RE: What IS good, and how do we determine it?
June 15, 2015 at 10:52 pm
(This post was last modified: June 15, 2015 at 10:59 pm by The Grand Nudger.)
(June 15, 2015 at 7:03 pm)Catholic_Lady Wrote: This is kind of a spinoff of the WHY BE GOOD thread.
The question I have for atheists, isn't "why by good." I think it's simplistic and deeply flawed to think that the only reason to "be good" is to avoid Hell. And of course, I believe that anyone can be a good person regardless of beliefs.
The question I have for atheists is how do we know what IS good?
Religious or not, we all somehow know that certain things are intrinsically, universally immoral. Let's use murder as an obvious example. So if murder is wrong, where did this law come from? If this is a universal truth, where did this truth come from and who/what determined it to be what it is?
I know what -is- good the same way that you do, and it has nothing to do with a god (and so very little to do with atheism)...which is why we find ourselves, you and I, in that same camp despite that one glaring difference. The law against murder comes from whatever jurisdiction you are under that upholds that law...but legality is not morality and what is or is not legal is not synonymous with what is or is not right. If there were no law (or lawgiver, for that matter), neither you nor I would be murderers. If the law told us to murder, or if a lawgiver told us to murder......neither you nor I, would be murderers.
You probably don't care much more than I do whether or not it is law or a universal truth...or even a command from a god. Right?
-and there you have it, between you and I, murder is wrong, if for no other reason than that we both agree that it is. Maybe we should get everyone who agrees not to murder people under the same roof...call it "humanity" or "civilization" something snappy like that. Whadda ya say?
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