One of the things that bothers me the most about some religious types is that they assume that they have a monopoly on morality. They seem to think that without the threat of divine retribution, people will abandon all morality and civilization will collapse.
I think this says more about THEM that it does about me. If that's what they think, then I assume that they are, at the core, morally bankrupt and need to be threatened in order to do the right thing.
As for me, I think that simple empathy leads to core morality. Expanded (racial) self-interest leads to some more of what may be termed morality. Anything beyond that is probably dogmatic and is possibly counterproductive.
I'm not sure which christian core moral beliefs you refer to. Certainly there are a whole lot of what many christians themselves feel are core morals that I feel are actually immoral. Anything that denies a person the right to live their life as they wish if they're not bothering anyone is in that group. The problem is that lots of religious types take a very expansive view of "bothering anyone" - they seem to think that the very existence of something outside their "approval" is bothering them, whether they have to actually look at it or not.
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momijizukamori
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Date: 2007-05-24 02:39 pm (UTC)I think this says more about THEM that it does about me. If that's what they think, then I assume that they are, at the core, morally bankrupt and need to be threatened in order to do the right thing.
As for me, I think that simple empathy leads to core morality. Expanded (racial) self-interest leads to some more of what may be termed morality. Anything beyond that is probably dogmatic and is possibly counterproductive.
I'm not sure which christian core moral beliefs you refer to. Certainly there are a whole lot of what many christians themselves feel are core morals that I feel are actually immoral. Anything that denies a person the right to live their life as they wish if they're not bothering anyone is in that group. The problem is that lots of religious types take a very expansive view of "bothering anyone" - they seem to think that the very existence of something outside their "approval" is bothering them, whether they have to actually look at it or not.