pop morality

[Drich]

Pop morality is a term I use to describe what the popular culture deems moral. Pop morality is an ever changing standard. It's what is popularly defined as right and wrong, here in this country/your country, and now/current generation, could easily be held as Immoral a generation ago or perhaps even in a future generation. This is also true even in this current generation, but perhaps in a different region or country. because this ever changing standard is unique to a specific time and place to a specific people I use the term pop morality.

Homosexuality and Abortion are two good examples of how pop morality has changed it's 'values' concerning these two subjects. Just one or two generations ago these two social issues were THE most Immoral thing one could do in this society. Now the most immoral thing one can do is try and prevent someone from being gay or having an abortion.

The problem with pop morality is, that every generation and ever culture thinks that they are good and are doing the 'right thing.' but again the 'right thing' varies wildly from region to region/generation to generation. Self righteousness kicks in, and someone makes a judgment. (look at the last epicurean paradox thread for the typical atheist 'judgement.')

Now that said, without any absolute standards, what makes any of you think that your current acceptance of pop morality as being 'the good and right thing' makes you any different than those who have accepted the pop morality of their time and or culture? Meaning if you have no absolutes standards in your life (like the bible,) and if you were born into Hitler's Germany, under North Korean rule or maybe under an ISIS state, and just like you do now, you blindly follow and do not challenge pop morality of your culture, how then would you find your way back to what you now consider to be 'moral'?

Or do you agree that your current sense of 'morality' is trivial? If so, why try and judge God by it? Why assume that living a simply 'moral' life is enough for anything? What makes your version of 'morality' any better than anyone else's? Are you all so foolish to think that the people who live their versions of 'moral' lives think themselves as evil, even if it means killing you and people like you?

Look at us now. We think it right to kill terrorists, we do not see ourselves as being evil for killing someone who would disrupt our lives in such away.. and yet somehow it's wrong when they do the same thing? Again the point being they do what they do (shoot up magazines and cut of heads) in the name of what they think is right. Just like we do.

So my question is, if you have a heart that blindly accepts everything society tells you is 'moral'/You justify your morality by using common/pop arguments, and you have no system of checks and balances outside of what society defines as 'moral' how then are you any different than dark age Christians, North Koreans, ISIS, Taliban, Nazis, the US slave traders/owners, The US citizens who supported the wholesale slaughter of the Indians Etc??

All of these people followed their 'pop morality' to it's logical end. How is the modern westerner any different? What about your system of belief transcends what other generations will deem 'immoral?' and if you do not have this absolute morality, then how are you in a position to judge ANYONE Else's system of right and wrong?

[TubbyTubby]

Don't understand. You're pointing out that societies adjust their moral standpoint as they evolve yet you want us to turn to a book that has its morals rooted firmly in the dark ages?

I think it's fair to say that the general movement of modern western culture has been for the better? How have the morals you learn from the bible evolved?

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[Fidel_Castronaut]

Can you point to a time period in history, any time period, where the above has not been the case (fluid social structures, conventions and agential [sic] behaviors that either inform or exist as a result of those structures and hence give form to 'morality')?

[Lemonvariable72]

Because there is a very robust system for determining what is and is not moral. It's called empathy. It is both older and far superior to your christian teaching, because christian teaching render morality arbitrary. In fact the reason you see the changes is because of us moving away from this arbitrary moral system.

[TrueChristian]

^ Sorry fellow Christian. But morals are more elastic/changing than you would think. And a strong-judeo Christian value system has not kept values stable.

They change based on people's advancement and growing experinece, not so much the words of the bible.

Christians today embrace secularism of a sort by saying slavery is evil ( allowed in NT) and by saying Jews are worthy of respect (Jews as a people are repeatedly denounced in Acts and letters of NT.)

The "basic constants" of don't rape, don't steal and don't kill have been held by all people for all times (to other people in the society that is) and religious people have always been able to find justifications for the above. See the Spanish conquest of the Aztecs.

Oh, and as to the totalitarian societies you referenced? They do not hold for "pop morality" and have the opposite of the humanist "live and let live" philosophy .

All of them were deeply religious societies (thouhg only one promotes a theistic religion.). In North Korea, the Kim family are almost worshipped as gods, their status almost similar to that of the pre WW2 Japanese emperor, or the "mandate from heaven" Chinese emperors.

The Nazis similarly held they had the "Absolute" truth, and did not tolerate any dissent. They tolerate churches and Christians when they went along with them, and killed/jailed christians who dared contradict them.

So.... the societies you mentioned had a defiicit of "pop morality" rather than an excess

[vorlon13]

Scripture cherry pickers talking about evolving moral standards are pretty funny.

[Cecelia]

Empathy is exactly right. How one treats others is what we judge morality on.

Christians, for example, often decry Homosexuals and say vile disgusting things about them. They try to force them to change their sexuality. I wonder how you would feel if someone tried to force you to be gay. Or if someone refused to allow you to get married to someone of the opposite sex. My guess is that you wouldn't appreciate it at all.

It's why we see slavery as wrong, despite the Bible saying otherwise. Why we see the idea of women being considered property as wrong despite the bible saying otherwise. Empathy. Why we know it's wrong to stone someone for working on Sunday, or being gay. My guess is that you realize these things are wrong too, despite the fact that your bible tells you to do them. Or at least I would hope so. So your morality certainly isn't based on any god or bible. Because Yahweh commanded death to those who disobey his laws. I'd hope that you haven't killed anybody.

[AFTT47]

Pop morality is an ever changing standard.

More accurately, it is an ever evolving standard. That is why we no longer condone slavery or stoning people to death for blasphemy. Our moral standards move forever forward. Contrast that to the Bible with its dark-ages standard of morality. No wonder so many people have walked (or ran) away from the pews and why it will continue.

[Drich]

Don't understand. You're pointing out that societies adjust their moral standpoint as they evolve yet you want us to turn to a book that has its morals rooted firmly in the dark ages?

I think it's fair to say that the general movement of modern western culture has been for the better? How have the morals you learn from the bible evolved?

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We discovered fire in the stone age. how has The fire itself evolved? why not? Because it is a constant rather than a variable. we can change how we fuel and ignite the fire, but the chemical change that we identify as fire has not changed.

with that in mind, I am asking you point blank, what in your system of morality remains a constant?

If you have no constants and everything you believe about morality is contingent on how society defines it, then what separates you from those in whom you currently deem evil? In other words if you were born in another society who up holds what this society deems as an evil act, as being moral or good, what would keep you from being apart of or blindly following that evil society and partaking in their evil acts they deem 'good?'

Still with me?

Now Im asking (if you can admit that nothing is keeping you from the evil pop morality allows) How do you know that what has evolved in western pop morality is not evil?

[Chad32]

There are no absolute standards of morality. All morality is "pop morality". As a christian, I would assume you think biblical morality is absolute, but despite many christians being against abortion, the bible is not. There is abortion in the bible. A man can force his wife to drink filth from the floor of an altar room, where blood sacrifices had been made, in case he thinks the baby in his wife's belly isn't his. Not to mention that in the bible the baby doesn't even gain its soul until the first breath of life. Yet somehow some christians today think life begins at conception, and killing a zygote is murder.

Is morality trivial? Depends on who you ask. Any social group needs rules to be able to coexist. These rules differ among groups. Debates rage over what should be considered an inalienable right to all people. Everyone can agree that people need food, and that killing within the group is wrong. But besides the basic fundamentals, it gets a little foggy. Because morality is relative.

I can make arguments against slavery and sex with minors, while another guy can make the opposite claim, and depending on where we are, either one of us can be facing jail time for getting in the other's way.

I make my own morality, that changes over time. I don't blindly accept what others tell me. If I did, I'd still be the racist homophobe that my parents want me to be, and the devout christian that my grandmother wants me to be. I'm in a position to judge because we all make judgement calls everywhere in life. We have to make a decision on what we deem good or bad, and our decisions are judgements.