Morality without god

I agree. OTOH I am quite convinced that it is possible to be a moral person with faith. It is not as natural but possible.I honestly cannot comprehend how the fellow men with religious disposition bring this issue up again and again and...again. No matter what the religious ideology, immorality has always ensued. The unconditional doing-good without a concern for the place in afterlife wins every time in my book.

I asserted that my daily challenge was to do no one any harm. I got my responses..... AZ then further clarified... And so I will respond with the sort of exclusivity which people hated Jesus for,(or denied Him entirely...as was done here:Men loved darkness and still do...by nature. Intellectualism without the Holy Spirit is worthless. You wont take my message seriously because you neither take me seriously(which doesn't bother me) or take Jesus seriously (which saddens me.)The darkness which you both have is intellectual darkness.Perhaps if you follow your secular morality to the hilt...as best as you can, you may open your eyes when the tragedies of our society come to full fruition, and our way of life lies in shambles.At that time, there will be countless religious nuts, reinforcing your disdain for our "mythos" as you call it. So be that...I can see why you would reject them...even why you reject my warnings.What I will continue to pray for, and stand for until the day that I die, is your rejection of Jesus Christ and why you refuse to simply accept the message that He brought. Its not a religious message. It is a simple message of humbling oneself and laying their pride down.Ultimately there is no morality without God because quite simply there is no life without God.

I see you've given up on argument and are forced to simply pronounce and pontificate. You can't explain how why morality is not absolute the way it must be if you're beliefs are true, so you prosthelytise; the snake oil seller's retreat.You probably don't realise how profoundly patronising and insulting the things you say are. So, as a good Christian and seeking no harm, I forgive you.

Please understand, Phat, your pontificating articles of faith, prophecies of your gods wrath and admonitions to non-believers has been going on for many millennia from every religionist of every religion. Most of the darkness you discuss has been brought to this world by religionists convinced theirs is the only path and intolerant of diversity and opposition.Though not in any religious sense I have my own prayers. I pray that the scales fall from your eyes so that you see the evil religion, in all its forms, forces upon humanity. I pray that you will see that this made up deity, jahovah, was given attributes from the darkest depths of human fear and that you will realize that only the desperate and the depraved would apotheosize such evil.

As a moral question, this is sort of vague.I suppose there is the naive sense... the one that just invloves the athelete receiving the money and the organization paying the money.
If the athelete is content with the money being paid for his services... then it is a good thing towards the athelete. Otherwise, it's a bad thing for them.
If the owner is content with the money being paid out for the services received... then it is also a good thing for the owner. Otherwise, it's a bad thing for the owner.In a deeper sense, we can try to compare an athelete being paid so much with (say...) a window washer being paid less (a normal, everyday wage).
There is likely a feeling of unfairness since both are working hard, yet one is being compensated in a much larger way.There are many factors to consider, these are just a few off the top of my head:
Were the same opportunities accorded to each person on their way to their current jobs?
Are the two people equally deserving of a large amount of compensation?
Do the two jobs contain the same amount of risk to personal health?
Is it possible to give the large compensation "a bit less" and use that money to help those less fortunate?My personal answer when taking into account the world and system we currently live in is "yes, the athelete should be paid whatever the market value is for their services."
My personal answer in an overall sense is "no, it is not moral to pay an athelete so much money while there are those who starve to death and cannot even afford clean drinking water." ...but this also goes for a lot of "normal wage" jobs as well as is more a product of the system we currently live within rather than a simple statement of "paying xxx money..."Anyway, onto the more interesting one (at least to me): The harm in wearing a short skirt is in whoever feels personally awkward/ashamed/uncomfortable when they see someone wearing a short skirt.
Sort of like the harm one feels when someone else is naked in public.It's not really anything "physically bad", it's a subjective moral harm. It's personal and therefore different for different people:For those who feel uncomfortable, it is morally bad for anyone to wear a short skirt in front of them.
For those who don't feel uncomfortable, it is morally neutral for anyone to wear a short skirt in front of them.
For those who feel happy to see it, it is morally good for anyone to wear a short skirt in front of them.Those statements were true way back then, and they're true today.Now, the question moves into a "should anyone care" if a morally bad action occurs when someone wears a short skirt in front of someone else and makes them feel uncomfortable.This is what's changed from then to know.
Then, society was much more sexually repressed. (I think we're still very sexually repressed right now, but it was still worse back then...)
Therefore, I think you're asking "is it right or wrong to allow/disallow short-skirt wearing?"And the answer is that it is neither right or wrong... at least in a moral sense.If someone wears a short skirt, and if someone seeing that skirt becomes uncomfortable... then it is a morally bad action for the skirt-wearer to wear the skirt in front of the skirt-uncomfortable person. Please note, this is not saying anything about whether or not the skirt-wearer should choose to wear a short skirt or not. It is simply describing the result of the situation.If the skirt-wearer wants to care about the skirt-uncomfortable person's feelings... they can wear something else, or apologize or do something to acknowledge and possibly make up for the sore feelings... or maybe even just talk with the skirt-uncomfortable person until the skirt-uncomfortable person is no longe uncomfortable with short skirts.If the skirt-weare doesn't care about the skirt-uncomfortable person's feelings or if they care about something else more (say, women's rights, or freedom of choice or something like that...), then they can ignore those hurt feelings.Notice that neither option removes the hurt feelings that did occur in the past. It happened. Describing it as it happened (the skirt-wearer did something that make the skirt-uncomfortable person feel bad) says nothing about what to do about the situation.That is the definition of a "morally bad action"... when someone does something to another person that makes them feel bad.
Justification rationalizations can come later.
Understanding if it was intentional or not can come later.
Choices about "what to do" in the future can come later.
Being able to identify and describe the action itself is an important step. When this step is skipped, it muddies the already-difficult-to-traverse waters.Definition: It is morally bad when a person interacts with another person and hurts them.
Therefore: It is morally bad when a person interacts with another person that hurts their feelings.
Therefore: It is morally bad when a person wears a short skirt in front of people who have their feelings hurt by seeing people in short skirts.Again, notice that this doesn't say that the person should or should not actually wear the short skirt.
Basically, it's just acknowledging that someone's feelings were hurt because of the short skirt.That is an important distinction. Because that is where "morality" ends.The rest is "legality."It is important to identify that yes, feelings were hurt.
And, no, physical harm was not done.
This is important when considering the next step:Should the person be able to wear the short skirt socially?Well... lots of things should be taken into account:How many people are offended?
How bad is the offence?
Are there any precendents in the existing society?
Would it be detrimental to the society?
Is it a freedom that really makes a difference?
etc...Personally, I think the girl should be allowed to wear her short skirt.
But, also personally, I think people should be allowed to be naked if they so desire.However, if a society is so sexually repressed that a short skirt could cause detrimental catastrophe's (constant car crashes... no one can focus... people cannot go about their daily business...) then I can understand why short skirts should be legally restricted.Just as if a society is so sexually repressed that a naked person could cause detrimental catastrophe's (constant car crashes... no one can focus... people cannot go about their daily business...) then I can understand why nakedness should be legally restricted.Notice how the legal restrictions are more about allowing the society to work together as an "average cohesive unit" while the moral analysis is only concerned with the exact, specific, unique situation of who is involved.The moral identification is important, and it's good to know where the lines are drawn in order to make rational decisions of the resulting analysis.Do we want to fit into society? Do we want to change society? Do we want to increase our freedoms? Do we want to add restrictions in order to (hopefully) help society grow more smoothly?These are all important questions... but none of them have anything to do with the morality of any specific situation. The morality of the specific situation is simply whether or not people got hurt.In understanding whether or not people got hurt, we can then make other decisions... do we want to be good people and help reduce the times we hurt others? Do we want certain freedoms in our society so that we ignore certain times when we hurt others?Answering difficult questions like that can become unneccessarily more difficult if we do not seperate morality from legality and personal motivation.

Maybe you do, maybe you don't.If you do possess such a Spirit of knowledge, and you try to tell others that they need to act like you in order to get the same thing... you'll be wrong. People are different. What works for you will not work for others. Please note that I'm not saying "the Spirit of knowledge" is wrong... I'm saying you'll be wrong to say that the "Spirit of knowledge" should work in others the exact same way it works in you. The Spirit of knowledge may be smart enough to deal with different people differently such that it can work for everyone... but if you think that some "constant action/thing" can work for everybody... then you are wrong. Regardless of what that constant action/thing is.Personally, I would only be concerned if you stop trying to improve your "ideal way of life." If you think you've reached an end, your Spirit of knowledge is doing it wrong. If the idea is an absolute (say, like the fact that my shirt is gray today). Then, yes, people should all come to the same conclusion.
If the idea is an absolute but cannot be tested/shown to be an absolute, then no, people should not all come to the same conclusion.
If the idea is not an absolute (say, like the fact that I feel cool in my gray shirt today). Then, no, people should not all come to the same conclusion.
If the idea is not an absolute, but can be tested/shown to be constant for all tests/shows... then, yes, people should all come to the same conclusion. Exactly. It's the same with all of us. We're all here with "incomplete testable/showable information" and we're all just trying to do what we can with what we have. That's what leads to different conclusions. That's what's supposed to lead to different conclusion because people are different.If all people were the same, then all people should come to the same conclusion all the time.
Obviously, people are different. That's a pretty good challenge.
The world would certainly be in a much better place if everyone took up this challenge.
A better challenge would be to help prevent other people from down harm as well as preventing yourself. Or helping allow others to have the same freedoms you do. Or even helping others in any way at all.I'm not saying all those options are possible (or impossible), or even if I do them or not. I'm just saying... they sound better than simply "not hurting others." If you're dreaming, why stay in the shallow end?

Which really just demonstrates that morality is subjective and changes over time and between cultures.......

Yes. Sorry, were you under the impression that I thought otherwise? Or are you just saying?Morality is extremely subjective.When defined as it is by me (that the good/bad behaviour is determined by the reactions of those who are affected by the situation) then we also have the fact that the resulting moral conclusions of any specific situation can be objectively obtained. All you have to do is communicate with the person who was affected by the situation.People can say "It's good to wear a short skirt!"
Or they can say "It's bad to wear a short skirt!"...but we can objectively say whether or not it's morally good or bad by looking at the people who are affected by the situation.This way we can then also look at the society and see how the question of skirt length does fit in, where we want it to fit in, and the feasibility of fitting it in the way we want to.When wondering if it is moral for the society... then it is clear that we have to ask all the people that are in that society.This removes the abuse of one person standing up and shouting "short skirts are the devil!!!" and making policy based on shock "moral" values.
If morality is defined by the people affected, the only way to know if it's moral for the society is to ask those who are in the society. Thinking that this knowledge of whether or not it is moral for the society can be gained in other ways is what leads to corruption of the system... people speaking for other people... people making social policy based on their own thoughts and not considering the thoughts of the entire society.In order to get the end point correct, and prove that is a correct way to do things, the foundation needs to be clear, understandable and feasible."Good/bad is defined by the people who are affected" is clear, understandable and feasible.Saying things like "short skirts are a good thing because people should be free!!!"... is nice to just shout out, but it isn't very clear why this makes sense down to the foundation of good/bad or why people should be free in the first place. Without an objective basis for good/bad the whole thing just falls into opinion. Given an objective basis for good/bad, we can then build an entire reasoning for why it should be so.Good/bad may be subjective, but that's irrelevant.
What's relevant is having an objective way to determine if an action was actually good or bad. Once you have that, you can build a moral arguement and make sure it aligns with "good" all the way through.It's like favourite colours. In themselves, the choice of favourite colour is subjective. But, if there is an objective way to determine what someone's favourite colour actually is (say, by communicating with them...) we can then build things to suit "favourite colours" in an objective way.Morality being subjective doesn't make it useless. It simply makes it unpredictable for the future. However, we certainly can look at the objective past and work from there. Understanding this fundamental difference between subjective things and objective things (ability to correctly predict future situations), leads to understanding how morality should be used when creating policies that will be affecting everyone in a society. It makes it easy to spot someone who is abusing the misunderstandings. And that makes it more difficult for corruption to occur in the first place.

Just sayin' 'cos Dogmafood seems to disagree.

Fair enough.I think I'm done with my soapbox for today anyway.
Save that guy for later...

As previously stated up thread from Stanford's

quote:

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The term morality can be used either

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1. descriptively to refer to some codes of conduct put forward by a society or,
a. some other group, such as a religion, or
b. accepted by an individual for her own behavior or

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2. normatively to refer to a code of conduct that, given specified conditions, would be put forward by all rational persons.

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It is apparent to me that you are using the term morality descriptively and I am using it normatively.So I have no dispute that the actual behaviour of people and societies changes over time. I would make the comparison to fashion in clothing. Even though the fashion is always changing the goal of staying warm/cool/protected remains constant across the span of time.The purpose of a moral code of behaviour does not change over time.

There's no agreement that normative morality logically exists, let alone actually exists.The whole idea is a pile of mental masterbation. Absolute it certainly ain't.Meanwhile we do what we can in the society and codes of practices that it has adopted.

I can easily see the purpose of morality being at least two different things:1. To govern how an individual can "get along with others" in a social atmosphere.or2. To govern how an individual can treat all other people as nicely as possible.One's more survival oriented where the other is more virtue oriented.
Both seem plausible, I'm pretty sure I've met people who could fall under one category, and other people who would fall under the second category. I also think it would be possible for someone to live a portion of their life under one goal, and switching to the other goal during a later portion of their life.Are you saying that such things are impossible?
Or did I misunderstand what you're trying to describe?

I think that #2 is just an extension of #1 and that morality at it's most fundamental level is how we behave in order to avoid conflict. Conflict with other humans being one of the greatest threats to our survival. This fact is constant throughout history and I do not see how it could ever change. Extraordinarily virtuous behaviour is an evolution of fundamental moral behaviour.We all behave morally, to the extent that we do behave morally, for the same reason.I don't see why it should be impossible to define morality in absolute terms. Is there no common thread running through every rational person's definition of moral behaviour. No lowest common denominator? Imagine that we were trying to program a robot to behave morally in any society. Would that be impossible? If we succeeded would we then have the absolute parameters of morality?

You'd have the same problem in robot society as we have in human society: the conflict between the good of the individual and the good of the group.Some societies would want to destroy the robot because it threatened their jobs, etc. The robot would want to avoid that.