Hello:

I'm sometimes rather slow. Even though there's this thing called religion out there, I STILL thought you religious folk's were similar to me........ But, I come to find out that we're not really in the same ballpark - and maybe not on the same planet. That surprises me at my ripe old age.

My question is thus: I think we inherently understand right from wrong WITHOUT religion. I always thought religious people thought the same way... But, noooooo.

You people think that we'd still be robbing and raping and killing each other if religion didn't teach you that doin that stuff is wrong.

Is that really true? You'd be doing bad stuff IF you didn't have your church to tell you otherwise???? Really???

excon

Fr_Chuck

But why do you understand right from wrong ?

1. teachings of your parents
2. teachings at school
3. rules at work
4 and your favorite, laws of our government

So if you were raised in a culture where it was ok, to kill the other polictical party, then there is no wrong to you to do that.

If you were raised in a culture where you could kill and eat the neighboring tribe people, then that is not wrong to you.

America as we know it, ( regardless of the cries that it is not ) was formed basicly by religious people and often it was society moving into an area that was "wild" that brought more organised religion and with it, the morals.

Why don't you throw down the next pretty girl you meet and have sex with her ( beyond our ages excon) who is telling you it is wrong. there is a moral code that tells us we can not act on our animal instints.

I mean I would love to go about two houses down from me and blow those people away, they have a crack house going. No real lost to society if they were wiped off the face of the earth to me. And I belive I could most likely do it and get away with it. So it is not really the laws and criminal issues, it is the moral issue that says I can not just kill someone.

the fact is, regardless if you belive in religion or not, you have been indoctrined into a religious moral code by just living in most of society in the US.

Now tha society is getting less and less moral as time goes by, And as it does, we will see those that have less built in values that tell them right and wrong.

life1973happened

Well said...

excon

Hello Padre:

That's today. I certainly get that my upbringing stems from religion. But, civilization and our concept of God is only about 5,000 years old. We, as modern humans, are 150,000 years old.

My question is about the people who were hanging around just before they found out about God, let's say 10,000 years ago. Did those people know right from wrong?

Or do you think we just got started around 5,000 years ago? That would certainly offer a convenient answer.

excon

Galveston1

So-----, if you believe that man has a 150,000 year history, how can you know what morals (or lack thereof) they may have had back then? We have modern history of tribes practicing cannibalism and other things not considered moral by most people. The point is that humans do not have any "instinct" for right and wrong. Conscience is a child of training. Not too long ago, slavery was considered as perfectly acceptable. It took some teaching to change that, and most of the impetus in the Western world came from Christian religion, as opposed to, say, Druidism.

inthebox

My argument against God was that the universe seemed so cruel and unjust. But how had I got this idea of just and unjust? A man does not call a line crooked unless he has some idea of a straight line. What was I comparing this universe with when I called it unjust?

from CS Lewis "Mere Christianity" former atheist , Christian Apologist.

Ex Con , he agrees with you about an inherent "moral law."

michealb

I know this is addressed to the religious but I'm going to counter point because well just because.

The church gets it's moral laws from society, not the other way around. Hence why the laws of the church have changed over time, if the laws were dictated by god, they would never change and the church would still find it perfectly acceptable to have slaves and such. Even laws such as thou shalt not kill, the church finds it acceptable when society feels it is acceptable such as a soldier killing an enemy or a man protecting his family from an attacker.

All creatures have acceptable ways that they are expected to act around each other. Evolution gives us that. If any creature that required sexual reproduction killed every member of it's species that it came in contact with it would die off and not reproduce and the genes that cause it to do that would die off as well. Humans just make thinks more complicated cause we have big brains and time to spend thinking about these things.

Dark_crow

Excon
Secularism and religion are not mutually exclusive of each other; the interplay of religion and politics has been and remains a constant. There is no way to separate secular and religious values.

excon

Hello again, DC:

Even though the people I'm talking about had NO religious values - because they were around before religion???

Okee doakee.

excon

oneguyinohio

More of a fear of the consequences for one's actions that govern behavior. Since church, morals, and laws of society are intertwined many people may believe the Church to be responsible while others place the credit elsewhere.

So, in the absence of those constructs our society would be vastly different. It takes a consensus determinantion of acceptability and society finds it convenient to place the policing of that consensus under a central authority...

Though it can have positive outcomes there also can be many negative outcomes considering such events as the Salem Witch Trials and/or The Holocaust