Princess

Princess: Did you know that

Princess: Did you know that scientists have found a morality gene?

You don't need organized religion to be moral or human.

Going to Church or mosque or reading the bible or Koran does not make you necessarily moral nor a decent human being.

Belief is the end of knowledge and thought.

Dear Princess

What a nice blog material to ponder upon.

You know, all I can offer here is Moral Philosopher Lawrence Kohlberg's developmental stages of moral development. I believe that collectively (our generation) may be struggling with his Fifth phase of Postconventional morality.

Here's one link if anyone's  interested, //www.aggelia.com/htdocs/kohlberg.shtml 

Reviewing Kohlberg helps me with identifying the processes of each stage development clearly, within different societies and more importantly among subcultures.

Best,

Monda

Martijn Rep:

Martijn Rep:

Thanks for sharing your thought! You seem to imply, religion grounds your morality. How do you reconcile that with how the church has shifted its position on issues though out history? Is religious morality absolute? Or does humanism ground your religious beliefs? 

Solo:

Is morality borrowed from religion? How about the Golden Rule, were did that come from? Was God - at least the religious version - not invented by man? As one of the panelists says, the Ten Commandments, are they really from God?

I shall leave you with another food for thought from the debate. Is there such a thing as a secular bigot? 

A lot to think about...:) 

I have to get to work.

Sleep well and see you soon! 

Morality

Princess:

Complexity is mostly about an 'organic' approach to science. It is an incredibly refreshing look at science, sociology and economy and how mathematical theories fill in the blanks of our collective 'conscience'.  It is fascinating really.

Morality is for the most part borrowed by religions.  There is a definite sense of wrong and right - which is seen nowhere as clearly as in the playground of a nursery.  Morality in its crudest form is the setting of boundaries between individuals. I think what happened is that relgion somehow 'robbed' the common man of his/her instinct to set and to respect boundaries of another and hence the birth of the 'moral code' - aka religious rules.

Let me leave you with two thoughts: 

1. Atheists are known to be some of the most honest people in the world.  (Food for thought).

2. Character is defined by what one does even when nobody is watching. 

With that I shall take my leave to get some shut eye.

See you very soon.

just a thought

Yes I do believe we have a moral compass. Still, in my experience interaction with religious scripture does bring that compass to the centre of my being and makes its influence stronger, thus having a crucial influence on my behavior (I believe for the better - praying it's true ;-)).

And I'm from a happily non-religious background ...

Thanks for the post - good food for thought.

Thank you all for the thought provoking comments.

I found the debate one of the BEST I have ever heard on religion, humanity and morality.

Needless to say,it has left me with so many more questions than it has answered. One such question where does our morality come from? What is the difference between religious vs. humanist morality and why for most of us, who we think we are accountable to seems to affect our adherence to moral principles. Why for so many people believing to be accountable to God, is different form being accountable to one's conscience or one's fellow human beings?  

Dear Solo, Thank you for the suggestion. I shall order Complexity, in the hope that it will address at least some of these questions. To me, the point that in the west religious ideas are influenced by secular ideas, seems to indicate that humanism makes religion moral. 

Dear Azarin, I have read quite a bit of Sartre, but not The Devil and the Good Lord. I will add that to my reading list. There is a similar Zen story about a murderer-thief who has a realisation and repents, but the outcome seems to be the exact opposite of that of Sartre's . I will try to blog a summarized version of it one of these days. In the meantime, thank you for your recommendation.

I will leave you all with the sentence, which keeps coming back to me is, "People with terrible certainties do terrible things."  

Thank you! 

Mr. javanbakht

I think something is definitely wrong with the implementation of your "intelligent design" related site, teologic.org...as i tried to access it, my Norton popped up an alert about capturing a Bloodhound.PDF.7 (a potentially malicious threat to my system)...

Please don't encourage people to use the link...it could be harmful!

AzarinPS: Sorry Princess for this out of subject comment! 

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Interesting subject!

Dear Princess,

I think it is a tricky question…even if personally I hope to live in such a society, but considering the current state of the world I don’t think we wouldn’t be able to see it soon.

This subject reminds me of the wonderful play by Sartre named The Devil and the Good Lord that I've read a long time ago. As much as I remember, the main subject of the story is about the moral choices and how it affects other people’s lives. One of the main character who used to be a war criminal, after having killed so many people, decides to turn “good” and transforms into a saint and religious moralist…but by making this choice he kills even more people! The play ends with the announcement of god's death, ..."II n'ya pas eu de procès : je te dis que Dieu est mort"...

But as the reader we cannot be certain that this absence wouldn't lead to more chaos.

Thanks for the interesting subject! Azarin

maryam on moral

maryam on moral relativism:
//iranian.com/Namazie/2006/September/Rela...

Brett, February 18th 2009,

Brett, February 18th 2009, 11:25 am

Maryam Namazie explains in two-and-a-half minutes why she is horrified by the Archbishop of Canterbury’s campaign to have aspects of Sharia Law formalised in the UK.

“Some of us had to flee to escape sharia” she says. “Just the word itself is, for me, like a kick in the stomach.”

She argues in the podcast (on Comment Is Free) that, “contrary to claims that it promotes social cohesion and minority rights, sharia law denies universal principles of equality”.

//www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/audio/2009...

There is a transcript here.

//www.thoughtfortheworld.org/2009-02-18_marya...

Holofractographic Reflexivity

The Santa Fe Institute is one of the few organizations which have taken the science of complexity seriously, one practice which is helpful for social cohesion are microrituals (going to church, schools, weddings, etc.), the internet has in many ways encouraged culture to be less homogenous, but just because one considers truth more important than concepts of good and evil, doesn't mean the science of cognitive and spiritual health should be ignored outright, there may be a good reason for having faith in something, at least in terms of evolutionary psychology or survival. If one were to simulate the outcomes of two parallel groups, one which operated according to certain spiritual/ethical principles, and another which believed only in logic/science...you would probably find the former would have less social problems, although they could suffer from a lack of genetic diversity and overinsulation. The latter may suffer from a lacking of self-worth.

An influx of new "teachers" is a good thing, unforseen elements, vital indeterminability, hence the Zoroastrian tenet of periodic refreshing, every cycle improves the spectrum, what differentiates a dead planet from a living one? The ability to harvest energy, maybe the matrix was right, what if all life was merely a source of agriculture/entertainment? For who and what? The purpose of life may be to utilize our ability to create purpose.

//icon-rids.blogspot.com/2008/08/god-crane.html

//megafoundation.org/CTMU/Q&A/Archive.html#CTMU 

//www.teleologic.org/ 

Complexity

Princess:

You might also enjoy perusing through a book called "Complexity". I forget the author's name but it addresses the Santa Fe Project - requirement of nature for order and the mixutre of the sciences to bring good out of chaos. 

Morality is related to that order/chaos theory in many ways.  Education may replace the need for religion but only in so few.  Still it seems that some sort of tenet is required as a rudder for the masses.  It will be interesting to see how the next generation deals with moral dilemmas in the absence of religion or any other moral benchmark, for that matter. 

I agree!

with Michael Buerk on this issue.