Morality

[The Grand Nudger]

I agree but adultery carries no legal punishment now. This is where secular morals fail in society.

Maybe we should make people wear big red letters!

There is no collective atheist moral basis.
There will always be differences in opinions because your morals are subjective. They focus on yourself, here and now instead on the benefit to society in the future.

You could really only be speaking for yourself on this one, nutbar.

[Angrboda]

Cheating and deceiving a partner is almost always wrong

I agree but adultery carries no legal punishment now. This is where secular morals fail in society. There is no collective atheist moral basis.
There will always be differences in opinions because your morals are subjective. They focus on yourself, here and now instead on the benefit to society in the future.

Oh yay. "Society is failing because it doesn't agree with my morals." Could you be any more of a narcissistic and myopic twat?

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

Cheating and deceiving a partner is almost always wrong

I agree but adultery carries no legal punishment now. This is where secular morals fail in society. There is no collective atheist moral basis.
There will always be differences in opinions because your morals are subjective. They focus on yourself, here and now instead on the benefit to society in the future.

Why SHOULD adultery carry a legal punishment?  Honestly, if Jane is married to Joe and has sex with Jim, where is the harm to society?

Boru

[Agnostico]

@ Jörmungandr

I don’t recall why I listed u as a troll but u do make some interesting points like these which are worthy of a response I think.

I haven't read your articles either, though I appreciate the links. For many centuries, China ran on Confucian principles and before that was heavily influenced by non-religious philosophy during a period of philosophical flourishing during the Axial age. China functioned quite well in the area of law both before and after unification without any need for Christianity. As Wikipedia notes, "With particular emphasis on the importance of the family and social harmony, rather than on an otherworldly source of spiritual values, the core of Confucianism is humanistic." That pretty much puts a nail in the thesis that society depends upon Christianity for a concept of law

That’s not what I said. Im just saying that the law in western societies are founded on Christianity and that other societies are based on other religions.
I just had a look at the definition of “religion” and found that it’s not strictly defined. It can include a God, which I think most people here view it as.
Or it doesn’t have to include a God which is the way I view it.

As with Confucianism, a concept of duty and order are all that are required and those can be derived from secular sources

Confucianism qualifies as a religion under my interpretation. It wasn’t derived from secular sources but religious ones. I’ll add the link to the article of this quote. Its an interesting read

“Confucianism is often characterized as a system of social and ethical philosophy rather than a religion. In fact, Confucianism built on an ancient religious foundation to establish the social values, institutions, and transcendent ideals of traditional Chinese society."
"The founder of Confucianism, Master Kong (K'ung, Confucius, 551-479 B.C.E.) did not intend to found a new religion, but to interpret and revive the unnamed religion of the Zhou (Chou) dynasty”
https://www2.kenyon.edu/Depts/Religion/F...ianism.htm

So even though Confucianism doesn't qualify as a religion under your interpretation it is still built on religious foundations.
If Atheism was to now publish a system of social and ethical standards it still wouldn't be secular based. It would be based on the existing religious morals. Just like Confucianism was.

U might argue that Confucianism is a form of atheism seeing both don’t believe in Gods. I would have to agree i guess. People who follow Confucianism are in fact atheists. So the differences are these social and moral standards which Confucianism has. Atheism only needs this for it to be taken seriously enough to build a society on. At the moment its just a bunch of subjective opinions which differ from one another.

Wikipedia notes, "With particular emphasis on the importance of the family and social harmony, rather than on an otherworldly source of spiritual values, the core of Confucianism is humanistic."

"The importance of family and social harmony"
For me this is the key to society. And I see these reflected in all the successful religions in the world wheather they worship a god or not.
The importance of family, which I've conveyed in so many ways here,  is no where to be seen in modern athesists minds.
Nor is social harmony. These are morals that are formed with these objectives of a sustainable society. Forget about the whole God debate, its a dead end trust me. I don't claim to be all knowing and enlightened, far from it. Im just saying this is the subject where its at, not God. People just aren't looking at it this way.
I don't think Ive ever heard Sam Harris talk about morals from this perspective. Its always from a personal subjective view point.

I theorize that mankind were originally atheists and that these religions or moral standards were created (from secular foundations u could say) to form sustainable societies. They hold humans accountable for instinctive behaviours that weren't compatible to the success of a society.

I encourage people to learn about "human nature" a branch of psycology. No one has used any of its facts.
I was labelled a chadcell or something for using this science. And take a close look at societies in the animal world.

Brian37 said that the groups formed by chimps are in fact religions if u define it as simply a group. An interesting thought which I took on board.
I used to wonder why no other animals had religions but B37 got me looking at that differently. His theory was unlike anyone eles here and I was so glad that someone was on my page. Thats why I was his hostile respose was so dissapointing after I basically agreed with him and praised his theory on page 3 of this thread. I couldn't believe it. I agreed with someone yet they still dragged me through the mud.

The relationship between the law in the U.S. and Christianity is a contingent one, not a necessary one, so it's entirely possible that law in the U.S. would have developed just fine based upon some other cultural source other than Christianity

I said the law in western societies are founded on Christianity. I never said it was necessary.
And yes I agree that the USA could have developed under the moral stuctucture of another culture.

So we are in agreement on a few things.
The USA was founded on Christian morals.
Christianity is not required to maintain a society.
A God is not required to form moral standards in a society.
The USA didn't require Christian morals.
USA could have formed under the moral guidlines of another culture.
China didn't need Christianity or a God to form their society.

Ur the third person Iv reached out to now who has some views similar to mine. 3rd time lucky...
Hope for the best, expect the worse.

[The Grand Nudger]

Fun fact, western laws and systems of courts and appeals are actually based..more or less, on pre-christian germanic paganism.  Even the word law..itself, lol.

Just another thing that the christians stole from someone and then claimed as their own.

[Agnostico]

I agree but adultery carries no legal punishment now. This is where secular morals fail in society. There is no collective atheist moral basis.
There will always be differences in opinions because your morals are subjective. They focus on yourself, here and now instead on the benefit to society in the future.

Oh yay.  "Society is failing because it doesn't agree with my morals."  Could you be any more of a narcissistic and myopic twat?

I didn't say that man.
Just calm down and take the words at face value please instaed of jumping to such ridiculous conclusions

---

Why SHOULD adultery carry a legal punishment?  Honestly, if Jane is married to Joe and has sex with Jim, where is the harm to society?

Well in this case Jim will most likely divorce Jane which will break up the family. Something that I view as being important to society.
Any children will then be raised in a single family or at least a disfunctional one where studies have shown it to be an unhealthy enviroment to grow up in.

Those children grow up to be a burden to society rather than contributing to it.

Hope that helped

[Angrboda]

Wikipedia notes, "With particular emphasis on the importance of the family and social harmony, rather than on an otherworldly source of spiritual values, the core of Confucianism is humanistic."

"The importance of family and social harmony"
For me this is the key to society. And I see these reflected in all the successful religions in the world wheather they worship a god or not.
The importance of family, which I've conveyed in so many ways here,  is no where to be seen in modern athesists minds.
Nor is social harmony. These are morals that are formed with these objectives of a sustainable society. Forget about the whole God debate, its a dead end trust me. I don't claim to be all knowing and enlightened, far from it. Im just saying this is the subject where its at, not God. People just aren't looking at it this way.
I don't think Ive ever heard Sam Harris talk about morals from this perspective. Its always from a personal subjective view point.

I theorize that mankind were originally atheists and that these religions or moral standards were created (from secular foundations u could say) to form sustainable societies. They hold humans accountable for instinctive behaviours that weren't compatible to the success of a society.

I encourage people to learn about "human nature" a branch of psycology. No one has used any of its facts.
I was labelled a chadcell or something for using this science. And take a close look at societies in the animal world.

Brian37 said that the groups formed by chimps are in fact religions if u define it as simply a group. An interesting thought which I took on board.
I used to wonder why no other animals had religions but B37 got me looking at that differently. His theory was unlike anyone eles here and I was so glad that someone was on my page. Thats why I was his hostile respose was so dissapointing after I basically agreed with him and praised his theory on page 3 of this thread. I couldn't believe it. I agreed with someone yet they still dragged me through the mud.

The relationship between the law in the U.S. and Christianity is a contingent one, not a necessary one, so it's entirely possible that law in the U.S. would have developed just fine based upon some other cultural source other than Christianity

I said the law in western societies are founded on Christianity. I never said it was necessary.
And yes I agree that the USA could have developed under the moral stuctucture of another culture.

So we are in agreement on a few things.
The USA was founded on Christian morals.
Christianity is not required to maintain a society.
A God is not required to form moral standards in a society.
The USA didn't require Christian morals.
USA could have formed under the moral guidlines of another culture.
China didn't need Christianity or a God to form their society.

Ur the third person Iv reached out to now who has some views similar to mine. 3rd time lucky...
Hope for the best, expect the worse.

No, we're not in agreement that the U.S. law was founded on Christian morals. I simply noted that there was a relationship there, nothing more. And no, I don't agree that religion was formed in order to create the social stability that moral codes and law provide, nor that it was necessary that it do so for us to have law and moral codes. Even if religion did form for that purpose, it wouldn't follow that it was necessary for law and moral codes that it do so. You seem to be engaged in nothing more than question begging. A) The existence of a relationship between laws and morals was a result of religion forming to create the foundation for such; B) the evidence that religion was created for this purpose is that there is a relationship between it and laws and moral codes. That's nothing but a circular argument. You haven't provided any independent evidence that this is so, largely letting ignorance of the true causes of religion and civilization do all the work for you. In addition, you've been provided with alternative theories for both the formation of civilization (Gae) and that of religion (myself). Until you defeat those alternatives, it would be premature to embrace your theory, especially given that it seems to rest on nothing more than circular arguments, appeals to ignorance, and proof by assertion.

And finally, you've moved off of specific religions to a general claim that religions, whatever their form, contribute to the foundation of stable societies. The Rohingya in Myanmar would beg to differ, as well as any accomplisheed student of comparative religion and social history. Confucianism, which is what you were quoting there, was explicitly brought up because it was a largely secular philosophy, not a religious one. Next thing you know, you'll be lowering the bar so far that any human behavior or philosophy will be considered "religion" and thus validation of your argument. That's nothing more than equivocation and undermines your entire argument.

It's true that religion has functioned to encourage social cohesion and cooperation, but this has likely been the case both before and after the formation of civilized societies. There's little evidence that societies developed on account of this function, nor that religion itself formed primarily to serve that function. Both of those undermine your argument.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

Well in this case Jim will most likely divorce Jane which will break up the family.

 
Which discounts the possibility that the marriage is an open one.

Something that I view as being important to society.

There are all kinds of families, mate.

 

Any children will then be raised in a single family or at least a disfunctional [sic] one where studies have shown it to be an unhealthy enviroment [sic] to grow up in.

How can you possibly know this?  Maybe Jane marries Jim, gets custody of the kids, and Jim turns out to be a better dad.  Suppose Joe was an abusive or neglectful parent - isn't the new family better off without him?

 

Those children grow up to be a burden to society rather than contributing to it.

So, Justin Timberlake, Jennifer Aniston and Jamie Lee Curtis are burdens on society?

Hope that helped

Nope, not even a little bit.  You addressed the consequences of a married couple with children getting divorced, but I asked about adultery.  I'll try again:

Why should adultery carry a legal punishment?

Boru

[The Grand Nudger]

Because he's terrified of whores and their whoring, Boru.  What if he gets fuckin cucked!

 

(seriously, though, and understanding that this is a deal breaker for some folks...if one stray penis ruins the entire life that two people have built together...well...it was probably lacking to begin with. If my wife stepped out I don't think i'd rate my response any higher than being mildly annoyed and highly surprised - which is a usual state of affairs between her and I anyway. We still have a farm, and a decade, and four kids. Go get that dick girl, if that's what you need.... lol? She doesn't agree, swears she'll lop my shit right the fuck off and kill a bitch too...while she's at it....but..you know, that's now when I'm still young and handsome and tolerable. Give it another decade or five and she might be relieved that someone else is handling me for a few hours, lol)

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

Because he's terrified of whores and their whoring, Boru.  What if he gets fuckin cucked!

 

(seriously, though, and understanding that this is a deal breaker for some folks...if one stray penis ruins the entire life that two people have built together...well...it was probably lacking to begin with.  If my wife stepped out I don't think i'd rate my response any higher than being mildly annoyed and highly surprised - which is a usual state of affairs between her and I anyway.  We still have a farm, and a decade, and four kids.  Go get that dick girl, if that's what you need.... lol?  She doesn't agree, swears she'll lop my shit right the fuck off and kill a bitch too...while she's at it....but..you know, that's now when I'm still young and handsome and tolerable.  Give it another decade or five and she might be relieved that someone else is handling me for  a few hours, lol)

Gosh, sounds like your marriage consists of two grownups.  My wife wishes ours did. 

But, quite frankly, I doubt very much I'll get a straight answer from Agnostico.

Boru