Thanks mytwocents for you contribution. Please don’t feel sad for someone who attempts to use reason and evidence to make sense of this complex world and to live a good life. I am not a relativist; I am someone who believes humans are born to be cooperative (good), but must be encouraged, and born to be self-interested, but must be persuaded not to be selfish. If you have children, you will know this. Moral relativism is the idea that morality consists of nothing more than the varying sets of rules across the globe and that there is no criteria for judging them. It is not true. Some cultures are better than others at accomplishing moral purposes such as ameliorating suffering and resolving conflicts. Those that promote freedom of thought, moral reasoning and social justice are the better ones. Those that promote strict adherence to a religious tradition have stilted moralities, fewer individual rights and less freedom.
By the way, the social wreckage you speak of does not exist in Sweden or Denmark, countries that are not Christian anymore, nor in Japan, which never was Christian. Again, if we want to strengthen families, we should promote social and fiscal policies that allow women to stay home with children, as they do in many European countries, or allow a single family member to earn a larger income.
Hi Maryann. Morality is not just a set of rules (otherwise relativism is true) but also our ability to reason about how best to live our lives. That ability can be taught, promoted, and enhanced, but it can also be neglected, rejected or masked by appeals to ancient religious tradtions. That was my original problem with the article. I am an atheist and believe that being good is quite natural, indeed, I think that is how we are wired in general (by evolution) and I am wired in particular (my character). I teach my children to reason, to want to be good, and to encourage their friends to be good. We shall all live better if we are the way we want our neighbors to be, and we should all aspire to be the kind of people our neighbors will want to live next to. You said that "the atheist's ability to recognize that humanity (the dignity of our own species) comes from a loving God." Funny, I am just the opposite. I believe that our common humanity comes from our common evolutionary heritage and led us in the past to create Gods as authors of what we couldn't explain in naturalistic terms.
Good point Maryann - there were many Christians that fought against the injustice of slavery and segregation. But read MLK's Letter From a Birmingham Jail, where he has to use every rhetorical and logical tool he can find to convince Christian ministers of the rightness and methods of his cause. My point is that slavery is wrong not because of the Christian view of humans, but because it is wrong for many other reasons that do not require one to be Christian to assent to.
Mr. Smith says that “The Christian religion built us a great country and gave us stability until things started falling apart in the sixties.” He blames moral relativism for “the social wreckage that is piling up.” Let me disagree by making two points: Firstly, before the sixties we had segregation and Jim Crow and before that slavery. We did not eradicate those evils by listening to Christian arguments. Indeed, many Christians held onto slavery as long as they could. Secondly, the social wreckage he speaks of is due in great part to the increasing poverty of the lower classes, a result of failed economic policies predicated on wealth trickling down from the rich to the poor. If Mr. Smith wants to keep families together, let’s seek agreement on what policies will work towards that end. That’s a practical discussion about goods, goals, methods, and outcomes, and it is a discussion that everyone should join - Christian, Jew, Muslim, and atheist. Arguing for a return to Christianity (whose version?) mirrors the same arguments made all over the world by other religious people to return to their sectarian views. Isn’t that the very essence of moral relativism?
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Thanks mytwocents for you contribution. Please don’t feel sad for someone who attempts to use reason and evidence to make sense of this complex world and to live a good life. I am not a relativist; I am someone who believes humans are born to be cooperative (good), but must be encouraged, and born to be self-interested, but must be persuaded not to be selfish. If you have children, you will know this. Moral relativism is the idea that morality consists of nothing more than the varying sets of rules across the globe and that there is no criteria for judging them. It is not true. Some cultures are better than others at accomplishing moral purposes such as ameliorating suffering and resolving conflicts. Those that promote freedom of thought, moral reasoning and social justice are the better ones. Those that promote strict adherence to a religious tradition have stilted moralities, fewer individual rights and less freedom.
By the way, the social wreckage you speak of does not exist in Sweden or Denmark, countries that are not Christian anymore, nor in Japan, which never was Christian. Again, if we want to strengthen families, we should promote social and fiscal policies that allow women to stay home with children, as they do in many European countries, or allow a single family member to earn a larger income.
Hi Maryann. Morality is not just a set of rules (otherwise relativism is true) but also our ability to reason about how best to live our lives. That ability can be taught, promoted, and enhanced, but it can also be neglected, rejected or masked by appeals to ancient religious tradtions. That was my original problem with the article. I am an atheist and believe that being good is quite natural, indeed, I think that is how we are wired in general (by evolution) and I am wired in particular (my character). I teach my children to reason, to want to be good, and to encourage their friends to be good. We shall all live better if we are the way we want our neighbors to be, and we should all aspire to be the kind of people our neighbors will want to live next to. You said that "the atheist's ability to recognize that humanity (the dignity of our own species) comes from a loving God." Funny, I am just the opposite. I believe that our common humanity comes from our common evolutionary heritage and led us in the past to create Gods as authors of what we couldn't explain in naturalistic terms.
Good point Maryann - there were many Christians that fought against the injustice of slavery and segregation. But read MLK's Letter From a Birmingham Jail, where he has to use every rhetorical and logical tool he can find to convince Christian ministers of the rightness and methods of his cause. My point is that slavery is wrong not because of the Christian view of humans, but because it is wrong for many other reasons that do not require one to be Christian to assent to.
Mr. Smith says that “The Christian religion built us a great country and gave us stability until things started falling apart in the sixties.” He blames moral relativism for “the social wreckage that is piling up.” Let me disagree by making two points: Firstly, before the sixties we had segregation and Jim Crow and before that slavery. We did not eradicate those evils by listening to Christian arguments. Indeed, many Christians held onto slavery as long as they could. Secondly, the social wreckage he speaks of is due in great part to the increasing poverty of the lower classes, a result of failed economic policies predicated on wealth trickling down from the rich to the poor. If Mr. Smith wants to keep families together, let’s seek agreement on what policies will work towards that end. That’s a practical discussion about goods, goals, methods, and outcomes, and it is a discussion that everyone should join - Christian, Jew, Muslim, and atheist. Arguing for a return to Christianity (whose version?) mirrors the same arguments made all over the world by other religious people to return to their sectarian views. Isn’t that the very essence of moral relativism?