Sony pulls a "Jesus ad"...

[Ryan H.]

Gabe I never meant to imply that you have to be religious to be good. I'm not religious, and I think I lead a moral life.

However, religion has been a cornerstone for law and order since religion was around. Common themes of morality come from the basic fundamental religions of Islam, Judaism, Buddhism, Christianity, etc. It's an interwoven part of society that can't be easily (or ever IMO) displaced without some huge breakdowns in the way things are done and what is seen as acceptable.

Not only has religion served as a foundation for law and order, but also as a means of communication, cultivation of civilization, etc. If you stopped to think about the cultural mores most civilized societies subscribe to, you'll invariably find that they almost always have roots in religion. It's how mankind found order in the universe, in their lives, for thousands of years, and while it may not play as big a role on a marcosociological scale today, the core is still there, and blatant disrespect of something so fundamental to society and mankind is never a good thing.

I mean, think about it, Gabe, is there a nation or people on this earth who don't have their cultural roots firmly established in one form of religion or another? It's unheard of. All over the globe, the one thing that binds people is faith in a higher power, and whether you want to write that off as a cultural phenomenon or something more basic, atavistic, is up to you.

But I don't think it's even remotely logical to denounce the importance of religion in society.

[svosen]

I think I can say confidently that anyone who knows me will say I'm a pretty decent individual

I'm not religious, and I think I lead a moral life.

This is one of the paradoxes often pointed out by Christians (and, I imagine, by members of other religions as well). Ryan even touched on it, so it's particularly perplexing to me how he, especially, does not affiliate himself with some form of "religion."

What am I getting at? It's this:

If you say you are "decent" and "moral" individuals, what definition of "decent" and "moral" are you using? To what source do you attribute the description of morality and decency?

If everyone is not in agreement as to the definition of morality, then it becomes a completely worthless thing. We can't all agree on the definition as long as we're all taking advantage of the current boom in the popularity of "relative truth" which I'm always railing on.

This is such a blatant concept to me that I just cant fathom how it escapes you guys. I just don't see how people can use only certain parts of a religion while completely disregarding the rest. Any given faith has to be taken in whole or not at all. How can one small part of a faith have any credibility for someone if the rest of it does is not credible enough to cause you to believe in it?

For instance, how can a logical person believe he will receive the 72 virgins in paradise from the Muslim faith, but not believe he has to do the tasks outlined by the faith to receive that reward?

It's the same with Christianity. Literally millions of self-professed Christians look forward to going to "heaven" (or at least their personalized view of it) after death, but they are not at all willing to take the steps outlined in the Bible as being necessary to achieve that. For some bewildering reason, they believe in the existence of heaven, but they don't believe the rest of the book in which heaven is described.

Back to the matter at hand, taking the definitions of morality from the major faiths of the world (which are NOT, as many would claim, identical and/or interchangeable) without taking those faiths in whole is just plain lunacy. Those respective faiths came from their own individual sources as complete packages. They're not smorgasboards of beliefs. It is beyond me how an individual could place their faith in only a part or two of any given one without recognizing the rest as true.

It's like reading the manual for your DVD player and coming to the conclusion that the display panel dimmer function will work as described, but there's just no way the slow motion and chapter skip functions are real. Why would you be willing to believe one and not the other? It would make much more sense to believe none of it and be completely wrong that to believe only part of it and be partially right.

Having said that, I hope it's abundantly clear to everyone that I'm not about to stand in judgement of anyone for their beliefs, regardless of whether or not I think you're right. In fact, my whole point in this discussion is not "Christianity vs. Non-Christianity;" rather, I'm describing what I see to be logical vs. illogical. And smorgasboard religion is, to me, highly illogical.

[Ryan H.]

Svosen, I'm not religious because I don't believe in a higher power, but that does not make the fact that I follow basic morality set through religion 'illogical' in any sense.

Religion is a man made institution, the rules and boundaries set forth by religion go far beyond faith in a higher power. Just because I follow common morality does not mean I must believe that God exists in order to avoid hypocrisy.

Personally I'm bothered by the implication, however subtle, that following basic morality without believing as you do somehow makes me a hypocrite or a subscrier to relative truth.

I really don't think I want to continue this discussion, because I've tried to be very supportive of the idea of religion as a key function of society and in return I'm being judged, whether you want to call it that or not, and personally I don't dig that one bit.

[Norrec]

I'm going to have to agree wholy with Ryan here.
You dont have to accredit your morality to live by (a) Gods will, it is possible to live a good and moral life for the good of man. Do well by another, you don't need (a) God to give credit to for your good lifestyle, it's personal judgement that leads people to how they live their life.
I don't see how this could be offensive to anyone, but as this is a conversation involving religion, I'll apologize ahead of time if it somehow does.

Also:

And smorgasboard religion is, to me, highly illogical.

Alright, Data.

[Cowboy22]

I agree with everything Ryan and Norrec say. They are certain basic rules of morality that transcend religion that a person can understand and follow without believing in the existience of any god. I'm not relgious in any sense of the word, and yet I'd like to think I've lived a resonably moral life.

[Ryan H.]

Originally posted by Cowboy22
I agree with everything Ryan and Norrec say. They are certain basic rules of morality that transcend religion that a person can understand and follow without believing in the existience of any god. I'm not relgious in any sense of the word, and yet I'd like to think I've lived a resonably moral life.

My point is that religion has been a basis for the creation of morality throughout history, that it was used as a vehicle to set down common law.

"Don't kill, because God says it is a sin" and stuff like that.

However, over time this common morality HAS gone beyond being solely religious, as basic mores and values have been passed down through culture just as much as religion. Therefore, it's entirely possible to be moral without being religious, even if religion is the basis for morality.

[Cowboy22]

That was pretty much what I was trying to say. I'll readily admitt that these rules of morality began as relgious law. As you said, they've just moved beyond that over time and have become ingrained in society as a whole, regardless of a person's faith.

[Gabriel013]

To me, being a decent person isn't doing the right thing because I'm expected to by God or Man's law but simply because I want to.

To go further into that, 'The Right Thing' pretty much involves not going out of your way to harm people or not doing things to give you a quick feel good when you know it could hurt someone.

An offence I would associate with the latter part would be car theft and other similar mental but not psysical attacks.


On the flip side I won't give to charities simply because society thinks it's the right thing to do because it isn't always. At least that's how I feel as an individual. I don't think stops me from being a decent person.


I hope you know I'm not judging you Ryan mate.


I think this is the biggest debate we (ie the forum) have had for a while.

[Ryan H.]

I never thought you were judging me, Gabe. I'm just starting to get a bit frustrated with Svosen's idea that not believing fully what he does either makes me a hypocrite or a bad person.

[svosen]

Originally posted by Ryan H.


My point is that religion has been a basis for the creation of morality throughout history, that it was used as a vehicle to set down common law.

"Don't kill, because God says it is a sin" and stuff like that.

However, over time this common morality HAS gone beyond being solely religious, as basic mores and values have been passed down through culture just as much as religion. Therefore, it's entirely possible to be moral without being religious, even if religion is the basis for morality.

I agree with that completely, Ryan.

And honestly, I'm not judging you. I don't think you're a bad person (based on what I know of you from this forum), and I don't think you have to believe the same things I do in order to be a good person and do good things. I tried to be clear on that ("not Christianity vs. Non-Christianity), but apparently I failed. Apolgoies - sincerely.

Here's the real meat and potatoes of my last post:

Back to the matter at hand, taking the definitions of morality from the major faiths of the world (which are NOT, as many would claim, identical and/or interchangeable) without taking those faiths in whole is just plain lunacy. Those respective faiths came from their own individual sources as complete packages. They're not smorgasboards of beliefs. It is beyond me how an individual could place their faith in only a part or two of any given one without recognizing the rest as true.

I'm just saying I don't uderstand how you can recognize that the concept and definition of "morality" came from Christianity (well, from Judeo/Christianity, really) and disregard the rest of the faith as rubbish. You clearly have stated that this is the ultimate source of your definition for morality.

The Judeo/Christian morality, according to the Bible, came from God, not from men. If you're not willing to believe the words in this religion's "manual" about the source of the manual, why are you will to believe its definition of morality? You're basically saying that the people who physically wrote the words of the Bible were overwhelmingly liars, yet you're willing to listen to what they had to say on the topic of morality.

In effect, anyone who does this is calling all the believers of Judeo/Christianity hypocrites, which is a little ironic, given your resentment with being called a hypocrite.

Having said all that: please, please, please don't take this as an attack or as being mean-spirited. I am TRULY interested in debating the logic of this topic.