Morality derives not of religion.

[Attila]

interesting stuff

[advocatus diaboli]That is, let me take this stance, open to discussion, if You take into account and trust in the stories where the judeo-christian god indeed came down and handed to Moshe not only commandments two times, but also a set of laws.

Well historians reckon that moses was hundreds of years before the Hebrews found monotheism, so he was probably a pagan. That aside we have to believe god spoke to these people, if he just said ‘hi’ now it could be recorded and hence not subject to conjecture nor interpretation. don’t you think that if he did just come down and tell us ‘the law’, then it would be something of an insult to our intelligence and his? ‘Every landscape has its own vocabulary’ ~ morals have to be adapted etc.

My cousin talks to god every day at least once. If that is not a god popping up on demand I don't know who is.
It is Your implication alone that denies everybody to bring that into this discussion.

That is if you consider the inner voice to be god!

The idea here is not to exclude, as soon as you say ‘I know what god says’ then surely you are being exclusive.

Given the way modern people behave and people in ancient times have behaved, I could name some:
respecting your parents - who could think of that when you look at account from ancient Egypt to modern times

Most people respect their parents albeit often to a lesser degree. That does not allude to a moral from god, but to societal change. we have less violent discapline which also means we have less rapists etc.

not to kill fellow humans seems to be impossible when you look at ... but You know what I will be saying. Some cultures make differences between what is human and what is not. Who has invented the overall moral that it is no good to do so (except in war)?

Not to kill has always been something of a contradiction even to its advocates [the bible has many cases of justified killing]. Really to kill another human you are seeing that person as not worthy of life, surely this is true in every case regardless of culture and politic. On the other hand, in ancient times if there was no war there was the threat of overpopulation [possibly; a god of war may advocate war and be right in such a case?].

love your neighbour ... well, well! Neighbours kill each other over mowing the grass on sundays or punch each other over barking dogs! Ask an American to pay for a general health-insurance, and you will see what happens to "love your neighor" or "divide your bread"! Whose idea was it to love the neighbour or any stranger as one would love oneself? It was no Celtic chieftain I know of, nor any Greek nobleman. Mayan farmer - I'm not sure.

Again this is societal and rarely held by said society e.g. look at the modern jewish agenda; preach multiculture then build walls two stories high between them and their neighbours! I think that moral is more an ideal. Who knows where these things originate, jainists in India certainly believe in such things and indeed take it to the extreme of not killing nor harming anything at all, not even insects where possible. The Persians also had a lot of influence on the jews, perhaps Mithras taught such things, I am not so sure.

As far as celts go, we derive a different kind of morality from them, when the roman africanus attempted to conquer Scotland he could find no leaders to make deals with. To have civilisation like the romans had you had to have all that went with it, hence the Germanics and celts [same thing really] hated it.

If you like we could go over one moral at a time and see where it derives from societal or intellectual sources, but I think you will be hard pressed to find one that doesn’t! ~ I.e. is from god not man.

[Dendrias]

Thanks for Your invitation, but I think that's too hard, because
1. we have got the same thoughts on the topic
2. other opinion can't even make on scratch on Your surface
3. the different positions are on different levels.

To 3.: My cousin saying he talks to god and You saying

That is if you consider the inner voice to be god!
The idea here is not to exclude, as soon as you say ‘I know what god says’ then surely you are being exclusive.

are somewhat exclusive. Yes, my cousin considers it to be god and not his inner voice. So rejecting the basis of his belief will surely destroy every possible argumentation in advance. Of course he is not at all more exclusive than You are.
Fruitful communication with this conditions is impossible.

Most people respect their parents albeit often to a lesser degree. That does not allude to a moral from god, but to societal change.

Levels don't match, here. What people do and don't ("societal change") cannot possibly hint at the source of a moral, only to behaviour. My point was, that a moral that is constantly acted against in every society (read complaints of Egyptians, Greeks, moderns - You name it, they complained) can't have been worded by people who acted against it; only by a "higher source". But that's an advocatus-diaboli-argument.

But, we're barking up the same tree. Except for Mithras and ancient overpopulation. Plus: I've got test to tick. But, thanks, again.

[FoxPhantom]

If we are silent enough to listen to our god, would we be open to hear the answer, or are we just wanting to hear what echoed through our mind?

[Dendrias]

Could we tell one from another - in an echo-chamber?

[FoxPhantom]

Could we tell one from another - in an echo-chamber?

Not unless the person knows which one is which, not by the sound or pitch of the voice though. (I don't know my self since that's something I haven't ponder fully on).

[wolf560]

What this may boil down to is that touchy subject/term/word (argument-in-the-making) ---

FAITH

Does the group codifying the morals of the society have the faith of the populace in order to truly delineate what is 'right' and what is 'wrong'?

Does the populace being governed (mostly) agree to the Deity and its adherent policies?

Do the followers of that particular Deity have enough 'faith' in the groups leadership that whatever they say is taken as fact?

All of that being said,
some of what has been handed down to us by our forebears is just plain good sense.....

The prohibition against eating pork comes from the high prevalence of trichinosis. Rather than coming out with a list of things to do to make sure the meat is done, they simply said that "God said NO..!!"


In the end, for me at least, Morality comes from common sense and common courtesy.
The fact that nobody has the right to extend their right to do something in such a way that it interferes with anyones else right to do something.

The laws came about during each instance where one person overstepped boundaries, and usually after the resulting argument was over and one person was more "in the right".

[Attila]

Thanks for Your invitation, but I think that's too hard, because
1. we have got the same thoughts on the topic
2. other opinion can't even make on scratch on Your surface
3. the different positions are on different levels.

that’s good to know, I am glad we agree. You may be right that there are different positions, ‘the narrator’ may speak more directly with other people than it does with me ~ though I doubt that very much [though I cannot say for sure]. It just seams that a wiseman would give a far more considered and indirect response to a question, so I presume this would be so for a deity.

are somewhat exclusive. Yes, my cousin considers it to be god and not his inner voice. So rejecting the basis of his belief will surely destroy every possible argumentation in advance. Of course he is not at all more exclusive than You are.

If one first has an absolute deity [most philosophers argue against the mere notion of absolutes, as we don’t find any in reality except superficially] then you can have something outside of our world with which to talk to, if though mind is a universal then there is no outside of it. This is how I conceive of the inner voice, it is not within the individual although to some it may seam like that [e.g. Buddhists appear to conceive it so], it is more ‘an’ inner voice, one which seams to be either external or internal according to perspective and ones intimacy with it.
It is possible to communicate with it as you would another person, but this voice is very wise [at least if we choose our deities well [if we use deities at all]] and considered, it will give universal answers [being a universal entity of mind] and hence usually if not always unspecific ones. It is probably better to see it as part of ones thought processes on a very deep level, so the specifics are your part in the equation rather than its. In this way moses and such can derive morals but the decision or result is always their own. I don’t think this is a thing of question, it is how universals act with sources be they inner or outer [us, moses etc], I am wrong only if someone can describe god as absolute and as yet no one has [due to my little formula on the issue [all ‘p’s are ‘p’ where ‘p’ = ‘p’]][I have explained it better on other threads you may have seen].

Levels don't match, here. What people do and don't ("societal change") cannot possibly hint at the source of a moral, only to behaviour.

Sure it can, when I were a teenager we all believed in free love/sex but soon realised the dangers, so we chose not to live like that and form more monogamous relationships for longer periods of time. In short we began without the morals which people in ancient times had learned [e.g. Sodom and Gomorrah], and learned them for ourselves ~ probably in the same way the ancients had. Such morals do derive of behaviour, so here we should perhaps be looking at ones which don’t, then I may understand your meaning better.

My point was, that a moral that is constantly acted against in every society (read complaints of Egyptians, Greeks, moderns - You name it, they complained) can't have been worded by people who acted against it; only by a "higher source". But that's an advocatus-diaboli-argument.

Lets say you have such a moral, e.g. ‘everyone must do as pharaoh says‘, then you get those who complain about it and of course it would not be those who wrote the moral. You don’t need a higher source just the derivative or original source of the said moral I.e. pharaoh.

Here we need to have a source witch derives of something ‘higher’ than man and nature e.g. god, then we can see if any of our morals derive of such a source.

------

If we are silent enough to listen to our god, would we be open to hear the answer, or are we just wanting to hear what echoed through our mind?
Could we tell one from another - in an echo-chamber?
Not unless the person knows which one is which, not by the sound or pitch of the voice though. (I don't know my self since that's something I haven't ponder fully on).

One usually knows what is ones own voice in terms of ordinary thought [not inner voice], and I think we can only know another voice when its echo is in our thoughts. We cannot know what is not brought into the minds eye, hence the end of the communicative process is always of and interpreted by our minds.

If we have ‘faith’ in that process then it is at least partly false, one would have to have faith in the inner voice even though it cannot be perceived directly and without our interpretation.

Surely it is better to have wisdom than faith? To have tolerance, flexibility and understanding, rather than unshakable belief in absolutes? look where that got us! religious wars, intolerance, hatred and segregation etc, such things derive of single mindedness, so I doubt if they lay on the side of wisdom.

[Dendrias]

You got me thinking

...

[Dendrias]

So we have to look for a moral that seems to be, from a modern perspective, to be utterly nonsense for the antique world, for example.
I'm just reading the wikipedia article on taboo on food and drink. That seems to be promising.
Do You know, that the trichinosis-porc argument is a huge thing in the bible-believers' scene? A reason detected just before 1900 supports a taboo from more than 2000 years before - god has known this.

Let's see ...

[Attila]

Do You know, that the trichinosis-porc argument is a huge thing in the bible-believers' scene? A reason detected just before 1900 supports a taboo from more than 2000 years before - god has known this.

Well people have eaten boar and then pig in Europe since before history, perhaps this disease is mainly in hot countries I don’t know. Generally speaking if someone eats something and it makes them ill then people tend not to eat it, you don’t need god to derive a moral that even animals have against being poisoned.

It would be interesting if someone could prove me wrong on this, I suppose there must be some moral based customs out there which don’t have an earthly cause. Certainly some ancient rituals and sacrifices have no earthly basis, but that’s the very reason why secular morality doesn’t accept them.

[Dendrias]

Still thinking ...

[Dendrias]

I'm sure that there is are several rituals etc. that aren't accepted by "secular morality", e.g. ritual mutilation, wedding ceremonies, food/drink taboo (I'll stick to that point, as can't convince myself, that diseases should be avoided in hot countries like Israel and Arabia, but not in Egypt or any other part of Africa or Asia, Italy, Spain or Greece; likewise cows are not eaten by too few agricultural civilisations - I can't see a pattern, yet.).

What still makes my mind uneasy is that You still don't have a measure for this question, except Yourself. That can be fine, but will lead to the exact answer You're anticipating. This will lead You nowhere. And of course, nobody can possibly prove You wrong.
We can obviously see morality that ... derives of divine origin in its own system of thought, can't we. So, if we don't take Your measure, answers will of course be different, and still be biased by pov. We're in a circulus vitiosus, it seems.
So, if You want to be proven in Your opinion - why try to start a discussion? Why not just stating things and fine?
Misery is, we can't come out of this circulus vitiosus through the inner-religious door, because povs are mutually exclusive. We should try to get to a higher perspective, to see it from high above. Trying to aknowledge the inner view of religions, that indeed their morality is said to be of divine origin, and from this very point tearing it all apart, by showing inner contradictoriness.

Meanwhile, I'll come up with a theory on my own. Had it in the kitchen. Or under the shower. Creol-behaviour:
When two languages meet eye to eye and mix, a pidgin-language evolves, without fixed rules. As soon as children grow up in a pidgin-environment, they develop rules, because (Chomsky) it is innate to them to have rules in their mother-tongue. Pidgin with rules is creol-language.
When two civilisations meet, a pidgin-civilisation evolves, without rules. When children grow up, they have to "make up" rules for these rule-less behaviours. One rule might be "god's will". That's a creol-civilisation. Perhaps.

Do You want to tell something about Your early days. The free-sex-thing got my attention.

[Attila]

I'm sure that there is are several rituals etc. that aren't accepted by "secular morality", e.g. ritual mutilation, wedding ceremonies, food/drink taboo (I'll stick to that point, as can't convince myself, that diseases should be avoided in hot countries like Israel and Arabia, but not in Egypt or any other part of Africa or Asia, Italy, Spain or Greece; likewise cows are not eaten by too few agricultural civilisations - I can't see a pattern, yet.).

Why should they be accepted by secular morality, if a food/drink is a poison of some description then its illegal to sell anyway. Worse, if such food ethics are transported to nations where there is no issue with e.g. eating pigs, then its original meaning is out of context ~ if we just have the original meanings applied where relevant there is no problem. Such is the problem of religious law like Shariah law, because the whole of law is considered as one body it is inflexible and un-amendable to different circumstances.

What still makes my mind uneasy is that You still don't have a measure for this question, except Yourself.

Secular law is my measure it has nothing to do with myself.

We can obviously see morality that ... derives of divine origin in its own system of thought, can't we.

Not really, I cannot see any morality that is not societal, can you name a moral that is from divine origin and that does not have such a base?
I don’t see why you are considering all of this in terms of my morality when I have not stated anything like that.
The whole point of this debate is to ask if morality needs a religious or actual [secular] basis, and indeed to ask if any religious law does not actually have a societal basis.

When two civilisations meet, a pidgin-civilisation evolves, without rules. When children grow up, they have to "make up" rules for these rule-less behaviours.

Perhaps, but usually I find cultures accept some aspects of a foreign culture which makes sense to them, and see that many other aspects are similar or the same as their own. Many wrongs are universally wrong, its mainly the punishments that differ. The only time this is not so is with cultural nuances like the not eating bacon thing.

Do You want to tell something about Your early days. The free-sex-thing got my attention.

Well in my early days I was a punk and we generally learned morality as it happened, hence I see morality as a learned thing, in the past those lessons would then get passed down and there it becomes cultural ethics and law.

[Frog]

An interesting thread, but I have just had a side thought.

A lot of the "moral rules" discussed here would seem to be indicative of a society-based construct to foster good behaviour and the ability to survive.

In this discussion, the subject of the "inner voice" has also been raised. Unfortunately, I think this is a difficult one, best matching the puzzle of the sound of the falling tree in an empty forest (I was going to reference Schroedingers cat as well as it seems to fit a little).

However, if we boil down our general construction to a device that exists to procreate its own species, then perhaps we can arrive at the potential for moral "rules" from design. Animals that closely match one another seem to be able to mate, but if the zoological gap is too wide then the procreation doesn't work (I'm thinking duck and giraffe, eagle and cat, Man and Donkey). In turn we (as a society) have made more formal written rules about this, but in effect there is a rule here.
Unfortunately though, this then introduces the next problem - whether or not there is a God. And that's another thread.

[DJ Droood]

After 3 pages, I still don't think I've seen anyone cite an example of a moral that derives from religion.

[Attila]

A lot of the "moral rules" discussed here would seem to be indicative of a society-based construct to foster good behaviour and the ability to survive.

Indeed, people just want to get on with life and be happy, I don’t think that necessitates godly intervention. Where can we find a single example of god/s effectuality? At most the influence of deity is purely on the mental realm and even then interpretative. I mean we are not a load of schizophrenics, those voices arent even actual, its more an intuition, contemplative thought, wisdom decisions based on any given influences and inspirations. These things may originate within our higher selves for all we know.

If there is a god it’s a universal one [no philosopher these days would accept the notion of absolutes [hence no monotheism]][all ’p’s are p, where ’p’ = p ~ means no obsolutes]] and that would not be a god would it. Deity in druidry is more like an interface with the awens and ceugant, that we may derive intuitions etc as a thing of our interactive intellects [us + deity etc].

After 3 pages, I still don't think I've seen anyone cite an example of a moral that derives from religion.

Indeed! This is not about my individual morality Vs a given other, it simply seeks the true sources of our beliefs and wisdoms etc.