From: wooyoung@bu.edu (WooYoung Chung)
Newsgroups: alt.atheism,talk.religion.misc
Subject: Re: Removing "god" from morality. (was: Moral liberty)
Date: 8 Jan 93 17:13:17 GMT
Followup-To: alt.atheism
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John Munch (jmunch@hertz.elee.calpoly.edu) wrote:
: In article <105955@bu.edu> wooyoung@bu.edu (WooYoung Chung) writes:
: >                   [ All the stuff from earlier posts deleted ]
: >
: >Well, John, I can think of two reasons why we still need to relate
: >morality with religion.  The first reason is the natural course of human 
: >development.  For example, you pointed out that we could communicate
: >with children on the true value of "just" behaviors.  I am not certain 
: >that is all that practical.  It takes certain mental maturity to grasp 
: >the the value of justice (not that I am that mature :-)) 
: >
: >Chidren and "young adults" are not likely to have this maturity.  They 
: >are more likely to exhibit ego-centric thinking and behaviors. (You 
: >know, very young children sometimes try to hide from others by covering
: >their own eyes.  That sort of self-centered [without any negative 
: >connotation] thinking lasts for awhile in more subtle ways)  In fact, some 
: >portion of population just don't grow into higher level of moral 
: >development (from reward and punishment oriented behavior to understanding 
: >the value of justice) 
: 
: You make a lot of good points here, but I just don't agree with your
: ultimate conclusion. I agree that children and young adults are still
: going through a lot of mental development, and some people never
: develop understanding of the value of "just" behavior. To me this lends
: to my argument that the parent needs to continually explain the value
: of just behavior, answer the child's questions, and set a good example.
: I don't think the child needs to be told that if they don't behave
: "right" then they'll fry in hell.  I think its far more productive to
: teach the child to be an interacting responsible member of society. 
: This means teach the child that they are responsible for the 
: consequences of their actions. The hard part is teaching the child 
: what most of the consequences are. In your example I would tell the 
: child, "I can still see you when you cover your eyes because my eyes 
: are different eyes than your eyes." Then I'd try to answer any questions
: she had. I think many of the "wrong" behaviors can be understood by the
: child by asking the child how they would feel if someone behaved that
: way toward them. 

That would be nice if a lot of parents believe in put-yourself-in-other's-
shoes basis for morality.  However, I believe, a lot of people are not 
sufficiently motivated by this.  Just being nice to someone, this kind 
of reasoning serves very well.  When it comes to one needs to sacrifice 
something, for example loss of profits etc. for the benefits of morality, 
it become tough.  Many people, consciously or unconsciously, rely on 
the idea that someone with a great deal of "authority" is watching over 
them.  

I guess my point is that this so called morality based on "reversibility" 
is a somewhat weak argument for a lot of people.  Further, it wont work
very well especially the agent of action has not developed some sense 
of respects for others etc.  This true sense of respect takes a lot of 
experience and reflexive monitoring of one's life.  It might be more
than what we might expect from children or even adults.  For example, 
how can one be KKK or Nazi, if they can put themselves in others'
perspective?  Still we have a few of those.  Those might be extreme 
cases; however, we - people in general - screw others knowingly 
or unknowingly to some degree because sometime we just don'k think
about it. 

The point is that I agree the morality based on religious belief 
is not perfect - in fact it is far from perfect - however, it is 
as good as any other choices that we have in practical sense.  
I was suggesting that the religion should grow to include the idea of 
"justice has its own value above and beyond God-said-so". 

[some stuff deleted]

: You make a great argument here. All I can say is that people do have the
: option of not living under these influences, and start to think for 
: themselves. I don't even own a TV. I think the compartmentalizing that
: you speak of is partly due to christianity. "...let not thy left hand 
: know what thy right hand doeth." Basically, I agree that for people who
: are too weak or lazy to think for themselves, religion is a good
: alternative. I hope there is someway to help them strengthen mentally.

True.  Some people are not interested in thinking too much about 
these kind of issues.  They feel too tired (too much of daily life stuff)
helpless ("what can I do about it") no direct benefits from it (too much 
efforts for nothing) or no interest (happy with just the way it is).

WooYong

Newsgroups: alt.atheism,talk.religion.misc