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Is religion necessary for morality? — 81 Comments

1. In thinking about this topic,

   I’d like to begin by saying:

   [in this comment, I’m not trying to persuade anyone to be: [a believer in gods or other deities], religious, atheistic, agnostic, or to have any other position that isn’t one of those four].

   As a rule, I usually don’t like to comment [in discussions of: having a religion, or of not having one].

   To me, what you do in your spare time, + your activities in your personal life, are not things I like to discuss.

   In other words, unless I think you’re bugging or harming someone else- “you do you”.

   However- , and I’m not trying to sound grandiose right now-one of the things that I like about the USA, and it’s culture, is that they/we allow people to have: religions, philosophies, views, that are different from ours, and we are ok + accepting of that fact.

   To me- one of the great rights + …[I’ll also say gifts], of this society and country, is- that you can have: a religion, or no religion, or not choose a position on religion, + [the right to freedom of speech], anywhere you go in this country.

   That’s one of the things I like about this nation.

   Once again-

   [in this comment, I’m not trying to persuade anyone to be: [a believer in gods or other deities], religious, atheistic, agnostic, or to have any other position that isn’t one of those four].

2. The odious Sartre paraphrased the great Dostoyevsky (from Karamazov) by asking the famous question (“If God does not exist, is everything permitted?”). It is often argued convincingly (albeit disputed by dogmatic atheists) that, in the absence of some transcendental source of morality, any codes of ethical behavior become purely arbitrary (a matter of individual preference or of purely cultural/social convention, ergo arbitrary), as in the expression “cannibalism for cannibals, liberalism for liberals”. No society which denies individual free will, objective truth, and universal morality (whether or not all three can be “proven true” or not) will long endure. Furthermore, any rights not derived from a “Creator” (deist or theist) come purely from the state and can easily be rescinded.

3. My opinion yes it is, you can be nice if you want too, but if there is no higher power you can rape, pillage, and burn your way through life if if not caught your good.

4. It’s not just religion – it’s Judeo Christian monotheism that leads to what we call “morality”.

   One G-d who cares about justice and mercy creates beings in His image with free will and personal responsibility.

   Genesis – and the rest of the Torah – is Ground Zero for Western morality.

   The source of equality, individual worth, private property, democracy, limited powers of government, and ever expanding political freedom and suffrage.

   I doubt whether Hinduism, Buddhism, or Shinto and other animist beliefs lead to anything we would call “morality”.

5. Many different societies have existed, with different ideas about how the universe works, and why it exists, and humanity’s place in it.
   In spite of having different religions, many of these societies had similar ideas about how people should behave; for example, most of them have prohibited murder, theft, rape, and “bearing false witness” in various forms. They had different religions but similar moralities.
   This suggests (but does nor prove) that a common morality might exist apart from religion.

6. j e:

   I agree about the belief in God-given rights being important and the reason they are not rescindable. But plenty of societies have many believers in God, and even have state religions, and don’t believe in God-given rights or believe in ones that are few and far between and quite different from the ones on which the US was founded.

   Plus, the way our Constitution is structured, I don’t think that there is any prohibition on passing an amendment to the Constitution that would take away some of those rights in the Bill of Rights.

7. Here’s another relevant post of mine.

8. Unless God is directly speaking to you, there is no “transcendental source of morality”. Instead there are books written by humans and interpreted by other humans. And even if the books don’t change, the interpretations do. Maybe Christianity supports equality, individual worth, private property, democracy, limited powers of government, and ever expanding political freedom and suffrage, and science. Now. But for about 1500 years they got it wrong.

   And people abandoning a harmless Christianity for the vile authoritarian left is a bad thing. On the other hand, if the Saudi people were to abandon Islam, as many in Iran seem to be doing, I think that would be a good thing. The problem is that it seems that most people have to believe in something that they feel is transcendental, and the best we can hope for is that this thing is relatively harmless.

9. One problem that I see is that, as the Judeo-Christian basis of society which permeated and was intertwined with almost every aspect of society and culture recedes, all sorts of things which were, you might say, “powered” and supported by those ideas and standards start to fade away and die.

   Things you might not think were particularly “Christian” but which I think were connected, like the work ethic, attention to detail, and “doing a good days work for a good day’s pay, “ the proliferation of lies, the decline in childcare standards i.e. very lax supervision of children (how many times have you seen very small children wandering around in a very busy supermarket or shopping center parking lot with their mother many feet behind them and not holding tightly to their hand, or small children in, say, Walmart, wandering down the isles out of their mother’s sight?), and I bet there are many other examples as well.

   This lax supervision might have been OK many decades ago infae more kindly and less dangerous times, but not today.

10. My belief is in line with Ben David’s (above) re morality. But recalling when getting ‘dog tags’ made and being asked ‘Religion?’ … I hesitated and was asked ‘What church do you go to?’ to which I answered (truthfully) ‘It depends which girl I’m going with.’ ‘Click click click’ went the ‘tag writer’ and I’ve been an ‘Agnostic’ ever since.

    With recent reports of Muslims protesting what is going on in schools here and Canada – and not being labeled ‘Domestic Terrorists’ or worse (that I know of), perhaps it’s time for an integrated ‘religion’ where Christians can ‘identify’ as Muslim. No, I haven’t thought through the details of what that’d look like.

11. What’s your scale of analysis, personal, familial, or social? Over how many generations? Recall Peter Viereck’s observation that the liberal first generation is followed by the relativist second generation is followed by the nihilist third.

12. The idea of the source of morality seems to come from Kant’s argument for the existence of God.

    I never was very convinced by his argument. Morality seems to be such a fluid concept based on culture. I also can think of an evolutionary explanation. For example, our cave dwelling ancestors living in extended family groups would find it to be at a very disadvantage if murder within the group was acceptable. Basic rules of behavior could have been built up for survival advantage.

    We may still need that advantage.

13. As I see it we needed, and need more than ever today, all those things that formed a penumbra around and were supported by Judeo-Christian ideas and moral values .

14. I heard upon his dry dung-heap
    That man cry out who cannot sleep:
    “If God is God He is not good,
    If God is good He is not God;
    Take the even, take the odd,
    I would not sleep here if I could
    Except for the little green leaves in the wood
    And the wind on the water.”

15. He told me that in Picardy,
    An age ago or more,
    While all his fathers still were eggs,
    These dusty highways bore
    Brown, singing soldiers marching out
    Through Picardy to war.

    He said that still through chaos
    Works on the ancient plan,
    And two things have altered not
    Since first the world began—
    The beauty of the wild green earth
    And the bravery of man.

16. In blessed confluence of events, I have open in my lap Proverbs 29:18 – “Where there is no divine guidance people run wild. But blessed are those who heed wisdom’s instruction.”
    Your translation may vary…but the point is valid: When humans acknowledge and live accountable to a Higher Order in a personal way there is human flourishing unlike anywhere else. Only where the Biblical Christian worldview was prevalent in generations past do we see such flourishing. Rejection of that worldview has us where we are now.

17. No.

18. “One of the key attributes of sin is pleasure– and along with it excitement and all the heightened senses along with it.”

    I’m going to disagree with that. Sin in all its arms and flourishes is about absolute autonomy… I’m the only boss of me. God created good beautiful and pleasurable things…its the pursuit of the created “things” opposed to a relationship with the Creator that spells trouble. (that would be Romans 1:18ff)

19. Dostoevsky was very concerned about religion receding as a guiding moral compass in Europe and even in his beloved Russia. His writings paint a very grim picture should this secularism continue to grow. IMO he makes a compelling case for the necessity of religion. But, just my opinion.

20. John Guilfoyle:

    Sin has many motivators. And pleasure – generally of the transient variety – is certainly one of them. I assume you’ve heard of lust and gluttony, two of the so-called seven deadly sins.

21. “Only where the Biblical Christian worldview was prevalent in generations past do we see such flourishing. ”

    And where does the Spanish Inquisition fit in? Biblical Christian based, but I wouldn’t call it particularly moral.

22. There needs to be incentives and deterrence that transcend one’s lifespan is my view on the matter. If there are no consequences for one’s actions that extend beyond one’s life on this planet, there will be more immoral behavior. It comes back to that question- how would you behave in a given situation where none are watching? No belief in the after-life chances the risk-reward calculation for everyone.

23. physicsguy;

    You wouldn’t call the Spanish Inquisition “particularly moral,” but the Spanish did.

24. One has to start with a Creator. That is surely not too demanding an idea. The Creator of the universe, and of man. Consider we’ve had radiotelescopes scanning space for over 70 years now, and have not picked up one-uno- signal suggesting another life form out there. None.
    Maybe the earth and its creatures are it.

    Physics guy, what’s your beef with the Inquisition? Not moral? Why not? Because they sentenced about 150 “heretics” to death? Pales in comparison to the slaughters of the Thirty Years’ War, Protestants v. Catholics in all of Europe, 1618-1648.

25. Buddhism is a religion which does provide morality to its adherents, but it is not based on a God, Creator.

26. I’m with Ben David on the foundations of Western civilization.

    Even when there were individuals who broke society’s rules, the existence of the rules and standards for behavior established guardrails. People who offended, who weren’t sociopaths, knew they were wrong. Most people followed approved behavior most of the time. Now, with many of us discarding the morality of our ancestors here, the guardrails are gone and even people who are not sociopaths do whatever they want to, without regard to whether it’s moral.

27. Whether God, gods, mortal gods, experts, or selfies, religion is a behavioral protocol, morality in a universal frame, ethics its relativistic sibling, and law their politically consensual cousin.

28. Now, with many of us discarding the morality of our ancestors here, the guardrails are gone and even people who are not sociopaths do whatever they want to, without regard to whether it’s moral.

    Kate:

    I agree that religion provided those guardrails, which were absolutely essential for humanity to rise above individual and tribal chaos.

    As I see things, though, we have reached a crossroads where we can now see the arbitrary aspects of the world religions. As individuals we are now choosing, consciously or unconsciously, our beliefs and our morality, rather than merely acquiescing to whatever was handed down to us.

    It is very messy when humans do so. It’s a big piece of our current chaos. But I really don’t see a way around this.

    In my early born-again days I was mixing with Christians for fellowship and to better understand Christianity. I often found myself under attack for my lack of orthodoxy, as some saw it.

    Such Christians would attempt prove to me by their reading of the Bible that I had no choice but to believe their way.

    I questioned how they knew the Bible was The Book and Their Reading was The Reading. They didn’t have an answer beyond “God said it, I believe it, and that settles it.”

    Which I never found satisfying. It was clear that these Christians had indeed decided deep down on their own say-so what the Truth was.

    Just like the modern folks they complained about.

29. There are some very smart people on this thread. There’s little reason to doubt that folks like you can reason your way into morality from observation and experience.

    Religion and its axioms may not be necessary for you to be a functional part of a civilization, but: you are nowhere near being most people, or even a solid plurality of people.

    It’s necessary for the mass of kids from the second row to the back of the classroom who need it brief, simple, and free of ambiguity. These are the people who will not or cannot understand any of the complex, nuanced arguments that you would find stimulating and maybe convincing.

    And: if you want to keep your civilization, the people in your society that are looked up to as examples had better behave publicly as if they believe–especially if they do not.

30. MJH:

    If you’re talking to me, I like to be addressed by name for politeness.

    However, I also like the maxim of addressing the comment and not the commenter. Unless I ask specifically for advice, I’m never interested in personal advice here.
    _______________________________

    And: if you want to keep your civilization, the people in your society that are looked up to as examples had better behave publicly as if they believe–especially if they do not.

31. “It was clear that these Christians had indeed decided deep down on their own say-so what the Truth was.

    Just like the modern folks they complained about”

    That’s exactly what Kierkegaard labeled “the leap of faith” that’s at the core of all religious beliefs. Each person finds their truth that cannot be rational, or logically argued. Maybe the same with morality. What’s interesting is that the majority of people seem to have found a very similar set of morals.

32. Many years ago I wrote my Philosophy Masters thesis on politics, morality, and human nature. I think deep down (like many intellectuals)I was trying to prove a non-religious justification of morality. However, after much reading, writing, thinking–and praying, i discovered that it’s not possible to separate the two. Morality, properly understood, has a religious dimension. Religion and morality both are transcendent in nature. In fact, Morality without religion has been tried: the French and Russian Revolutions devolved into bloody reigns of terror.

33. The majority of the citizens in the West have abandoned a morality based upon Judeo-Christian tenets and have substituted their subjective and personal moment-to-moment sense of right and wrong.
    The abandonment in Judeo-Christian tenets was first noticed and written about in the 1950s by Whittaker Chambers in his book, “Witness”.
    Societal cohesion in the West has greatly declined as that abandonment among the population has increased. Causation or correlation? If correlation, what then is the causal factor in the West’s loss of societal cohesion?
    We are demonstrating the relevance of the founder’s thoughts on this subject.

    “Let Us with Caution Indulge the Supposition that Morality Can Be Maintained without Religion” George Washington

    “Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” John Adams

34. What are the things , both internal and external, that keep a person from embracing selfish hedonism? Internal conscience, religious rules, family expectations, societal expectations, legal and civil liabilities? Are there others?
    How many of these no longer exist in our society? Two things pretty major have happened in the U.S. in the last 20 years. One is the WIDESPREAD wrong interpretation of ” judge not” , where now it has been twisted to mean ” anything goes” and ” how dare anyone say otherwise” and the other is the continued decline , in many places , of legal ramifications for many street crimes. So where are the guardrails now?

35. The majority of the citizens in the West have abandoned a morality based upon Judeo-Christian tenets and have substituted their subjective and personal moment-to-moment sense of right and wrong.

    Geoffrey Britqin:

    My argument is that even Judeo-Christians are ultimately choosing their own tenets and morality.

    Which branch of Judaism or which Christianity does one choose? Which sect? Which flavor of morality? On what basis does one choose?

    Sure, there is a fair amount of overlap between the religions, sects and moralities, but it doesn’t all fit. It’s not an either/or.

    Throw Islam into those questions and it gets really difficult. Islam doesn’t even have the Golden Rule. Religious war, jihad, is a religious and moral imperative by most readings of the Quran.

    I say the toothpaste is out of the tube and can’t be squeezed back in.

    Humanity is making the transition to a world where people are making their own choices, whether one likes it or not, and whether it will crash nations or civilizations. It might.

    But that’s the way it looks to me.

    We are always making choices, including the choice to pretend we are not.

36. I would not be the first to point out that “Gender Ideology” seems to be a religion . In Christianity , there is the concept of being ” born again” spiritually. ( See John chapter 3.) In gender ideology, there is a similar, though twisted version of this. If you use a person’s ” pre transition ” name , you are said to be ” dead naming” them, as if their old self died and they have been born again. Also , the idea that a person can declare themselves male or female seems to conjure up a kind of ” truth” which exist outside of observation.

37. Throw Islam into those questions and it gets really difficult.

    As the virtue signalers of Hamtramck, Michigan, discovered on June 15: “As communities across the United States celebrate June as Pride Month, a city near Detroit, Michigan, has voted to permanently ban the display of Pride flags on public property. Hamtramck’s city council members voted unanimously Tuesday to approve the controversial resolution, which restricts the city from flying any ‘religious, ethnic, racial, political, or sexual orientation group flags’ on public grounds, according to meeting minutes. . . . all the city council members are of the Muslim faith, city manager Max Garbarino told CNN Thursday. Hamtramck was also the first known city in the US to inaugurate an all-Muslim government.”

    https://www.cnn.com/2023/06/15/us/hamtramck-michigan-ban-pride-flags-public-property/index.html

    The usual suspects, of course, maintain that the city is “alienating, threatening, and punishing members of the LGBTQ+ community” even though “residents and businesses will not be restricted from flying Pride or other flags on private property.” Interesting how any limitation at all on the Alphabet Tribe and their sacred symbol amounts to “threats” and “punishment.”

38. It’s really not that complicated… (or is it?)…

    “Love your neighbor as yourself”? (Leviticus 19:18) Hmm.
    “That which is hateful in your eyes, do NOT DO unto your neighbor”? (Variant of the above) Hmm.
    “Humankind, the Lord has told you what is good and what it is the Lord requires of you: to act justly, to love faithfulness, and to walk humbly with your God.” (Micah 6:8) Hmm.

    (And then there are the Ten Commandments, give or take—YMMV—and/or the seven “Noahide Laws”…)

    BUT…does one really need GOD for any of this? Hmm.
    (Wonder what GOD would think…)

    I think it’s mostly a problem of memory, of conscience…and NOT throwing the baby out with the bathwater…as it were…

    But what to do when we um, er, falter.
    Lord Rabbi (or is the reverse?) Jonathan Sacks has a rather interesting blurb on Shame culture vs. Guilt culture—with the idea being that Guilt culture, with its idea of repentance and rejecting the sin but not the sinner being the ONLY way to take responsibility for one’s actions (instead of blaming others) and breaking the visciuos circle…

39. Oops, “vicious circle” (or should that be “vicious cycle”… or “never-ending cycle”…)?
    https://www.rabbisacks.org/covenant-conversation/acharei-mot/the-scapegoat/
    https://www.rabbisacks.org/covenant-conversation-family-edition/acharei-mot/the-courage-to-admit-mistakes/

40. George Washington, from his Farewell Address:

    Of all the dispositions and habits, which lead to political prosperity, Religion and Morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of Patriotism, who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness, these firmest props of the duties of Men and Citizens. The mere Politician, equally with the pious man, ought to respect and to cherish them. A volume could not trace all their connexions with private and public felicity. Let it simply be asked, Where is the security for property, for reputation, for life, if the sense of religious obligation desert the oaths, which are the instruments of investigation in Courts of Justice? And let us with caution indulge the supposition, that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect, that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.

    The whole address is well worth re-reading.
    https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Washington's_Farewell_Address

41. Washington did not mean any particular sect or interpretation of Judeo-Christian religious principle, but its broad outline as set out by Ben David here at 3:21 p.m. June 17.

    It’s not just religion – it’s Judeo Christian monotheism that leads to what we call “morality”.
    One G-d who cares about justice and mercy creates beings in His image with free will and personal responsibility.
    Genesis – and the rest of the Torah – is Ground Zero for Western morality.
    The source of equality, individual worth, private property, democracy, limited powers of government, and ever expanding political freedom and suffrage.

42. Full verse of Leviticus 19:18 seems to provide an answer to Neo’s question:

    Thou shalt not avenge, nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people, but thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself: I am the Lord.

    “I am the Lord.”

    The 10 commandments. I’ve tried to imagine what the world would look like if they were followed by a sizable number of people. I think there was a window of time in my own life when this environment existed-as a youngster growing up in Park Ridge IL, our family didn’t lock the doors of our home and suffered no evil. We were surrounded by people living by the code. We felt safe.

    Evil, human and demonic–I’ve encountered both. I think many in our present culture (especially in the political/civil arena) do not take evil seriously. Tragically, many people down through the ages have indeed experienced what I don’t allow myself to dwell on.

    “Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven” Jesus

    Children presented with rules understand right and wrong.

    As a Christian, I believe in the Creator and a final judgment which will be determined by the only One capable of enacting true judgment on each soul, followed by an eternal destiny.

    Love and prayer, without these past and present, my life would be entirely different. For those who reject the Judeo-Christian God and the belief of an afterlife, I can only respond, “Carry on.”

43. And let’s not forget the oaths that all office holders–President on down, witnesses at trials etc. swear, (some now modified to exclude the word God).

    The whole idea of this oath–and it’s supposed effectiveness–was based on a belief in Judeo-Christian religion and the view of the spiritual and moral world that it inculcated.

    These used to mean a lot more when a lot more people deeply believed in their Judeo-Christian religion, in the possibility of Hell, and in God.

44. Neo…re the alleged 7 deadly sins… Could you list the Scriptures where they are annotated as such?

    To be clear…all sin is deadly. Romans 6:23…so let’s put aside a ranking system.

    According to the Scriptures sin, all of it, originates in the desire to be God-for-yourself. The sense that God isn’t enough and I have to take over.

    We could go back to Genesis 3 or really unpack Romans 1…but Luther noted that all sin is a sin against the first Commandment. It’s putting something else (usually self) in God’s place. Sure, pleasure could be that thing, but Philippians 4:8 says, “Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, dwell on these things.” So good and pleasurable things are not in themselves sinful. It’s the pursuit of things above pursuing a dependent responsive relationship with God that is the problem.

45. A more secular take on why standards of public behavior are in decline is to point out that today about 40% of all births are to unwed mothers. It used to be 5%. Whether this is a cause or an effect can be argued. I think it’s both.

46. Related?
    A review of: “Nietzsche and Tocqueville on the Democratization of Humanity”
    by David A. Eisenberg:
    “The Democratization of Man: A Brilliant Journey to an Ugly Destination”—
    https://europeanconservative.com/articles/reviews/the-democratization-of-man-a-brilliant-journey-to-an-ugly-destination/
    Key graf:
    “…Eisenberg is guided by two of the greatest critics of this democratizing sweep: Alexis de Tocqueville, an aristocrat by birth yet friendly—with some reservation—to democracy; and Friedrich Nietzsche, a philosopher famously hostile to it….”

    In the end, an elegant analysis that ends with the well-known conclusion: The perfect is the enemy of the good…?

47. In a band or tribe if you didn’t treat your fellow tribe members fairly and justly it could endanger the group. Everyone would know what you’d done and to whom. Tribe members could avenge themselves on you. The group also had its gods, rituals and taboos, and there might be no ban on what you could do to outsiders, but a face-to-face society could make it hard to get away with wrongdoing.

    In a more complex, more anonymous modern society such immediate sanctions don’t exist, so it seems like a Supreme Judge would be more, rather than less necessary to encourage order and right conduct. Of course you have the law to protect you, but the law also prevents victims from avenging themselves. And, of course, there are lawyers to get malefactors out of trouble.

48. physicsguy challenges Christian morality, given the Inquisition.

    “Only where the Biblical Christian worldview was prevalent in generations past do we see such flourishing. ”

    He asks “And where does the Spanish Inquisition fit in? Biblical Christian based, but I wouldn’t call it particularly moral.”

    Fair enough. It has been twenty years since I last delved into this historical topic. How many were killed?

    I believe as few as 500 over 500 years. But even if it were 5,000, how would that compare to the 20th centuries communist-fascist mayhem? Not just less than a rounding error, but unrecognisable.

    But on the other hand, so what if the inquisition wreaked meagre death? Perhaps, ruling by fear, intimidation was the point.

    Wokery — as an ideology structured along Christian lines, with a revealed error, the overthrow of the establishment, yielding to Heaven on Earth (implicitly at least) — repeats Marxist dogmas.

    No one should be happy that it does.

49. Religion is a socio-cultural enforcement mechanism in the sense that, if you internalize the values of a particular religion, you feel shame and/or guilt if you violate them.

    Moreover, if the people around you–your family, your neighbors, your community, society in general–have also internalized those values, then, you do not want to disappoint them, plus you will also feel a tremendous amount of social pressure from the people around you, your family, the community or society in general, to conform. Violate those norms and you will be shamed and shunned. Or at least, that is what used to happen.

    When all this breaks down, however–things start to fall apart–as we see evidenced all around us these days.

    Here are brazen thieves stealing cartloads of groceries in broad daylight, and stuffing them into their cars and taking off.*

    *See, for example, this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KXT5BrFG_W4

50. P.S. See also here, as a large group of “youts” ransack a WaWa in the Philadelphia area at

    https://duckduckgo.com/?q=wawa+ransacking&t=newext&atb=v324-1&iax=videos&ia=videos&iai=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3De-EPrjghlpo

    The examples of this sort of thing are, apparently, legion.

    Notice, in the video of the brazen grocery thieves how nobody really tries to stop them in the act. Who knows, these days, good samaritans might be the ones who get charged, or the ones who get knifed or shot.

51. I have often seen the excuse that people who steal from stores are very poor and desperate people who only steal so that they can eat or “get formula and diapers” for their infants,” but you notice that the grocery thieves above at 12:14 are only stealing high ticket items, like extra large containers of laundry detergent and paper towels.

    In the case of the WaWa ransackers at 12:21 they steal, but it’s more like the real object seems to be to just destroy stuff.

    There have also been highly organized thefts with an estimated 80 participants who looted places like a Nordstrom in California and stripped it of high end items like Louis Vuitton handbags.*

    * See https://www.foxnews.com/us/california-walnut-creek-nordstrom-targeted-80-looters-insane

    What’s that quote, “Some people would just like to see the world burn.”

52. If you love the world, see yourself as part of “the great chain of being,” and as having a worthwhile place in it, I’d imagine that you wouldn’t want to “burn it all down.”

53. I notice that my 12:14 post above was somehow attributed to “S” but it was, indeed, mine.

54. is there a moral secular society out there, if one could point me to it, where as they lean to frankly more amoral if not immoral pursuits, now there are reasons why societies have drifted toward the latter path,

55. No one expects the Spanish Inquisition, except when it predictably is used without context as a bludgeon against Christianity.

56. ” The odious Sartre . . . .” [JE, 6/17 3:00 pm]

    JE,

    A comment on Sartre’s philosophy: Sartre is dead. He was either correct and doesn’t know it, or he was wrong and he does. IMO, nothing sums up existentialism more succinctly than this.

57. Snow on Pine writes: “If you love the world, see yourself as part of ‘the great chain of being,’ and as having a worthwhile place in it.”

    THAT, to me, is the minimus for Civilization to survive. If this is taught and passes down to the next generation, then it will not perish, me-hopes.

    Christian institutions once exemplified these teachings. No one has yet mentioned Jordan Peterson. He has revived the dignity of the the atheistic Christianity position, possibly best known from Albert Camus. (notice I say “atheistic” – NOT atheist; there is a difference

    Ethically, it is better to act as if God exists (somehow, in someway) over us, in ultimate judgement. In this great defiance of convention (as Neo writes, stemming from Nietzsche, mostly), people can be more ambitiously moral inside this framework than they can outside it.

    In my callow youth, this stance seemed like agnosticism, a great dodge. I could not grasp substance therein. But in recent years, Peterson’s wide reading and ambitious think-through, has changed this, I think.

    One advantage of this “life-stance” (a common Dutch term) is that, even if one cleaves to a Deistic Creator version, then ones moral compass gains greater heft and a cleaner edge in making the crucial cuts, or choices, in life.

    In other words, Jordan Peterson has forced me to respect a life-stance that seemed vacuous “comfort” to me decades ago. Perhaps the term “Christian atheism” itself was my problem – a contradiction in terms. But atheistic Christianity expects greater good from us than the pure abandonment of God.

58. “[Many societies] had different religions but similar moralities. This suggests (but does nor prove) that a common morality might exist apart from religion.” [Richf, 3:26pm]

    “. . . plenty of societies have many believers in God, and even have state religions, and don’t believe in God-given rights . . . ” [Neo 6/17. 3:28]

    “. . . “the leap of faith” that’s at the core of all religious beliefs. Each person finds their truth that cannot be rational, or logically argued. . . . What’s interesting is that the majority of people seem to have found a very similar set of morals.” [physicsguy 9:51]

    IMO, morality and religion are frequently seen through a carrot-and-stick approach; be good and be rewarded v. be bad and be punished. It seems to totally ignore the concept of “good” as a fundamental state of being with “evil” as the absence of “good.” As Richf and physicsguy note, a common morality (a raison d’etre) might exist apart from, but allied with, what we deem religion, or even as the basis for it.

    I believe this latter position has to do with more abstract thought regarding life than the simple, almost childlike (NOT childish) reward/punishment belief which we see in much religious criticism, analysis, and even demagoguery. Yet, as MJH notes, such simpler levels of understanding are probably necessary as they reflect simpler levels of understanding to our complex existence:

    It’s necessary for the mass of kids from the second row to the back of the classroom who need it brief, simple, and free of ambiguity. These are the people who will not or cannot understand any of the complex, nuanced arguments that you would find stimulating and maybe convincing. [MJH 6/17, 9:48]

    “Each person finds their truth that cannot be rational, or logically argued.” [physicsguy, 9:51]

    And this is why the early Christian writers were knows as “apologists”. Not because they made excuses for Christianity, but because they made a formal justification for it as they wrote to integrate Christian theology (an eastern religion) into pre-established western Greco-Roman thought.

    Link:
    https://duckduckgo.com/?q=apologetics&t=brave&ia=definition

59. We lost ‘losing face’. Being new to Japan I told a florist I’d help him put his many potted plants inside when I saw him getting ready to close shop. He explained he would leave them outside. Seeing I was a bit confused and having been through this with new ‘gaijin’ before, he explained nobody would ever bother his unattended merchandise. It reminded me of how we never locked doors when growing up in Maine. Our society will never know such peace of mind again.

60. “A slave is a person perverted into a thing,” wrote Coleridge as the movement to stop the African slave trade was gaining momentum early in the nineteenth century. “Slavery, therefore, is not so properly a deviation from justice as an absolute subversion of all morality.” {from First Things, 1996]

    There we have it as to morality.

    Slavery has been part of the human condition for a very, very long time. Recall the status of the Jews in Egypt before Moses and his God mobilized them to cross the Red Sea!
    Western monotheism, Jews and Christians, are anti-slavery, but there are maybe 100,000 slaves in Sudan, an Islamic country worshipping the will of Allah. That is morality plus religion supporting slavery! In Mauretania it is worse.

61. I think that the waning influence of Judeo-Christian religion and the moral lessons, attitudes, and behaviors it taught has also lead to the rise of more and more chutzpah in everyday life, (as well as some dissolution of personal “boundaries,” and more and more people who feel free to indulge in “Karen” type behavior).

    “Influencers,” dontcha just love ’em.

    See, this, for instance–

    https://www.theblaze.com/news/fat-tiktok-influencer-complains-of-discrimination-after-she-struggles-to-fit-through-airplane-aisle

62. Thanks om…it had to be said.
    As does…
    So I decided there is nothing better than to enjoy food and drink and to find satisfaction in work. Then I realized that these pleasures are from the hand of God. For who can eat or enjoy anything apart from him? – Ecclesiastes 2:24-25

    With due respect to Conan’s soliloquy on “What is best in life,” good and pleasurable things received with thanks to God is “better.”

63. well thats the sin of gluttony and sloth, a twofer, everything in moderation was that not marcus aurelius,?

64. “. . . as well as some dissolution of personal “boundaries,” [Snow on Pine, 4:50 pm]

    In some ways dissolution, in other contradictory ways an expansion of personal boundaries, as in “You should respect my ‘feelz” before your own and accept my chosen pronouns even though pronouns are third person identifiers used when speaking of me in my absence.”

65. in a note in a generally unremarked assassins creed film, the inquisition is made as the villains, and the Arab’s who have occupied spain for centuries are considered just victims

66. I was an atheist before high school, and that has remained the case. (I am 74.) When I was younger I was forced to attend Sunday school and the preacher’s sermon. At the time I was unable to understand how people behaved as some of my friends did, and then they attended the services and acted no different from me, and many of them “joined” the church at an early age. It had no effect on their behavior, but it made them part of a group they wanted to be in.

    It seems to me that the religious are no more moral than anyone else, and perhaps religion provided them with the feeling of being select even when doing something wrong. I think a lot of the religious commenting here seem to think that religion somehow protects them from charges of immorality.

67. Huxley,
    When have people not been making their own choices? Do you think the early Christians in the Roman Empire were not making choices that could lead to their own death for running afoul of the Roman state? Are the Christians in the Middle East and Africa not making a choice when they refuse to convert to Islam, even though it might make their immediate life easier? Or the Christians in China and North Korea, are they not making choices that could lead to trouble with their own government? Or the Muslims or the Falun Gong in China, who might make their own immediate life easier by abandoning their respective faiths? When the Protestant verses Catholic fightings were going on in Europe, were not persons from both sides, when caught behind the opposing lines, making a choice to convert or not convert to the other , even if it could have saved their lives? Or how about the Jews through the centuries, that could have abandoned their faith in order to make their immediate lives easier, but chose not to? Or the people in the Balkans, caught up in the Ottoman Empire, some made choice to convert to Islam for lower taxes and some did not. People have always been making choices.

68. “It seems to me…”
    Stubbs… you need to hang out with better people. 😉

69. Stubbs,

    I don’t agree. Yes, perhaps there are some people who shield their immorality with their religion (pedophile priests come to mind as an especially egregious example) but for most believers immorality is still immorality. That’s why it is called “sin”.

    IMO life, along with one’s accompanying religion, is a constant battle between striving for a higher ideal v. giving in to the darker side of human nature. That (again IMO) is one of the reasons that Star Wars was so successful; it tapped into this fundamental conflict.

    Paraphrasing Rose Sayer (Katherine Hepburn) to Charlie Allnutt (Humphrey Bogart) in The African Queen: I thought human nature was what we were put on this earth to overcome.

70. Huxley,
    I was reading about Pliny the Younger, who witnessed from afar the destruction of Pompeii by Mount Vesuvius. When he was Governor of Bithynia, he wrote ( AD 112) to emperor Trajan about how he had been executing the Christians and was asking Trajan if he should kill them all or just some of them. He said that he made them ” curse Christ, which a genuine Christian cannot be made to do.” These people were making choices, that would cost them their lives. https://www.amazon.com/Evidence-Christianity-Josh-McDowell/dp/1418506281/ref=asc_df_1418506281/?tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=312562231174&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=13946050458279420157&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=m&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9027089&hvtargid=pla-569725103267&psc=1

71. I think you are confusing people who act “moral”, with what is “moral”. Someone who believes in God can act immoral – cheat, swindle,whatever.

    The issue is: what is wrong with that behavior? A society can say something that is fundamentally bad is good. For example let’s create a society that rounds up Jews and kills them. Since society says that is “moral”,does it make it so? Or is there something transcendent that makes that bad? If there are no fundamental laws since there is no God, then there is nothing fundamentally wrong with concentration camps if society as a whole decided that killing off Others in right for the Greater Good. And on an evolutionary basis keeping the clan and tribe uniform has a greater societal benefit than diversity, no matter what the modernist say. Evolution and history proves this.

    So no God, then rounding up a group and killing a group is neither bad nor good, but what society decided, and actually makes sense from an evolutionary standpoint. And Aztecs sacrificing children? Why not, if that’s what they decided. No society is better or worse than another, just different.

    It all leads to moral relativism, where anything goes, and hell on earth.

72. Sarah Hoyt’s post on 6/17 spoke to the same topic from a different angle: the connection between intelligence (by some measures) and morality.
    She doesn’t think there is any correlation, except possibly negative (as in: there are some ideas so stupid / wrong / evil that only an intellectual could believe in them).

    Comments there are (as usual) wide-ranging, but in the main of the same opinion.
    https://accordingtohoyt.com/2023/06/17/intelligence-and-moral-sense/
    (excerpts from some of my favorite thought-provokers; all but the first are longer than these “teasers”)

    Ian Bruene says:June 18, 2023 at 12:48 am
    “Society” is not a moral actor. Only people.

    Dan Lane says:June 17, 2023 at 8:18 pm
    “All this is poppycock. Morality and the ability to learn in a civilized society require learning and teaching, and curbing your natural instincts.”

    I would add that one cannot intellect oneself into proper morality. Learned that back in my wild athiest days, searching for a way to morality that wasn’t colored with religion at all, in any way.

    Frank says:June 17, 2023 at 9:34 pm
    Aaargh! So much to say. Even your short posts are so full of things to comment on, that I drive myself crazy trying to hold back.

    First, well-put imaginos1892! Yes the term evil genius was invented for good reason. It took me decades to understand why the First Commandment is the most important one. Humility is the beginning of wisdom.

    Outmoded Thinker says:June 18, 2023 at 11:07 am
    It was only when I had a child to raise that I realized what persistent years-long effort it takes to produce an adult who habitually says “Please” and “Thank you.” If you meet such, know that some parental figure has said, ” What do we say?” or the like thousands of times, day in, day out, for years.

    This is true for nearly every good habit that makes it possible for people to live together peacefully, cooperate with one another, and be productive.

    Civilization is hard work

73. In re the Spanish: a comparison to the South American cultures starts here:
    https://accordingtohoyt.com/2023/06/17/intelligence-and-moral-sense/#comment-924173
    Tip: the Aztecs and Mayas don’t come off looking better after the anthropologists got going.

    FWIW, a book I read about witch hunting in Europe claimed that the primary reason the total killings of suspected witches was not worse than the numbers that have been determined, is that the Inquisitors (when properly operating) insisted on proof rather than innuendo and slander, and ended most trials without convictions.

    The Spanish Inquisition was a different thing altogether.

74. Bonus from Sarah: how to cook octopus correctly.
    Apparently it was a diet staple during her youth in Portugal.

    https://accordingtohoyt.com/2023/06/17/intelligence-and-moral-sense/#comment-924118
    accordingtohoyt says:June 17, 2023 at 8:56 pm
    sigh. No. Rubbery means its overdone. You should first boil them then steak-fry them. But if you over-boil them they become tennis balls.

75. …On the question about:

    can people with a religion, or people without a religion, be morally good?

    This is how I see this question, this evening:

    over the past few years, I’ve had a medical problem [go very badly], + my medical problem’s intense pain has put me in the hospital, where only morphine + surgery have stopped that situation, + taken me out of [pain] that completely incapacitated me.

    …The people who helped me at the hospital- these people helped me, [and they did not bother to ask me if I had gods/a religion or not].

    [They helped without knowing if I was or was not religious.]

    I asked for help, from these people from the hospital, [and I did not bother to ask THEM if they had gods/a religion or not].

    [I took their help without knowing if they were, or were not, religious.]

    Do people, whether they have a religion or not, do morally good?…Oh my goodness, just in my world, I really do think so.

    There are times: sometimes people help me out of a hole, and sometimes I help people out of a hole,…because we feel like helping other people.

    Sometimes I accept an ambulance ride.

    When I take those ambulance rides, I don’t mind if the ambulances are crewed by: theist people, atheist people, agnostic people, or by any other people.

    For what it is worth, I find myself very happy with this situation.

76. Jordan Peterson hosts a fresh interview with James Lindsey. The topic is the Genealogies of Marxism?
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bnrdyphape4

    It gets theological at the start. 20 minute in, and Cain and Abel are called forth to explain motives.

77. HIGHLIGHTS from the above of interest here:

    16Jun23 Interview — at
    1:01 of Jordan Peterson’s interview with Lindsey: a personal, life-changing confrontation with the glaciology and feminism paper (a half million dollar NSF grant gains a high impact paper and a highly visible TED talk) plea for inclusion of alt fem perspective, thus undermining science. THIS PROVOKED James into three days of emotional shut down (depression?).

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bnrdyphape4

    At 1:05, Peterson prolix on how fundamentals of STEM get us to theological-sphere of thinking, ie, axioms of ontology. Science AND religion as Western civilization’s greatest achievements?

    1:01-1:12m first climax? Compassion is a virtue to be weaponized by the malignant.
    1:18-1:28m second climax! Jordan mentions that social psychology is finally, just beginning to take Left-wing Authoritarianism seriously.
    Among the soc psych findings on this is that malignant narcissism is 60% predictive.
    Topically returning to James insights into the New Marxism (SWJ, CRT, Wokism) and the origin of his New Discourses member driven project — with intriguing Old Testament waypoints inserted by Jordan.

    1:29-37m So, who is behind the acceleration of Wokery? WEF for one. I’m called out online for being a conspiracy theorist! Objects James. Yet I’m only relating the substance of what they write online or publish.
    Jordan: Klaus Schwab’s serpent-like camouflage is managerialism (cf, his last or fourth book).
    James on Schwab: he says first that we’re going to use ESG to force corporations into compliance…with fascism, adds Jordan.
    Then Schwab says secondly, we will transform the youth to demand ESG!
    And a final third, we will rewrite to Social Contract to require obedience to the new WEF norms!
    Schwab in interviews states we must replace the culture of production and consumption with caring and sharing.

    Peterson summarises: Tyrants want power and control. They gin up apocalyptic fear to control the masses and secure it.
    What dose this mean? Jordan answers brilliantly!

78. 1:38 to 48m is a brilliant finish. The Tyrannical Left hates comedy but loves parody. James mentions Marcuse in One-Dimensional Man in the 1960s saying Socialism is unproductive, but Capitalism is unsustainable. Thus the WEF offers us a future of non-productive sustainability. Peterson says we’ve seen the Left turn into the Evil Clown, a New Lucifer. He then relates the substance of tyrants beclowning themselves, using the film “The Death of Stalin” as a prime historical example of the fate of all tyrants.

    I’m going to have to listen to the final 50 minutes of this scintillating podcast again.

79. TR writes
    On the question about:
    can people with a religion, or people without a religion, be morally good?
    This is how I see this question….
    YES.

    My summary: you are free-riding on the self-interest of others, coordinated by the price system and Big Statism. Which only works so long as the virtues of Western Civilization such as Truth telling operate. Destroy them, as Rome found with the destruction of the money economy, and its “look out below!” Then people will be unpredictable as a high-trust culture is supplanted by something low.

80. Yes. Because every human system will become immoral over time.

81. “…rubbery…”
    The problem, of course, is that octopi are superbly intelligent.
    Extremely sentient.
    Shape changers.
    Color changers.
    Texture changers.
    Good huggers.
    Cute and cuddly(?)
    Simply amazing animals…
    My—unsolicited, to be sure—advice would be to stick to calamari.
    (May as well put in a plug for Annie Proulx’s “The Shipping News”, which describes the sort-of edible squid-burgers served up in Newfoundland…not that that’s the point of the novel, mind you…Gosh, I loved that book….)

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