From: wooyoung@bu.edu (WooYoung Chung)
Newsgroups: alt.atheism,talk.religion.misc
Subject: Re: Removing "god" from morality. (was: Moral liberty)
Date: 3 Jan 93 19:03:09 GMT
Followup-To: alt.atheism
X-Newsreader: Tin 1.1 PL5

John Munch (jmunch@hertz.elee.calpoly.edu) wrote:
: In article <105796@bu.edu> wooyoung@acs.bu.edu (WooYoung Chung) writes:
: >
    [some stuff deleted]
: >
: >I do not know a lot of different religions; but, at least in the case of
: >catholicism, rewards and punishments are signicantly over-emphasized,
: >IMHO.  I think the reasons behind people's behavior is as important 
: >as the behavior itself.  
: >
: >Whether one believes in god or not, he or she cannot deny the fact that 
: >religion is a social institution that guides the morality of the
: >society.  Perhaps the religion needs to grow with the society 
   that it serves.
: >The society that we live in has been going through a very rapid changes 
: >in recent years.  Overall, there are more educated people than ever before.
: >There are growing incidences of failure of hierarchical structure that 
: >focuses on obedience. (e.g. failure of communism or failure of many 
: >large bureaucratic organizations) 
: >
: >The religious organizations should learn and adopt to the
: >societal changes.  They should try to balance Skinnerian approach 
: >(inducing behavior with positive and negative feedbacks) with
: >more humanistic approach (e.g. educating the value of "just" 
: >behavior)
: >
: Well why not drop religion completely, and still do what you are calling
: for? We can educate the value of "just" behavior without bringing
: superstition into it. Society and "just" behaviors are a benefit to
: every individual within the society. The problem is that children do not
: always inherently see the benefit to themselves. 
 
[some stuff deleted]
:                        -John David Munch

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) 

Well, the second issue is the nature of modern culture, more specifically
the western culture that we live in.  Human psyche can be divided into 
two parts: self-image and "I".  The self-image is the image of oneself 
that he/she uses to carry on everyday life.  The image of what we are and 
what is important to us.  "I" is the part of our psyche that allows us 
to reflect on our behaviors and thinking (I believe it is called
reflexive monitoring.)

This ability of reflexive monitoring allows us to find the value of 
justice and sympathy for others etc.  Yet, the culture we live in 
discourages people from thinking about ourselves (the meaning of life 
etc.)  We live in a very "science" orineted society.  Highly 
compartmentalized business organizations are dominating our 
lives and our social structure, and most of all the way we think. 
Loud music and highly stimulating mass entertainments allows to 
spend our time not thinking about the issues such as justice, life
etc.  

I am not claiming that the whole population is completely under 
this influence; but a large part of our population is under some 
degree of influence.  Religion does provide practical moral guidelines 
for these people, combining these guidelines with little bit "threat", 
little of "secure" feeling, etc. 

What do you think?
Newsgroups: alt.atheism