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From: mmt@dciem.UUCP (Martin Taylor)
Newsgroups: net.politics,net.religion
Subject: Re: Schools and Churches (really 'support' for areligious moral codes)
Message-ID: <1683@dciem.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 17-Sep-85 18:02:30 EDT
Article-I.D.: dciem.1683
Posted: Tue Sep 17 18:02:30 1985
Date-Received: Tue, 17-Sep-85 20:08:11 EDT
References: <623@hou2g.UUCP> <5884@cbscc.UUCP> <1154@mhuxt.UUCP> <5906@cbscc.UUCP>
Reply-To: mmt@dciem.UUCP (PUT YOUR NAME HERE)
Organization: D.C.I.E.M., Toronto, Canada
Lines: 44
Summary: 


>
>I assume you are in favor of laws that compel people to obey some of your
>moral standards, Jeff.  I assume you are against things like rape, murder
>and theft and think it is good that others are compelled to obey this standard
>by our laws.  I also assume that you believe that laws like this are not
>a matter of individual preference and that, on the other hand, the rightness
>of a law does not depend only on whether the majority of people think it's
>right.  So, then, what is the justification for these laws apart from religion?
>
>The thing I am contending against is the idea that a moral code of behaviour
>can have it's implications for society disregarded solely on the contention
>that that moral code is based on religious belief.  As I see it, the argument
>behind that contention is that morality may be completely divorced from
>any religious grounding.  I consider that religious grounding to be any
>appeal to transcendent standards (i.e. those which are validated on
>an authority above Mankind or, as Kant believed, reason alone.)  If laws
>must ultimately be based on a transcendend standard to have validity, then
>I suggest that arguments against "imposing morality" based on religion
>are ill founded.
>
>-- 
>
>Paul Dubuc      cbscc!pmd

I wonder what religion is followed by baboons and other primates, or
by wolves or lions (social animals generally)?  They *behave* as if they
have moral codes not unlike ours, though perhaps less complex.  They
can't really argue on Usenet, so we don't know why they follow these
codes.

Isn't it much simpler to believe that the basis for our moral codes
has evolved from successful strategies for behaving as social beings,
than to bring in appeals to a religion that started only 2000 years
ago, long after people were behaving morally (oh, I suppose the Periclean
Greeks were immoral -- after all, they didn't abhore homosexual love :-)).
It seems totally ridiculous to me, to suggest that moral codes derive
from religions.  Perhaps the religions were invented to provide a
framework for the moral codes?
-- 

Martin Taylor
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