Where are the Morals?

[Little lunch]

You could have told me all this before I had baby brains for dinner, Harris.
Now what am I going to do with all these little limbs and torsos?

[Exian]

Funny how the concept and feelings of empathy are not explored in the OP.

I was wondering if the OP would touch on this, too, and was preparing to comment, but I think Esquilax covered it perfectly when he mentioned our evolutionary niche.

[paulpablo]

Everyone has their own outlook on what is morally acceptable, every religious cult has its own rules and motivations.

In most societies punishments are based on empathy. For example murder is illegal because people think it's not very nice to be murdered.

There's other points to that to be made about religions usually resulting in inhumane punishments such as lashing, stoning, crucifixion. And how also the prejudice against people who have different sexualities and prejudice against women.

[Whateverist]

I'm not seeing how "we develop our system of moral and ethical behavior as we learn" is somehow less desirable than "we get a rigid set of instructions that we must blindly follow."

And how well does that "blindly following" play out for most of them? I don't trust anyone who can't imagine how the godless hold themselves back from wholesale rape and murder. Thinking the rules are 'objective' results in their feeling no ownership of them. Thus they remain moral imbeciles.

[Brakeman]

First off, Alain De Botton is an Idiot.

There are no good kernels of corn in religion's shit.

From Pharangula. http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2...one-thing/

In this TED presentation, he advocates just adapting religion to atheism, something he calls Atheism 2.0, but which is actually just Religion 0.0 again...
de Botton wants to pick and choose from religion and keep the good parts for atheism, which is a nice idea, but he seems to be totally lacking in sense and discrimination in what the virtues of religion are. And then, unfortunately for him, he picks a few examples of something he thinks religion got right, and one of them is education. Fuck me.

He suggests looking at how churches teach the ‘facts’ of their faith, and is quite enthusiastic about the importance of repetition. Repeat things five times, he says, and then you’ll master it; he just suggests replacing God and Jesus with Shakespeare and Jane Austen. Has de Botton ever been anywhere near a classroom?

and from "Why Alain de Botton is a moron" by Fisun Güner http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/culturehous...s-a-moron/

You see, de Botton thinks that museums and art galleries are getting it all wrong. Every day, ‘honest, upright citizens leave highly respected museums and exhibitions feeling underwhelmed’. Rather as they once entered churches to find God, they now enter museums to find ‘better versions of themselves’. And since it’s not actually the art we want but deliverance, the museums are consistently failing to deliver.

So what could be better than that museums reframe the paintings on display as if they were prescriptions for specific ‘psychological frailties’ (everything from poor memory to pessimism to a broken heart). In other words, art would be better viewed as an instrumental tool through which our broken psyches might be healed. So, if Alain ruled the world – let’s say he were one of Plato’s philosopher-kings (never mind that Plato distrusted art and wished to banish it) – museum captions would offer more than bland, neutral facts like name and date, but moral instructions ‘appropriate’ to the work of art, prompting us to, for example, ‘remember to be patient’. Or, as a writer on the New York Times amusingly suggested when reviewing de Botton and Armstrong’s book, Jasper Johns’s Drawer, in which a drawer is embedded in a canvas, might be accompanied by the caption, ‘Open yourself to new experiences’, or worse, ‘Search within’. The parody is pretty close to what’s actually on offer.

[Whateverist]

I had seen the Botton TED talk and found it uninteresting.

[MusicLovingAtheist]

You perceive a life form as a bundle of sensory receptors. I agree.

I think that alone sounds very primitive though. I know that human beings are capable of abstract and concrete thinking. Just because we're all a bundle of nerves doesn't mean we don't have the potential to be just as grounded in reality as our biology itself.

You say that morals develop through living with a group of people and learning the virtues of living among others, as well as the dark side of human nature, which is selfishness, rage, exploitation, etc. You assert that although atheists are against religion, they offer no alternative to the "the only institute in the entire human history that successfully delivered and implemented efficient rules for a moral life.".

I think if religion was successful and reliable then we wouldn't be having this argument. If religion was as useful as everyone says it is, then all we would need is religion and there would be far less problems in the world. However, we have religion. The majority of the world is religious. However, it doesn't do much for solving moral dilemmas and problems. I, myself, being an atheist, and knowing other atheists, feel strongly that atheists are just as capable of being moral as any theist. How do you think the theists pick which stories are moral out of their book and which ones aren't? If I recall, the bible condones slavery and rape.

I have my own idea for why I'm moral. Whether it be learned, or inherent, I feel guilty when I do something wrong and I feel bad when I see someone else in pain. I was reading about the logical capability of dogs once. It said that dogs will never actually feel remorse for their actions. If they pooped on the floor and you come home to find them with their tail between their legs, it's not because they feel sorry, it's because they're afraid of the consequences because they know that poop on the floor = something bad will happen.


As shown as this image, humans feel guilt. Obviously there is a difference between feeling guilt and simply fearing punishment. I learned in psychology class once that morality based off of fear of punishment is the lowest form of morality. I really wish that I remembered the source of that hierarchy of morality and who was responsible for the research so I could go into more detail. I think that alone shows that the whole basis for morality, by the religious standard of fear of god, is a very weak one.

You site authors who say that morality under fear of god is infantile. You say that atheism is only the belief that god doesn't exist. You say that atheism itself eradicates any morals given by religion and does not offer anything to fill in the gaps to replace them. You say atheism gives no grounds for morality. You say atheists practically say atheists are nihilists.

I think in a vacuum everything you say is true. Atheism does not offer alternatives to religious morality. There is no inherent laws of morality. I think if simply denying the belief in god strips away all of these religious morals, then religious morality is not very good in the first place. Religious principles are morals that were adopted by religion, they were not created by religion (unless you believe that god literally wrote the bible himself). The only thing I can think of that is exclusively a religious moral is not being bad for fear of being sent to hell. Being an atheist myself, I know that I feel more emotions than a dog. I feel empathy and guilt and contempt and a whole range of complex emotions. Whether or not it's nature or nurture which instills these in me is an entire discussion entirely. I think it's a little of both.

Human beings are social creatures. That is a fact, the evidence is that we all live in large groups on planet earth. Albeit the relationship with each other in large groups can be a bit impersonal, for the most part people abide by the law and society functions. It obviously works as proof that we have been sustaining ourselves for a long period of time. What strikes me as ironic is that often the more primitive societies like the ones that live in the woods are the ones who are more spiritual. For instance, a primitive tribe may have witch hunts, try to cure illnesses by praying or casting what they believe to be the "demons" out of host. In our modern society, we rely heavily on science and logic to maintain our existence. I think logic seems to be winning over superstition. It seems that the more sophisticated society becomes, the more we drive out the superstitious ways of thinking of the past.

To me the arguments of morality seem to be an overtly scholarly practice, reserved for philosophy classes and higher level education. The ideas are still important none the less as they are the groundwork for society. Science and philosophy work hand in hand in building societies. Religion is merely a traditional method of handling morality. Traditional wisdom does not mean absolute wisdom. As I stated earlier, fear of god is not a good base for morals. I think we need to rely more on the capability of human beings to think rationally then to tell them that they are merely animals, incapable of achieving godly wisdom. We should teach people to think for themselves. We should teach people to question themselves. I think that is the fundamental reason why religious morality is wrong.

You site cases in which people acted under their own conviction in a way that they perceived to be moral and killed millions of people. Morality that is justified rationally through ethics allows people to behave immorally. Religion attempts to provide practical morality. Religion gives definite laws. Religion provides a larger context for existence beyond morality (i.e. why we're here) as opposed to the views of atheism, that were's "an infinitesimal moment, a spark in the infinite blackness, a spark that flickers and dies forever.". You say that atheists have no basis for morality, so they are forced to look into religion for morality. Judgement day and belief in miracles are a good source of motivation to behave according to the morals of scripture which have a "rich narrative". The structure of secular morals is entirely based on religious morals which have been with humans throughout the history of mankind.

I personally would like the truth about reality, instead of anecdote (which is all the stories really are). As opposed to believing god exists and that we all go to heaven if we're good is merely a fairy tail, or to put it more respectfully, an anecdote (or part of one). I think most atheists who have developed emotions are capable of realizing that killing is wrong. You seem to be arguing that without grounds for morality people can do whatever they want. I just don't like your example because I think it leaves out the question of those people's personal character and rather focuses on their trivial lack of biblical morality. I think your assertion that secular morality is based on religious morality is backwards. Religious morality didn't just appear. It's obviously based off of preexisting concepts and ideas that were implemented into scriptures.

Religion may provide practical morality (unless you're me, who was too bored to pay attention in Church). I think that the problem with religious morality, as I said earlier, is that it is absolute, unquestionable. Religious people are literally told that they are sinners and below god. That seems to imply that morality is objective. I think morality is subjective. I know this may seem sad to some people, but in my atheistic viewpoint, I believe that when someone is murdered, the universe does not care. So it is the responsibility of human beings and our innate sense of empathy and compassion (which is something else that has been hijacked and claimed by religion) to determine morality. Since god is not here to tell us how to interpret scripture (nor will he ever be), even the bible itself is morally subjective. Interpretation of the bible varies widely and I think that's common knowledge. Some even use their scripture to make ethical moral justifications to kill other people. The bible literally says to stone homosexuals just to give one example. Some extremists even use their scripture to justify killing other people (i.e. 9/11). So not only is biblical morality subjective, it is unreliable. The scripture is unreliable, subjective, has hijacked moral concepts, and does not give people the tools to think for themselves. It is a very bad system.

I may have simply discredited biblical teachings like any other atheist has at this point. I think that perhaps education and open mindedness has taken use as far as we are today. As I said, logical and science has taken us further than religion has ever taken us. In fact is it responsible for the largest logical explosion mankind has ever seen in history. What has religion been responsible for? Wars? Witch hunts? Bigotry? Destroying the library of Alexandria and setting us back 1000 years? If you want answers to the problems of the world, don't look to religion. Look to the people who are making the world a better place. Look to the atheists who are already living without religion who are living healthy, productive, morally justifiable lives that coincide with the peacefulness of society. Look to the scientists. Look to the forward thinkers. Look to yourself and question your notions of morality.

[genkaus]

We already have the law of the land for guidance.

The law of the land governs only our public life and that to a limited extent. It is not sufficient as a guide for the whole life.

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In most societies punishments are based on empathy.

Punishments based on empathy seems to be a contradiction in terms. You could say that we decide what is illegal based on empathy (though that is not accurate either), but the ensuing punishment? The empathetic thing would be not to punish them because we wouldn't want to be punished either.

[ShaMan]

On the other hand, I believe that whole structure of morals in secularism is based on the religious teachings because only it is religion that had given knowledge on human values in a systematic manner and people have enjoyed the wisdom of morals based on religion throughout the human history.

No, you have it all quite backwards. Evolutionary Human morality was abducted by religion, packaged for sale, and sold to those who knew not what they already had. It is religions that are freeloading off of secularism, and not the other way around as you have stated. In the real model, religions are, to use your stab, the 'transgressors'.

[Esquilax]

On the other hand, I believe that whole structure of morals in secularism is based on the religious teachings because only it is religion that had given knowledge on human values in a systematic manner and people have enjoyed the wisdom of morals based on religion throughout the human history.

No, you have it all quite backwards. Evolutionary Human morality was abducted by religion, packaged for sale, and sold to those who knew not what they already had. It is religions that are freeloading off of secularism, and not the other way around as you have stated. In the real model, religions are, to use your stab, the 'transgressors'.

A fact that even a single good goddamn second of thought would have revealed, unless Harris is actually saying that until religion was invented- and these specific modern versions specifically- people were okay with stealing and murder and all that.

Of course, history would prove him wrong on that claim too, since there are plenty of secular moral codes written sometimes literally in stone that both predate the major religions of today, and cover much the same ground. But then, again, knowing that would have required Harris to do any research at all before he opened his mouth.