What is the Highest Authority You Recognize?

[Mister Agenda]

And for some, a simple question invokes a paranoia and avoidance (mostly because of the source) the likes of which I've only experienced when dealing with those in a cult.

Yeah, the moral couldn't possibly be 'don't be the kind of poster who has earned distrust and suspicion due to their history.'

What cult did you belong to or deal with?

[Brian37]

And for some, a simple question invokes a paranoia and avoidance (mostly because of the source) the likes of which I've only experienced when dealing with those in a cult.

Yeah, the moral couldn't possibly be 'don't be the kind of poster who has earned distrust and suspicion due to their history.'

What cult did you belong to or deal with?

The only difference between a cult and an accepted religion is size and political power, the upstarts always get viewed with suspicion until enough of the mass grows to accept them. 

Neo just backhandedly called atheist a cult, and I am sure he won't admit it. 

No Neo, sorry, while the word "atheist" certainly doesn't have any magic power to make us only do good, it still is not a gang or a cult, the word merely means "off". And we don't always agree on politics or economics. I get tired of repeating that there are atheist who voted for Trump, other atheists like Che who lead to Castro's Cuba, I hate both of those attitudes. 

We are not a cult, we have no secret handshake, we do not eat babies nor drink goats blood. We will not rape your women. If an individual atheist does bad, that only makes that individual bad. But we are still capable of obeying the law and being non violent and GASP even protecting  the rights of the religious.

He wants us to be his evil boogieman and is upset when we wont let him paint us like that collectively.

[Mister Agenda]

Well, RoadRunner, not Neo.

[Brian37]

Well, RoadRunner, not Neo.

FUCK I hate it when I do that. Sorry Neo, but even this does demonstrate our evolutionary gap filling. My ADD and my brain filling in the blanks is why I did that. 

Nobody is perfect, not even me. 

That does also stem from 16 years constantly hearing reading theists paint us as evil too. 

Thanks for the correction MA, sorry Road.

[Thumpalumpacus]

Conscience, since the question is so general.

I was intentionally vague since there are various types of authority - moral, expert, civil, etc. At the same time, there is a case to be made that expert and civil authority are in some sense derivative. When should someone defer to expert opinion? Why (or perhaps when) should people respect their civil authorities. As for following one's conscience, how does someone justify privileging his own conscience over the consciences of others? For example, we never say to another person, "You shouldn't do that because it violates my conscience." Instead, we tell others they are wrong by appealing to some shared higher authority - the law, reason, consensus opinion, holy writ, common decency, etc.

Is there such a thing as an expert opinion on moral facts - a respected thinker or group of people, like elders, on whom others should trust over their own personal feelings? And if there are, why should we trust them, if not because of our own judgement that they are reliable. A bit of a dilemma that one.

As an additional wrinkle, I would point out that there is a difference between knowing of a thing and knowing about it (in other words that something is versus what something is.) People can agree that there are moral facts without agreeing on how to determine what they are.

Any authority I decide to abide will only get my compliance so long as it doesn't violate my moral sensibilities. Once it does, it loses its authority.

[Brian37]

I was intentionally vague since there are various types of authority - moral, expert, civil, etc. At the same time, there is a case to be made that expert and civil authority are in some sense derivative. When should someone defer to expert opinion? Why (or perhaps when) should people respect their civil authorities. As for following one's conscience, how does someone justify privileging his own conscience over the consciences of others? For example, we never say to another person, "You shouldn't do that because it violates my conscience." Instead, we tell others they are wrong by appealing to some shared higher authority - the law, reason, consensus opinion, holy writ, common decency, etc.

Is there such a thing as an expert opinion on moral facts - a respected thinker or group of people, like elders, on whom others should trust over their own personal feelings? And if there are, why should we trust them, if not because of our own judgement that they are reliable. A bit of a dilemma that one.

As an additional wrinkle, I would point out that there is a difference between knowing of a thing and knowing about it (in other words that something is versus what something is.) People can agree that there are moral facts without agreeing on how to determine what they are.

Any authority I decide to abide will only get my compliance so long as it doesn't violate my moral sensibilities. Once it does, it loses its authority.

Not sure it is wise to view it like that because 7 billion humans have different ideas of what "moral sensibilities" are and again, also why I don't think atheists should view that word as a form of morality.

Our species has always displayed acts of compassion and acts of cruelty and no label is a magic pill nor does label have the magic power of preventing the individual from doing bad.

I think the only pragmatic thing humans can do is strive to be diplomatic and avoid harming others physically. But our differences will always exist, even under the same umbrella labels we don't always agree.

My Australian friend Bob has a different spin on the so called "golden rule". 

"Do on to others you'd have done to you".

He doesn't like that. He put it more like.....

"Don't do to others what you would not want done to you".

But even with that, we are still taking about 7 billion humans and while we seem to do better in the west valuing pluralism and human rights, we still don't live in a utopia where we can go with out ever being offended. The only thing we really have is the common law that you don't get to take the law into your own hands, you don't have the right to act out in violence when someone offends you, and you don't have the right to call for violence when you get offended. 

Civility to me isn't about never offending or never getting offended, but how one reacts in the face of those situations.

[Thumpalumpacus]

Any authority I decide to abide will only get my compliance so long as it doesn't violate my moral sensibilities. Once it does, it loses its authority.

Not sure it is wise to view it like that because 7 billion humans have different ideas of what "moral sensibilities" are and again, also why I don't think atheists should view that word as a form of morality.

Yes, of course morality is subjective. That doesn't mean the overwhelming majority of people don't share basic tenets of morality. The Golden Rule has been formulated by many different cultures worldwide, there's a common aversion to murder, and so on.

The alternative to using my own moral compass is to use another's, or none at all, and I'm not at all sure either of those options are terribly wise.

[Brian37]

Not sure it is wise to view it like that because 7 billion humans have different ideas of what "moral sensibilities" are and again, also why I don't think atheists should view that word as a form of morality.

Yes, of course morality is subjective. That doesn't mean the overwhelming majority of people don't share basic tenets of morality. The Golden Rule has been formulated by many different cultures worldwide, there's a common aversion to murder, and so on.

The alternative to using my own moral compass is to use another's, or none at all, and I'm not at all sure either of those options are terribly wise.

I agree, morality is subjective, and there are some basics that are universal absolutely, which is why labels don't mean shit to me. 

Humans evolved to be social, unfortunately for the most part we a literally physically limited outside of media from seeing things from a wider perspective. We do have pictures from space looking down at earth, that should tell humans that we all live on the same home. But unfortunately most humans wont travel in space to see that perspective outside of media.

Taking into account that most of our evolution has been limited travel, that explosion of travel really didn't take off until the industrial revolution. Most of our species history has been most humans staying local so we evolved to pass on the social norms of our parents, and most still do that.

But it is true, that in theory, if you could pluck random 4 year olds say 20 from all over the planet, whom havent been been indoctrinated by local tribalism, and put them in a room together we'd see that those toddlers would form their own social order and would react to say theft of a toy, or protect each other from a bully, or even gang up on a weaker kid. 

Humans have always exhibited the full range of both good and bad behaviors. Most of us are not violent, but fall prey to the political/economic/religious tribalism because we mostly think locally.

My personal compass I would describe as being, "I wont fear you until you give me something to fear as an individual".

Humans of all labels in all nations display empathy for others and at the same time all nations have prisons too.

I simply value more open west because I see our governments, although not perfect, as being leaning toward more compassion for non majorities.  Really hating the right wing push in Europe and America though.

[Neo-Scholastic]

I agree, morality is subjective, and there are some basics that are universal absolutely,... 

Am I the only one who sees the inconsistency here? Is there any atheist on this thread willing to challenge the muddled thinking in "one of their own."?

[GrandizerII]

I agree, morality is subjective, and there are some basics that are universal absolutely,... 

Am I the only one who sees the inconsistency here? Is there any atheist on this thread willing to challenge the muddled thinking in "one of their own."?

No problem there. Subjective and universal are not mutually exclusive.