Underseer
Contributor
A while back on the old forums, I posted a link to a video discussing the "superiority of secular morality."
While I had a problem with the framing, I agree with the overall point. Considering the well-being of others is a better way to make moral decisions. This video looks at the flip side of the coin and points out some of the things that are wrong with using religion as a means of discerning right from wrong:
Mostly, the discussion focuses on the Euthyphro dilemma and divine command theory, and frankly this gentleman explains it far better than I could.
In a nutshell, even if you define morality as "what god wants," at some point you still have no choice but to develop a working definition of objective morality that does not involve an appeal to authority, or else your moral claims become incoherent, but if you develop a definition of objective morality that does not involve an appeal to authority, then why bother with the appeal to authority at all? Why not simply cut out the middleman?
While I had a problem with the framing, I agree with the overall point. Considering the well-being of others is a better way to make moral decisions. This video looks at the flip side of the coin and points out some of the things that are wrong with using religion as a means of discerning right from wrong:
Mostly, the discussion focuses on the Euthyphro dilemma and divine command theory, and frankly this gentleman explains it far better than I could.
In a nutshell, even if you define morality as "what god wants," at some point you still have no choice but to develop a working definition of objective morality that does not involve an appeal to authority, or else your moral claims become incoherent, but if you develop a definition of objective morality that does not involve an appeal to authority, then why bother with the appeal to authority at all? Why not simply cut out the middleman?