Unruly Passengers

"David Brooks" wrote in message
...

I'd like to pursue (and I've been trying hard to stay off these non-flying
threads): do you think we cannot have ethics or morals without appealing
to
the influence of a Christian God and the associated spiritual life?

Quite the contrary. I certainly agree that a humanist or other ethicist can
have ethics or morals without appealing to Deity, Christian or otherwise. My
point is that these ethics and morals are not necessarily more rational than
those derived from religion.

After all, if one argues that a god or gods, for whatever reason, wants to
'improve' humanity and prevent humans from harming themselves and each
other, then any 'commandments' emanating from such beings would tend to be
beneficial. An agnostic ethicist might come up with similar 'commandments'
for similar reasons.

Hence, where a religionist might say that buying a beer on Sunday violates
the commandments of God, an agnostic ethicist might decide that it is
beneficial to society overall to have at least one day a week where people
are not subjected to public drunkenness. Similar arguments can be made on
both sides concerning abortion, or any other issue supposedly of concern
only to the religious. You often find religious individuals, even those who
supposedly belong to the same sect, on both sides of an issue like that. You
find the same thing of humanists. In the end it comes down to faith -- a
belief of what is right or wrong without any real evidence to support it.
After all, it can be argued that the survival of the human race would be a
bad thing, and you will find both religious people and humanists who will in
fact strongly assert that very position.

But what is the real difference between the two positions? An atheist must
assume that we are nothing more than random sacks of chemicals. Our actions
must necessarily be of almost infinitely small consequence to the universe.
What does it matter what happens to any of us? Why should we care about
ourselves, let alone others? The religionist answers that we care because we
are commanded to. The ethicist answers that we care for evolutionary
reasons. The real difference comes down to free will. The religionist
believes in free will and personal responsibility. The atheist in the end
must say that free will is, at best, an illusion -- just as the development
of our individual species is guided by the dead hand of natural selection,
so the development of our society is guided by the dead hand of the
collective menes. Personal responsibility is a sham and merely a convenience
for the operation of the menes.

It seems contradictory to me to say that on the one hand religion stifles
freedom and on the other to deny that freedom exists at all, yet not only do
many humanists take this position, so do many religions. If the religious
person should have any advantage at all over the secular humanist, it is
that the religious person should be more pro-active in seizing control of
our evolutionary destiny social development. The reason most religions have
not done that is that they are more rooted in Medieval philosophy than in
any real belief in God. They are in fact rooted in secularism rather than in
faith. The religions of the world are in some respects more atheistic than
even the atheists, often without the tempering influence of humanism. If
these religions are sensitive to the humanists' accusations that they are
more interested in accumulating wealth and power than they are in actually
improving humanity, it is because those charges have considerable merit.
Even their creeds describe God in terms little better than outright deism;
often they are much worse. Their vision of God is so impossibly
contradictory that they have practically defined a belief in God out of
existence. I believe that many atheists are much closer to God than they
realize, just as many religious individuals are much further away from God
than they realize.

Viktor Frankl pointed out that there are really only two kinds of people --
those that derive meaning in life from their relationships with others and
those that derive meaning in life from only from the power and control they
exercise over others. I think you will find both types of people in all
religions as well in all varieties of secularists.

I have to admit that I enjoy this discussion, even though it is off topic. I
would not ordinarily have bothered, but any suggestion that religious views
have no place in the political landscape strikes me as too dangerous to go
unchallenged. It is that kind of thinking that leads to concentration camps
and genocide.

"C J Campbell" wrote in message
...

"David Brooks" wrote in message
...

I'd like to pursue (and I've been trying hard to stay off these
non-flying
threads): do you think we cannot have ethics or morals without appealing
to
the influence of a Christian God and the associated spiritual life?

Quite the contrary. I certainly agree that a humanist or other ethicist
can
have ethics or morals without appealing to Deity, Christian or otherwise.
My
point is that these ethics and morals are not necessarily more rational
than
those derived from religion.
....
But what is the real difference between the two positions? An atheist must
assume that we are nothing more than random sacks of chemicals. Our
actions
must necessarily be of almost infinitely small consequence to the
universe.
What does it matter what happens to any of us? Why should we care about
ourselves, let alone others? The religionist answers that we care because
we
are commanded to. The ethicist answers that we care for evolutionary
reasons.

No, I think that's a mischaracterization, although I'll struggle to find the
right pithy words. But while doing so I'll hand a freebee to your side of
the argument, Chris. The many people today who are areligious but moral and
ethical (there are many in Europe, for example) are practicing a form of
secular humanism whether they like it or not. This makes secularism look
good, because it is coming up with good results (hey, I know that's a value
judgement, but let's assume we all agree on basic definitions of goodness;
we seem to; even we liberals aren't all moral relativists). The challenge to
that view is that we are living in a moment of history where, even if
Christianity is dying in some societies, the results of the, forgive me,
indoctrination brought about by its teachings are still strong influences in
the society. To be concrete, my grandmother and all my elementary school
teachers were Golden Rule Christians, so how can I behave otherwise; I got
wired. How long can that meme survive without the influence of an externally
applied Spirit? I don't know. There is scant opportunity to look for an
answer by studying historically pagan societies that are otherwise parallel.

Viktor Frankl pointed out that there are really only two kinds of
people --
those that derive meaning in life from their relationships with others and
those that derive meaning in life from only from the power and control
they
exercise over others. I think you will find both types of people in all
religions as well in all varieties of secularists.

Many Christians are perfectly clear that there is at least a third kind:
those that derive meaning in life from their relationship with Jesus. Today
it often seems to be a personal buddy relationship, so it might resolve to
Frankl's first group. But there is a more traditional mystical relationship,
often found in the monastery, that I think is genuinely different.

I have to admit that I enjoy this discussion, even though it is off topic.
I
would not ordinarily have bothered, but any suggestion that religious
views
have no place in the political landscape strikes me as too dangerous to go
unchallenged. It is that kind of thinking that leads to concentration
camps
and genocide.

Sorry, I must side with Tom on this one, although with less vituperation,
and with the caveat I referred to above: maybe contemporary secular views
are religious views we can't shake.

I hope you don't object to the trimming: I just wanted to respond in
specific places.

-- David Brooks