Comment by rjtavares
5 years ago
Have you considered that it is not important, that it is obvious?
As a person that wasn't raised religious, the concept that you need religion to find a moral and ethical compass seems weird to me. My parents taught me values, I learned them, society reinforced them. They made sense to me, and I feel bad when I don't follow them. The mechanics of it are pretty simple.
Your line of reasoning is similar to "where does food come from? The grocery store, obviously!"
The underlying question is not how YOU got your moral compass but where do the people who taught you yours - and eventually society as a whole - get theirs.
If it's a set of principles that civil society generally agrees upon, then the rest are implementation details that will vary from situation to situation.
If it's a set of whims of the people in power and will vary regularly and constantly, then "damnation" comes from breaking today's rules.. maybe without even knowing what they are.
Your line of reasoning is similar to "Food comes from animals and plants. But where does animals and plants' food comes from?". Do you want to go all the way up to the Big Bang?
You learn your ethics from a combination of your parents and society, and you update your beliefs during your life, you share them to a younger generation. Repeat since humans acquired a conscience until humans cease to exist. That's all there is to it.
No, that isn’t all there is to it. You are simply ignorant of the foundations of your beliefs.
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I think having a moral compass is important, because a lot of people will optimize for themselves in the short term, and screw up society in the long term. But I don't think this is obvious at all to people unless they're taught, or if they are really good at learning from their own mistakes.
I think others have pointed this out to you, but there is a high dependence on people learning this through good parenting, good teachers, and being around the right people, all while having security for things like food, shelter, etc.
Some of those things get wrapped up in the over-arching term called "privilege" but I think there is something to be said for the fact that you can't assume most people are securing these things. But you can assume that in the absence of this kind of security, many people (maybe even most) will lose their moral compass.
Your comment squares with that guy on the $5 bill and the penny.
“When I do good, I feel good. When I do bad, I feel bad. That's my religion.”
― Abraham Lincoln
This seems to be a very privileged position to have. That if you were taught strong ethics by parents and the right social network, then everyone can obviously/simply have the same?