tilthouse
SeiðrWhenever a Christian (they usually are, but it applies to any other religion) asks somewhere "If you are an atheist/if god doesn't exist, how do you know how to behave ethically right?" they are telling far more on themselves than they think they do.
John Carlos Baez@Illuminatus - you can ask them how *they* know to behave ethically. Do they just take the word of any god that comes along? If not, how do they decide which god is right?
@johncarlosbaez Oh no. It's far better to ask them "Why? How would <you> behave if you didn't believe in god or god didn't exist?"
@Illuminatus - have you done it? What did they say?
@johncarlosbaez Evasions and rationalisations on the line "No, no, of course I would behave the same!", but I am talking about "Seventh Commandment morality". In Spain we have a good list of examples of Christians who need the laws of men to prevent them from taking to the streets to kill their neighbours on political reasons.
@Illuminatus - I think a lot of them *would* behave the same; they are ethical people who don't want to get sucked into the (very tricky and scary) foundations of ethics, and find it easy to just say it goes back to god.
And then there are a lot of unethical ones....
Michael Porter@johncarlosbaez @Illuminatus Son of Sam listened to the voices, look how that turned out…
TenPastTwoSomeone posted a bumper sticker in the US from a MAGA type that said it was only the bible that stopped him shooting liberals.
I guess that's why religion was invented to keep those with no inate morality or compassion vaguely civil. Scary as hell if that's true though.
Clinton Anderson SwordForHire@Illuminatus If you need the threat of eternal damnation in order to not be a trash human being, you are already a trash human being.
Artur Neumann@ClintonAnderson @Illuminatus Fear only goes so far as corrective, love is much more powerful. The reason for ethical behavior should not be: "I treat you well because otherwise I will be punished." BUT: "I love you (and treat you accordingly) because I believe the one I follow loves you! He created you as worthy as me and that's why I should treat you as I wanted to be treated."
IMO the basis for ethics is what we believe about the world and humans, that are philosophical & theological topics.
IMO the basis for ethics is what we believe about the world and humans, that are philosophical & theological topics.
@arturN @Illuminatus Theology is fkn worthless.
I treat you well, because you are a sentient, feeling, being and so, you don't deserve otherwise.
All intelligent creatures display this kind of behaviour. It's just empathy.
No Bronze Age mythology required.
@arturN @Illuminatus The so-called Golden Rule is "Treat people as you'd want to be treated"....
Better is The Platinum Rule. It says "Treat people as THEY want to be treated".
@ClintonAnderson @Illuminatus disagree on that, I know people who want to be treated as if there are something special and worthy more than others, I'm not willing to treat them they wanted to be treated.
@arturN @Illuminatus Shrug
I'd rather do that than try to force what I might or might not want on them.
@ClintonAnderson @Illuminatus Give the power hungry the power they want? Give the money hungry the money they want? Give the narcissist the attention they want? Give the exploiters the possibility to exploit? That is what they want!
And how can that even work in a community? Person A wants to be treated with equal dignity, but person B wants to have special rights. In a community I cannot treat both as they want, because it's exclusively opposite
@arturN @Illuminatus It's still better than Theology
Ciggy Bringer of Smoke@ClintonAnderson @arturN @Illuminatus
One of the ironies of some theology that predates...oh...lets say 325 AD, is that it takes barely any squinting at all to see that some of the emphasis of the theology is 'how to get along in a small community with these points of emphasis' that clearly become a detached, contradictory oppressive mess when made State or proto-State religion and mandate.
This is everything outside of the metaphysical emphasis though, and my hunch is that an appeal to authority has a lot more juice if its a deity than Bob of Judea saying it.
He was once challenged, "Without god, what's to stop you from raping and killing as much as you want?"
Penn Gillette responded "I do rape and kill as much as I want, and that amount is zero, because I'm not an asshole"
@Illuminatus Can you elaborate? What are they telling on themselves?
@arturN As has been posited in my replies: https://mstdn.social/@ClintonAnderson@universeodon.com/111618273548912757
Clinton Anderson SwordForHire (@[email protected])
@[email protected] If you need the threat of eternal damnation in order to not be a trash human being, you are already a trash human being. #ReligionPoisonsEverything
@Illuminatus maybe I lack the cultural background, but I don't get why this question is a bad one. Isn't it a good starting point to get to know and understand each other on a deeper personal level apart from exchanging slogans?
Also a good question to reflect, adapt or make your own ethical foundation stronger.
Also a good question to reflect, adapt or make your own ethical foundation stronger.
@arturN It's a loaded question asked from a starting point of deep ignorance and bad faith that links any and all morals to a divine authority and religious rules, and, by extension, behaviour outside of those cannot be moral or ethical. Socrates and his contemporaries already killed those arguments about twenty five hundred years ago, and we should know better.
@Illuminatus but isn't it equally disrespectful and ignorant to call those,who follow some religious ethical framework,not intelligent and empathic enough?
That is why I'm proposing to talk to each other and try to understand the deep beliefs.
That debate will never end, we can either keep on calling each other names or start listening and reflect ourselves.
Saying this actually to myself, I'm not a good listener at all 🫣
But I see, if the question is perceived as an attack,it's hard to listen
That is why I'm proposing to talk to each other and try to understand the deep beliefs.
That debate will never end, we can either keep on calling each other names or start listening and reflect ourselves.
Saying this actually to myself, I'm not a good listener at all 🫣
But I see, if the question is perceived as an attack,it's hard to listen
@arturN [Points at the evangelical right-wingers in the USA and abortion. Points at Saudi Arabia and Iran. Points at Israel.] I don't know, mate. It's not me who's trying to impose a system based on Bronze Age beliefs as the laws of society.
@Illuminatus Pointing to bad examples is easy, they are everywhere.
But what are the examples that inspire you? Where is your community that helps you to build your ethical framework? Which philosophy makes you a better human? What stories did change you positively?
That's what I would be interested in, and that's why asking s.o. how to know what is ethically good without a deity (or by following a particular deity) is IMO a very valid and interesting question.
⛅ w chance of bears@arturN What makes it a bad question is that there is a fundamental difference between the questions "What are the principles underlying your sense of ethics?" and "How is it possible to have any sense of ethics at all without (my) religion?" The first is a reasonable starting point to understanding one another, as you suggest, but it's the second one that is consistently encountered in practice.
Tortipede@Illuminatus There's quite a good book by a former bishop of Liverpool called "Godless Morality", where he AFAIR basically argues that any grown-up Christian morality has to stand or fall on its own merits, divorced from dogma or doctrine, o/wise you can't expect anyone except your co-religionists to take you remotely seriously.
@tortipede Yes, as far as Catholics, Anglicans and Episcopalians are concerned, they have refined their approach far more than Evangelicals, Pentecostals and others.
@Illuminatus - I usually quote Penn Gillette: ‘I murder as much as I want to, and that amount is zero’
yunchtimeFoucault would appropriate here. Some people respond only to punishment.