Hey R0bert

I always thought of morals as pertaining to the personal and ethics to the collective. So I did a check on the old dictionary and came up with the following:

Moral
Arising from conscience or the sense of right and wrong.

Ethical
Being in accordance with the accepted principles of right and wrong that govern the conduct of a profession.

I will be interested to read your POV.

Now, I suspect that Fide Mae’s simplistic dismissing of us both when he/she posted:
“Scout - I have never found you or Robert to come across as having any morality based reasoning.”
is based upon Fide’s opinion of people who do not believe in religion or who do not believe in exactly the same religion as he/she.

There is no evidence of her/his claim – just an obvious desire to judge.

Morals or ethics are inherent in most human beings – the exceptions are generally categorised as socio or psychopaths – having no conscience means having no moral or ethical base.

One of the reasons for the success of the human race is our ability to co-operate with each other. While we are free to act as individuals, this may not always be for the greater good. Hence the need to find balance between acting selfishly (survival of the individual) and unselfishly (survival of us all if we share resources). Of course we are venturing into philosophy here and I make no claim to being well versed in this subject – I just find it (philosophy as an alternative to religion) very satisfactory as well not needing any belief in the supernatural and thereby, not needing to suspend my disbelief. For example; virgin births and the like.

As for Fide mae, once again we subjected to a form of emotional blackmail; for not believing in religion, we are cast as having no morals – arrant nonsense! Once again I am probably wasting my time with the likes of Fide Mae.

Fortunately not all religious people are as narrow in their views as Fide Mae or, for that matter, Muslim extremists.

fida mae, sorry about the delay in responding - I missed the updates somehow. "so I do not think it is really possible for a commited (as opposed to ignorant, who can be good) athiest to be a good person." - I do clasify myself as agnostic rather than athiest, I'm convinced that the christain god does not exist as described in the bible and preached by the christain church but can't answer for every other possibility of an intelligence behind the universe. Not core to your point but relevant.

Your belief that those who don't believe in a god (and take that seriously) cannot be good people says a lot more about your own inability to understand other viewpoints than it does about mine or scouts morals/ethics. My experience has been that the central issue is about the kind of person that someone wants to be rather than what their beliefs are based on. In my own case I have to accept that I don't have an absolute standard and that the values/morals/ethics I choose are somewhat arbitary but I'm OK with that, it's not as scary as some may think.

Many live their life with a belief in an all knowing God and still lie and cheat their way through life while others use the same belief as insipration to live lives worthy of what they believe to be their calling. Maybe you should mix a bit more with people who don't believe in God and who take their values seriously - there are plenty of us out there. If you can put aside a belief that the only real values come from God you might be surprised by what you find.

Scout, my main reason for prefering the term ethics to morals is because so often morals is taken to mean a specific code of sexual conduct handed down by god and I clearly reject that as a basis for my own choices. Maybe it's time for a new word for personal conduct arising from a sense of right and wrong. Thanks for the research.

Robert

fida mae, time for the other part of your post. I agree that if legitimate independant research shows signicant risk of harm to children then there is a place for intefering in peoples domestic arrangements. I've not seen any research on the issue of outcomes for children in polygamous households.

That was the answer I would have liked to have seen earlier in the discussion from those so outraged at the idea that muslims might want to practice polygamy in Australia - not that their God might not like it but a valid reason for society to become involved.

It would interesting to see both the research and the context of the research such as
- Who funded the research - was it funded by "Focus on the Family" or similar?.
- What is the baseline standard for outcomes for children - intact two parent families in the same communities, single parent families, two parent families in the western world vs polygamous families in the third world etc.

R0bert

Dear kactuz.
I would have written to you a lot sooner. You sound very angry. I get real angry when I see Muslims sinners leading with there anger and hatred against westerners with there lies. Sister Brother my family tree goes back to the rulers of Mecca when the prophet took over. And after they slaughtered his family members he still let them live in Mecca peace fully.
Brother I am so disgusted when I see a Muslim become happy when they see a suicide bombing there are Muslims who follow hadith and have never read Koran. I belive it is hadith that controls men and women in Islam. My wife and I read Koran every night I have read it a few time. And this that you say, no hadith in the world can back it self when it makes these evil lies about our prophet. Yes brother the ottoman and all other Arabs became very evil and started committing these crimes. Kactuz that’s why god broke them up, god gives power to which he please and god has given it today to us the western world. Sister Brother Islam is getting lost through hatred and anger. 90% of Muslims are losing religion I think they are to proud to say they are losing there faith with what’s happening around the world I challenge any body on the face of the earth to back up a claim like what you have said and kactuz, I was not there kactuz. I only have the Koran to back my claims.Please I respect what your saying because what you have seen and I don’t blame any one else for thinking the same. But my religion is not evil, studied correctly through Koran I am taught by my father to love and respect my mother three times more then him. Koran speaks of equality between men, women, Jew, Christian and Muslim. Islam means peace. Muslim means to surrender your pride and sole to the Jewish and Christian god Allah. Just so you know Allah ( illah ) al means one lah means god.