Hi Platt, John, Platt: >> Finally, it seems to me your common sense approach to morality is >> suspiciously like the morality of the Judeo-Christian tradition, you know, >> go in peace, love thy neighbor, help the poor, and all that. So as much as >> we might like to think we have discovered a rational morality, in the end >> it >> looks like good old religious-based morality after all.
Steve: You are aware that some form of the Golden Rule has been articulated by just about every culture you can think of? That we ought not do to others what we wouldn't want done to ourselves is a pithy moral principle that encapsulates much of what we have learned about morality, but it is not Judeo-Christian morality any more than it is Confucian morality. If some of religious-based morality happens to agree with our best understanding of morality, then so much the better for those religions, but it doesn't mean that morality is religion-based, and we ought not forget that it is our best understanding of the world that stands in judgment of religion here rather than the other way around. John: > Yes. It's like they want to throw out all the old nasty theism, but keep > the part known as morality that came with it so our society doesn't revert > to the jungle. > > Yer hittin' them bullseyes, Platt, you old Zen archer you. Steve: Does the fact that the Pythagorean theorem is true lend any credence to Greek mythology? Since it obviously does not, then by that comparison we certainly can throw out theism (if it is indeed false) and keep whatever part of Judeo-Christian morality that happens to be true (while dumping all the Judeo-Christian morality that happens to be false). If there are truths to be known about morality, then they aren't Muslim truths or Buddhists truths or Russian truths or Western truths anymore than there can be Hindu versus Jain algebra or Christian versus Mormon medicine. If it actually turns out to be rationally justifiable to say that murder is wrong (which of course it is), then it makes no difference to the question of what is true about morality that the Ten Commandments seem to agree. What matters is rational justification. "Thou shalt not kill," if actually justifiably true, is not a Christian truth. It is simply the truth. If it actually is wrong (which of course it is) that rape is immoral, then it makes no difference to the question the fact that rape has been a staple of religious ritual throughout the world and that the prohibition against it does not appear in the Judeo-Christian Top Ten and that it was commanded by God on multiple occasions to be done to the enemies of Israel. If it actually is rationally justifiable that it is wrong (as all the research indicates) to beat our children with sticks, then it makes no difference that that the Bible tells us that we ought to beat our children with sticks. Best, Steve Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org/md/archives.html
