Today is Ash Wednesday, the start of Lent for Christianity in general, and Catholics in particular. It is a time of penance, something we all need. We all need to atone for our failures, for our sins.
Humanity is fallen; the world around us is fallen. That's why people do wrong, and genes mutate into cancers and such. Nothing in our universe is perfect, but there is a difference between we humans and dumb animals and the inanimate things nearby. We can choose. We can decide whether to do well or ill. It is what makes us special, and separates us from all else.
But surely these next few weeks aren't for Christians alone? It would seem that no matter what you believe, or whether you believe anything at all, you would still think it a good idea to improve yourself, or to do good things for those in need around you? Even if you cannot bring yourself to believe in something beyond humanity or beyond the universe itself, you can still make the effort to make yourself a better person and enrich the lives of those whom you come in contact with day in and day out. It's the one idea that the seriously religious and the secular humanists can surely agree with each other, don't you think?
So try to become a better person this Lenten season. Smile, help people, discipline yourself in habits of mind and body. You might be pleasantly surprised as the good habits formed become a part of you. The folks around you may be downright shocked. And we'll all be the better for it.
Showing posts with label Religion morality good evil secular. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Religion morality good evil secular. Show all posts
Wednesday, February 22, 2012
Monday, March 28, 2011
Morals are not Consensual
One of the most pervasive while also one of the most ridiculous arguments in favor of certain presumed freedoms is the one about consenting adults. Simply put, it makes moral a given action on the grounds that the folks involved are in agreement as to their joint participation. It is ultimately a wholly untenable position.
To begin with, if all that is required to make something ethically acceptable is the agreement of the parties involved, then we really ought to allow duels. The (presumably) two participants agreed to take shots at each other. So no matter how barbaric, as they freely entered into the contract we would have to let them fire away.
Absurd. Yet when applied to other moral questions, and prostitution for example is one key area where the adage is often used, it is something accepted as axiomatic. The truth is that you would be on stronger ground simply to argue that paying for sexual favors is not in itself wrong rather than to say it's okay because there was no coercion.
The mere fact that people are willing to sell themselves that way while there are also folks willing to buy the, ahem, product, in fact reeks of coercive effects on its own standing. One person wants money, the other wants something which money can buy. A certain coercive effect is in fact at work. Still, even setting that point aside begs the question. The best answer is that nothing is good solely because those involved want to to do it. The act in question must be good on its own stead lest those involved be acting on mere impulse or selfishness. Or, indeed, actual immorality.
This is not to say that a free will act without pressure isn't a factor in moral decision making. It goes without saying that for most personal acts to be moral they must be entered into with a reasonable amount of freedom. In marriage, for example, both the man and the woman involved must do so of their own consent. Yet a hypothetical marriage between a man and a woman both of whom are free to marry is itself already moral. We are in fact beyond the issue of the morality of the potential nuptials by the time the question of will enters the fray.
In short, when considering the rightness of something there are two questions at hand. The first and most important query is whether the act is morally right, seen objectively, on its own. The second is whether those involved are the proper parties to it. Their consent is never a point until after the moral correctness of the action is assured.
To begin with, if all that is required to make something ethically acceptable is the agreement of the parties involved, then we really ought to allow duels. The (presumably) two participants agreed to take shots at each other. So no matter how barbaric, as they freely entered into the contract we would have to let them fire away.
Absurd. Yet when applied to other moral questions, and prostitution for example is one key area where the adage is often used, it is something accepted as axiomatic. The truth is that you would be on stronger ground simply to argue that paying for sexual favors is not in itself wrong rather than to say it's okay because there was no coercion.
The mere fact that people are willing to sell themselves that way while there are also folks willing to buy the, ahem, product, in fact reeks of coercive effects on its own standing. One person wants money, the other wants something which money can buy. A certain coercive effect is in fact at work. Still, even setting that point aside begs the question. The best answer is that nothing is good solely because those involved want to to do it. The act in question must be good on its own stead lest those involved be acting on mere impulse or selfishness. Or, indeed, actual immorality.
This is not to say that a free will act without pressure isn't a factor in moral decision making. It goes without saying that for most personal acts to be moral they must be entered into with a reasonable amount of freedom. In marriage, for example, both the man and the woman involved must do so of their own consent. Yet a hypothetical marriage between a man and a woman both of whom are free to marry is itself already moral. We are in fact beyond the issue of the morality of the potential nuptials by the time the question of will enters the fray.
In short, when considering the rightness of something there are two questions at hand. The first and most important query is whether the act is morally right, seen objectively, on its own. The second is whether those involved are the proper parties to it. Their consent is never a point until after the moral correctness of the action is assured.
Saturday, September 18, 2010
Religion and Social Upheaval
The Independent, a British journal and website, has posted an article about research by one Frank Dikötter which has concluded that the genocide of Chinese peasants during Mao Zedong's Great Leap Forward of 1958-1962 was the worst atrocity of the last century. 45 million people were systematically killed in an attempt to bring the Chinese economy into the then 20th Century. Mr. Dikötter compared the mass murders to the gulag of Stalin and the Russian communists (as well as their other various purges and genocides) and the Holocaust driven by the Nazis. He even alludes to the Leap as on a scale of World War II, where around 55 million were killed.
Toss in things such as the Cambodian genocide of more recent times and even the 37 million killed during World War I and what have we? An awful lot of deaths at the hands of bloody revolutionaries, power mad tyrants, and even some through downright human stupidity. Yet other than the terrible human cost inflicted by the perpetrators of these heinous actions, what do each and every one of horrible events have in common?
The answer is as easy as it is obvious. Not one was committed by the hand or at the order of a religious sect, movement, or leader. They were all set in motion by wholly secular forces. And we have not even delved into the many other yet lesser noted horrific initiatives which occurred during the same era.
Whenever someone tells you how bad religion is for the people, just remind them of the 1900's. Those years alone well display the fallacy of believing in a purely secular and atheistic worldview. God saves. Secularism kills. It's really as simple as that.
Toss in things such as the Cambodian genocide of more recent times and even the 37 million killed during World War I and what have we? An awful lot of deaths at the hands of bloody revolutionaries, power mad tyrants, and even some through downright human stupidity. Yet other than the terrible human cost inflicted by the perpetrators of these heinous actions, what do each and every one of horrible events have in common?
The answer is as easy as it is obvious. Not one was committed by the hand or at the order of a religious sect, movement, or leader. They were all set in motion by wholly secular forces. And we have not even delved into the many other yet lesser noted horrific initiatives which occurred during the same era.
Whenever someone tells you how bad religion is for the people, just remind them of the 1900's. Those years alone well display the fallacy of believing in a purely secular and atheistic worldview. God saves. Secularism kills. It's really as simple as that.
Friday, August 27, 2010
Religion Doesn't Start Wars
These are my final thoughts on the threads from this past Wednesday and Thursday's blogs. For now.
- Charles Martin Cosgriff
I think you're confusing people who have used religion wrongly, which does and can happen, with the truth or not of religion. Either there is a God or there is not, regardless of whether human beings capable of doing evil do evil in whomever's name or with whatever justification. Either the Catholic Church, or Islam or Buddhism or Judaism or Protestantism or Animism, is the true religion or not, regardless of whether individual Catholics or Muslims or Jews or Buddhists or Animists act the way they should. It is people who sin, not creeds.
Yes, religion has at times been a cause of war. Yet so has communism and Nazism, each secular creeds. Sometimes jealousy has caused war: Russia has been at war several times in its history merely seeking control of a warm water port for its Navy. It is people doing what they should not do who are the root cause of evil in the world. Religion ill used may have been a factor at times, but rarely THE factor, the reason for war. Territorial claims and downright conquest have led to more wars than religion.
The Roman Empire did not spread for religious reasons. They did it for power, resources, and tribute. The Spanish came to the New World for the gold, the plunder, more than for the conversion of the natives (though the Spanish religious did certainly work for that). But any way you slice it, when religion is used poorly it is the fault of the wrongdoer, not the creed.
- Charles Martin Cosgriff
I think you're confusing people who have used religion wrongly, which does and can happen, with the truth or not of religion. Either there is a God or there is not, regardless of whether human beings capable of doing evil do evil in whomever's name or with whatever justification. Either the Catholic Church, or Islam or Buddhism or Judaism or Protestantism or Animism, is the true religion or not, regardless of whether individual Catholics or Muslims or Jews or Buddhists or Animists act the way they should. It is people who sin, not creeds.
Yes, religion has at times been a cause of war. Yet so has communism and Nazism, each secular creeds. Sometimes jealousy has caused war: Russia has been at war several times in its history merely seeking control of a warm water port for its Navy. It is people doing what they should not do who are the root cause of evil in the world. Religion ill used may have been a factor at times, but rarely THE factor, the reason for war. Territorial claims and downright conquest have led to more wars than religion.
The Roman Empire did not spread for religious reasons. They did it for power, resources, and tribute. The Spanish came to the New World for the gold, the plunder, more than for the conversion of the natives (though the Spanish religious did certainly work for that). But any way you slice it, when religion is used poorly it is the fault of the wrongdoer, not the creed.
Thursday, August 26, 2010
Secularism Teaches Selfishness
This is a more follow up to yesterday's post.
- Charles Martin Cosgriff
I basically agree with most of what you say, honestly, but to call something intelligent is also to imply that there is standard out there by which we can know we're intelligent. If there was nothing we could compare our thoughts to, we wouldn't know them to be intelligent. We would only be what we are with no concept that our thoughts had value.
As to 'when we're gone, we're gone', I stand by what I have said many times before. If we simply go out of existence, if we are an entirely secular species, then what we do here doesn't matter. Why not rape, rob, and pillage? Why waste what little existence we have doing good (whatever that means; for when you remove any possible eternal and objective truth out of our actions you essentially take out any possible meaning our actions may have, because there would be no real consequences) when we can simply satisfy our animal desires? We won't be punished if we simply cease to exist. Why be good? We won't know any reward if we cease to be. What possible meaning is there in being 'good' if we're little more than scientific accidents of time, a mass of atoms which happen to form 'me' for a bit, and then go on and form something else at their, shall we say, whim?
Yes, we might be remembered well, and what we do may help (and we must ask similarly as with good: whatever 'help' means, because that too would be left to the interpretation of the individual) the people still here when we're gone. But why should we care? It wouldn't be as though it would matter to us when we're no more, and arguably only matters to us when we're here because it would make us feel good...not exactly an altruistic motive, and altruism (once more, a useful standard only if based upon a certain objectivity) seems to be what you base your secular religion upon. And why then should I care about anyone while I'm still here? They'll just go out of existence one day and not remember a bit of whatever good or evil I do to them anyway. Any good will not aid them in the end, nor will any evil truly harm them. Even should I kill them, they won't be around to know or care.
I hope you don't think that I'm browbeating you with this, my friend. We certainly are above the lower animals and can certainly do better for others and ourselves in this world. But religion didn't create evil: people by free will do evil. Quite sincerely, I think the fact that you believe in creating rather than destroying is because you're a better man than the beliefs you express.
So you've chosen to be good because it suits you. Fine. But how do you tell others they are wrong to hurt people if their personal experience teaches them that hurting those insignificant in their eyes is all right? If there's only the individual's personal human experience to fall back on, and another individual's personal experience is that they like to do harm, there's no moral, wholly secular way you can tell them they can't. You've based your life on your experiences and claim what you do valid because on that. Their life is justified in the exact same way as yours is. In your worldview, good and bad are thus equal.
Everything you say is a value judgment based on a standard. But if it's only 'your' standard, I don't have to accept it, because I'm just as likely to be right as you. That is in fact the attitude which starts wars.
- Charles Martin Cosgriff
I basically agree with most of what you say, honestly, but to call something intelligent is also to imply that there is standard out there by which we can know we're intelligent. If there was nothing we could compare our thoughts to, we wouldn't know them to be intelligent. We would only be what we are with no concept that our thoughts had value.
As to 'when we're gone, we're gone', I stand by what I have said many times before. If we simply go out of existence, if we are an entirely secular species, then what we do here doesn't matter. Why not rape, rob, and pillage? Why waste what little existence we have doing good (whatever that means; for when you remove any possible eternal and objective truth out of our actions you essentially take out any possible meaning our actions may have, because there would be no real consequences) when we can simply satisfy our animal desires? We won't be punished if we simply cease to exist. Why be good? We won't know any reward if we cease to be. What possible meaning is there in being 'good' if we're little more than scientific accidents of time, a mass of atoms which happen to form 'me' for a bit, and then go on and form something else at their, shall we say, whim?
Yes, we might be remembered well, and what we do may help (and we must ask similarly as with good: whatever 'help' means, because that too would be left to the interpretation of the individual) the people still here when we're gone. But why should we care? It wouldn't be as though it would matter to us when we're no more, and arguably only matters to us when we're here because it would make us feel good...not exactly an altruistic motive, and altruism (once more, a useful standard only if based upon a certain objectivity) seems to be what you base your secular religion upon. And why then should I care about anyone while I'm still here? They'll just go out of existence one day and not remember a bit of whatever good or evil I do to them anyway. Any good will not aid them in the end, nor will any evil truly harm them. Even should I kill them, they won't be around to know or care.
I hope you don't think that I'm browbeating you with this, my friend. We certainly are above the lower animals and can certainly do better for others and ourselves in this world. But religion didn't create evil: people by free will do evil. Quite sincerely, I think the fact that you believe in creating rather than destroying is because you're a better man than the beliefs you express.
So you've chosen to be good because it suits you. Fine. But how do you tell others they are wrong to hurt people if their personal experience teaches them that hurting those insignificant in their eyes is all right? If there's only the individual's personal human experience to fall back on, and another individual's personal experience is that they like to do harm, there's no moral, wholly secular way you can tell them they can't. You've based your life on your experiences and claim what you do valid because on that. Their life is justified in the exact same way as yours is. In your worldview, good and bad are thus equal.
Everything you say is a value judgment based on a standard. But if it's only 'your' standard, I don't have to accept it, because I'm just as likely to be right as you. That is in fact the attitude which starts wars.
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