My favorite quote for today:
“One of the great tragedies of mankind is that morality has been hijacked by religion. So now people assume that religion and morality have a necessary connection. But the basis of morality is really very simple and doesn't require religion at all.”
― Arthur C. Clarke
I wouldn't say he was my favorite SF author (It killed me slogging through the Rama books), but I thought he was brilliant in his observations about society, science and humanity.
@mmiasma
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Wikiquote says it's close. https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Arthur_C._Clarke#1990s
Thanks for checking. For a writer I could barely stand reading sometimes (The Rama series), he was an amazing observer of humanity.
Everything that is good, not evil, is in my religion, the thinking goes; kindness, ice creme, justice, ma and pa. Also into the "my religion" are fears, hopes, angers, opinions, mistakes, foolishness, because I am all good, because my religion is all good things. Its a self fulfilling Eternal Golden Braid
Helluva blind-spot for us, isn't it? 🙂 👍
What's the next line? I mean, did Clarke say what the basis of morality is?
I found it, but it's not cited so I can't say this is reliable:
“The basis of morality is really very simple and doesn’t require religion at all. It’s this: 'Don’t do unto anybody else what you wouldn’t like to be done to you.' It seems to me that that’s all there is to it.”
From here: https://thecitesite.com/authors/arthur-c-clarke/page/2/
Might require an inter-library loan to know for sure.
You can get one more sentence of context by searching inside the text in Google Books.
https://books.google.com/books/about/Greetings_Carbon_Based_Bipeds.html?id=GbNi8Si_O4UC
Or order it from a library near you.
https://www.worldcat.org/title/41017431
Arthur C. Clarke is one of this century's most visionary and versatile thinkers. In the crowning achievement of his extraordinary career, Clarke has collected his ground-breaking non-fiction pieces into one volume. Charting an exceptional career of over six decades, the essays in Greetings, Carbon-Based Bipeds! reveal Clarke's piercing mind and lively wit as well as the march of science through our modern age.
Wait! Never mind - Richard Dawkins' organization put the PDF of Clarke's "Credo" essay online.
https://cdn.centerforinquiry.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/29/2001/09/22164801/p61.pdf
So... do you mean the quality or condition of being mortal or that we have an expiration date (individually or maybe collectively)?
tl;dr - I think this summarizes it for me.
"It seems that neither societies nor individuals need God in order to be moral. They simply need compassion, empathy, and the active desire to alleviate suffering."
This might be helpful (it's a short read, I promise):
Atheism, Morality, and Society
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-secular-life/202008/atheism-morality-and-society
There is no external entity or code that drives my desire to be kind or helpful. Being ethical and moral improves the quality of my life and that of those I interact with (I hope). That's enough of an incentive for me.
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