KellyC

If there is such thing. Can any one link me an article where our morality is NOT based on religion, but rather just common sense?

I've been having this argument with a girl over this for 2 days now. She claims that without religion, we won't be able to discern right from wrong. This is some of her statement..

My rebuttal for all this has been, "Any one with a good conscience would know this automatically, they don't need something else (bible, god, whatever) to point out the obvious." But she's not budging. I know I should have stopped since day one but I want to know what she have to say after I show her the hardcore fact that we don't need religion to simply tell right from wrong. IF there is any...I've been google-ing it all day long and got nothing. Maybe someone else will have better luck?

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Him: Ok, I have to ask, what do you believe?
Me: Shit happens.

Journeyman

When a child hits another child on the playground, does God come down and tell him he's bad, or do the kids parents handle that business? I know that I learned my right from wrong by way of what my parents taught me.

I can't really cite the source off the top of my head, but in gorilla societies, if you step out of line big time, the alpha male will send some sort of signal that tells you to get out. Then you sit at the far fringes of the group and essentially die sooner or later from being left out of the group. Last I checked, gorillas are considered to not have souls by most religious groups.

In terms of "Beginning of time," she'd have to be a creationist to follow that through. Protons and neutrons don't have a moral compass as best as I can figure. Whether or not you want to argue against creationism with her is up to you.

ARTelevision

You might have a chance by researching the history of natural law.

The deeper problem, of course, is that when one is discussing basic assumptions, they are - by their very nature - undemonstrable.

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pocon1

A good conscience does not come automatically, it is developed by the interaction of society and intelligence and communication. If you take the natural science belief that life wants to keep existing, and if you accept the idea that man is a social animal, then it follows that man at some point has to create rules to keep order in society to benefit the greater good.

Most groups have done this by creating an "all-father" or god, who will lay punishment down on you for transgressions. Others have evolved beyond that point and look at life as we fit into the evolution of life.

My belief is that we are all here once, and that the only form of immortality we have is through our children. In order to allow our children to succeed, we must make a society in which they can safely grow up in. I also feel that my belief is stronger than a religious person's belief because mine does not come from blind faith in a unknowable god, but from morals that I had to learn and develop through my own experiences.

Rodney

Frankly, I think that most religions are based on common sense, instead of vice versa. (Originally based on common sense, anyway.)

Find me a major religion that says it's okay to steal from your neighbor, or hurt your neighbor, or cheat on your husband or wife, or kill somebody just because you don't like them. You won't. Because a society in which those things were commonly allowed would collapse. (In those cases where people were abused commonly, as slaves, as even here in the U.S., the abusers have justified themselves by somehow seeing the people they're hurting as less than human. But the letter of their religion doesn't justify this.)

So the basic rules had to be arrived at early (by common sense) for any reasonable civilization to exist, and how better to enforce them than to make God, whichever one you believe in, the enforcer.

whocarz

Morals come from society. However, I would say that a society's religion plays a large part in deeming what is acceptable and what is not. For example, look at the Nordic culture before it was converted to Christianity. It was believed that a man could enter paradise by being a brave and great warrior, and dying in battle. So these things were important and held to a higher ideal. Many would die without fear in combat, because they were promised eternal bliss. Today, Western religion doesn't espouse that belief, so people aren't clamoring to die that way. In Islam, a person is promised paradise if they die in a holy war, and this is why you see so many suicide attacks coming from fanatical Muslims. Another example could be the kamakazie pilots from WW2. So yes, I believe that religion forms society's morals, however, I also believe that religion is created by society, not some creator being, and it helps to keep society stable.

Note: Reading through my post, let me clarify that kamakazies weren't Muslim. Please no one jump down my throat, that's not what I meant.

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Halx

The concept of morality comes from religion. Without it, there is only hurt and help. I do not believe in morals.

Ethics, on the other hand, fall into the same category as common sense.

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KellyC

Crap, I hate it when my mind go blank after reading a couple post. Still, I appreciate everybody's comment so far. Thanks for the suggestion Art, I found some really interesting read.

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Him: Ok, I have to ask, what do you believe?
Me: Shit happens.

SecretMethod70

KellyC, at least regarding this topic, IMO your friend is pretty dumb. She sounds like a bit of a fundamentalist to me. I don't know of any religion that I would consider reasonable which believes the things that she is espousing.

While I don't believe it, going off the argument that all religion is created by man, religion is the name for ethical understandings which are intrinsic to our being. There is a reason almost every single religion is related in the most basic things they espouse, such as not taking innocent life. Perhaps you can make an argument attributing that they are all different ways of worshiping the same god, but if I'm right about your friend (with admittedly little to go on) I highly doubt that she would be willing to accept that idea that all religions have a degree of validity.

Aside for that, her argument falls apart at the first point. If religion was all there was telling us that taking innocent life is wrong (I use that term instead of kill because in the most commonly used example - "thou shalt not kill" - from the ten commandments of Judaism and Christianity, the original Hebrew did not use such a blanket word as kill but a more pointed word meaning something more along the lines of "kill unnecessarily") then what is there telling people like art and Hal that it is wrong to kill anyone they don't agree with? If her argument had any basis there would be an extremely large degree of people running around murdering and stealing all day long.

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