RyanS2

The problem with religion and morality is that morality is meant to be decided upon by the sociological factors motivating that society. Example? The Artic Inuits killed female babies. Why, you might ask? Because males were more valuable, and suffered higher mortality rates. The ability of the Inuits to survive would have been impossible were this not done. Modern day religion would have banned this, and the Inuits wouldn't have existed. I think it was Mark Twain, (I don't know the source), who commented on religion and said:

"I have found over 200 laws that nobody would even think of following... it's up to society to dictate religion and morality, not vice versa."

(Things like wearing polyester and cotton together, a very grave sin in the old days.) I believe Richard Carrier has a wonderful article on a Greek philosopher who had the "ten commandments", written without a religous agenda, that are marvelous. My own formula of morality is what I call, "moral relative consequentialism", I don't think anyone's coined the phrase before, basing morality on the effects it has on the society it's placed within. Not killing baby girls is great here in America, but a horrible thing for the Inuits and their extinction. Religion tries to pigeonhole morality into a small box, filled with, "No matter what's", when life isn't an absolute filled with, "Thou shalt's", and "thou shalt not".

kwigibo

science doesn't change the world, it classifies and interprets it (and correctly i might add), and the rest of the universe for that matter (stop thinking so small)

Vorkosigan

I think everyone can agree that, in an ideal world, both Religion and Science seek for the truth

No, religion seeks power over the minds and bodies of others. Sorry, can't agree.

Michael

JL

RyanS2 wrote:

I agree. An objective observation of the subjective. It seems almost essentitial to me that we as atheists work to institute some sort of secular moral instruction in our schools, with an emphasis on the psychological aspects of human interaction. Something theists could not help but endorse, stopping short of course of giving a deity credit. I think Christianity really gets its claws into people through its use of 'moral instruction' (a euphemism ). Maybe if we secularize the the different roles that religion fills we could perhaps erode the power of the church even as they approve of what we're doing.

Note: I am not hostile towards religion and spirituality in general, on the contrary I'm an advocate. I just have qualms about the way Christianity has gone about it.

E_muse

Surely 'science' is a disciplined approach to understanding the physical world?

However, it is not an absolute and cannot attempt to answer certain philisophical considerations, although it might raise such questions.

[ February 17, 2002: Message edited by: E_muse ]</p>

E_muse

In all fairness, the original post read '..in an ideal world...'.

I would rephrase Michael's comment and say that religon can be controlling, whereas the previous statement is expressing an ideal of how society should be.

Obviously the ideal world does not exist, or exists only as an idea.

However, as I have oft stated, the desire to control the minds and bodies of others can only exist within religion because if first exists within humanity. Wasn't it Nietzsche who first coined the phrase, 'the will to power'? He suggested that the 'will to power' was the driving force of all life.

To constantly attribute the desire to control to religon somehow implies that freedom from religion will free us from the desire to control also. History demonstrates that this is not the case.

My question is, how can secular humanism demonstrate that it has freed itself from this desire (that exists within man, and therefore exist in religion), and what methods has it employed in doing so?

XGuilt

You have posed a contradiction here: that our means of dealing with our MORTAL world can be most reasonably found only in some IMMORTAL realm - i.e., to apprehend, understand and 'deal' with LIFE, we should focus our existence in pursuit of some AFTERlife. Existence exists, and all that is required for proof of that fact is our objective adherence to reality via our cognitive senses. This 'afterlife' you and so many speak of has never been proven to exist at all - i.e., it remains to this day an utterly unproven, arbitrary and wholly subjective assertion. You seem to think that it is some 'carrot on a stick' (thanks solely to the benevolence of religion) that is necessary to maintain humanity's adherence to the (secular) golden rule and some semblance of 'morality'. Religion's focus is and has always been on non-life, anti-life and after-life; it has no other function or purpose, and no other way of obtaining the rewards it seeks from humanity - let alone any other way of subjugating humanity to its dogma DURING our mortal lives. The whole idea of this 'afterlife' is so monumentally absurd that it defies simple human intelligence. What it does prey (sic) on is human weakness: guilt, feelings of inadequacy, insecurities, and above all to intellectual, emotional, physical and spiritual LAZINESS. The very minute the first human being becomes 'resurrected' from this fantastical 'afterlife' AND can prove he/she was there, further discussion may be warranted. Until then, this entire concept (and every other vacuous religious concept) is unworthy of human intellectual respect...

[ February 17, 2002: Message edited by: XGuilt ]

[ February 17, 2002: Message edited by: XGuilt ]</p>

fromtheright

XGuilt,
It doesn't sound like E-muse has posed a false contradiction, it sounds like you have simply ducked the question, which was:

It looks like you have ducked the issue of whether secular humanism is any more immune to this desire to control.

[ February 17, 2002: Message edited by: fromtheright ]

[ February 17, 2002: Message edited by: fromtheright ]</p>

JL

Secular humanism is not bound by an archaic concept of the human psyche, is in fact predisposed to change as our understanding of ourselves and the universe progresses along with our role within the universe and our society itself. As for a Christian moral system I can't help but wonder what has been going on over the past couple of millenia as the unchanging word of an omnipotent god has been interpreted in consistently changing ways. It introduces an intermediary that masquerades as an origin, claims to be all-powerful, immortal, unchanging, must be obeyed, and apparantly says some very different things to different people at different times. This is how humanism is more immune to power-lust; it makes conscious the transitory and changing nature of morality as a consequence of a changing world. It has no need to claim perfect knowledge as God does. It invites suspicion and questioning rather than forbidding them.

edited fer spellen

[ February 17, 2002: Message edited by: JL ]</p>

Ms. Siv

Even then, its not valid.
You cant have 2 equally effective methods for finding the truth. One has to be more effective than the other and the less effective one will have to be discarded.

- Sivakami.