Dear Banjo,

Assuming there is no soul, then the concept of morality is stupid and those people, 350000 or 50000 years ago, simply got it wrong.

OK, so a concept of morality (with or without supernatural agents) developed because living in an ordered group had a biological/evolutionary advantage - but if there is no soul, if there is, as we say "nobody home" in that body (human or animal), then why live in a society, why live at all? why bother arranging some organic molecules into an organism - it would be ridiculously stupid to do so and ridiculously stupid to make any effort to preserve these organisms.

A concept of "soul" could be relatively recent, but you don't need a concept of pain in order to feel pain: would you deny, for example, that babies feel pain despite having no such concept?

People may think of a soul in different ways, but the common factor in them all is that there is SOMEONE there who feels the pain when a body is hurt, as opposed to merely SOMETHING. If pain is real but all it is, is a rush of electrons along nerves and neurons, then the kindest thing to do would be to kill all organisms as quickly as possible, best using a vaporising nuclear bomb so there is no time for any pain to occur.

I obviously do not subscribe to the above line of action, but this is because I know that there is SOMEONE who feels the pain, not just something. Complex explanations abound, but for simplicity, I refer to that someone as "soul".

Yuyutsu,

Without a belief in a soul, there is no morality ? I don't think so at all. I don't believe in gods, or heavens or hells, or souls, but I strive to live a moral life and to contribute back to society more than I take from it. I hope I'll be able to keep doing that until I drop. Without society, its good and bad, there is not much point to life, but I hope I can continue to see the promise and potential of society and its improvement, and add to it wherever possible.

I'm not particularly interested in whether or not I have a soul - the notion that one should do good only if one can get into heaven, or if one's soul can, or if one can be born again, is repulsive and grossly self-interested. It gives religion a bad name. If there is a god, he's surely smart enough to see what is in one's heart without the endless kow-towing and arse-kissing.

Joe

Dear Joe,

In this context, I never mentioned heaven or hell, god or religion, so please try to keep this issue simple without introducing new elements.

«Without a belief in a soul, there is no morality ?»

Why, morality does not depend on belief. Without souls there would indeed be no morality, but without a belief in a soul, well why not?

«Without society, its good and bad, there is not much point to life»

And without souls to experience life, there is no point in life whatsoever.

One can do good (or evil) only if there is good (or evil).

One may legitimately argue whether souls are like this or like that (e.g. whether they are born and die, whether they have colour, smell, shape, size or memory, whether they split and merge and a billion similar questions), but if there are no souls at all, then all that remains is matter - atoms, molecules, energy, other particles, etc.

Rearranging matter is neither good nor evil as it affects no one. In the absence of souls who can experience the world through organisms, whether molecules combine up to form organisms or not and whether those organisms combine up to form societies or not, is meaningless, inconsequential, neither good nor evil.

Kind of begging the question, Yuyutsu :) Yes, apart from the energy across the universe, " .... all that remains is matter .... " There is no physical or chemical equation, or biological evidence e, that there is or can be a soul. Move on, concern yourself with society as it is, and how its negative effects can be ameliorated, and positive effects enhanced.

Joe

Dear Joe,

Agreed: no physical, chemical or biological evidence for a soul.

So?

As I believe in the existence of souls, I have no problem with morality.
OTOH, if you believe in the non-existence of souls, then you cannot justify your morality.
You can still be moral (because souls actually do exist) and I do hope you are, only you cannot justify why you are so.

«Move on, concern yourself with society»

Society is only a tool - it serves (or disserves as the case may be) its member humans, and those humans serve (or disserve as they case may be) those souls that are attached to them. I should therefore concentrate on the well-being of souls and be concerned with the utility of society only to the extent that it impacts their well-being.

But then you implied so yourself:

«and how its negative effects can be ameliorated, and positive effects enhanced.»

[Negative/Positive] Effects on whom? Who is the affected? Obviously on the souls who are attached to bodies that belong to the society in question.

To David F.

You asked what I want to do with abortion. I'm glad you asked for once instead of only speaking for me and my views. (Though before you asked you already did that, so no real credit).

Regarding abortion the first step is to acknowledge that it's wrong. The reason it's wrong is because it kills another human being. Even if there is no legal crime attached to abortion, if it is acknowledged for the deaths it causes then that is a first step away from abortion being rationalized. It would be the start of a cultural change.

Second would be to attack the causes of abortion. A whore like society feeding the male's unending lusts is part of the problem. A culture shift to encourage to abstain from sex until there's stability in the relationship can curb the whore like nature that many here are arguing for when the topic of sex is brought up. With this in mind, if your cousin never had sex with the soldier that died, she might still be around. So on that level working for stable relationships instead of relationship highs could have helped several other issues aside from reducing abortion.

(Continued)