(no subject)

[andrewducker]

One of the problems with the modern world is that we've taken away the simple reason to be nice to each other "God wants you to be nice." without having a good reason to replace it.

Sure, you can work through things and realise that being nice to people makes the world a nicer place to be, and that as you live in the world it's worth putting in the effort to make it nicer. But most people don't get that far.

In some ways religion was a handy way to make less smart people want to be nice. (and no, I can't think of a nicer way of saying that).

Comments

[stillcarl.livejournal.com]

Someone said to me this week, when mention was made we never used to lock our front-doors forty years ago, was that the churches were all full in them days too.

The real trouble is the less-smart people aren't as less-smart as the used to be, and it's not just religion they have no faith in any more.

[nickys.livejournal.com]

There is a theory that we're pretty hardwired to want to be nice to people anyway because back in prehistory cooperation with the rest of the tribe was the best way for us to survive.

[andrewducker]

We're pretty hardwired to be nice to _people we perceive as part of our tribe_. We're pretty hardwired to be negative to people we perceive as being outside of our tribe.

The difference between europhiles and eurosceptics, for instance, is that europhiles view Europe as their tribal grounds, where eurosceptics view Britain as their area and Europe as a threat to it.

[nickys.livejournal.com]

Well, religion has always had the same faults.
Christianity did not encourage it's followers to treat non-Christians well - for example in the Crusades, or in the 19th Century when certain nasty weapons were "only to be used on Heathens".
And look at the inter-denominational fighting within religions : Protestant vs Catholic, Shia vs Sunni....


As you point out it's the definition of "Us" that's the critical factor.
And while it's probably unnecessarily hippy to go on about how we're all passengers on Spaceship Earth or we're all children of Gaia, there is a clear need for the definition of "Us" to be expanded to include the whole planet.

[adders.livejournal.com]

Christianity did not encourage it's followers to treat non-Christians well

To be fair, that was elements of the organised church at the time, promoting a theology that was in direct opposition to the teachings of Christ.

Christianity itself certainly encourages its followers to treat non-Christians well..."love thy enemy" is pretty clear.

[nickys.livejournal.com]

Well, almost all moral philosophies say that you're supposed to be nice.

It's how they're applied in practice that really counts, though.

[adders.livejournal.com]

That's an, um, interesting idea.

I would think that every practitioner of any moral philosophy or faith falls short of their ideal. That's the point, really, they're ideals, which people work towards.

To tar the whole faith or philosophy with the brush actions of, historically speaking, an individual group without taking into account the historical context seems like an unnecessarily generalist position to me.

[nickys.livejournal.com]

> To tar the whole faith or philosophy with the brush actions of, historically speaking, an individual group without taking into account the historical context seems like an unnecessarily generalist position to me.

No, what I'm saying is that the actual moral philosophy in question is not the important factor. What matters is the internal personal morality of each person.
People can be good or bad in themselves, it doesn't seem to make a difference whether they call themselves Christians, atheists or anything else.

[adders.livejournal.com]

Well, true, but that argument collapses in on itself fairly swiftly. I can call myself a donor kebab all I like, but unless I actually am juicy slices of lamb in pitta bread, served with salad and chilli sauce and then vomited up by the drunk who just consumed it, I'm not one.

Equally people call call themselves whatever they like, but they ain't a Muslim if they don't follow the teachings of the prophet to the best of their ability, they ain't a Marxist if they don't follow the political tenets of Marx and they ain't a Christian if they don't follow the teachings of Christ.

So, of course self-definition makes no difference to displayed morality if they don't make any effort to bring their personal morality in line with the external moral philosophy and, in effect, internalise it.

But to say that genuine adherence to a faith or philosophy makes no difference to people's displayed morality is simply not true.

[nickys.livejournal.com]

> But to say that genuine adherence to a faith or philosophy makes no difference to people's displayed morality is simply not true.

What I'm saying is that it makes no difference what the philosophy itself is.

A religious philosophy is no different to a secular one in the way it inspires its adherents to do good or to do bad.

[adders.livejournal.com]

A religious philosophy is no different to a secular one in the way it inspires its adherents to do good or to do bad

Do you mean that there is no difference in how well people in religious philosophies and secular philosophies follow their belief systems, or that both are equally inefficient at making people "do good"? If it's the latter, the statement borders on the nonsensical, because each system defines "good" and "bad" in different ways, so it's very, very hard to find an absolute standard to measure them against.

If it's the former, well, I have no idea and neither the funding nor the academic credentials to find out. It'd be an interesting study, though.

[nickys.livejournal.com]

> there is no difference in how well people in religious philosophies and secular philosophies follow their belief systems

No, I mean that there's no difference in how well they inspire people to be good.


> borders on the nonsensical, because each system defines "good" and "bad" in different ways, so it's very, very hard to find an absolute standard to measure them against

There are certain core beliefs common to pretty much all belief systems, such as no murder, no theft, etc.
The details vary, certainly, but on the whole there is a general human consensus on what is good and what is bad.

[adders.livejournal.com]

The details vary, certainly, but on the whole there is a general human consensus on what is good and what is bad

I'm sorry, that simply isn't true. You don't have to look far to find philosophies that place very different values on human life - the Bushido code of Japan, for example - and very different values of what is "good".

There is a broad definition of good in the Western world, sure, but that substantially has its roots in the fact that the Judeo-Christian religious paradigm has shaped Western though for several millennia now.

[nickys.livejournal.com]

The main difference between Eastern and Western philosophies seems to be that Western concentrates on the individual, whereas Eastern concentrates on the society as a whole.

It's who or what the "good" is applied to that differs.

[adders.livejournal.com]

It's who or what the "good" is applied to that differs.

Which is exactly my point - "good" varies wildly depending on whom you prioritise. There is no universal value of "good".

[nickys.livejournal.com]

I don't think it's the definition of good that is different, just the point of application.

[adders.livejournal.com]

Well, only if you reduce the meaning of "good" to "what is preferred" and that bleeds the moral aspect out of it.

[nickys.livejournal.com]

My definition of "bad" is "stuff that does damage".
I think that's fairly universal, in all moral systems, although there are disputes about what level of damage is acceptable, which direction conflicts of interest are resolved in and, as previously discussed, who is "them" and therefore not offered the same protection from damage as "us".

"Good" is, at it's most basic level, the opposite of bad, so therefore so long as something does no harm it falls within the definition of good.


There's also a more positive definition of "good" which can be applied "stuff that actively makes things better", although that's even more opent to interpretation than the definition of "bad" because "better" is much more subjective.

[andrewducker]

Or at least to gradiate "us" more finely. Vegetarians, for instance, include animals as 'us' more than non-vegetarians do. Some people go the whole hog and object to the breathing-in of small insects, others are happy to eat live food.

Some kind of rational understanding that the us/them line should be based on what kind of behaviour people have rather than simple "we live over here, they live over there" would be a good start.

[nickys.livejournal.com]

I suppose the key to making the world a better place is to develop as wide a definition of "us" as possible.

[andrewducker]

I disagree. The key to making the world a better place is to develop a definition of 'us' based on behaviour and intent rather than on accidental happenstances of birth.

If you simply say "it's all good! We're all included, no matter what!" then you include behaviour of people who _don't_ believe that. Being pan-cultural means condoning the behaviour of those who engage in female circumcision or stoning adulterers as being 'part of their culture'.

[nickys.livejournal.com]

No, it doesn't mean condoning badness on cultural grounds.

It means, for example, working with local womens' groups to develop culturally acceptable alternatives to female circumcision (which has been done quite successfully in various places), instead of acting morally superior and imposing our cultural solutions because THEY do that sort of thing, but WE never would.

[adders.livejournal.com]

One of the problems with the modern world is that we've taken away the simple reason to be nice to each other "God wants you to be nice."

The current teaching is not so much "God wants you to be nice" so much as "once you've experienced God's love, you'll feel greater love for those around you". It's a lot more accurate in my experience.

[catamorphism.livejournal.com]

There is a reason. It's "Life is better when you're nice." It's just not sufficiently well-publicized.

[kellibunny.livejournal.com]

i enjoyed this take on it. Kindness. (http://futurepositive.synearth.net/2002/03/31)

[whiterabbitt.livejournal.com]

Opiate, indeed.