Food for thought in forums

[JCricket]

More food for thought.
Whenever you get angry, it is because things are not going your way or are happening that you do not agree with. So, why is your measurement of the right and wrong, the correct and incorrect, more accurate than the person doing what makes you mad?

[Not Insane]

Originally Posted by JCricket

More food for thought.
Whenever you get angry, it is because things are not going your way or are happening that you do not agree with. So, why is your measurement of the right and wrong, the correct and incorrect, more accurate than the person doing what makes you mad?

Very good point. I actually agree with that. But it is only the atheist's conundrum. It's actually a point I make about atheists in other forums that focus on the subject.

In a world without a higher power / God / creator, there is no right or wrong. There is no concept of morality. Each person chooses his own moral compass as he sees fit. He is his god.

[JCricket]

Originally Posted by Not Insane

Very good point. I actually agree with that. But it is only the atheist's conundrum. It's actually a point I make about atheists in other forums that focus on the subject.

In a world without a higher power / God / creator, there is no right or wrong. There is no concept of morality. Each person chooses his own moral compass as he sees fit. He is his god.

There are lots and lots of points to chew on in your post.
First, did god create morality or is he subject to it? If he created it, then it is arbitrary to him.

Second, is morality really dependent on the existence of a god? Can a person act morally if they do not believe in god? And therefore, can a person choose to follow morals? If they can, the question again, where the boundaries that create a moral?

What is the difference between an ethic and a moral? Can you be ethical and immoral, or reverse, unethical and moral?

[Not Insane]

Originally Posted by JCricket

There are lots and lots of points to chew on in your post.
First, did god create morality or is he subject to it? If he created it, then it is arbitrary to him.

Second, is morality really dependent on the existence of a god? Can a person act morally if they do not believe in god? And therefore, can a person choose to follow morals? If they can, the question again, where the boundaries that create a moral?

What is the difference between an ethic and a moral? Can you be ethical and immoral, or reverse, unethical and moral?

If there is no god, "moral" is a subjective word. That's where the phrase, "situational ethics" comes from.

Ethics are like a code of conduct. Morality is about "right and wrong".

To use a simple hypothetical: Imagine the world has no god, and we really are just an accident of nature. If the UN has a code of ethics regarding its members, and one very powerful one ignores it and invades and absorbs its smaller neighbor neighbor - against the UN's code - it will probably suffer no "real" consequences other than a "stern warning" to not do it again.

What that country did was not immoral - it was not right or wrong. It merely violated the arbitrary rules set down by an organization that does not really have the power to enforce those rules (at least against this particular rule breaker).

When I worked at Boeing about 30 years ago, I watched how managers worked and were promoted. I found there were three types of managers:

1. Those that do everything by the book. They are risk averse and don't make decisions but, rather, defer to the "rule book". They may reach as high as second level management.
2. Those that break the rules - and it hurts the company. They are either demoted or fired.
3. Those that break the rules - and it helps the company. These are the CEO's, CIO's, CFO's, etc.

Volkswagen getting past the emissions tests with their diesels was genius and would have been an amazing accomplishment - had they not gotten caught. And it was not a moral decision. It was a business gamble, and they lost. The environmental impact is not even part of it since that is debated by people who specialize in that science. Rather. Politicians had set down arbitrary rules that VW thought were impossible to meet, and adjusted their technical response accordingly. It appears to be that it was either get around the rules or stop selling diesels. They chose the former.

People don't grasp that at the top levels of business, making decisions is a bit like driving a car in competition - you break the rules all the time if you want to survive at all. You just hope you don't do it too blatantly and get caught.

Basketball players break the rules all the time by fouling. A lot of them are intentional and everybody knows. Of course, when everybody knows, you may get a technical - and sometimes even then it was worth it. It's not about morality. It's about rules. Arbitrary rules set up by your peers.

Morality comes from a higher power, or it's just rules.

[JCricket]

So, did God create morality, or is he subject to it?

Ethics being rules, what are ethics based on?

[nailer]

Originally Posted by Not Insane

If there is no god, "moral" is a subjective word.
...
Morals comes from a higher power, or it's just rules.

Morality is a subjective word because man defines what is right and wrong. Everything we know about God comes out of subjective human minds. There is strong empirical evidence supporting the presence of morals in other hominid species. To exist DNA doesn't require a god, but without worshippers can gods exist? Arthur C. Clarke's third law notwithstanding.

[Not Insane]

Originally Posted by nailer

Morality is a subjective word because man defines what is right and wrong. Everything we know about God comes out of subjective human minds. There is strong empirical evidence supporting the presence of morals in other hominid species. To exist DNA doesn't require a god, but without worshippers can gods exist? Arthur C. Clarke's third law notwithstanding.

So far, we've been unable to create DNA without a creator/God. Just sayin'.

They did come up with a way to produce it from RNA but the heat required immediately destroyed it.

We've been attempting to explain abiogenesis since we entered the scientific age with no luck so far, though hypotheses abound.