By that logic, we should get rid of global human rights and international courts. Also stop criticising people who have a different moral code. Maybe we should stop enforcing the law in general.
That’s a particularly cynical view of human nature you’ve got there.
I was arguing that one should be a good person because one has decided to, not because one has been told to, particularly given the Christian reward/punishment afterlife framing device. I try to be a good person and I do so expecting nothing in return. I’m not trying to accrue karma points or offset “bad” deeds so as to avoid punishment, but I am trying to act in a way that I feel will contribute to a more positive society.
So in the case of building one’s own moral code I am talking about each individual’s journey in discovering who they are and what they feel is the right thing to do. A subset of people are going to be evil bastards regardless of any ethics we teach them - religion certainly doesn’t seem to make a lick of difference on that front. But putting that minority of rubbish humanity aside, I’d rather the rest decide that we should try to look after each other because they feel that it’s a good way to live, not in a cynical attempt to curry favour with some nebulous abstract entity.
Crucially, I think we actually all do build our own moral codes, regardless of whether we have a religion taught to us or not, and regardless of whether we think of it that way. At least if we acknowledge that it’s what we do then we could each take a more active part in ownership of our own behaviours, rather than tying ourselves in knots of cognitive dissonance. It’d hopefully mean we could make some progress rather than making the same mistakes repeatedly (let’s make new mistakes!).
By that logic, we should get rid of global human rights and international courts. Also stop criticising people who have a different moral code. Maybe we should stop enforcing the law in general.
That’s a particularly cynical view of human nature you’ve got there.
I was arguing that one should be a good person because one has decided to, not because one has been told to, particularly given the Christian reward/punishment afterlife framing device. I try to be a good person and I do so expecting nothing in return. I’m not trying to accrue karma points or offset “bad” deeds so as to avoid punishment, but I am trying to act in a way that I feel will contribute to a more positive society.
So in the case of building one’s own moral code I am talking about each individual’s journey in discovering who they are and what they feel is the right thing to do. A subset of people are going to be evil bastards regardless of any ethics we teach them - religion certainly doesn’t seem to make a lick of difference on that front. But putting that minority of rubbish humanity aside, I’d rather the rest decide that we should try to look after each other because they feel that it’s a good way to live, not in a cynical attempt to curry favour with some nebulous abstract entity.
Crucially, I think we actually all do build our own moral codes, regardless of whether we have a religion taught to us or not, and regardless of whether we think of it that way. At least if we acknowledge that it’s what we do then we could each take a more active part in ownership of our own behaviours, rather than tying ourselves in knots of cognitive dissonance. It’d hopefully mean we could make some progress rather than making the same mistakes repeatedly (let’s make new mistakes!).