Morals should be used for goodness and not badness.

11/10/2011 7:48:32 AM	Morals should be used for goodness and not badness.
ctr916 Roseville, CA 54, joined Aug. 2011	Over two thousand years ago, people of Religion were given a choice in a Roman experiment in democracy within a Theocracy. They proved Aesop right. Why is it that over two thousand years later, we still have the same problem? Meet singles at DateHookup.dating, we're 100% free! Join now!
11/10/2011 8:31:30 AM	Morals should be used for goodness and not badness.
duchessa Yonkers, NY 64, joined Aug. 2008	Quote from ctr916: Over two thousand years ago, people of Religion were given a choice in a Roman experiment in democracy within a Theocracy. They proved Aesop right. Why is it that over two thousand years later, we still have the same problem? Which one of the Aesop fables are you referring to?
11/10/2011 9:22:10 AM	Morals should be used for goodness and not badness.
ctr916 Roseville, CA 54, joined Aug. 2011	Quote from duchessa: Which one of the Aesop fables are you referring to? This one regarding democracy: We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office. -Aesop
11/10/2011 9:42:48 AM	Morals should be used for goodness and not badness.
good4something Austin, TX 58, joined Nov. 2011	People use language to model life. We live, and then we have ideas about living. Ideas are not required to be realistic, complete, accurate or true. Ideas can be lies, arbitrary beliefs, emotions, wishes...anything your mind can come up with. When people attempt to organize community life by ideas they have about it, the only ideas that can be both pleasing enough and general enough for a majority to support are ones that represent life how people wish it will be in terms of how they like to feel. That's the work of rhetoric, making such ideas. Politics is the competition of liars to be most popular. It's a part of the idea of democracy that people will compare and then choose from among candidates who give speeches. The audience will vote for the candidate whose speeches best promise to promote the hope that most beloved lies will continue. Meanwhile, there is real life, or what people actually do. The petty thief who steals your very real supper can be chased down the street, caught, and sent to jail. How do you even know when what has been stolen is a dream? [Edited 11/10/2011 9:44:04 AM ]
11/10/2011 9:58:45 AM	Morals should be used for goodness and not badness.
duchessa Yonkers, NY 64, joined Aug. 2008	Quote from ctr916: This one regarding democracy: We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office. -Aesop No difference with present times.
11/10/2011 10:57:43 AM	Morals should be used for goodness and not badness.
ctr916 Roseville, CA 54, joined Aug. 2011	Quote from good4something: People use language to model life. We live, and then we have ideas about living. Ideas are not required to be realistic, complete, accurate or true. Ideas can be lies, arbitrary beliefs, emotions, wishes...anything your mind can come up with. When people attempt to organize community life by ideas they have about it, the only ideas that can be both pleasing enough and general enough for a majority to support are ones that represent life how people wish it will be in terms of how they like to feel. That's the work of rhetoric, making such ideas. Politics is the competition of liars to be most popular. It's a part of the idea of democracy that people will compare and then choose from among candidates who give speeches. The audience will vote for the candidate whose speeches best promise to promote the hope that most beloved lies will continue. Meanwhile, there is real life, or what people actually do. The petty thief who steals your very real supper can be chased down the street, caught, and sent to jail. How do you even know when what has been stolen is a dream? Well, in my opinion, thirty years of failure as a public policy decision should be enough to convince most people, that it should be considered a boondoggle and generational form of theft; the drug war is a prime example. Our war on poverty is another since we would not need that expense, if our elected representatives to government could simply bear true witness to our own laws regarding the concept and legal doctrine of employment at will and unemployment compensation on that same at-will basis. It could be cheaper than means tested welfare since it is more general and would increase the circulation of money in our money based markets thus acting as a perpetual economic stimulus to our economy while preserving individual liberty, and as easy to administer as minimum wage laws are now.
11/10/2011 10:58:40 AM	Morals should be used for goodness and not badness.
ctr916 Roseville, CA 54, joined Aug. 2011	Quote from duchessa: No difference with present times. So why haven't our morals improved to the point we are practical angels and don't need government any more?
11/10/2011 11:11:47 AM	Morals should be used for goodness and not badness.
duchessa Yonkers, NY 64, joined Aug. 2008	Quote from ctr916: So why haven't our morals improved to the point we are practical angels and don't need government any more? Because mankind is mostly stupid.
11/10/2011 11:38:46 AM	Morals should be used for goodness and not badness.
good4something Austin, TX 58, joined Nov. 2011	(this post has been flagged as inappropriate, sorry.)
11/10/2011 1:21:34 PM	Morals should be used for goodness and not badness.
ctr916 Roseville, CA 54, joined Aug. 2011	Quote from duchessa: Because mankind is mostly stupid. I don't believe it is that simple. If we were that stupid, why not just obey some Religious commandments, and not have to worry since those morals are already approved by a Creator. Why invent politics?
11/10/2011 1:27:32 PM	Morals should be used for goodness and not badness.
ctr916 Roseville, CA 54, joined Aug. 2011	(this post has been flagged as inappropriate, sorry.) [Edited 11/10/2011 1:30:10 PM ]
11/10/2011 4:08:54 PM	Morals should be used for goodness and not badness.
duchessa Yonkers, NY 64, joined Aug. 2008	Quote from ctr916: I don't believe it is that simple. If we were that stupid, why not just obey some Religious commandments, and not have to worry since those morals are already approved by a Creator. Why invent politics? Don't most people obey the religions' directive already? Yes, most do. Creator? Please, I am not in a laughing day.
11/10/2011 5:40:57 PM	Morals should be used for goodness and not badness.
ctr916 Roseville, CA 54, joined Aug. 2011	Quote from duchessa: Don't most people obey the religions' directive already? Yes, most do. Creator? Please, I am not in a laughing day. Why do we have any problems at all, if most people are obeying their religion's directives? It seems, to me, that we are simply not moral enough to be Angels who do not need the expense of Government.
11/10/2011 7:53:47 PM	Morals should be used for goodness and not badness.
duchessa Yonkers, NY 64, joined Aug. 2008	Quote from ctr916: It seems, to me, that we are simply not moral enough Whatever floats your boat....
11/10/2011 8:07:47 PM	Morals should be used for goodness and not badness.
ctr916 Roseville, CA 54, joined Aug. 2011	Quote from duchessa: Whatever floats your boat.... If war is hell; why do we have so many wars on abstractions?
11/26/2011 10:15:11 PM	Morals should be used for goodness and not badness.
umnowellmaybe Austin, TX 58, joined Nov. 2011	The abstract layer for wars is only used for planning. The actual reason for war is control of land, resources and wealth. War used to be straightforward. It started as the necessary conflict between peoples whose survival depended on hunting. When tribes wanted the same territory they fought for it. That habit became more organized and happened on a larger scale once people began farming and sat down next to the same crops year after year. There emerged a ruling class of people and they employed mercenaries to do their fighting. Wars were fought by professional soldiers for a while. Then some bright bulb realized you could offer emotional incentives instead of gold, and soldiers would fight for ideals not money. From then on, when you wanted to have a war you only needed to rouse your rabble with propaganda. Those abstract ideals that a soldier will fight for are specifically his own rationalization. The people who operate at the higher levels are absolutely pragmatic about war. They have a map of the world and competitive strategies for controlling their interests in it. Religious dogmatic instruction in morality is a framework for unquestioning obedience. The idea is that people need to be organized and led. That idea suits most people. When you have society based on that premise then you have a set of rules governing normal every day people. The rules are set by the leaders, who are naturally excused from the rules meant for followers. Abstract thinking is very useful for many things. One thing it is great for is for providing a steady diet of rhetorical stimulation that keeps people feeling hopeful about a better tomorrow.
11/27/2011 9:14:41 PM	Morals should be used for goodness and not badness.
ctr916 Roseville, CA 54, joined Aug. 2011	Why is it that people of Religion don't feel the same about the hellish conditions engendered by forms of War, and its deleterious effect on the potential, greater glory of our immortal souls? In my opinion, any form of religion should be able to create better morals in over two thousand years. That form of (moral) failure is akin to asking why secular and temporal Communism, couldn't put the right people in the right places, to achieve that form of Utopia on Earth. In my opinion, persons of alleged religious morals should not be afraid to attempt a form of Heaven on Earth simply for the sake of any better morals engendered and that form of potential greater glory of our immortal souls with better temporal and secular infrastructure available to their existential and temporal vessels. [Edited 11/27/2011 9:15:30 PM ]
11/28/2011 4:12:50 PM	Morals should be used for goodness and not badness.
begbear1952 Easley, SC 65, joined Jan. 2010	Some denominations do that. Some denominations focus on social justice, not just individual salvation for getting to heaven. No atheist I have talked with ever seems to know that. I mean, where do you guys hang out that you can totally miss the Presbyterian and Episcopalian Churches??
11/28/2011 5:09:01 PM	Morals should be used for goodness and not badness.
ctr916 Roseville, CA 54, joined Aug. 2011	I guess I haven't been following their progress because they don't seem to have many candidates running for public office on that platform.
11/28/2011 5:40:42 PM	Morals should be used for goodness and not badness.
umnowellmaybe Austin, TX 58, joined Nov. 2011	Most people are religious. Most of the good works done in the world are done by religious people. I guess the morality does make heaven on earth to the extent those people manage to fulfill the potential of their beliefs. One interpretation of the Jesus book, the New Testament, is that it instructs believers to approach wisdom rationally. This idea is a departure from the tradition of rote obedience to law. The New idea brings critical thinking into mystical enlightenment. You still start out the same. You are given a framework of examples illustrating principles. But then you are told to think it all through for yourself until you understand it. This is supposed to accomplish the goal of each person who does it having internalized the wisdom and also the thoughts by which wisdom is created. The basic proposition relates to free society. How will people live well together? One approach is to have an authority set and enforce laws. A refinement of that transfers authority from an actual person to a god. Then you debate about god instead of fighting over which person is in charge. Well, when you set out to rely on an imaginary authority figure you quickly, within a few thousand years, come up against some nagging problems making sense in the same way as other people. Agreement is necessary for the scheme to work. The metaphors of religion are as susceptible to bias and spin as are political doctrines. Now what? Now in a clever way you can discern the abstract principles from the metaphors as if they are the basis for authority. Then god becomes an embodiment of truth, not its source. Truth is then what people will come up with thinking for themselves, in the form of a shared morality that makes sense to everyone. Enlightenment remains intact as a tradition but there is a new requirement. It's not enough to know secret wisdom. Not anymore, those days are gone. Now you have to know true wisdom, as proved by how its application is agreeable with other. It is definitely a plan for getting people to think in a way that considers what is best for yourself and also for everyone else. Well, there are lots of people who undertake that particular quest for what they call a personal relationship with god. They think deeply, figure things out and "get it". At that point the religious lessons have been learned and the person is reborn, as they say. They die from the world of ignorant inconsiderateness, into the world of wise compassion. That kind of person is bound by their own sense of morality to live well and get along. They tend to be good neighbors. In fact, you might say that the neighborhood improves for all the good they do. That improved neighborhood is the real version of the rhetorical heaven. The better people are, the better life gets. It takes having faith that when given the chance, people who bother to think long and hard about good and bad will internalize morality and all wind up pretty much in agreement about certain universal human truths. The reason the goal can't be to impose the habit on everyone is simply that you can't get there from here. The quality of freedom would be missing if the person had been forced to think in any certain way. Remember that the plan is to have a free society, with authority being agreed upon as true. That is a job for volunteers. I think the hope is that as more people show it works, everyone will notice and want to try it for themselves. Meanwhile, the popular appeal of a powerful idea can't be left loose where it could lead to unseating some authorities. The people whose regular old kind of authority is threatened by the prospect of an all volunteer society made up of wise adults, they can't just sit by and watch it happen. So they take over the religious idea and claim themselves to be representatives of god. That is how they do business anyway so a new religious idea just gets folded in with the rest. Except that this particular idea won't fold in. It stays lumpy. It is based on what happens when people think rationally. You can't grow a new generation of people and prevent all of them from thinking for themselves. A few always get through. They seek out and find ways to justify their dislike of being enslaved. They seek out ways to share hopes fro the future. Earth has shortcomings so heaven is always the better deal. Now we're back at square one. Why hasn't religious morality perfected to the point of creating heaven on earth? It has, but not everywhere. It is done in some places and not others. Then there were people who just dismissed the religious part altogether and kept the morality under new management. They have the same kind of approach only it's not morality and heaven, but ethics and a just society. The same result happens. As far as there are ethical people, society is just. I think it's fair enough that something like morality and heaven can be only part of the time and for only some people, if that is how it has to be to avoid having everyone subjected to some person's private idea of how the world should be run. For now, if you happen to be literate and live in a relatively free society, you can make of your life what you will, and a part of that can be when you concern yourself with being a good neighbor, maybe because you think a bunch of good neighborhoods strung together makes a better world. The morality given to people as a starting point is adequate. The system works. It's optional though, so if there is something even better on TV, well, expect only a few people to be interested in pursuing the potential of morality, religion, ethics, their own mind, their communities, the world....heaven for some people is that new car smell.
11/28/2011 6:07:57 PM	Morals should be used for goodness and not badness.
ctr916 Roseville, CA 54, joined Aug. 2011	I guess my question still is, why, after over two thousand years of Religion; we still have not created angels on Earth to reduce the need and cost of Government; instead of simply playing shell games with statism, and blaming individuals for an individual, lack of morals. Why not simply bear true witness to the excellent job our Founding Fathers did, at the convention, with our federal Constitution--they even ordained and established our form of federal government to secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our posterity.
11/29/2011 12:04:47 AM	Morals should be used for goodness and not badness.
begbear1952 Easley, SC 65, joined Jan. 2010	Quote from ctr916: I guess I haven't been following their progress because they don't seem to have many candidates running for public office on that platform. Right. Have you ever heard of Christian socialism? http://www.anglocatholicsocialism.org/christiansocialism.html They even have the St. Thomas' Church of Bath, NY Rector's name & email address listed there, so you can email him and ask him some of these questions. Might mess up the convenient boxes & labels you've got for religions, though.
11/29/2011 3:18:35 PM	Morals should be used for goodness and not badness.
begbear1952 Easley, SC 65, joined Jan. 2010	And then there Vidkun Quisling, a Norwegian who developed a political philosophy he called Universism: ... Quisling became interested once more in Universism. He saw the events of the war as part of the move towards the establishment of God's kingdom of earth, and justified his actions in those terms. That seems to be what you're looking for. BTW, the "actions" mentioned in the above paragraph included allying with Nazi Germany during WWII: On 9 April 1940, with the German invasion of Norway in progress, he seized power in a Nazi-backed coup d'etat that garnered him international infamy. From 1942 to 1945 he served as Minister-President, working with the occupying forces. Sounds like your guy.
11/29/2011 9:04:55 PM	Morals should be used for goodness and not badness.
ctr916 Roseville, CA 54, joined Aug. 2011	You may have missed the point about the excellent job our Founding Fathers did at the convention, with our federal Constitution and supreme law of the land. They provided for our secular and temporal morals, and our form of federal Government, to secure the Blessings of (individual) liberty to ourselves and our posterity. I am willing to go along with their Commandments and manifesto, simply because they said so.
11/30/2011 12:54:57 AM	Morals should be used for goodness and not badness.
begbear1952 Easley, SC 65, joined Jan. 2010	Nah, I didn't miss that point. I saw very clearly that you added it on after the conversation started. I just didn't have anything to say about it in this context. But thank you for bringing it to my attention again.
11/30/2011 9:09:57 AM	Morals should be used for goodness and not badness.
ctr916 Roseville, CA 54, joined Aug. 2011	Why not simply bear true witness to the excellent job our Founding Fathers did, at the convention, with our federal Constitution--they even ordained and established our form of federal government to secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our posterity. What is wrong with respecting our Founding Fathers wishes, simply for the sake of morals? the original question was about religious morals and why, after two thousand years, they haven't improved. I am not sure how you came up with what you did; projecting much? [Edited 11/30/2011 9:11:41 AM ]
11/30/2011 12:55:48 PM	Morals should be used for goodness and not badness.
duchessa Yonkers, NY 64, joined Aug. 2008	Quote from ctr916: In my opinion, any form of religion should be able to create better morals in over two thousand years. See, nothing positive ever comes out of a false premise...and since religions -all- are nothing but lies don't expect morals and values to evolve from them. I am not religious at all...neither is my family...and I guarantee you my behavior is a lot more exemplary that that of many who lick candles from Monday through Sunday.
11/30/2011 1:20:47 PM	Morals should be used for goodness and not badness.
begbear1952 Easley, SC 65, joined Jan. 2010	Quote from ctr916: I am not sure how you came up with what you did; I'll give you a hint. By answering your question. projecting much? You get three tries for a quarter, you've got two left.
12/1/2011 3:50:58 PM	Morals should be used for goodness and not badness.
ctr916 Roseville, CA 54, joined Aug. 2011	Quote from duchessa: See, nothing positive ever comes out of a false premise...and since religions -all- are nothing but lies don't expect morals and values to evolve from them. I am not religious at all...neither is my family...and I guarantee you my behavior is a lot more exemplary that that of many who lick candles from Monday through Sunday. I am not sure why anyone should believe that a person who is trying to be holy and moral, would not strive for goodness and not badness, usually. “The greater danger for most of us lies not in setting our aim too high and falling short; but in setting our aim too low, and achieving our mark.” ? Michelangelo Buonarroti
12/1/2011 3:53:53 PM	Morals should be used for goodness and not badness.
ctr916 Roseville, CA 54, joined Aug. 2011	Quote from begbear1952: You get three tries for a quarter, you've got two left. This was my question: why, after over two thousand years of Religion, we still have not created angels on Earth to reduce the need and cost of Government; instead of simply playing shell games with statism, and blaming individuals for an individual, lack of morals.
12/1/2011 4:20:42 PM	Morals should be used for goodness and not badness.
duchessa Yonkers, NY 64, joined Aug. 2008	Quote from ctr916: am not sure why anyone should believe that a person who is trying to be holy and moral, would not strive for goodness and not badness, usually. never mind; you missed my point.
12/1/2011 5:50:23 PM	Morals should be used for goodness and not badness.
begbear1952 Easley, SC 65, joined Jan. 2010	Quote from ctr916: This was my question: why, after over two thousand years of Religion, we still have not created angels on Earth to reduce the need and cost of Government; instead of simply playing shell games with statism, and blaming individuals for an individual, lack of morals. First, where in the world did you get the notion that we've had two thousand years of religion? Religion is as old as mankind, probably much older since both crows and elephants hold funeral rites. This sounds more like a b*tch-fest against Christianity than anything else that I can see, because Christianity is presumably roughly a couple of thousand years old. So you're essentially asking why Christianity has not taken over the governments of the world and brought the peace on earth? Why do you think? I mean, I think it's a pretty ridiculous question, especially coming from an atheist, don't you? If you're trying to hint at the failures of the Christian Church as an institution, I'll be your choirboy and yell "Amen, Brother!" The Church has been a monumental failure, in many respects, and if that's all you see, then you're not even beginning to see the failures of the church. I've come to suspect that it may be time for a whole new dispensation, where we throw out the whole ball of wax like the early Christians threw out the legal requisites of Judaism and started over. In fact, I have a file sitting in my file cabinet labeled "New Wineskins." Anybody know that that refers to? I'll tell you, since I've not found atheists to be anywhere near their claimed "higher" levels of education. It refers to Jesus of Nazareth's metaphor for old wornout social, political, religious and cultural structures' inability to contain the spirit or the essence of God. I am right on the verge of saying that we need new metaphors, new stories, because so many people today are simply too uneducated to extract the meaning from the words and stories in the Bible. For example, the idio ... I mean, the atheists over in the Religion forum quack and squawk all day and all night because not everything in the Bible is "literally" true. How stupid! Not everything in Yeats' poetry is literally true, either - if anything at all is. The value of literature does not lie in its literal-ness. Yet so many people get stuck right there - fundamental Christians get stuck saying it IS literally true, and atheists get equally stuck if not more so, squawking that it is NOT literally true. The thing I've found about most Christians, it is at least possible to have a conversation with them about it, in contrast to atheists, who appear to have flaps of skin evolved to cover their ears. That's a little joke - no need to get angry at me. So I don't know if that's the answer to your question or not, ctr916, but if not, I think it is at least a contributing factor. I started to crack a joke and say, "It's because we didn't finish the job during the Crusades," but you guys in general seem to be such a thin-skinned lot I thought it would be a bad idea. But you know what? I've been waiting over here a couple of weeks now for signs of intelligent life in this forum, and I haven't found it. In fact, I've barely detected any life at all -- maybe your forum is always this slow, I don't know. But I certainly have seen virtually no intelligent discussion - most of the discussion I have seen is about the level of a six-year-old sticking out her tongue when she gets mad. I came over here because I heard so much from atheists in the Religion forum talking about how much more intelligent they are than believers, yada yada yada, that I thought I'd come over here & see for myself. So I've come, I've been here, and it's so boring in here that I think I'm about to go back to my profile and "tell the truth" as a good little believer should do and be on my way. I wish all you guys much success on the road you are on, and maybe it be a happy, peaceful, and prosperous one. I hold no grudges, and hope to live in peace with you. -- bb
12/2/2011 12:27:44 PM	Morals should be used for goodness and not badness.
ctr916 Roseville, CA 54, joined Aug. 2011	Quote from duchessa: never mind; you missed my point. I am not claiming that the truly religious are immune from secular and temporal affairs. Only that actually trying to be holy and moral may preclude some of what you suggest.
12/2/2011 12:35:42 PM	Morals should be used for goodness and not badness.
ctr916 Roseville, CA 54, joined Aug. 2011	Quote from begbear1952: First, where in the world did you get the notion that we've had two thousand years of religion? Religion is as old as mankind, probably much older since both crows and elephants hold funeral rites. This sounds more like a b*tch-fest against Christianity than anything else that I can see, because Christianity is presumably roughly a couple of thousand years old. -- bb Only for simplification becuase not everyone may be as well versed in Religion as yourself. While I agree it could be viewed as a form of denial or disparagement of Christianity, specifically, since even the most perfected Christians have not done any better to date. In my opinion, our Founding Fathers did an excellent job at the convention with our federal Constitution and supreme law of the land, only after a Thirty Years War of religion. I do not mean to single out only Christians, unless they are also proclaiming loudly from public venues, that they actually have the morals they claim to have, without some subject matter specialists inquiring into such claims; before we elect them to "rule over us". Would we be worse off, by petitioning a Pope for a contingent of such subject matter specialist, to have a public inquisition into their claims, before we have an election to have them "rule over us"? [Edited 12/2/2011 12:38:12 PM ]
12/2/2011 3:12:25 PM	Morals should be used for goodness and not badness.
duchessa Yonkers, NY 64, joined Aug. 2008	Quote from ctr916: I am not claiming that the truly religious are immune from secular and temporal affairs. Only that actually trying to be holy and moral may preclude some of what you suggest. How about you are "holy" and I am "moral"...I enjoy life and you keep with your delusions?
12/2/2011 8:15:06 PM	Morals should be used for goodness and not badness.
ctr916 Roseville, CA 54, joined Aug. 2011	I would like to be more holy and moral, but I cannot find a temple dedicated to a goddess of Love, to pray for true love and perform true love rituals, simply to try to be a better boy friend to my potential soul mate.
1/5/2012 9:55:27 PM	Morals should be used for goodness and not badness.
lastradicaldude Lamar, CO 63, joined Jun. 2007	So why haven't our morals improved to the point we are practical angels and don't need government any more? Because we haven't learned how to look outside of ourselves and discover the objective morality necessary to help us evolve in that respect. Our ego tends to cause us to weigh our own subjective morality as if it is correct.
1/8/2012 10:12:05 PM	Morals should be used for goodness and not badness.
ctr916 Roseville, CA 54, joined Aug. 2011	Are you claiming we did not need any religion to help us with being more moral? My point is, that even with several thousand years of Religion on Earth, we still can't be moral enough to bear true witness to our own laws.
1/9/2012 10:23:05 PM	Morals should be used for goodness and not badness.
lastradicaldude Lamar, CO 63, joined Jun. 2007	Quote from ctr916: Are you claiming we did not need any religion to help us with being more moral? My point is, that even with several thousand years of Religion on Earth, we still can't be moral enough to bear true witness to our own laws. Religion failed us, is failing us in the ultimate discovery of true morality. Religion for instance, attempts to justify murder and slavery, just to point out a couple of the more atrocious. This fact is something of which most people are totally unaware, or if they are, they choose to ignore it. The thing most people never see is the mind control that religion imposes by dogma that is not to be questioned. A state of affairs such as this can never operate to foster an understanding of true morality. Religion establishes a "my god is better than your god" attitude among too many. It promotes the sad division of mankind through denomination and differing religions themselves, each one claiming to be the right one. Religion promotes individuals and groups to engage in the most egotisical behaviour without most of them even recognizing that to even be the case. In order for basic morality to ever become known and ultimately prevail, right and wrong has to be consistent. It has to be based upon absolute discoverable standards. Those standards must be logical and reasonable. The standards have to be the same in every time and age. True morality must not allow for double standards to be employed in the name of religion or God. And true standards will expose what are often seen as grey ares of right or wrong. When you state "bear true witness to our own laws". are you referring to laws of the state?
1/10/2012 6:07:42 AM	Morals should be used for goodness and not badness.
begbear1952 Easley, SC 65, joined Jan. 2010	Morality is nothing but a fantasy. It has no objective existence.
1/10/2012 10:50:18 AM	Morals should be used for goodness and not badness.
ctr916 Roseville, CA 54, joined Aug. 2011	I agree with you that only Region can take the blame for any moral failure above zero percent in modern times. But, shouldn't morals be used for goodness and not badness, if there is any claim to any form of holiness to go along with any morality. Would it be wrong for a mostly nice guy and civic person to consider a petition for redress of grievances regarding our current lack of a, better religions bureau? In my opinion, morals should simply be used for goodness and not badness. I am not assigning any blame to individuals pursuing some form of Happiness while exercising their individual liberty regard their individual and subjective moral values and privately held beliefs. Why shouldn't we insist that Religion supply us with better morals at lower cost in modern and secular times, such that we can achieve the equivalent to temporal angels on Earth who have no need for the expense of Government or an income tax rate above zero percent in during times of relative peace on Earth. [Edited 1/10/2012 10:52:04 AM ]
1/10/2012 10:51:08 AM	Morals should be used for goodness and not badness.
ctr916 Roseville, CA 54, joined Aug. 2011	Quote from begbear1952: Morality is nothing but a fantasy. It has no objective existence. I agree to disagree to the extent morals are merely customs handed down from generation to generation.
1/10/2012 11:45:59 AM	Morals should be used for goodness and not badness.
lastradicaldude Lamar, CO 63, joined Jun. 2007	Quote from begbear1952: Morality is nothing but a fantasy. It has no objective existence. So are you an amoralist aka moral nihilist?
1/10/2012 11:57:14 AM	Morals should be used for goodness and not badness.
lastradicaldude Lamar, CO 63, joined Jun. 2007	Quote from Begbear 1952 In my opinion, morals should simply be used for goodness and not badness. I am not assigning any blame to individuals pursuing some form of Happiness while exercising their individual liberty regard their individual and subjective moral values and privately held beliefs. Morality by definition is like a line drawn in the sand. If you could subjectively choose only one side of the line an individual could easily move the line whenever they chose effectively making anything good if so chosen. Why shouldn't we insist that Religion supply us with better morals at lower cost in modern and secular times, such that we can achieve the equivalent to temporal angels on Earth who have no need for the expense of Government or an income tax rate above zero percent in during times of relative peace on Earth. Are you asking this question seriously or are you being either cynical or sarcastic? Who is the "we" that will "insist"? And how can there be peace when so many will just move the line in the sand? [Edited 1/10/2012 11:58:07 AM ]
1/10/2012 1:09:18 PM	Morals should be used for goodness and not badness.
ctr916 Roseville, CA 54, joined Aug. 2011	Quote from lastradicaldude: So are you an amoralist aka moral nihilist? Our Founding Fathers gave us our form of temporal and secular form of "moral abosultism" in a document called our federal Constitution and supreme law of the land that was ordained and established by Them, to faithfully executed by us in order to secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our posterity.
1/10/2012 1:13:46 PM	Morals should be used for goodness and not badness.
ctr916 Roseville, CA 54, joined Aug. 2011	Quote from lastradicaldude: Quote from Begbear 1952 In my opinion, morals should simply be used for goodness and not badness. I am not assigning any blame to individuals pursuing some form of Happiness while exercising their individual liberty regard their individual and subjective moral values and privately held beliefs. Morality by definition is like a line drawn in the sand. If you could subjectively choose only one side of the line an individual could easily move the line whenever they chose effectively making anything good if so chosen. Why shouldn't we insist that Religion supply us with better morals at lower cost in modern and secular times, such that we can achieve the equivalent to temporal angels on Earth who have no need for the expense of Government or an income tax rate above zero percent in during times of relative peace on Earth. Are you asking this question seriously or are you being either cynical or sarcastic? Who is the "we" that will "insist"? And how can there be peace when so many will just move the line in the sand? In the US, our republican form of government is a requirement; so, from that perspective, can you re-state your question? We are referring to Religion and that collective form of Nurture. In my opinion, there is no reason why a market for morals could not engender better morals at potentially lower cost in any money-based, mixed-market, political-economy, that has also solved for a poverty of money in money based markets.

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