Friday, April 06, 2007

Sources of Morality

I've had this conversation with some people and I think I posted about it a few times. Basically where does morality come from? Is it always based in religion or something else? Is our basis of law based in religion? Etc.

Well, I was poking around and came across a transcript of a debate between a well known atheist and a well known pastor. Some really good questions are presented from both sides and it is really a fascinating conversation.

In any case, regarding the topic of this post, I'm going to link to page 4 of the transcript where they are talking about morality and it's source. Check it out and, if you are really bored, read the whole thing! :)

Page Four

1 comment:

PDizzle said...

Let me first say that I do beleive in a God(for lack of a better word) but not any one persons god ie Jesus, Allah,etc.

I would also like to say that ever since man became sentient there (most likely) has been some beleive in god. This could be because when early man couldn't explain somthing they would likely have said it was an action of the devine.

Now when you live in an area prone to flash floods you dont wnat to piss off god for fear that you will be easily swept aside. In that respect you create ways of living in what they could see as "morality". and thus you get our modern laws. but this is not truely the "Origin of Morality"

the origin of morality i think would come from this line of thinking: "I dont want to die/be killed". This is the simplest form of morality because everyone, even those who beleive whole heartedly in heaven still fear death and the unseen. this then morphs into "I dont want a hard life so be damned if anyone's goin to make it harder on me". This ultimatly boils down to "do unto other as you would have them do unto you". IE you dont want to be killed then dont kill, you dont want people to steal from you then dont steal; this is the mentality I think all morality originated from.