Dear Joe,

Other than being religious at heart, why else would you care to do good and shun evil?

Good and bad, right and wrong, do not exist in nature because no physical property (e.g. charge, spin, colour, momentum, energy, etc.) was ever detected which renders a physical object good or bad, not even a hint of that.

Thus good and evil are supernatural.

Some claim that they do not exist, fair enough, but you are obviously not among them.

Some do not care, thus their decisions in life are not based on whether their action is going to be good or bad.

Yet you do care, very much so.

Though it doesn't prove anything, it may interest you to notice that Jesus identified God with goodness: "there is none good but one, that is, God" [Mark 10:18]. Obviously you do not identify goodness with God and this is no wonder because some commonly-imagined concepts of and myths about God do not match, indeed do not portray Him positively at all.

But in your own way you do worship goodness and you even reject notions of God/gods that defy this description. In doing so you are drawing closer to goodness. That you do not call your aim 'God' or the process of getting there 'religion', who cares, it's only semantics, you head there anyway!

without a common set of values every one makes up their own. That's why feminist promote guilt free slaughter of the unborn, husbands cheat on wives and children carry on like brats with n disciple. Secularism has shown that man left to his own devices and stupidity is a very poor way of determining values. Even the catholic church looks good compared with secularism.

Yuyustu,

We are natural. Therefore, concepts that we devise are also natural. There is nothing supernatural about the concepts of good and evil.

Supernatural"
(of a manifestation or event) attributed to some force beyond scientific understanding or the laws of nature. (http://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/supernatural)

Hi Yuyutsu,

Interesting logic:

Premise A: good and evil do not exist in nature;

Premise B: ?

Conclusion: therefore good and evil are supernatural.

You may need to do some work on Premise B.

Then you make the leap, that supernatural means 'religious'.

Not that I'm interested by now, but you may need to work on that as well.

Abraham Maslow developed his theory of 'needs', which progressively morph from 'my needs' into 'the needs of others'. Nothing uniquely religious about all that. I love my kids, and would probably give my life for them, like most parents, but religion does not enter those relationships. Love also is rare in nature, but it's not necessarily supernatural.

A concern about 'how to live one's life' is NOT the monopoly of any religion, unless you define the word to include it, which is a bit circular: A is B because B includes A. I beg to differ :)

We all have values, whether we know it or no - even JaFra on 'The Feed' does, but she is probably also ready to declare 'Air ?! Who needs it ? There's no such thing !' but keeps breathing, blissfully unaware.

Cheers,

Joe

Loudmouth,
In my article I attempted to differentiate between the values we adopt as good things and the actual formation of character. It is very easy to approve of being charitable to others if your charity is never tested. Of course everyone has values but that is not really and interesting observation. I value a good bottle of red in the evening. The values we adopt say nothing about how our character produces action. We are all blind to what we do and why. Understanding ourselves takes bravery and focus and confession. This is how virtue grows and eventually effects how we act towards others.

A good Australian value is we pick on new arrivals. Weather they are Greek,Italian, far eastern it does not matter they all get the same treatment. Maybe that is Australian initiation.
Another good Australian value is we see through rediculous teachings about churches, and their set of rules regarding what is right and what is wrong.
A valued Australian value is the partaking of hot pies and cold beer, regularly.
Australian values are everywhere. We pride ourself with not having a book of rights as sitizens we are restricted by nothing.