Why Do We Differ on the Source of Principles and Values?

[lofhay]

Christians often imply that only Christians can have principles and values, and that a "relationship with God" is essential for overcoming "original and enduring" evil. As long as this attitude prevails, that Christians are right and everyone else is wrong, how can there ever be peace and harmony? How is this any different than the Muslim belief of the same ilk? Must we all become either 100% Christian or 100% Muslim in order to get along? What is the likelihood of that ever happening? There have always been, and always will be, non-believers. Does this mean that we will forever be burning heretics at the stake and beheading infidels?

There is another possibility if only we will consider it. It is the one suggested by Sam Harris in his book "The End of Faith". If we Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, etc. can turn loose of our religious dogma, then maybe we will discover that there are more useful and constructive values upon which we can all agree. e.g. respect, goodwill, compassion, liberty, and that these things must be mutual if we are to live in peace. These values derive from common sense. They do not need any supreme authority, whether God or church, to impose them upon us. To claim that they do sets up a mechanism by which we dehumanize those who disagree and allows us to label them as evil itself, thus justifying any means we are capable of inventing to destroy them.

Evil is not some monster which controls us. Evil is when we lose sight of our connectedness with each other. It is when we lose awareness that when one person's freedom is denied, all freedom is in jeopardy. Evil is when one religious group tries to force its ideas on others of a different persuasion, and this usually happens because we have been taught that we have "the word of God" in a book. Here's hoping we learn better before it is too late.

[Baraka_Guru]

If you remove dogma, rituals, and superstitions from many religions, you will find that they have more similarities than differences. People get caught up in the trappings of religion (scripture, practices, culture, etc.) and are blinded to the idea that many people are after essentially the same goals.

I find that the most openminded among the religious will have utmost respect for those of other religions. One example is the Dalai Lama. He is one of the most high profile religious figures who advocates for communication and cooperation between religions. He understands that those who seek to eradicate ignorance will by nature seek ways to be compassionate to everyone regardless of their beliefs.

There's much more to say, but that's a start.

[lofhay]

I agree that the Dalai Lama is an example of how to be religious without the negative consequences. I don't have the same trust in the metaphysical that he does, but no problem.

[Baraka_Guru]

If you can look past his belief in reincarnation, he is actually a part of a pragmatic and even science- and reality-based practice.

Here is a quotation from an interview of him as a part of a response to conflict in religion and the Israel-Palestine question:

[...] I'm Buddhist, I'm a Buddhist practitioner. So actually I think that according to nontheistic Buddhist belief, things are due to causes and conditions. No creator. So I have faith in our actions, not prayer. Action is important. Action is karma. Karma means action. That's an ancient Indian thought. In nontheistic religions, including Buddhism, the emphasis is on our actions rather than god or Buddha. So some people say that Buddhism is a kind of atheism. Some scholars say that Buddhism is not a religion — it's a science of the mind.

This is why Buddhism on a fundamental level is both compatible with other belief systems and also a great platform for illuminating the universality of much of human thought and spirituality/morality. When you look at the core of the Buddha's original teachings, you are looking at the essence of much of what we as humans struggle with and strive for. You will find much if not all of the same things packed into most world religions.

Christianity was not created in a vacuum, nor was Islam. The ideas of each are based on previous human thought and practices. It's like philosophy that way, where the predecessors influence the followers. However, sometimes the new ideas are deviations from the important ideas, and that's where many of us can get lost. Other times, there are new ideas that reinforce the important ideas and keep them accessible to future generations.

Many of these ideas don't change. It's the environment in which we apply them that changes, which keeps the challenge for all of us fresh and often rather pressing.

[Ourcrazymodern?]

I simply reckon my principles & values hold my relationship with God unsullied. You can't be pretending a vast gulf in our philosophies?

[roachboy]

i don't understand what you mean by "common sense" particularly if you try--as you do in the op--to separate it from broader systems of belief. typically, what passes for common sense is a direct reflection of these broader systems that get written into the social world as an aspect of the projections about the world that are the core of what belief is, it seems to me. so appeal to "common sense"" would not move you outside of any given frame of reference. the appeal would prompt you to simply repeat it while (maybe) allowing you to tell yourself you're doing something else.

one thing i see as funny is that when ethicists who happen to be christian (it probably happens in other contexts as well, but i don't know because i haven't read that much...basically because for me reading ethics is like eating dry toast in a desert) is that their assumptions about original sin tend to make them panic at the idea---which seems to me to be the case---that ethics are basically social convention. they figure that were this to be the case, given the fallen-ness of humans and all that, it would follow that everyone who simply blow them off. whence the veering into deontology (the idea that ethics derive from some transcendent source).

personally, i see ethics as a subset of the political, which would follow from the position that ethics are basically social convention that are transposed into another register (religious, historical, legal) so as to make them binding on a particular population. this nature of this transposing follows from the assumptions particular to the dominant belief system that shapes a particular community/the structure(s) of particular communities.

dry toast. in a desert.

[Ourcrazymodern?]

& I enjoy Bread and Butter pudding! Ethics is transpolitical. Abandoning your will to any group is unnatural. IJUHP. Why we differ is because we do.

[lofhay]

I used the term "common sense" to mean those ideas which we all (or almost all) have in common--those concepts on which most sane persons would agree--those ideas which are easily demonstrated.

[roachboy]

i don't think you understand what i meant by the political, then. it was more a technical usage that refers to the processes whereby collectives generate, formalize and enforce norms as an aspect of the wider processes that come together in the social fashioning of a world.

there isn't anything that's trans-political in that sense. correspondences across traditions are just that. doesn't mean there's a common transcendent source. and individuals are social creations. they don't just show up---they're made/trained/fashioned. but i digress.

[Ourcrazymodern?]

Splendid. Individuals do just show up, roachboy, & their reactions to things, including society, are entirely their own. I don't doubt that I misunderstood you, but could you try to clear this up, for me, or at least address why we do differ?

[roachboy]

uh...individuals are social creations. what the idea of individual has meant has varied wildly over time. among the most atomised conceptions of the individual comes from cultures infected with christianity, which reduces human life to some drama between the individual, bearer of a soul, and some god character. but even there, social relations and their importance in defining what an individual is vary considerably. this seems pretty obvious.

why people differ within shared frames of reference? it probably follows from the fact that even as our patterns that form us and our relation to the world are social, we also have memories that are imbricated with psyches that are able to combine and recombine social patterns/signifiers---and create new ones. we vary because life is open-ended and we adapt and create it as we go---within parameters that are socially instituted.

and most social patterns are complex, and are amenable to multiple levels of interpretation--so combining the creative ability of psyches with the complexity of social parameters (norms, ways of staging/framing the world, notions of what the world is, etc.) things are pretty amenable to divergences.

if that wasn't the case, we wouldn't be having this conversation. it's not obvious how to move to a register of talking about social forms in general. nor for that matter is it obvious how critique is possible if the above (or something like it) isn't the case.

even the most rigid ideological systems provide materials for their critique. stalinism, for example, because it sat atop the marxist tradition (and a bunch of others) generated a LOT of critique both passive and active. christianity provides both justifications for social inequalities and the materials for quite radical critiques of them. traditions--the textual cores (because that's the frame within which we, collectively, roll for the most part) are complicated and internally contradictory. which is a good thing. and social norms/patterns etc. derive from and refer back to broader traditions.

maybe this is still pretty abstract....

[Freetofly]

Why Do We Differ on the Source of Principles and Values, well it could be as simple as your up bringing. ha!

But it could also be just life itself and what you learn along the way. No religion involved; if we could only focus on the human aspects without the religion we might be in better shape. Religion just complicates life.

[chinese crested]

Churches are where many people go to show off their new hat and their finery.

[Ourcrazymodern?]

That's why I wear feathers in my hat, chinese crested. I thank god every day at least ten times, but I don't think it's there in any unrealistic way. The reason we differ is because we do. We can't help it & it's beacause of our individual packaging. I'm convinced of this primarily because I feel mine strongly.