Philosophies: Liberalism vs. Conservatism

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Who sets up what we should consider rights in the first place? This just sounds like a dangerous claim for that reason alone.

Actually, it probably is religion itself on some level. Religion is a very different philosophy with a different morality from non-religious moralities or moralities of other religions. This makes democratic coexistence difficult as if we all vote with our consciences then some will not be able to stomach the ideas of the other. I am not saying that the selfish interests involved aren't hurting, but I do think that Christianity does live in tension with liberalism.

I did actually want to know why you thought that the parable only refers to entry into heaven and not the rewards for good works. I have never thought of the parable that way and wondered why you interpreted it differently. It seems that there are others who also interpret it the way you do. I guess it is hard for me to imagine what could possibly be more rewarding than just being in the presence of God?

Also, I don't think that the debates we've had in the past were a complete waste of time just because neither of us changed our minds. I think that debate helps us clarify our positions which is helpful for me in understanding our differences as well as our similarities.

What do you think you're doing by saying what you're saying? To me, it sounds like slandering something you don't agree with.

I just don’t agree that religion is a main source of ethics, at least in the western world. What I see is that all religions (at least the major ones) share a common set of ethics which are independent of culture and origin. This seems to indicate that these ethics come from common needs of society and not religion itself. I agree that religion is a motivator for ethical behavior for many people and I am happy for that. I don’t agree that it is necessary though.

"A man's ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties and needs; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death." - Albert Einstein

The above quote is basically my view. I can't think of a better way to say it than that.



I never said that. What I mean by “evil” are things that we can all agree on (murder, torture, etc).



I would think that non-religious morals require more self-examination because they are not based on authority. When I read the Bible I see that the moral messages are “be good because God says so” and “don’t question”. Everything is about submitting to a higher authority and not examining anything for yourself. In the story of Job, it is considered wrong for Job to question God when he feels he has been wronged. Clearly it is considered wrong to think about ethics logically. I see a danger in this. I don’t think it’s very fruitful to try to implement any kind of moral absolutism as it often leads to irresolvable conflict. However I see absolutism based on blind authority to be the most dangerous as it gives no motivation for examination or modification of views.


Maybe I went off topic a little here, but I just wanted to clear up my view so we don’t have future misunderstandings. I think I did misunderstand some of your points. If you are arguing that there are is no absolute morality that can be proven then I agree. I never claimed to have such a view of morality.

The only problem I have with this is that your distinction is useless and meaningless to me. Whether or not these morals are embedded into the human psyche means nothing without analyzing their manifestation. Deeper reasons than that are useless to our discussion of human action. Ultimately, you are not really addressing my point as I did not say that people without religion have no morality or vice versa, I said that many derive their morality from their religion.

Your view is actually rather shallow on this matter. You posit morality but it is still without meaning to it. Why? Why do we have your morals? Why are the correct ones? You are not addressing my point at all. I could be defending ethical egoism for all that my argument cares about, the logic still remains valid as it is not an argument for religion so much as an argument against many of the ideas that assert themselves above religion or other moral viewpoints without telling us much why.

I don't think we can all agree on them though. Why not killing and torture? We could bring back the gladiatorial arena and have great fun with that! Past peoples have had killing and torture for entertainment so I can't understand your position that our cultural position really matters.


But anything we implement IS moral absolutism. You can't escape black and white morality because once you've acted you have made a statement of right and wrong and of proper valuation. There is no valuation without premises so you already appeal to an authority, with that authority being your premise and given that these premises are not things we can really examine because they are above reality, we cannot examine anything for ourselves. Wrong to think about ethics logically? Not at all from any perspective: what is theology? Really, I think that what you display right there is symbolic of the lesser self-examination of non-religious morals. It may be true that most of the people I know who are Christian are far more philosophical than the average person, but the problem of moral valuation is something that they do have to tackle from a thinking standpoint.


I am arguing that there is no absolute morality that can be proven. However, I am pushing a direction of moral skepticism with that rather than moral relativism. The reason for that is because I see moral relativism as sophistry, it does not seem to logically hold water from my perspective but rather be a word game of muddled ideas.

And an aspie (supposedly) said that

That's practically my view as well, we may not be geniuses but maybe we are as smart as Einstein

Einstein really isn't as good of an intellectual as so many take him as in my opinion. Then again, he is a socialist and I consider socialism an intellectual fallacy for most people(not saying that there aren't some smart ones but rather that most don't know much of what they speak of).

"Before God we are all equally wise - and equally foolish." --Albert Einstein

Well, we all are equally foolish, that's for sure

Not exactly. In comparison to infinite wisdom we're all at the bottom of the graph.

About Einstein quotes, it seems that people want to make him either a believer, agnostic or atheist, depending on which you belong to, it seems to be a case of finding appealing to have Einstein on your side. That's a personal view, which I am curious about, and I admit that I used to believe he was agnostic. Now, I am uncertain about it.

He was once a believer but couldn't comprehend how God could allow suffering so he became an atheist.

You implied that those without religion have no basis for their morality. I’ve seen many theists make this claim and then proceed to claim that their religion is the only valid basis for morality. Nothing logically wrong with this, but it should be accepted that the argument is a tautology. It already assumes, on faith, that religious morality is better than secular morality. It could equally be argued that it’s the other way around. In the end it’s another “I’m right, you're wrong because I say so” argument. It doesn’t logically discredit the secular position on morality.

Before I was merely arguing that, at least in practical terms, the vast majority of people don’t derive their morality from their religion. They may look to religion as a philosophical foundation, but I don’t think that’s the same as deriving morality. Most people already have an idea of “right and wrong” before looking to religion.



Probably because allowing killing and torture would lead to the collapse of society as we know it. I know this doesn’t answer what you’re really after but I’ll get to it.



What do you mean by “implement”. I don’t think laws should be based on moral values. Laws are part of a social contract to protect people and hold society together. They are mutually beneficial to all members of society (at least in theory). I don’t think laws should be used to implement moral values.



You say that any premise is necessarily based on an appeal authority. This doesn’t make sense to me. A premise can come from personal conviction that isn’t the same as authority.



How does relativism not hold water? I agree that it isn’t a very comforting philosophy, but I don’t see anything logically inconsistent about it. My personal view is that morality doesn’t exist as some universal construct. The world is mostly amoral. I don’t like this fact but I have to deal with it because to me religion makes even less sense.

When I look at history I see large groups of humans acting like packs of animals. You will say that your religion tells you that human morality is different from the behavior of animals. Yet when I try to look at things objectively that idea becomes very difficult for me to entertain. In the past humans have acted under a moral code when it comes to people from the same family, tribe, nation, etc.; those that look the same, have the same skin color, have the same beliefs, etc.; yet it was generally okay to enslave, kill, and steal from those outside the group identity.

Last edited by marshall on 23 Nov 2007, 11:47 pm, edited 2 times in total.

It's simple, do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

Well, I didn't claim that some religions were valid or invalid. Actually, I think that you ignore the strength of this argument because secular morality fails to make sense because morality is not a secular thing, in fact, there is no logical reason why a true morality must be seen as existing from a reductionist point of view. It just falls down to preference, morality in its nature requires a religious element, a faith in that which cannot be seen or proven and a deity of some form is a being that could theoretically provide morality because such beings cannot necessarily be logically defined as morality is not logical.

That does not prove anything about morality, that still focuses on preferences. I don't care what people think at all. People have many thoughts and there is nothing saying whether these thoughts are right or wrong, correct or incorrect. Whether they have right and wrong before religion has nothing to do with a philosophical derivation. Most people are idiots who take all things for granted, they take television for granted without knowing a darn thing about electricity or electromagnetic waves.

Nope, it doesn't.


But that is still based upon moral valuation. Your own theory of equality of interests goes back to a moral theory like egalitarianism, utilitarianism, Rawlsianism, or some such along those lines. There is nothing proving that these bases are correct or what people should aim for at all and this notion that they are neutral is false given that they are independent philosophies.


Personal conviction may well be the same as authority. It comes from the authority of your personal conviction then. It still does not have a logical derivation but comes from nothing in essence.


Moral nihilism and skepticism both hold water. Relativism doesn't. My point is not to the level of comfort derived as nihilism and skepticism are both even MORE uncomfortable than relativism, but rather that as you state "The world is mostly amoral" which means that moral truth does not exist and it reflects the idea of moral nihilism, which I can respect.

Yes, but this goes back to definitions. People don't have morality from my view; it is by nature a universal construct that exists or doesn't. People have behavior though, and behavior does not have any connection or anything to do with morality, other than one happens to be the "is" and the other happens to be the "ought". We can only examine behavior as morality is this concept that cannot be observed and that ultimately can only be derived from some faith in something outside of pure materialism.