This came up in another thread:

http://www.ozpolitic.com/forum/YaBB.pl?num=1214780471/11#11

I believe there is a need for a secular belief system which offers a moral code to live by, which is not based simply on hedonism and freedom to pursue hedonism. This is the very freedom from which those who feel spiritually impoverished are looking to escape and it is this which makes most religious sects an attractive alternative to secularism by those who feel spiritually impoverished. It does not need to be exclusive of other belief systems and could maintain as one of its tenets (as does Buddhism) an inclusiveness of other beliefs, thereby eliminating the need to compete. If would be based on development of character and aspiration towards developing ideal humanistic character traits as opposed to the favoured by a deity.

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I think it goes deeper than just a moral code. Absolute moral codes can lead to all sorts of injustices if they are applied universally. (Ever see the old Black and White Film "Kismet" with Marlene Dietrich? ). All kinds of people are talking about spiritual enrichment these days - and not just religions.

I think that the 'non-religious' (and probably a fair number of the 'religious by default') are mostly missing out on this spiritual dimension in their lives, although what I define as spiritual is related to the emotions and spiritual 'nutrition' of the human mind.  We all need the 'wow' factor in life, the meaning in life,  otherwise we become empty shells.

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So what would such a moral code cover? What have people come up with previously?

Secular people are very moral.

"Belonging to a religion" is easy. Follow the rules.
Seculists make their own moral code, often a very good one and often adhere to it very well.

I have nothing to fear from seculists.
They would be happy to let me live within their midst.
Well, they do !!!!!!

malik - absolutely.

And I have quite a few quotes from the Bible to show anyone should be secular.

Sprintcyclist wrote on Jul 2^nd, 2008 at 11:51pm:


I think this is wrong.  Belonging to a religion is choosing to follow thier rules.

In fact, I would say that the essence of faith is the belief that following a certain set of rules is the "right" thing to do.

Therefore the test of faith is the absence of a stirct requirement to follow the rules.  Those who know they don't need to follow the rules have faith, those who do not have exercised thier right not to have faith.

I am against any morale code.  If an act is not strictly limited by law, then the act is not illegal.  People may choose not to do the act because they find it immoral, but it is not illegal, and should not be.

Bill

muso,

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It's also a morality that you can switch and change according to your own whims and desires. If something doesn't suit you, you can easily modify it to suit you. In essence your morality is subservient to your own desires. It serves you, and nobody else. If all human beings had the same basis for morality, we'd be living in a pretty dark and horrid world I think. You might be a sensible person (perhaps you are, I don't know), but that doesn't mean everyone is. There are dark and twisted people out there, whose idea of morality is quite distant from yours. So if you advocate each person formulating his/her own morality, then do you accept that dark twisted person's morality as being just as valid as your own? Really, you'd have to wouldn't you? Because the only basis for the validity of your own individual morality, is that it's yours, and likewise the dark and twisted person's morality is theirs..

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If you truly believed in the concept of individual morality, then you'd accept that other societies have their own (yes collective) morality, which differs from yours. And you'd give them the same respect for their different take on morality that you obviously expect for yours. In their society, homosexuality is considered an abhorrent crime and it has it's punishment. Likewise, according to your own personal morality, there's probably things which you consider abhorrent and should be punished harshly, that those other people think are just normal.

Also just to let you know, not everything is as it seems in the oil-rich Kingdom of the Arabian Peninsula. More often than not, these public beheadings and such are just a front for something else. They often involve people who have had a bad dealing with the large ruling family there (which consists of hundreds of princes) and they are scapegoated as homosexuals or adulterers and the like. In most cases they probably did nothing wrong whatsoever, except disobey someone linked to a royal. Sorry to disappoint you, I'm sure you love the idea that there might be homosexuals there, and there probably is, but I doubt they'd be publically executed like that, they're most likely quite well protected by the royal family.

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The class wanted to? Or she wanted to? Either way it's irrelevant, the Sudanese government is not based on Islamic law, and neither has been any Muslim land, since the abolition of the Ottoman Caliphate over 80 years ago. They are all colonial outposts of the West which were specifically created in the Sykes-Picot agreement and other such conferences, and have all had non-Islamic ideologies and laws implemented in them. Just because they wear flowing white robes and turbans and speak Arabic means nothing

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It's a standardisation. It's a constant. It's a clear set of boundaries we all know is unchanging and therefore we can rely on and have the piece of mind knowing won't change according to people's whims and desires. Evolving morality is very dangerous, and has in fact led to far more severe outcomes than the ones you mentioned above. Let us look at the greatest massacres in recorded human history. The reigns of Mao, Stalin, Hitler, Pol Pot, all these people believed in a morality that is free of the Creator, and which was formulated according to the situation of the times. All of them rejected established religion, and attempted to formulate their own morality based on their own whims and desires, and look what it resulted in, the deaths of many many millions of people.

Your own personal morality might work for you, and that's great, I'm glad for you, but when you try to implement it upon an entire nation, it ends up disastrous. Islam has a 1350 year record of implementing the absolute morality as commanded by the Creator. It was fair and just and humanity prospered greatly under it. In the short period of time since the decline of the Islamic Caliphate, the world has been plunged into absolute chaos. There has been constant massacres, wars, famines etc. all over the world. This is the result of the kind of morality that you call for, the sad part is, you'd never recognise it, until it was too late.

abu_rashid wrote on Jul 3^rd, 2008 at 8:52am:


That's why we've got a legal system. The things that can actually harm somebody need to be part of a legal system that adapts to changes in societal norms through the ages, because religions don't have that mechanism to adapt.

The minor differences in morality, such as what happens in people's bedrooms have no place in law. Religions should have no right to condemn people who choose to follow another path, or those people who decide to change their path in life. People should be totally free to make their own decisions on what they believe regardless of what their parents believe.

By the way societal norms do change. If you don't accept that, you're being hypocritical. I don't want to bring up this historical pedophilia discussion again, but it illustrates my point.

You may have noticed that I stayed right out of that particular debate, because I consider it distasteful and disrespectful to Muslims. I don't go around talking about the holy spirit raping an underage girl (Mary) for the same reason - because it's disrespectful to Christians.

Sometimes it's good to get these things out in the open, but I regard everybody as having rights and views that are just as legitimate as my own. As long as people don't try to force their beliefs and the morality of their religions down my throat, I'm quite happy.  The fact of the matter is that we live in a country with many different beliefs and many different religion-based morality systems, though not as different as some may have us believe.

The problem arises when one group or another want to impose their own morality on general society, and I've seen more examples of Christians trying to do that than Muslims. The Rev Fred Nile is a case in point, but to me it's laughable when a Muslim cleric says almost the same thing as Fred Nile and gets denounced and shouted down by the media and society at large.  We've got 'a ways to go'. 

Sorry, it's too late to turn the clock back to the 'steak and eggs' white Australian world of the 1950's. We need to come to terms with the fact that we're quite a mixture. We need to learn about each other and have respect for each other. That is paramount if we are to move forward and flourish as a society.

There is room for all facets of Australian culture in the future. There are certain common bonds that mark us as distinctly Australian, but we've gone past the days of Skippy and Sonny, or the cultural cringe days of Norman Gunston. For the most part, we're comfortable with our cosmopolitan nature. We're have an increasingly complex and culturally rich society, and one that I'm immensely proud of.

- and I enjoy my visits to the big smoke too, because we don't have such cultural diversity out here in the bush.

There is an argument in defence of the law being in essence a moral code prohibiting universally immoral acts such as murder, rape, assault, theft, fraud, among many other things.

But what about a virtue such as, for example, respect? Should we not live by a code which requires that we show respect (as opposed to contempt) towards our fellow citizens and ourselves (presuming that we have no reason to believe the person is contemptible for having broken or continuing to break the law)?

NorthOfNorth wrote on Jul 3^rd, 2008 at 10:06am:


I agree with you. Respect of others who may have a different personal paradigm is essential.

There are some basic things that unite us all regardless of our faith or world view, and then there are personal moralities. For example, I would find it immoral if I let myself go physically, ate to excess and started watching The Simpsons on TV every night.

I would also consider it highly immoral if I got myself to the stage that I contracted a heart condition or lung cancer as a result of smoking or bad lifestyle choices, and excessively consumed public medical resources to get me back to a state of health.   

For me that becomes an intrinsic part of my personal morality, but I recognise that others may have different priorities in life, and I respect that.