Superiority of Secular Morality over Religious Systems

[Damian]

I recall my Russian teachers telling us how the Soviets attempted to destroy the Orthodox Church and incorporated and enforced their version of secular morality.

You seem to miss this key point about the difference of secular and non-secular government systems: Secular Systems are definitionaly internal for development of their goal and participation by all. Any system that has an outside reference point for its judgement of good and bad and/or does not allow everyone to participate is not secular. So you can replace a church, whose reference point is an outside deity or church leadership, with a dictatorship or oligarchy where the leadership group is untouchable from the governed, or a people who deify anchient texts on how to live the good life. These systems are all nonsecular. The last example does not allow for updating the system to current knowledge of society. So they just keep painting the bulls eye around the arrow.

 

[Damian]

Love is earned through mutual trust and respect reciprocated by both parties. I can also live the idea of superman, but I can not love a fictional character or one that appears that presents itself that way to me. Just like how someone can claim to have an amazing girlfriend in the next town over. The idea of them exising is great, but could you ever love that person’s girlfriend if you never meet them? I love the idea of Meg Ryan’s character in You’ve got Mail. But I don’t actually love that person like my wife.

 

[Damian]

There is a more sublime experience of joy and happiness that can run counter to emotional and physical well being. That isn’t accounted for in secular morality. It doesn’t address the true nature of our humanity.

Can you clarrify this assertion. It seems like what I am talking about is all of the known experience of being human and you are adding in additional descriptions on top of that. You saying, my everything does not include your addition. Can you explain your addition?

 

[Damian]

Not that it can’t but it won’t if it throws out the morality that already knows what you seek.

Everyone is invited to discuss the strategies to the goal if Human Well-Being, so if religious have a good idea for it, great. But we will throw out the traditional bad ideas. Religious do this when secular systems have already ran the experiment of throwing out religious baggage, and when their institutions are becoming obsolete, they change their doctrine, update to the secular society and then go back to being infallible all over again.

 

[meltzerboy2]

There are certain doctrines they do NOT change, and those that they do must remain consistent with the moral principles of the religion. Isn’t that one of your complaints about religion, that is, their LACK of change to meet the human needs of modern society? If not, which is your complaint: that religions do change and claim infallibility again, or that they don’t change enough and cling to tradition?

 

[Damian]

Both, they do not change until threatened with irrelevancy and then when they do, they change to the cultural standard that secular systems have already worked out, and then go back claiming to be infallible all over again and try to take credit for that work later on as well.

 

[po18guy]

Then become Buddhist. Reality will then be only an illusion.

I also note that pagan “morality” is not postulated as being under develpment for future implementation. Neither is it placed as a parallel, or equal.

No! It is “Superior”

That speaks volumes, Every murderous dictator in world history thought as much.

 

[po18guy]

“Both parties”

Where does it say that? I love my brothers and sisters starving in Africa, so i help them however I can. They have no idea that I exist. So, that is not love?

I think that you are speaking of worldly and laterally-oriented themes, not vertical ones.

 

[Damian]

You’re suggesting that we can determine the difference between reality and an experience non reality when we can not actually detect a difference other than asserting there is one? Thats like saying a temperature gauge that can only be accurate to 1 degree can determine the difference between two temperatures at that vary by 0.1 degree or more. Sorry but it just can’t.

 

[Damian]

Okay, thats true for you. Most people love their immediate family more than distant relations than neighbors than strangers. You know this, everyone knows this and does this. That is why we cry over our lived one’s instead of strangers. We couldn’t function if we expended the same emotional energy on strangers than we would on our spouse. We all can look out for each other, but not to the same degree as our families.

 

[steve-b]

I agree there are some people like that. I find zealots to be far and few between the majority of people though.

I’m not talking about zealots. I’m talking about people who insist on making wrong decisions

 

[Genesis315]

Woa, that escalated quickly…Anyway, I also agree that the definition of religion you have devised here is no good.

Any thing that is not God–that is, any thing with potential and where essence and existence are not identical–will by its very nature be potentially subject to decay or corruption. That is easily observable. It is also easily observable that man now has great difficulty acting rationally. The two are of course related.

The Incarnation essentially solves this issue by uniting the incorruptible divine nature with the contingent created nature giving the corruptible the potential of becoming incorruptible. Through living according to our nature (morality) and God’s (through the sacramental life especially), we may achieve this potential.

I wouldn’t say we are commanded to be well any more than a doctor commands his patient to be well. The doctor gives the patient the means and instructions to get well and conveys the consequences of not doing so (“Doctor’s orders!”). This does not make the patient a slave of the doctor.

 

[Escabrosa]

Morality is objective once you have picked your reference point or goal to strive to. Every reference point is subjective but not without reason and debate and evidence based conclusions. So not every reference point is to be entertained.

I find it a little silly to call human well-being, thriving, fulfillment, and so on subjective reference points, but fine. It’s like calling the will to live subjective. I believe we’re hardwired for certain behaviors, needs, desires, etc. and there are objective ways to apply them in order to achieve a desired outcome, which is what you call human well-being. I think we’re sort of on the same sheet of music with this. Almost.

What i’m gathering from many of your posts is that your view of religion, especially Christianity, is somewhat superficial. You imply that we view God as an anthropomorphic being who indiscriminately dictates rules that are good because He says so. Some may think that, but that’s not what the Catholic Church teaches.

I watched the beginning of the video and I believe the speaker has a protestant evangelical background so that’s not so surprising.

 

[Escabrosa]

There are different types of love. The Pope has even said that God is Love, but not in an emotional sense.

Most often, the term “love thy neighbor” is seen as “willing the good of another for their sake”. It’s the will to sacrifice in order to help others without expectation of reciprocity. Basically altruism. It’s not emotional in the same way we love a relative.

I believe Buddhism has something similar called metta.

 

[poche]

Morality has its point of origin from God.

 

[misstherese]

We already have the whole subjective secular morality thing going on…and it’s not going too well. Babies being murdered in the womb, those who differ in view on homosexuality harassed and treated as bigots, people constantly wrongly accused of racism and harassed for that, people constantly accused of being sexist, etc.

This is how communism works. Many people my age are actually in favor of communism now. They really have no idea how it always leads to bad ends; it’s not a cohesive governing system at all. It stands on only rebellion. The people rebel, but don’t reform. They believe they have always been oppressed by authority. But that’s when they start oppressing that so called authority and the tables flip. It’s what happened during the holocaust. Hitler thought the Germans were at a weak point and were being oppressed by the Jews. Look what happened.

Unfortunately people will never understand this. This sort of thing isn’t confined to just this past century. It goes back even further than this. As they say, “history repeats itself”.

 

[goout]

These propositions for subjective moral standards are silly and naive.

On the face of it:
the OP doesn’t understand what he is debating, and at the same time proposes that subjectivism is a good basis for moral decision making? I;m sorry, that is simply another attempt at tyranny. That is -not- the way the world works.
Why would anyone adopt a philosophy that is ignorant of it’s subject matter?
?

And the attempt to marginalize and separate “religious” proposals from nonreligious is naive and disingenuous…as if the proposal for secular morality does not have a religious proposition to make. Really? Then why are you here making the proposition?
As I write this I see Matt Dillahunty pointing to his “belief board”. Maybe his God is his power point proposal.

Everyone worships something or someone. You might worship your ethics, or yourself (subjectivism). Or you might adhere to Christ and Christianity.
In any case, you give your “I Do” to something, or you would be on the couch with a remote and a beer instead of debating on a Catholic forum.

 

[Damian]

thing with potential and where essence and existence are not identical–will by its very nature be potentially subject to decay or corruption.

No human ever has this then. We have the potential to do better as far as we can understand to do better and the resources to do better. Starving families are doing just great when they steal food since that is the best they can do in that situation. Are we going to hold them above a standard that is not to the situation and their abilities to address it? That, by definition, is to set them up for failure every time, they will sin every time. The bar for “sin” is absurd.
But to the point of the difference between secular systems and non-secular systems, this is a good example of why secular systems are better. The bar for what is good and bad is internal to the system. The people who participate in the discussion of what is the goal of humanity and how to reach it are able to set realistic bars for good and bad. Also good enough, is just fine, in all it’s forms. There is no single absolute good strategy for attaining the goal of humanity. We can imagine the ideal version of ourselves to hold ourselves accountable to, but we know when we reach good enough and can be content with that.
The non-secular systems have an external imposed bar for the good and bad. In the religious systems, this bar is absurd to reach because it is asking for perfection. This means we will always fail, always need to be apologizing all the time for never reaching perfection, and to be begging the external dear leader for mercy, to withhold justice and let us into the reward of the here-after. This external entity has, again to the point, created us sick and is demanding we not be sick. Demanding perfection because of it’s absurd level of what it calls “sin”. Just being human will cause us to sin.
Your example of “Doctor’s Orders” is implying that the sickness is just being an ignorant human being with limited resources and time to solve our problems. We are the sickness. Just being human is the sickness.

 

[Damian]

I think we’re sort of on the same sheet of music with this. Almost.

I agree with everything you presented there. That it is absurd to call the standard of “human well-being” a subjective point of reference for what is “good” and “bad” since those fundamental rules of the game of “human well-being” is all the innate attributes of just being human. Preferring life over death, peace over chaos, socialization over isolation, etc.

who indiscriminately dictates rules that are good because He says so.

Not indiscriminately, but definitely not discussed and explained. They are dictations, not reasoned conclusions of mutual understanding. We can all improve on the 10 commandments in under three seconds. And we can all name off in our heads all the things that people can point to in religious texts that are barbaric to do, but biblical justified.
That is an example of why Secular Moral systems are superior to NonSecular Moral systems. The Secular Moral systems have an internal agreed upon goal of what to measure the good and the bad against. NonSecular Moral systems have an external imposed reference point that may or may not have it in the best interests of humanity for the good and the bad. No one can go grab your deity and force it to the table to explain itself.

 

[Damian]

I agree there are different levels of “love”. But to equate loving your spouse with the same emotional connection as you would a stranger is absurd. That is all I was pointing out.