[quote]Gettnitdone wrote:
[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:
[quote]therajraj wrote:
I don’t agree with what you have said in regards to the source of knowledge, but that’s a different debate entirely. Even if you can’t explain it, it’s irrational to jump to the conclusion it must be from a supernatural source.
The examples in your second paragraph are not of minds relying on their own logic and reasoning. All the examples you listed were from groups where religion played a large in role society. I remember reading slave traders would often quote a passage in the bible to justify slavery.
Secular morality is about using your own logic, reasoning, moral intuition in combination with your interaction with others.
[/quote]
Logic cannot provide a universal morality. I believe in a universal morality.
And this is where your argument really crumbles. In those situations there was societal consensus. By your own reasoning that is what makes right or wrong, not religion.
In fact the religion itself was by societal consensus. So those religious beliefs themselves pass your own test for morality.
And this also omits that much of that has been done outside of religion. But also, that quoting a Bible verse doesn’t mean that the slave trader was motivated by or justified the action to himself by religion. It is much more likely that was the method he used to justify himself to society. The truth is that he was an evil man who wanted to benefit himself through evil means and then search for a method of justification. In which case, he was relying on his internal sense of right and wrong and that is why he did what he did.
Do you really think he read the Bible and got “slavery is okay” out of it, then decided to go do it? Or do you think he first though internally and decided he wanted to get rich on slaves, then read the Bible to seek permission? In the second scenario, your brand of morality is to blame, not mine.[/quote]
Doesn’t it come down to emotion, the ‘spirit’ of life, at the end of the day? Emotional capacity comes first and a moral code develops from that. As humans we are all born with emotional and intellectual potential that separates us from other animals. It’s why an evil person is always emotionally void. In the current example, a slave trader maybe evil because he cannot feel emotion. However, it is more likely his ‘evil’ is derived from a place of ignorance, that is, he cannot imagine what it is like to be the slave. He cannot garner an external perspective of the world around him. If said slave trader eventually becomes a slave himself he will not be a slave trader thereafter.
If I knocked you on the head and you woke up not knowing what religion is, who Jesus is or anything about society and I then gave you a weapon and a limited amount of food what do you think you would do? Assuming you lost your ability to speak how do think you would survive? Would you use your weapon to harm people to survive?[/quote]
Really? I’d say the majority of criminals feel as much or more than average. They are much of the time mad at something or someone. Or at the least, jealous.
I think your claim that moral code comes before emotion is laughable, and your last paragraph is so far out in left field, I’m not even sure what to say. If aliens invaded with a type 2 brain wave modulator, you know you’d cluck like a chicken.