Vorkosigan

Well, I think you got an excellent practical answer as it was from a number of people.

Most of us who are atheists get are morals from the same places you do -- the society around us, cogitating on moral questions, reading great ethical thinking, interacting with people of different ethical standpoints, and from mom and dad. Since Christianity is both incoherent and incomplete, the Christian is in the exact same spot as the atheist for many ethical ideas.

For example, Haran, there is nothing in the Bible about the best way to manage a river basin. Jesus and Church doctrine are silent on the question of siting incinerators. Christian thought provides no answer to the value of Jones Act subsidies. Jesus ignored the problem of nuclear waste, and cloning goes unmentioned in the canonical literature. And so on. Public policy, ethics and values entirely, is almost nonexistent in Christianity. So Haran, you got your ethical thinking on those things from somewhere. Perhaps if you could identify the source of that ethical thought, you'd be a long way toward forumulating an atheist way to think about ethics.

In any case, your post seems to assume that an ad hoc approach is ruled out. Why? It is nowhere written that ethics must be conscious or systematic. So what's the problem?

The whole point of being a freethinking atheist -- as I assume you intended to be -- was to give up the idea of some authority outside yourself as a source of ethical ideas. Now the moment you are finally free, you immediately set about searching for some other authority, it seems. You're going to replicate the error of belief, only with a different label.

If its other authorities you want, you could read in Confucianism, Buddhism and Daoism. Are you searching for an atheist way to formulate ethics, or the way a metaphysical naturalist goes about formulating values? Or what?

Michael

Vorkosigan

If I think I can get away with it, should I try smoking some "Pot", even though I know it is against the law?

Why not? Is it that you want us to tell you whether it is right or wrong? We can give you arguments in both directions. But ultimately you will have to find some basis of your own to choose.

Besides, what's a little pot? After all, you believe(d) in Christianity, which has killed a lot more people than pot ever has.

Michael

Haran

Sojourner,

You are assuming way too much (especially when it comes to political ideas which I have no idea why you are harping on...). Anyway, I have thought about my beliefs and am challenged on nearly a daily basis. I want to challenge your beliefs. Are you willing? Or do you want to continue defensively countering with irrelevant stuff about Christianity? If you won't even try, then I suppose my points are lost, at least on you...

Haran

Haran

[QUOTE]Originally posted by ReasonableDoubt:
[QB]I find it curious, however, that you did not refer to the second half of my remarks, specifically: "And, if we are to join you and dismiss them as having nothing to offer when it comes to "shaping [a] new morality", what are we to say about the rest? Is one brand of theism better at 'morality building', or are all theists somehow equally blessed with the necessary tools? Is Christianity useful but Hinduism deficient? Or perhaps, as Joseph sings in the musical, any dream will do."

I mostly didn't respond to the second part because I'm not there yet and because I'm not necessarily directing this toward Christianity or one brand of religion. Therefore, most of the stuff about Christianity and religion is fruitless.

You seem to have thought about things more than some others and see some of the problems, at least it seems that way. So, there probably won't be any earth shattering revelation here for you.

I just want to make some people think a little more about their morals than to simply repeat the seemingly standard "I have morals because I have morals." Why do you have the morals you have? Why are your morals better than mine? What are your morals based on?

Thanks,
Haran

Haran

You're right, I can make up my own morals. My questions are testing the waters of my newly found freedom. This is the process, to think about what you are free to do and what brings your life meaning and happiness, right?

When giving up religion, people can and do sometimes turn drastically away from their former values. I can give an example of a once religious friend and her husband. She had stopped going to church somewhere along the way. One day, her husband (a really nice guy, btw) came home to find her in bed with another man (who was an incosiderate jerk in more than just this way... Uh...knife in the heart). She left him and began a life of drinking, smoking, and sex. I think she went through this process.

Haran

Haran

There is a this really attractive woman at work that keeps suggestively flirting with me (hypothetically, for there are no women that work where I do ). I am happily married, but this woman is really good looking too...and easy apparently.

I work late some nights, so my wife would never think anything was up if I told her I had to work a little late.

Should I take this woman's invitation and have a brief fling? After all, my wife probably won't find out and it would definitely be in my best interest. Besides, if she found out, then she's a really nice woman, she'd get over it. Even if she didn't, there's plenty-o-fish out there in the sea, right?

Again, this is more an exercise in someone thinking through what is now possible for them with the newly found freedom of Atheism.

Haran

Jayhawker Soule

I agree.

If you say so. It seemed to me, however, that this is more than an exercise in pedantry, and that you were seeking to make some back-handed point about atheism. If not, what is the specific value of your hypothetical.

And, by the way, where did this "Why are your morals better than mine?" come from?

Jayhawker Soule

Are you expressing excitement about some "newly found freedom", or are you simply anxious about needing to think for yourself. Let me ask you, Haran, what was your position on abortion before your hypothetical conversion? Did you stand with Barnabas and Tertullian, or with St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas?

Let me suggest that this freedom is "newly found" only because you previously had a ready excuse for not looking.

Bill Snedden

If you're really "happily married", then why do you care?

If you value your wife and the commitment you made to her, having a "fling" should be of either no value or negative value (in that the bond between you and your wife and/or your wife's feelings could be negatively affected.

If you don't value your wife or the commitment you made, then why would you still be married?

Either way, believing that remaining married and having a fling at the same time are morally permissible would be reflective of an inconsistency or incoherence in one's value system. You can't have your cake and eat it too.

Ethics: no gods required.

Regards,

Bill Snedden

Bill Snedden

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