"I like to sleep in, therefore all other people should sleep in, every day!!!"
"I like to get tattoos, therefore all other people should get tattoos!!!"
...the basic pattern is getting everyone to do whatever you want. What's so good about that?If we take my version to it's extremes and abuse it... we only end up hurting ourselves.
"Other people want my money... so I will give them my money."
"Other people want my labour for free... so I will give them my labour for free."
(Notice, of course, that these are also "good" things... giving to charity, helping others for no charge...)
...the basic pattern is about confirming the information received from your empathy.Would you rather have conmen hurting other people under the guise of the golden rule? Or only hurting themselves?Emapthy is the entire basis of a good, benevolent morality.
The golden rule doesn't have anything to do with emapthy, it doesn't even mention trying to understand how other people feel.
My version works with empathy, it gives a way to understand what other people are feeling even if you don't have any empathy... just ask them.
If you do have empathy, my way provides a path for confirmation of those feelings, this way empathy can be improved and allowed to grow.Which rule sounds more moral?
The one that has nothing to do with empathy?
Or the one that sounds pretty much exactly the same as empathy?

How does your sense of empathy work with the frilly knickers question and would your wife feel the same?Edited by Tangle, : No reason given.

I saw that post, and I actually want to put something together going through my thoughts on morality.
Unfortunately, I'm quite a bit under the weather right now, and my head doesn't seem up to it. I wanted to wait until I could actually think about it.The first question moved into an "is capitalism good" kind of area...
The frilly knickers questions moved into a "good for this person, bad for this person... and how to we judge an overall goodness or badness?" realm. And that's where I needed my brain to kick in for some thinking, and it didn't. It will likely come towards a "do the best we can" kind of answer from there.But, yes, I did want to reply to that. I'm just runnin' on empty right now

Best to take 2 asprins and wait awhile - I'm sure Dogmafood will be along in a minute with a simple formulae to solve it all for us :-)

Some questions I ask myself.

Do I possess a Spirit of knowledge of an ideal or way of life better than others do? If this Spirit is alive, why need I push it? Let the Spirit Himself push Himself onto others, no?

Should people all come to the same belief or conclusion? Is not disagreement and relative individuality a better flow or vibe within society rather than authoritarian agreement?(even if the agreement could be claimed to be absolute)

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Then I thought of a scripture.

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Rom 3:10-12(NIV) writes:

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As it is written:

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"There is no one righteous, not even one;
11 there is no one who understands,
no one who seeks God.
12 All have turned away,
they have together become worthless;
there is no one who does good,
not even one."

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So then I think to myself, if nobody does good...that includes me myself. My conscience can only compel me to try and do my best on a daily basis. I need not think higher of myself than I ought, in that at the end of a given day, I have done no one any favors. My challenge is to do no one any harm.

Why on earth is this a challenge? It's an absolutely normal human condition that has nothing to do with 'spirits'.

Well, if you're an atheist then there is no challenge. Just normal human behavior, as you say. But, if you have a god that hates you so much there is nothing you can do to appease it, then I'm afraid, day-to-day life does become a challenge.I'm thinking whoever thought up this particular god sure had some major self-esteem issues.

The harm caused by being exposed to someone's knickers is calculated by multiplying the attractiveness of the ass with the proximity of the spouse minus the attractiveness of the spouse's ass. The product is then multiplied by your squareness.(Note: If this result is negative it is possible for a triangle to spontaneously form although these are known to be unstable and dangerous with the potential to cause lower back pain and joint dislocation.)

It's the same thing. We can only observe what you seem to be feeling, not what you "are" feeling. We could hypothetically observe the signals in your brain that "should" produce a feeling of pain but we can't directly observe the feelings themselves. Yes, by definition. I can only tell other people how you seem to feel. That's the basis of objectivity.

Because human wisdom is imperfect and you may not always give the best advice or know when to advise and when to remain silent. It is true that we can easily give our best effort in that moment, but wisdom calls for us to slow down and weigh the consequences of what we say or if we should say it. It is certainly possible, but it is not easy.

First of all, you don't even know which god I would be referring to...if you did you would find that not only does He love you,He has far more wisdom than you do. You of course are free to assert that He is made up and a figment of my psychosis, but I might comment that your attitude is a bit rude. This is one of those times where I probably should have shut up and let your comment go, but I feel that you are wrong in your assertions. That is all.add by edit: I took it personal whereupon you may not have been speaking to me. Thus I stand corrected.~PhatEdited by Phat, : No reason given.

It would not have mattered if I was speaking to you, some other believer or some non-believer, the attitude would have been the same and, yes,"rude" is an appropriate description. I can accept that.Further I understand your sensitivity to having your heartfelt beliefs rubbed into the ground like that.But that attitude is my heartfelt belief.It really does not matter what personal attributes you attach to your version of a god. These are mere appendages to the base attributes ascribed to your god in your canons. Frankly, Phat, those base attributes are abhorrent.Luckily the preponderance of the evidence indicates quite the opposite from what the priests wrote in your canon. Man made god in his image. In my opinion, which actually has no value to anyone but myself, whoever made the abrahamic jehovah had some major head problems.I have re-written this a couple of times to excise the emotional vitriol.OK. That's not too terribly insulting, considering. I'll take it.

Assuming for a moment that the "made up" character of Jesus Christ was an actual onetime living person, do you have any problems with any of His philosophy or that of multi authored commentaries known as the New Testament? If so, please elaborate.

Yes and, as I understand it, what he determined is that the length of the coastline is dependant on the length of your measuring stick. So even something as objective and absolute as the length of a thing does not meet the standard of absoluteness that is being demanded of the assessment of harm. Harm is something that goes against your interests. If you are a sane and rational person you will be familiar with the fact that your interests do not always align perfectly with the interests of others. I do not want to be harmed and so I will try to not harm others.The fact that some rational and sane people enjoy getting whipped does not mean that they should whip other people who do not enjoy being whipped. You first determine the interests of the subject and then you decide if the action goes against those interests. It works when it is used correctly.

The Flower Child mythos of the new testament is not the issue.The issue is the brutal misanthropic character of jehovah in the old.Actually, the issue is secular morality. We are both off-topic.