Imperfectionist

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:) And I agree, but that wasn't the original focus of the argument. No one is advocating for forcing everyone to be secular in all their dealings.

EDIT: What I'm saying is that all people should be able to look at a piece of dogma, and determine which parts are moral and which parts are immoral, based on universal values that should be true no matter your faith.

To use some (EDIT: very basic) Christian examples:
-Turn the other cheek: moral
-Love thy neighbor, and thy enemy: moral
-Stone adulterers: immoral
-Decry homosexuality as an abomination: immoral

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So Boerd said
Or you tell them that they won't be punished if no one sees them. Sailing in a vessel with no bottom. Every moral argument or instruction you would give is the same: Behavior X hurts others, causes Y societal malady, etc.

No society which has categorically rejected a higher power has been the better for it. Not revolutionary France, not Russia, not China, not North Korea, not Cambodia, not Vietnam. Not a single one, for how many trials? Talk about being unscientific, why would we try it again?

Are we talking about categorically rejecting higher powers? I know I'm not. You still have said nothing to refute the fact that training ourselves to be empathetic, even if we have faith in a higher power, would lead to ruin.

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mdk said
Where we differ is, you're dismissing these shortcomings on account of the ultimate ideal; while I'm dismissing the ultimate ideal on account of the shortcomings. I don't think we're 'on a path towards full understanding of the cosmos,' not in the least.

-shrug- People, the source of the shortcomings, are temporary, and changeable. I'm not saying that in ten years everything will be perfect, but in the long (very long) run, the shortcomings that plague this and most other aspects of human existence will be outsmarted and adapted around.

EDIT: That's just what we do.

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So Boerd said
That wasn't what I asked. Take the best moral system you can imagine, and attach divine retribution. Is it the worse for it?

Yes.

Saying "is it the worse for it right now?" is shortsighted. Is it worse over time, yes, because of what I've already said about absolutes and corruption.

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:/ I feel like we've been making the same points at each other for a while, now, mdk. You are saying "science isn't ideal!" and I'm saying "there is no monolith of science! They're just fallible people!" Yeah, I believe we are in agreement. There are problems inherent in the system, based on simple economics and human nature. I simply choose to believe that such things are temporary, and we are moving towards a less flawed system...

EDIT: I should mention, though, that these economic problems are quite similar to the political problems we discussed earlier, and have no bearing on whether the act of experimenting to draw conclusions on things is bad... It's still not.

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But it also creates an opening for people to corrupt that threat of divine retribution... "Don't be gay, or God will throw you down to Hell!", "Don't be dark-skinned, or God will throw you down to Hell!", "Don't disobey the benevolent overlord, for He has been granted his power by God!"

I see nothing gained by that.

EDIT: The problem I'm trying to get across is that it introduces absolutes, and absolutes can be (and have been) corrupted over time, not to mention their being difficult to argue against (thus allowing them to flourish even longer).

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Which is why, again, empathy is the best thing to develop when it comes to morality, not only for the secular but people of all faiths and traditions. I know, it's idealistic, but that doesn't make it less true.

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:) Thank you, HeySeuss. I agree with basically all of that, and have much the same way of looking at things.

So Boerd said
What Atheism, by design, lacks is a counter to the ring of Gyges. The secular reason I have for resisting a turn away from religious to secular morality is exactly that. I can never have a ring of Gyges; God is always watching. Indubitably many people won't become heinous when given total anonymity in real life, a religious motivation is stronger than a secular motivation when it comes to the ability to do evil and no one would know.

Which is why we (meaning all people, secular, religious or otherwise) must always be improving ourselves, and why we must embrace empathy. A truly empathic and rational person needs no threat of punishment to avoid evil; she/he must only be able to see the suffering that her/his evil would cause others.

This is why the idea of a Bodhisattva is so interesting, I think. A person who has achieved enlightenment, has achieved the means to end their own suffering... But chooses instead to remain here among the unenlightened, guiding them away from suffering and towards enlightenment themselves. The ultimate empathy.

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Honestly, I know very little about logical argument, and I've never even heard of the "True Scotsman fallacy" before now. I was just trying to say that the link you provided to the news story about scientists possibly using unethical peer-review practices to perpetuate the alarmism of global warming didn't strike me as a valid counter-argument. All it said was that sometimes scientists are immoral, and to that my only reply is "Scientists are human, and not infallible. Sometimes they do unethical things to further their own goals. This does not mean that all scientists everywhere are immoral, nor that a majority nor a significant percentage are. All it means is that that team is possibly immoral." Like I said, there is no monolith. They're just people.

mdk said
how dare you challenge the assumption?! It's almost like you're questioning perceptions, and we can't have that in an enlightened scientific community. I brand you a heretic and categorically reject your argument.

mdk said
I'm mocking the 'scientific community' for its flagrantly contradictory attitudes in the debate. Seems I've struck a chord.

These are what I am taking issue with. You see the "scientific community" as a callous and contradictory group (maybe one that manufactures controversy and false beliefs, based on what you said and linked to about global warming), when in fact they are none of those things, nor is there even a single group. There are a vast number of different sciences, each with their own experts and each with their own failings, but I contend that they're all doing the best they can, technology is expanding, and we're on the path towards full understanding of the cosmos.

EDIT: The difference between religious belief and trust in the scientific method is that the former relies on faith, which I have in abundance, and the latter relies on careful reason and understanding of history, which I also have in abundance. I'm a very spiritual person, but my trust that science is on the right path has nothing to do with faith; it has to do with my own logical analysis of the scientific process, something that is very concrete and can be observed.

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Magic Magnum said
3. Religion and Spirituality/Something bigger than us

Ok, during my time as a Christian (16-17 years) I never once had a spiritual moment. Nothing that ever reached out to me and made me go "Wow, this is amazing". Blind obedience? Yes, because I was raised to treat it as fact, but nothing that astonished me or influenced my life in a positive way.

But I get those kinds of "Wow" moments constantly when I do something such as watch Carl Sagan's or Neil Tysons Cosmos series. In fact that show is undoubtedly the most spiritual thing I've had in my life.

And anyone whose seen that show knows fully well what I mean, especially when it comes to something bigger than yourself. Living in a world where our own Galaxy alone has more suns than people? Each Galaxy supporting their own planets. And then the Universe as we know it contains more Galaxies than people even? That REALLY get's in perspective how small we are.

But at the same time, when we go back and look at evolution and how we evolved we also realize how special, unique and skilled we are. And our great potential for good or evil. We're not simply taught something like "we're sin and nothing compared to this divine being" removing any self-confidence a person has.

We get the sense of something far bigger than ourselves, but we do so still feeling well and happy with ourselves, rather than depressed and hateful of ourselves.

:) Now, this is an interesting sentiment, and by far (IMO) the best point you make in the OP, Magnum (do you still prefer people to call you Gwazi?).

Spirituality and profound spiritual experience are very personal, and very individual, and we don't need dogma to tell us how to do it, especially considering the unfortunate implications that arise from taking certain passages from certain holy books as entirely literal... However, this doesn't mean that everything that every religious group has ever done or written about is detrimental. There are large numbers of people who do find their spiritual experiences through the structure of an organized religion, and there's nothing wrong with that.

What's needed is a universal, secular moral code, one that builds from, but is not bound to the traditions of the various world faiths. Thus, faith becomes something organic, something that grows within you when you have positive experiences, not something that is drilled into your head from childhood. And, honestly, I believe we're already heading in the right direction. With the amount of information available to people at younger and younger ages, all over the world, people are expanding their ability to question the immoral aspects of their faith, and embrace the moral and just aspects. There will always be hardliners of every sort (just like, as I said, there will always be assholes), and there will always be disagreements, but once the effects of European colonialism are finally purged from the Middle East and Africa, once China truly opens up to the world, once Vladimir Putin either dies, or forgets his Soviet power fantasies, we'll be that much closer, and I believe that all of those things are right around the corner.

:( I could be wrong, though. The point is, being hostile over the fact that religions have produced many good things in the past is unproductive, compared to absorbing the postive and attempting to spark empathy in those around you.

(EDIT: Also, thank you, Mahz, for opening this thread again.)