Religion is a poor source of morality

[robvalue]

Hi, I'm not back properly yet as I'm still too obsessed and need a break So I'll read all the replies in a few days.

I just wanted to make something clear, that I worry some people may possibly take the wrong way.

I talked about ISIS. I think they are horrific and evil, and I stand against everything they do. In all the ways I consider important for morality, western civilisation is as good as it gets for now. I hope everyone is clear that these are my views. I hate ISIS and everything they are trying to do. I don't want people to behave that way, ever.

However, from the point of view of discussing morality as a whole from a purely philosophical standpoint, I own the fact that the above is ultimately just my opinion. I choose goals for my morality, which mostly meet up with our civilisation. ISIS do not achieve those goals, in fact they fail utterly and go in the wrong direction. But objectively, I'm not going to define morality as meaning "what I think is right" because that's simply a circular argument that ISIS can just as easily use. Even defining it as "what the west thinks is roughly right" is just as circular. Once specific goals of morality have been established, such as life is precious, being healthy is good, pain is bad, etc. etc. then it makes sense to compare different societies, under that microscope. But the reason I find people sometimes missing my point is that these are all assumed to be what morality is about, when actually "right" and "wrong" are essentially arbitrary. Other societies, even if they hold the above in the same regard may also hold other factors in as much or even higher regard. Simply telling them "you're wrong" isn't helpful. You have to explain why your set of goals matter to you, and why theirs seem irrational or bad.

Not only from an intellectual point of view but also a practical one, declaring one society "objectively better" than another before any parameters have even been established is possibly harmful. It achieves nothing to beat our chests and walk around all superior, and look down on them as barbarians. Of course, almost every one of us feels that way. But feelings are not an argument. If the world is ever to be brought together, we need to understand things from other societies' point of view. By what they consider to be important, they may be trying to do the "right thing". It's just so totally alien to us as to make them seem to be all evil. I think the more useful term would be misguided. People tend to go with the flow. Especially when they have been brainwashed.

Coming to any sort of moral agreement with ISIS in the short term may well be impossible, but for them and any other society the only way to ever come together is to stop thinking of ourselves as objectively better. It doesn't help. Instead, we need to try and convince through reason other societies to accept the goals of our morality. Not force them. Show why the things we value are important, and the practices we see as cruel are not actually important. Just walking in and saying, "You're part of civilisation now" is not much different to them invading us and declaring sharia law. Objectively speaking.

Thanks for listening I don't expect everyone/anyone to agree with me, this is just my take on the fundamental nature of morality, without presuppositions. This may simply mean that other people don't mean the same thing by the term "morality" as I do, which is fine. And I'm talking here about the discussion and comparison of individual moral systems (without simply setting up a "correct" way to measure morality), which is a totally different subject to simply observing how "morality" through tribal empathy has evolved in the first place. A lot of misunderstandings come about by treating these two things as the same. They really aren't. One is philosophy, one is science, for one thing. If you can tell which is which you can have a lolly