Hi MT,
Originally posted by midnight Target
So you are basically saying that all morality is defined by religion? This is possibly the least thoughtful post I've ever read from you.
I am about to leave to catch a plane for a conference in Jackson, I really don't have time to give any of the replies the time they deserve, but since I'll be down there till Friday I just wanted to do a "drive by answer" before I go.
Well, in answer to the "least thoughtful" comment, that is of course entirely possible, everyone has their bad days.
But I think the problem here is that my post actually moved from the realm of theology into moral philosophy. The contention that if there is no God and nothing beyond the material realm that there can be no absolutes in the realm of morals is something accepted by almost all major philosophers. In particular the explicitly atheistic philosophies such as Nihilism and Existentialism have worked from that principle. Sartre in particular made the impossibility of absolutes foundational to all of his writing.
To paraphrase Sartre in a way I hope you'll understand, for any point in the universe to have meaning there must be a fixed reference point. So for instance let us take an action, how do we decide if that action is good or bad? Sartre pointed out that you may call it subjectively bad or good but absent a fixed and unchanging reference, that is merely your subjective opinion. The action can never be
really good or bad. It merely
is or
was.
For instance, there have been cultures in which incest was considered "good" and not "bad." Now we may wade in and say, no you're wrong, it's bad. But when they ask us "why?" without a fixed reference point, we are reduced to giving either an entirely subjective answer "Because I say so" or a popular answer "because the majority says so" or a utilitarian answer "because it produces genetic defects and reduces the overall health of society" but neither of those answers make it bad per se. For instance, if incest doesn't result in procreation, then the utilitarian argument is eliminated, if the opinion of the majority changes, then the popular argument is eliminated. None of these methods can actually answer if an action is
really good or bad.
I'd say read Nietzsche's "Beyond Good and Evil" but I fear you might find his arguments compelling
.
Most atheists are not moral philosophers in any event, and live as though there really are good and bad actions (usually subjectively or popularly arrived at) rather than trying to live in keeping with the ultimate conclusions of atheistic/materialist philosophy.
Gotta go...
- SEAGOON
