(July 16, 2015 at 6:46 am)Ashground Wrote: *theatrical sigh*My bold.
The whole 'can you be good without god?' thing has been done once or twice before on here.
In terms of individuals I don't think you can say 'this person will be good or bad because they are part of group x or y'.
Most societies think they are ethical, not matter how bloody evil they get. The Mayans thought they were doing the right thing by sacrificing Human life to their deities. We can't rely on our preconceptions or philosophies to tell us if our society is ethical, we need to examine the cold statistics to determine if we are doing the best thing for Humans. The protection and quality of Human life should come first, protection of life in general second, exploration of our existence and cosmos third and everything else a distant fourth.
I provisionally agree.
Though I would like to point out that the two (human life and life in general) are so intimately intertwined that your unqualified prioritization is not a wise strategy.
(July 15, 2015 at 11:01 pm)huss88ein Wrote:People abide by the 'law' because of enlightened self interest, e.g. to avoid having society beat the crap out of them, and instinctive tendencies such as empathy and love which were wired into our neural physiology over millennia of natural selection.
That's not the point here my point is what will make people abide by the law if it's not a divine power and dont tell me human nature because not all of the bad things to u are bad to the others and u said it ur self.
No divine dictatorship is required nor is there any evidence that it applies. Your holy writ is absolutely indistinguishable from a collection of myths and legends told around the campfire by a primitive desert tribal shaman.
Your contention that it is a divine infallible prescription fails in the face of its historical variability. For most of us slavery laws and those oppressing women are obsoleted as normative rules. Things change in spite of dogmatic resistance from zealots like yourself.
So how, exactly, does God know that She's NOT a brain in a vat?
