From: wooyoung@bu.edu (WooYoung Chung)
Newsgroups: alt.atheism
Subject: Re: Removing GOD from morality. (was: Moral liberty)
Date: 8 Jan 93 21:10:30 GMT
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David Nye (nyeda@cnsvax.uwec.edu) wrote:
: [reply to wooyoung@bu.edu]
:  
: >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.
:  
: If I follow your argument, you are saying that learning morality the
: religious way is best for children and simpletons.  While I agree that
: not everyone will get to the point that they can handle a course in
: ethics, I still don't see how superstition adds anything to the teaching
: of morality.  How is the current method employed by religion superior to
: parental teaching and reinforcing of consistent moral behavior without
: reference to God?

I wouldn't quite call them simpletons, but your point is well taken. 
I have no doubt that most of people will have no problem learning 
ethics.  However, knowing is one thing and doing is another.  First, 
even though one knows what is "just," sometimes the justice is getting 
in the way of more immediate benefits or it might require some type of 
sacrifice on the "agent's" behalf. 

Of course, one has developed true sense of respects or sympathy for 
others, the decision may not be hard.  I think it is really harder  
than said.  The feeling or belief that some type of final arbitor (sp?)
of justice is looking over them make certain decisions easy. (of course,
in a sense, it takes away one's moral liberty.) 

Second, we are human beings.  Our action is governed by not only 
the intelligence but also the emotions and psychological problems, e.g.
misplace angers etc.  Unless one has very deep sense of self-awareness,
it does help to have an external agent that involves in the consequence
of the moral decision.

BTW, I heard a lot about parental teaching in moral discussion. 
I think it is not working very well.  Don't get me wrong.  
I have no doubt that there are many 
parents doing wonderful parenting.  However, in general, busy society, 
nuclear family/single parent family, lack of communication, etc. make 
it harder and harder for parents to focus on parenting.  On top of that,
culture pushes the idea that parent-child relationship is something 
great.  Many movies that targeted for teenagers (of course many of them 
are R-rated, but we know who watches them) depicts parent as somewhat of 
"enemy," someone "against" them or something. 


:  
: >Well, the second issue is the nature of modern culture...
:  
: Here I believe you are saying that our society is too materialistic, so
: we need religion as an institution to encourage people to think about
: larger questions like "What is the meaning of life?", which will in turn
: lead them to more moral behavior.
:  
: I disagree that pondering cosmic questions is necessary or even helpful
: to the development of morality.  I believe the question about the
: meaning of life is meaningless.  I agree that we don't think enough
: about philosophical and ethical questions.  However, thinking about
: these things only on Sunday has not done much to make us a more ethical
: society.  

No, religion provides answers to those "cosmic" questions, if one believes
in the god.  So there are no pondering.  It just replaces pondering. 
However, without beliefs in the god, one needs to find the reasons 
for moral behavior and guidelines that determines what is moral.  Of course
in many cases, just simple common sense will determines what's moral 
and one can behave in such way without much costs.  However, a lot of 
times, that's just not true.  What is moral is ambiguous and uncertain. 
It requires understanding of humanity, what we are about.  It does 
take some "pondering on cosmic questions" 


: Much in business and government is immoral.  Bigotry is
: rampant.  Ethics and moralty should and can be separated from taboos and
: superstition, taught in the home, taught in school (in classes on
: philosophy, ethics, civics, etc.), taught by example by our leaders, and
: enforced by peer pressure.  By the way, I believe that it is the
: parent's responsibility rather than the schools to teach values.
: Schools should concern themselves rather with value-neutral teaching of
: the philosophy of ethics.  I do think though that if we set aside taboos
: (such as regarding sexual activity between consenting adults), there
: would be surprising agreement on humanistic values.
:  
: The basis of morality should be the belief that if we all act ethically,
: we can make the world a "heaven on earth", not that one should behave in
: order to go to heaven.
: 
: David Nye
: nyeda@cnsvax.uwec.edu

That would be very nice.  The problem is that the society has grown 
so much in size and culture is in such way to impersonalize individuals.
I am sure that there are many people out there who thinks that 
I cannot make "heaven on earth" for everyone and what I do cannot make
that much difference.  So maybe I should try to make "heaven on earth"
for myself the best I can. 

Sad story.

WooYoung

Newsgroups: alt.atheism,talk.religion.misc,alt.pagan