Comment by tomp
5 years ago
> In the absence of religion, where do people find their moral and ethical compass?
You do all the same things, except: (1) you can make your own choices depending on your own reasoning (e.g. you can independently decide whether circumcision/being gay is good or bad, independent of what any religion says), and (2) you’re doing things to be good, not to please god.
In fact, I consider people who are “moral” just because god says so / you fear the consequences / you want to go to heaven to actually be immoral. It’s akin to only helping in an accident if the person is rich - you’re not doing it because it’s the right thing to do, you’re just doing it to get something in return.
Edit: you can also pick any number of philosophical frameworks of morality. Personally I oscillate between golden and silver rules.
1. This view also takes the idea that morality can be reached by reason on faith I am not saying I fully disagree, but even the concept of morality at its core is not rational.
2. It is possible to be religious and do good for the sake of good. Most religious people I know do. I would hope that even if I knew I was going to hell, I would still live the rest of my life on accordance with God's will as it is the right thing to do.
Well, if you’re both religious and do good for the sake of good, then you can still be good without being religious. So that solves (1).
Morality is “rational” as a solution to a game theoretic problem. You can also derive it via evolution (which is also a game theory solution).
Yeah, this is the fundamental disagreement. When discussing morality, I'm not talking about what you are. It is a law that overrides all of us, with true right and true wrong. Without a monotheistic God, these don't exist and morality doesn't either.
The morality your discussing is completely different.