Ethics without Religion

[ScorpioRising007]

I have studied a bit of ethics. To this point, my main takeaways are simple. Right and wrong are not relative, and people are born with individual value not dependent on society. I'm not saying they have no societal obligations, I'm simply saying a government couldn't declare people disposable and have them killed, or have a justification for a caste system. Considering that one political party has a clearly anti religious stance, how would they reconcile a society's view of right and wrong? Many casually declare you do not need God for people to have a sense of right and wrong, but without a religion, doesn't that give a government carte blanche to justify any act against its citizens in the name of societal responsibility?
Even on a personal level, ethics without religion seems chaotic. For people who argue that right and wrong are relative, it would just create a system where the powerful could grant themselves any definition of good that suits them. Would an atheist consider that a better model for a society than a society with a religious sense of right and wrong? How could you protect the less powerful from powerful in a purely secular way?

Although I do go to a Christian church and would call myself religious... I do believe atheists can have very good morals and ethics.

Even in religion ethics and morals are very subjective. What is right and wrong changes from religion. Christianity vs Islam has some similarities but some differences in morals. Buddhism again has some differences. Same can be said with Hinduism. Judaism has slight differences from Christianity when it comes to morals. If you like to really get into the Occult like I did and study The Book of The Law then morals become very different than Christian values. "The Book of the Law" by Aleister Crowley a good read to make you think "What is Love', "love is the Law", "Doing things according to thy Will".

I have studied morals even in magic groups I was in, they had their own code of morals. ... then their is the philospher's take on morals such as Kant

 

[lg325]

This looks like a good thread to add this. I enjoyed reading the discussion.

 

[Libby von H]

I have studied a bit of ethics. To this point, my main takeaways are simple. Right and wrong are not relative, and people are born with individual value not dependent on society. I'm not saying they have no societal obligations, I'm simply saying a government couldn't declare people disposable and have them killed, or have a justification for a caste system. Considering that one political party has a clearly anti religious stance, how would they reconcile a society's view of right and wrong? Many casually declare you do not need God for people to have a sense of right and wrong, but without a religion, doesn't that give a government carte blanche to justify any act against its citizens in the name of societal responsibility?
Even on a personal level, ethics without religion seems chaotic. For people who argue that right and wrong are relative, it would just create a system where the powerful could grant themselves any definition of good that suits them. Would an atheist consider that a better model for a society than a society with a religious sense of right and wrong? How could you protect the less powerful from powerful in a purely secular way?

You are using all but the actual words NATURAL LAW

To Cicero, “law in the proper sense is right reason in harmony with nature.” 3 These laws are not in constant flux or evolution. Cicero stated emphatically that “there will not be one such law in Rome and another in Athens, one now and another in the future, but all peoples at all times will be embraced by a single and eternal unchangeable law.”
4. Cicero, De Re Publica, 3.33.

The best minds of the last 3000 years were for NATURAL LAW

 

[surada]

Which brings to mind the fact that America is more religious than other democracies, but has started so many wars since WW2, while the other democracies have not.

Could it be suggested that christianity is responsible for the American 'culture' of war and killing?

Well, God is on our side.