Right. Like the justice-tron 3000 objective morality deliverance unit.

Again attempting to remain neutral, my paper is suggesting that the pre-conception of religious members generally being of higher moral standards than the irreligious stems from social identity theory, an innate tendency for religious members to perceive other religious members (in-group) as more moral due to shared identity; often citing 'christian' fundraisers or charitable organisations as justification for these beliefs (disregarding the fact that an 'atheist fundraiser' would be redundant and would most likely simply be a fundraiser). This is not to mention exclusively shared values among members such as obeying the sabbath, religious attendance etc. - acts considered to make them more moral, however, which have no relevance to people not within their in-group.

Perhaps I will further elaborate on my interpretation of spirituality (aware this could make me somewhat of an iconoclast on this forum lol). Spirituality is a form of self-transformation, predicated upon individual psychological growth emanating from transcendent subjective experience regardless of religious orientation. Transcendent subjective experience being an altered stated of mind - of awe, of mystery, of peace and is extremely difficult to convey without having experienced or attempted to experience such phenomena. It is connected to a profound sense of direction or purpose in life, a process of involution, independent of self-concept, generally at odds with religious solipsistic tendencies (and is generally theoretically grounded in the field of positive psychology if anyone is interested). I completely understand any skepticism or disregard towards these ideas as hocum or pseudoscience but for me it is in no way outside the laws of reality.

There is a growing movement now known as ‘secular spirituality’ within western demographics; a life position positing humanistic ideals of love, compassion, contentment, inner-peace etc. Research posits that these are moral themes of human experience which do not impede an objective materialist view of reality, and do not acquiesce to a supernatural divinity or organised dogma.

As your thesis link isn't allowed because of the forum rules. Maybe you should post the cliff notes version of it.

(February 16, 2015 at 10:24 pm)Surgenator Wrote: As your thesis link isn't allowed because of the forum rules. Maybe you should post the cliff notes version of it.

Not exactly sure how I would go about that? As in reformatting the questions into this text bracket?

You can pick a subsection of your thesis, and tell us what you learned. That might start a conversation. Because right now your topic seems too broad for a discussion.

(February 17, 2015 at 1:52 pm)Surgenator Wrote: You can pick a subsection of your thesis, and tell us what you learned. That might start a conversation. Because right now your topic seems too broad for a discussion.

Unfortunately the primary goal of this post was for data collection, naive as that may sound. It was an error on my part to overlook the rules and fail to inform a moderator to the objective of this post or to even assume interest in my own agenda. Was a shot in the dark!

As my thesis is still underway and no conclusions have been drawn, there is not much to discuss on my end. Perhaps online forums are not the best place for academic discussion anyway.

A fortunate coincidence of my naive plan was finding this site however. I do plan on contributing to other posts (without an agenda) in the future lol. Peeeace.....

If I may, I'd like to recommend a great book on this subject. It is entitled "What ever Happened to Good and Evil?" by Russ-Shafer Landau, who is a professor of Philosophy .

I concur with his thesis that the only viable moral code must be objective. There seems to be a problem however, on defining what constitutes "objective". I say that because in discussions I've had with others, they seem to want to identify their subjective moral codes as objective. That one of these (as an example) was the only source of the moral code is what made it subjective and I guess he couldn't see that. It is my opinion that an objective morality is not possible without God.

It is my further belief that all other moral codes in the world are necessarily subjective or relative and consequently are the source of conflict with others who disagree.

Russ-Shafer Landau explains that among moral skeptics are several categories. Moral nihilists claim that there are no moral laws. Moral subjectivists claim that there are moral laws, but that there is no verifiable basis for it (other than themselves and an immediate circle of associates). Moral relativists claim that moral codes are determined by the culture (or nation).

The bottom line is you don't have one. As you pointed out in another thread, Christians of different stripes don't believe the same thing. Believers of same stripe will not even agree. So if even if there is an objective moral code, nobody has found it. EVERYONE uses a subjective moral code.

(February 17, 2015 at 7:31 pm)ether-ore Wrote: It is my opinion that an objective morality is not possible without God.

I recently read an interesting paper suggesting the reason for this -- "religion self-galvanises authority within the morality of its constituents; and that respect for authority is not only implicit but demanded. This is achieved by making gods the authors of sacred canons or values that authenticate society—in the minds of believers—as having an existence above a mere aggregation of its individuals and institutions” - which effectively places them, within the minds of its members, as immunised to scrutiny or contest.

Quote:It is my further belief that all other moral codes in the world are necessarily subjective or relative and consequently are the source of conflict with others who disagree.

An author like Sam Harris would argue the contrary; that science, given what we know about human well being can tell us what we ought to do (alluding to Hume's is-ought problem). That if we take human well-being and suffering as the baseline for moral action, Universal truths may be carved out. This is not to say I agree with him, just thought it is an interesting and relevant topic.

(February 17, 2015 at 7:31 pm)ether-ore Wrote: It is my opinion that an objective morality is not possible without God.

Is it possible with god? Because if your claim is that it is possible with god but not possible without god, I'd like an explanation.

That's a claim that I've never seen effectively defended. It's come to the point that I don't believe it can be defended. So, if you have justification for your belief that objective morality is not possible without god (but is possible with god), then then I'd really like to know what that justification is.