Morality

[vulcanlogician]

If I’m seeking the best moral development from my education, do you think I should major in mechanical engineering, or would it better served by being a humanities major? Do technical degrees, mathematical degrees, etc.. give us less moral development, than humanities degrees, or a bachelors in psychology?

Philosophy would be my best guess. Psychology or a humanities degree could contribute to moral growth as well. Mathematics could even help. It's not going to improve everyone's moral perspective. But if one wants to improve their moral character to begin with, philosophy, sociology, mathematics, history and studies language can help. If you are puzzled by this, I'd be happy to explain myself.

Everyday morality is intimate and personal, it has do with our relationships with others, with those near to us, our families, friends, community, etc… Morality is a constant part of my life. In struggling be a good father, a husband, a son, in the restoration of broken relationship. It’s contemplating my moral failing, and the moral failing of those I care about. It’s about talking to my wife of how we shouldn’t talk bad about people, how we should forgive and not hold to resent. It’s about telling my father, that his dark cloud of petty resentments and disappointment, is the result of his inability to truly repent, and acknowledge the weight of his sins, to love as Christ loved us. When it’s laid with true compassion, it’s like the out pouring of fire, of a profound and irrefutable truth.

That’s the predominant moral view of believers.

But, see, if you removed the stuff about "loving as Christ loved us," you'd be left with a morality that more or less resembles that of many atheists.

I appreciate that religious practice can provide a context for a believer to bring about these moral changes in his or her life (That's probably the one AND ONLY advantage it has over a purely secular morality. And the "probably" in that sentence has caveats.) It is foolish to assume that compassion and forgiveness aren't practiced by atheists. It is foolish to assume that people would never practice these virtues apart from religious dogmas. 

Even assuming these virtues did come to us purely through the Christian tradition, the truly wise person would realize that (since forgiveness and compassion are intrinsically valuable) the best thing to do is separate them from the bigoted, homophobic, and backwards nonsense which accompanies them in the teachings. You see, forgiveness and compassion can exist without bigoted nonsense.

Do you think that person-to-person compassion isn't something that certain atheists aim for? Do you think there aren't a plethora of Christians out there who (when you look at them head on) could care less about morality, compassion, or forgiveness? (Perhaps they're just in it for the cultural belonging. There are many reasons to join a religion. Moral transformation isn't always it. It might not even make the top ten.) What does religion have to do with morality then?

Throughout the world there is an immense amount of human suffering, suffering that can, through a variety of human efforts, be partially alleviated. Why can we not find a meaningful life in devoting ourselves, as did Doctor Rieux in Albert Camus’s The Plague, to relieving somewhat the sum total of human suffering? Why cannot this give our lives point, and for that matter an over-all rationale? It is childish to think that by human effort we will someday totally rid the world of suffering and hate, of deprivation and sadness.  This is a permanent part of the human condition. But specific bits of human suffering can be alleviated. The plague is always potentially with us, but we can destroy the Nazis and we can fight for racial and social equality throughout the world. And as isolated people, as individuals in a mass society, we find people turning to us in dire need, in suffering and in emotional deprivation, and we can as individuals respond to those people and alleviate or at least acknowledge that suffering and deprivation. A man who says, “If God is dead, nothing matters,” is a spoilt child who has never looked at his fellow men with compassion.

https://iweb.langara.bc.ca/rjohns/files/...ethics.pdf