Secular Morality

[Nogre]

Mind you, no book can meet the second need Religion fills, community.

That's what things like the OUT Campaign and other grass roots groups dedicated to providing a community to the non-believer are for.

Or is that cruel?

Cruel? Yes. Good for them? Also yes.

Personally, I think they just need to make philosophy, debate, and rhetoric required courses for basic schooling. Children need to learn the alternative to religion, critical thinking to question it, and the tools used on them by religious leaders to dupe them into belief. We should also have the historical facts about religion taught plainly and without cherry picing in history classes as part of the curriculum.

It's simply unrealistic to stop indoctrination by law. We can certainly frown upon it socially, but I simply don't think that this is going to happen with all the religious freedom stuff out there (especially in the US). ...and because theists generally fiercely protect their right to proselytize their children. :x

This certainly won't free all children and won't do anything about people already beyond school. But it will help society slowly move in the right direction as intelligence spreads and religion diminishes. I don't think creating a set of moral rules or anything will help. You can't make this sort of thing easy without making it a dogma. You can certainly show some basic morality without religion, but I think that is being done. Look at all modern literature in all forms of media. Video games, movies, books, and everything all has a large amount of secular morality about friendship, kindness, and all those other basic things. And the overall message is almost always "the good guys win." We just need to become the good guys and give people the tools to understand that through education. I think the literature background for that is already in place.

 

[Midare]

Nogre,

Thank you for the link to that campaign, it's a useful resource for the non-believer. Although, I do think deep down "non-non-religious" (both nons were intended) community cohesiveness is lacking in society these days. I find it funny when people say tribalism is dead, when all it's done is put on the mask of religion and continued on its merry way. Okay, religion and sports teams... warring over which tribe gets your Sundays.

I agree with you that school curriculum needs an overhaul, and frankly so does the way the school year is laid out. I mean, really? Kids are not working on farms over summer in most cases, they don't need 2 months off to let their brains rot and forget their studies. Even keeping 2 months as the cumulative total they could have 4 breaks of 2 weeks each... 3 of which could have assignments like reading assignments or book reports to keep their brains on task. Things which they could take with them on a 2 week family vacation.

The base subjects seem to be handled poorly and the whole "never question teacher" and "teacher is never wrong" attitude doesn't enable the children to grow very much. Teachers can and will be wrong sometimes... and need to be able to admit when they don't know... then make their "finding/figuring out" an example of what you SHOULD do when when confronted with a question you cannot answer. Rather than lying or dogmatically sticking to whatever the book says, even if the student can point out flaws in the text. Even teachers lack the ability to question dogma at times. :facepalm:


You're right that indoctrination can never be outlawed, the best anyone can do is enforce laws against emotional and physical abuse that may stem from indoctrination tactics. The emotional one being harder to pin down. There really ought to be some laws against denying a child socialization outside the family unit... like if you home school you should have your child take sports events or something... isolating a child from the outside world seems to me a very dangerous action. Leaving them stunted for later human relations, and leaving them with no recourse to ask for help if either of their parents are abusing them.


I'm not sure video games are the first pace I'd look for morality, even Pokémon is basically dog fighting that is seen as "ok" because the animals feint rather than bleed and die. While some stories will include moral protagonists, the purpose of those media isn't to impart morals but to entertain. Which is fine, I wouldn't say that all media must be co-opted into enforcing or outlining morality, that would be no better than Christian groups banning movies, books, and games. Most entertainment media will brush against one or two moral conflicts in their plot as a type of character development... but most viewers don't think about the plot of the film they are watching, they do not analyze their entertainment beyond what emotional response it gave them. It's not the "everyman" who keeps doing the equivalent of book reports once they are out of secondary school.

No, the everyman seems to want morality laid out in simple bullet form structure so he doesn't have to think.
:facepalm: Dang everymen.

 

[WolfAU]

I'm sure de-conversion books have been done before, I've seen a few but most come off as shrill or preachy in their own right. Even in some cases the tone has been condescending to the point that even as a non-religious person I cringed and thought there was no way any "believer" would read through the book. Left me wondering if the author thought his audience would be compelled somehow and unable to turn away from his blinding "truthiness".

Hence why I usually try to discuss such topics face to face. Many will stick through with it out of some desire to convert you, and you can often make real progress on them in the process (don't generally try to convert them, just to address their misconceptions, and hope they value truth enough to contnue the rest of the way).

It's the faithful's habit of tuning out the moment there is a whiff of mention of God that I find such a stumbling block, the moment one gets into the "we" and "them" terminology in reinforces the divide... but at the same time how else to compare them and show the similarities? Talking about the person in the topic without mentioning creed at all, people fill in their own. One could go through most of the book without mention of it then drop the theistic A-bomb at the end. You know... after you've had them nodding in agreement for awhile.

Or is that cruel?

I find if done poorly there can be a sense of deception about such behaviour, and as such I usually try to avoid doing so, however I do think its important to not show your hand too early, and to keep the discussion initially on them and their beliefs, get a sense for what they believe, why, and things like "do they value truth". Different Christians believe different things and value different types of arguments, and as such often requires us to design an argument specifically for them... basically the socratic approach ("You believe X... and Y... how about Z, where does I fit in?" etc).

Example, one of my favourite hypotheticals; "You have a box in front of you, and in that box you are told is absolute, perfect, irrefutable evidence about God and whether he exists. So once you open it, you know for certain that either God does exist or that he does not. Do you open it? Why/why not?" There response to this can be very telling, and lets you know if they value what is true, or are largely interested in what is comforting (so many Christians demonstrate that on some level they know its a lie, but are unable to bring themselves to leave the church for various reasons).

Various questions can help you work this out, but all this is more about how to talk with a Christian face to face, and wouldn't help much for a booklet.

 

[Midare]

WolfAU,

All very good points, I do think you're wrong about it not helping much with a booklet. I think it would make a very GOOD booklet, just a different sort than I had in mind initially. More of a, "How to talk to Christians: Tactics for Atheists in the Foxhole" guide book. :lol:

 

[Durakken]

The problem with people defending themselves and saying that things should be secular is that in a way religious people are right... Secular ideas carried by some people is more a religion than they are rational. The reason you should want secular things taught somewhere is because it is fair and we have a good basis for them and not because it is what you believe.

unfortunately we have people who believe secular positions because the are secular or because someone told them to too.

 

[WolfAU]

The problem with people defending themselves and saying that things should be secular is that in a way religious people are right... Secular ideas carried by some people is more a religion than they are rational. The reason you should want secular things taught somewhere is because it is fair and we have a good basis for them and not because it is what you believe.
unfortunately we have people who believe secular positions because the are secular or because someone told them to too.

The issue is WHY we hold these beliefs. Religious people believe they are dictates by their one and only true God, and therefore not open to debate, discussion or compromise, they are equally true and relevent, regardless of society or context. They believe that all other religions are false religions, and therefore their beliefs are of little significance.

Secularists believe that things are relative, and we should base morality in part on values most of us share (valuing human life, persuit of happiness, welfare, cooperation etc), while accepting a degree of compromise with others who disagree, and "changing things to fit the times" is necessary.

I agree that there are sheep in every belief system, but that is of little consequence to the overall validity of those beliefs, or the approach (to me secularism is less about a set of beliefs, are more a philosophy about how we decide what are good beliefs to have and practice). It is simply put, a superior system, it is sound, rational, just, flexible and doesn't simply dogmatically do what we're told, we are encouraged to ask "why is this good, why is it bad?" etc. They are also much less likely to cause an individual to do something dangerous or stupid (more "moderate").

 

[Baranduin]

The problem with people defending themselves and saying that things should be secular is that in a way religious people are right... Secular ideas carried by some people is more a religion than they are rational. The reason you should want secular things taught somewhere is because it is fair and we have a good basis for them and not because it is what you believe.
unfortunately we have people who believe secular positions because the are secular or because someone told them to too.

The issue is WHY we hold these beliefs. Religious people believe they are dictates by their one and only true God, and therefore not open to debate, discussion or compromise, they are equally true and relevent, regardless of society or context. They believe that all other religions are false religions, and therefore their beliefs are of little significance.

That's precisely what Durakken is saying: some people are not open to debate, discussion or compromise, it's like they had changed a God with a no-God, and behave exactly as believers of this no-God. They are unable to understand why we hold a godless position (the worst answer I've ever seen on this issue is "because it's radical!"; and no, he wasn't a child nor he was kidding ), that secularism has nothing to do with being communist/socialist/anarchist nor having any other political/economical/moral philosophy, etc.

They have an idea of being a secular/atheist, and they follow that idea without discussion... nor let discussion be there. Pretty much like Stalin...

*sigh* We'll have to reach them too. I hope they don't outnumber us...

to me secularism is less about a set of beliefs, are more a philosophy about how we decide what are good beliefs to have and practice

Agreed. But that's a bad way to present it to some believers: they'll think you want to receive communion without going to church. 'Belief' is a tricky word in this case.

"How to talk to Christians: Tactics for Atheists in the Foxhole" guide book

T a l k i n g ,· T o ,· C h r i s t i a n s
- Tactics for Atheists in the Foxhole -

Looks awesome.

 

[WolfAU]

That's precisely what Durakken is saying: some people are not open to debate, discussion or compromise, it's like they had changed a God with a no-God, and behave exactly as believers of this no-God. They are unable to understand why we hold a godless position (the worst answer I've ever seen on this issue is "because it's radical!"; and no, he wasn't a child nor he was kidding ), that secularism has nothing to do with being communist/socialist/anarchist nor having any other political/economical/moral philosophy, etc.

I'm wondering if many people here are familiar with these South park episodes. I haven't seen them personally though...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Go_God_Go
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Go_God_Go_XII
Leading to this famous scene from it.

Basically Richard Dawkins (not his voice) comes to South park to teach evolution because the school is forced to, Richard Dawkins and "Mrs" Garrison end up having sex and Dawkins ends up converting Garrison into a militant atheist. Cartman gets frozen for five centuries and enters a futuristic world where religion has been replaced by atheism (ie various different militant atheist groups fighting each other, rituals etc).

Many Christians see it like that, that Atheism and religion are just as messed up world views and lead to the exact same outcome (fanatacism, conflict etc).

*sigh* We'll have to reach them too. I hope they don't outnumber us...

Just so long as they're not going around burning witches, I call it progress.

 

[Nogre]

*sigh* We'll have to reach them too. I hope they don't outnumber us...

Just so long as they're not going around burning witches, I call it progress.[/quote]

It just sucks when the only way to make progress is to pin them into following a secular morality through indoctrinating people with specific things along with religion (IE: slavery is wrong, bigotry is bad, etc.). Unfortunately, this only leads to the uncritical acceptance of certain good things, not real critical thinking that leads to good things.