Maximizing Moral Virtue

[Angrboda]

So for this topic we will be accepting the premise that God isn't real, okay now what?

My main question is what should we do to ensure that our children inherit good moral values? Also, how should we run society and education so that we can ensure that our communities don't fall apart?

Why should we care?

[Nay_Sayer]

So for this topic we will be accepting the premise that God isn't real, okay now what?

My main question is what should we do to ensure that our children inherit good moral values? Also, how should we run society and education so that we can ensure that our communities don't fall apart?

I have to decline your premise. I will never forsake the one true god FSM with hypotheticals.

If not for Xim we would all be running around stabbing each other with butter knives and setting fire to schools.

[Fake Messiah]

My main question is what should we do to ensure that our children inherit good moral values? Also, how should we run society and education so that we can ensure that our communities don't fall apart?

The moral values of the West societies come from Humanism. The main philosophy or should I say the catchphrase of the west is "Follow your heart" and "You can be whoever you want" did not come from religions that demand submission of the individuals to the clergy.

And even the pioneers of Humanism like Spinoza, Descartes, Locke, Rousseau, etc., were all persecuted by various Christian churches by having their books publicly burned by priests and put on the lists of forbidden books like the Index Librorum Prohibitorum. So don't worry, churches and clergy are the last places from which people of today can learn how to be civilized and/ or moral.

[Ahriman]

My main question is what should we do to ensure that our children inherit good moral values? Also, how should we run society and education so that we can ensure that our communities don't fall apart?

The moral values of the West societies come from Humanism. The main philosophy or should I say the catchphrase of the west is "Follow your heart" and "You can be whoever you want" did not come from religions that demand submission of the individuals to the clergy.

And even the pioneers of Humanism like Spinoza, Descartes, Locke, Rousseau, etc., were all persecuted by various Christian churches by having their books publicly burned by priests and put on the lists of forbidden books like the Index Librorum Prohibitorum. So don't worry, churches and clergy are the last places from which people of today can learn how to be civilized and/ or moral.

And this kind of shit can be used for control purposes just as much as religion.

[The Grand Nudger]

You must not be familiar with the human heart or desire. Trying to control people all following their respective bliss is like herding cats. That, in point of fact, is the main criticism of secular values. That individualism does not offer the levers on control that, for example, christian theism provides. In short...that it can't be used for control to good effect, and that's a bad thing.

[Ahriman]

You must not be familiar with the human heart or desire.  Trying to control people all following their respective bliss is like herding cats.  That, in point of fact, is the main criticism of secular values.  That individualism does not offer the levers on control that, for example, christian theism provides.  In short...that it can't be used for control to good effect, and that's a bad thing.

Well people are still being controlled and said people are abiding by secular values.

[The Grand Nudger]

People are also still eating peanut butter. That's how they control us - obviously.

As far as people being controlled..yet again, you'll find that the lock-step coalitions at present are almost entirely the purview of reich wingers and christian dominionists. If it were easier to corral their political opposition..they'd have been defeated as a minority movement long ago. As it stands, we'll probably just have to wait for the last of them to die..which isn't going to be long now. Here again the value-to-control of theistic ideology is in stark contrast to the complete inability of the secular values camp to form such a coalition.

Not for lack of trying, mind you. There are cults of state. There are single issue movements. There's even some hope (completely misplaced, imo) that the values of christian dominionism can be somehow transformed into something like secular values. That the jesusists..will find jesus.

All of this, mind you, a sidebar..since the OP premise is that we want to find some lever of control, to keep society together, for example..to teach kids The Right Stuff™. To enforce a (as yet undescribed) moral conformity. Control is not the problem, but the goal. The item in question. The tangible goods sought.

[Ahriman]

Obviously, everyone being of the same morality would be an aspect of an ideal society.

[The Grand Nudger]

That's the premise of every religious system, at least. Why do you think so? Is there no benefit to a plurality of values and views in the organization of civil government?

[Ahriman]

That's the premise of every religious system, at least.  Why do you think so?  Is there no benefit to a plurality of values and views in the organization of civil government?

Not really, no.