I read posts here that call different things, "harmful to humanity." Others call something, "good" or "bad" or "evil."
A very simple question, who gets to decide the definition of "harmful to humanity" and what is there critieria? The same for "good," "bad," and "evil?" These are not material terms. If everything is material isn't there just "is" and not these moral declarations if one is being thoroughly atheist?
Help me understand your position so I am fair and honest about the views. Thanks.
One of the hardest things for a convert to atheism to give up is the notion that ethics, morality, right and wrong, are writ in the sky by God. Of course, they can't say they come from God but they cling to the notion that there is something objective and necessary about ethics and ethical judgments.
Actually, I heard he hired a skywriter in a bi-plane, but that's just an unconfirmed rumor --
I am not avoiding the"difficult" question,what makes ethics/morality different than economics?indeed morality governs economic policy,the same when we declare that morality governs our personnel life or our social life,so moral and ethics wherever they came from,are shaping in a way our judgement for the good or the bad, while we are buying or marring or playing or treating animals or.......moral and ethics give us the idea to judge our behavior,and a self satisfaction increases when self/ones moral are respected and followed.
"but then later regretted what they paid because they know they paid too much." in this case regret is because of choice failure,i mean he did the wrong choice but in moral we don't have choice either we are truthful or not.
are you sure that ethics and morality are social construct?i think in any community,modern or primitive,poor or rich,educated or ignorant....killing ppl or stealing or telling lies are unethical and immoral.
to say that moral pure non social i think is not pure right,we are living in a society with others we like it or not this can affect personnel and way of judgement,it can enforce what is good and bad but the concept itself is not social. (good and bad) is human more than social or evolution result.
i think in any community,modern or primitive,poor or rich,educated or ignorant....killing ppl or stealing or telling lies are unethical and immoral.
You're falling into a common trap, which is that of assuming because there are social rules that apply to treating some people that anyone who doesn't follow those rules are aberrant, deviant, or "bad" people. By doing so, you basically don't count them into your generalization.
What do you have to say about the people who, despite the generally prevailing ethical standards presume to do the opposite? The crooks, the gangsters, the abusers, the terrorists.
By not counting them or by ignoring them or by discounting them you rig the game on behalf of your thesis.
@Unseen,moral and ethics are pure self obligation not social,yes society give such judgement concerning ppl or what they do,but this social impact can be neglected but what is important is what is going on inside and deep down for those "crooks,gangsters........."we don't talk about laws we talk about ethics and morality,so if they can live in peace with this immorality when they face themselves,so maybe they are abnormal or victims of unjust if they are not aware of it.but there are others can not live with it,so if they steal something they stole part of themselves first or if they kill someone they killed part of them before and they can not live with it.
there is another group like robin hood,for example this is Controversial.
Morality/ethics do not govern supply/demand, and are completely absent in a truly free market. We impose moral/ethical guidelines into economic policy, just as we impose economic/financial limits into moral/ethical polics(law). The two, however, are distinctly different social constructs.
If killing people is universally immoral - then why did Mohammed order so many people killed? Why do most countries have legal position on 'justified homicide', and why do they train soldiers to kill? We get just as grey when it comes to matters of property and lying.
We can observe the ethics of a social group just as we can observe their economics. There are simply two of many categories of phenomenon that we find in all sorts of social structures. So again I ask - what makes ethics/morality so distinct from economics that theists do not propose objective economics as they seem to keep pushing this (wrong) idea of objective morality?
Heather, with all due respect - I understand everything you're saying, but for "the lonely," English, at best, is a second language - do you really believe he can understand your post?
Actually I'm not entirely concerned with whether or not he can understand it - even if he could it wouldn't change his mind anyway. I'm really only leaving my comment for posterity, :D
Hopefully someone else will pick up on the economics/ethics social construct counter-apologetic.
@Heather - in that vein, allow me to extend the gratitude of my yet-unborn great grandchildren - there has been some talk of stone carving, but I can't promise anything --
PS - Suzanne Olsen-Hyde speaks very highly of you.
Lonely - Mankind evolved what we call a social conscience because that helped our species survive all of the difficulties it had to face in the grasslands of Africa, millions of years ago. No god, or supernatural being had anything to do with it.
There was a time, when Humans almost went extinct - there were only a few thousand of us left - some near the sea, in the area of Cape Horn in Africa, and others near the coast just west of Madagascar, but we survived and multiplied and here we are, but no supernatural being had anything to do with it.
if this is Mankind all Mankind made,and History can provide us by answers,that"there was a time" is a key to all locks,and this history is like stage/scene of evolution of what we talk about it now "morality"!so why it have stopped now,as if Mankind reaches their perfect state or integrality, i think in this subject history can not give us answers it may help us to avoid wrong assumptions .and why we need it if everything is still here and we can test it, and seriously the thesis that moral and ethic is just a result of evolution,and we passed from extinct to a controlled extinct,can not be very true because we are still behaving under a complicated mixture of extinct and moral and taste and economics,maybe politics and many other factors, thus we refer to morality to feel free from all this reality,the idea of evolution till now could not answer us about Language and morality,the ability of knowing this is good or bad looks like is steady and constant and it's not related to the intelligence. let's forgot (god) and try to think in other way.