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'Duck Dynasty's' Phil Robertson suspended for comments about gays

It's not really based in religion. It dates back very far to general musings on philosophy. I guess if we're calling any considerations of morality "religious-based" then it is.
 
DistrictDeacon said:
So atheists can't have true morality?
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he's already constructed the argument to say that atheists today have the benefit of eons of 'cultural morality' as instilled by religion. if we'd all been atheists since zero, you couldn't have true morality
 
It's hard to respect the opinion or intellect of someone trying to defend this halfbaked bullshit philosophy. I mean, when I need to ponder the absence of a rule maker god re: moral relativism, I certainly depend on in the intelligence of a bunch of reality TV stars famous for making duck calls and blowing shit up. If Willie and Uncle Si says that you need Jesus to keep from raping little girls, we should all take their word for it.
 
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Junebug said:
I am sympathetic to the view that in a universe without God, there is no philosophical basis for human morality. That is not to say that all atheists are immoral monsters. To the contrary, I believe that God has instilled something like a moral code within each of us, whether we believe in God or not. For this reason, we don't need to believe in God to recognize that rape, for example, is immoral.

Where Phil goes wrong is in assuming that because someone is an atheist it means they lack this moral code. I think that is incorrect as a descriptive matter. However, I do think that taking atheism to its logical conclusion results in a worldview where the concepts of right and wrong have no meaning. There can be no rules without a rulegiver. Legal and illegal; yes, those words have meaning, but not right and wrong. Any other conclusion is the result of a thinking process that is too tied to and bound by our innate moral code, and too afraid to embrace the consequences of a world without good and evil, of a world where we are the rulegivers.

People like DV7 mock Christians for hiding behind God, yet they do precisely the same thing by hiding behind concepts of right and wrong, good and evil, and morality. Embrace your Godlessness and become a God! There is no good or evil, just power--and those too afraid to seek it.
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TWDeac said:
According to 2&2 and Junebug, no. Frankly, it is a load of horseshit. We've known for sometime that animals demonstrate distinct signs of morality. Does their morality stem from some type of religion?

Laughable.



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2&2 might have a harder time with this, but I'm pretty sure that Junebug thinks that God just implanted those monkeys and bats (and other creatures) with a code of morality when they were born. PROVE THEY WEREN'T.



Oh, and I believe in a God, by the way, 2&2 and Junebug. I just think what humans have done in His name (across many different religions) is grossly abhorrent and I want no part of organized religion as a result. God fucked off from Earth a long time ago, IMO, and He had good reason to do so.
 
Morality doesn't stem from religion. Some religions try to express certain moral precepts (love your neighbor as you love yourself), but they aren't the source. Morality comes from God.
 
I think it's hard to separate religion and philosophy because at some point every philosophical question relates back to "who/what am I and from where did come"

At some point it boils down to the unmoved mover.

Morality isn't so much about right and wrong as it is the social contract and the fact that we are willing to live under a set of rules that protects our own interests. At some point that evolves into right and wrong and religion puts the good/bad spin on it.
 
Right and wrong is determined by each individual (weather based on religion or not) and societal rights and wrongs are collections of the individual rights and wrongs of its members. It really doesn't matter where they come from or what they are based on.
 
Wakeforest22890 said:
I'm pretty much amoral and as everyone here certainly knows by now, am an atheist and so maybe I'm biased but I derive my "right and wrong" from the golden rule. Would I want someone to kill me? No so I don't invade others autonomy and right to coexist by killing them.
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Would I want someone to send the IRS over to take my family's income? No. So I don't invade other's autonomy and right to earn a living by voting to take their family's earnings. Just saying.
 
tjcmd said:
Would I want someone to send the IRS over to take my family's income? No. So I don't invade other's autonomy and right to earn a living by voting to take their family's earnings. Just saying.
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so you are an anarchist?
 
What could possibly be better than free schools and free health care? Having someone else take care of your illegitimate children?
 
Junebug said:
You should let me answer for myself. The answer is yes, atheists can--and many do--have true morality. Atheists, like everyone else, can and do have an innate sense of right and wrong.

Atheism, however, cannot come up with a compelling philosophical account of the meaning of the concepts of good and evil, right and wrong, etc. Note, for example, the absence of such an account on this thread, despite all the heavy breathing and vitriol directed toward my view. Note also the conclusions of philosophers like Nietzsche and Sartre, modern/post-modern atheist philosophers who arrive at the same conclusion as I regarding the meaninglessness of these concepts from an atheistic standpoint--and, who, unlike the heavy breathers on this thread, embrace the consequences of their atheism: there is no God and we--or at least the strong among us--are the real gods. If you don't have the guts to go there, then step aside for those who do.

Oh, and your monkey videos are cute and all, but they don't make much of a case for anything, other than that grapes taste better than cucumbers, no doubt an evolutionary product based on the relative nutritional merits of grapes verses cucumbers (or something like that). Human morality is not the equivalent--or the analogue--of a satiated monkey pulling food toward himself at the urging of a hungry one, etc. And even if it were, you still haven't explained why that "evolutionary instinct" is more like a taste bud (to be embraced) than a vestigial tail (to be rejected; and overcome).

I won't hold my breath.
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I won't comment on the philosophy because I don't know enough about it.

Regarding your last paragraph, the concepts of morality evolved on the savannah millions of years ago when our ancestors decided that it would probably be a good idea to put the existence of their tribe ahead of their own. What good does one primate do in a harsh, deadly environment when you could be in a large group with exponentially better means of survival?

Despite your disregard for the cute animal videos, almost all of the creatures we know to be intelligent have been shown to demonstrate morality. If you can't see the analogue, it is purely because your mind is made up regarding the source of this magical trait.

I think it is quite clear why it isn't a vestigial tail. It is pivotal for the sustained existence of our race. You know, the driving force behind almost any evolutionary change.

You continue to think that religion bestowed it upon us and I'll continue to think it is evolutionary. I hope you didn't hold your breath for too long.
 
TWDeac said:
You continue to think that religion bestowed it upon us and I'll continue to think it is evolutionary.
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I'm with you that it is evolutionary, that is a big part of my point. In most societies it came about as the ultimate cattle prod to keep people in line. Which is fine, because it has generally worked for the good of the species (and results in "atheists" like Numbers able to piggyback on religious codes while proclaiming they do not stem from religion). It has morphed over time in Western society as people have gotten more "civilized" to represent a reward more than a punishment. But, I think that is a separate issue from whether, in the absence of religion, humanity would have a remotely similar moral code. I think if you view religion as a an evolutionary trait across humanity regardless of the particular religion, where I see concern is the amount of "mutations" that occur as compared to other evolutionary traits. Over human history, the examples of mutations away from the norm of religion, if you call religion the norm, resulting in large-scale atrocities are plentiful (and with many examples of atrocities in the name of religion as well). In my opinion, these deviations occur in much larger numbers than routine evolutionary mutations. So I lean more towards the idea that barbary/atrocity is the standard, and religion is the positive mutation. So, for the good of the species, my view (regardless of my personal view on religion), is that humanity's recent trend away from religion is a trend away from the positive mutation and back towards the baseline barbary.
 
This whole conversation is difficult for me to really wrap my head around because to me religion is just man's attempt at answering questions. It's an invention by man and the writings are by man. So attempting to distinguish between a rule "coming from religion" and not coming from religion doesn't really make much of a difference to my worldview because either category in my mind equates to "man thought of it."

I don't believe in any diving being and I don't believe that we have any installed objective moral value aside from any derived from evolutionary biology. I don't believe in "good" and "evil" in the objective form. So again the whole "it stems from religion so we need religion!" to me is no more than "man made it up."

Also the golden rule stuff is not solely attributable to religion. It appears to have been coopted by religion but not particularly derived from religion aside from Cav's good point earlier about the intertwining of religion and philosophy.
 
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