The role of Secularism in the formation of modern ethical values...

[Humanist_Activist]

The strength of secular ethics is this, it is subjective, rather than objective, the key factor is that as we increase knowledge, we increase our ethical outlook in society. I think no one would argue that we live, particularly in western culture, in a time of the least amount of suffering and unethical behavior. But why is this?

I would argue that the Age of Enlightenment was the largest factor in the progression of ethical values to today and into the future, it never really ended, but sometimes it sputtered and restarted, but overall we have had a progression in the advancement of progressive ethical values. At the same time, the role of religion in informing ethics in culture has decreased slowly but surely. The problem is that religions, while they do codify many values that many religious people considered ethical or moral, those values then become unchanging due to the nature of it being "God's Law".

The advancement in ethics are rooted in the Enlightenment, and in scientific advancement, the theory of Evolution itself, Darwin's brainchild, partially came about because he came from a strongly abolitionist family and believed that the races were inconsequential variations of the same species, not different species as some of his contemporaries argued as a justification for slavery, which itself was justified by Christian ethical values rooted in the Bible.

This is one of the key factors, while religions such as Christianity have the Golden Rule, in practice they generally only apply that rule within their perceived in-group. Christianity has been in force for 1500 years, yet the ethical outlook of nations with Christian majorities hasn't advanced much till approximately 200 years ago. This is a key point, and as Christianity fell away as a force for ethical consideration, these nations advanced their ethics accordingly. Is it any surprise then that the least religious nations in the world also have the best happiness and civil rights records?

Based on reason and evidence based guidance, we can evolve as a society to treat all members of that society equally. Its a slow road, but one that we are progressing on, even in the most religious of secular societies such as the United States.

Compare and contrast religious ethics and society with secular ones, its easy to do, even today, there are still nations that are practical or literal theocracies, so which is better at determining what is ethical? Iran stones adulterers and hangs gay people, following the precepts of the Qur'an which isn't that far removed from the Bible, Uganda imprisons gay people following precepts of the Bible, Pakistan puts blasphemers to death or imprisons them for life for disrespecting Mohammed.

Contrast this with nations such as those of Europe and North America, some of the most secular, where none of these are crimes at all, and indeed where same sex marriage, no-fault divorce, freedom of religion and freedom of speech. Which is superior?

And while religion is good at passing on ethics from one generation to the next, what if those ethics are wrong, such as promotion and acceptance of slavery? For thousands of years, humans have owned other humans, and even today that is true, but today it is considered anathema in most societies around the world, and modern day slavers are generally treated like the criminals they are. Genocide is another, once acceptable practice, and now we have an international criminal court that treats those who commit it as the war criminals they are.

The biggest strength of secular based ethics, however, is this, it doesn't matter what your religion or lack thereof is, you most likely follow secular based ethics and ignore or gloss over your religion's(if any) ethics. The only exception would be the extremists, who are viewed this way because they are the unfiltered followers of their religion's ethical as well as metaphysical outlook, and the fact is they cannot be faulted for not following their faith, they are following it to their fullest as practical.

[laconicsax]

1. Religious morals are shaped by cultural ones.

After all, http://scienceblogs.com/notrocketscience/2009/11/creating_god_in_ones_own_image.php">"God" is a sockpuppet.

[Humanist_Activist]

2. Precisely, the Biblical perception of god is far different than the modern Christian's...

on issues such as slavery and genocide. God apparently changes with the times, if usually a little behind the times because of the conservative streak in Christianity.

This leads us to 3 conclusions, either the god Christians worship changes his mind over time(contradicting the Bible), or Christian perceptions of this god is so flawed that the entire religion is invalid, or, and this is most likely, this god only exists in the minds of believers.

[Thats my opinion]

10. Or

Like all other disciplines including history and science, we really believe in evolution and see the changes that occur in religious thought generation to generation. Whatever, it is not static. It continues to evolve. You would not want a science, history, architecture, music, poetry or anything else that didn't. Religionists who do not believe in evolution are stuck in time and have little to offer in our day.
So Jesus said, "you have heard it said of old, but I say to you/......"

[NMMNG]

3. Bingo

They take something they see as good or useful, then claim it. Moral lessons are so much more effective, apparently, with "god said so" behind them.

[cleanhippie]

4. What a great post!

Thank you for the effort.

[NMMNG]

5. "Compare and contrast religious ethics and society with secular ones,"

Non-religious nations have higher quality of life


Misinformation and facts about secularism and religion

<snip>

Criminal Behavior:

Citing four different studies, Zuckerman states: "Murder rates are actually lower in more secular nations and higher in more religious nations where belief in God is widespread." He also states: "Of the top 50 safest cities in the world, nearly all are in relatively non-religious countries."

<snip>

Marriage and Family:

Zuckerman cites a 1999 Barna study that finds that atheists and agnostics actually have lower divorce rates than religious Americans.

<snip>

Altruism: Secular nations such as those in Scandinavia donate the most money and supportive aid, per capita, to poorer nations. Zuckerman also reports that two studies show that, during the Holocaust, "the more secular people were, the more likely they were to rescue and help persecuted Jews."

Outlooks and Values: Zuckerman, citing numerous studies, shows that atheists and agnostics, when compared to religious people, are actually less likely to be nationalistic, racist, anti-Semitic, dogmatic, ethnocentric, and authoritarian. Secularism also correlates to higher education levels. Atheists and other secular people are also much more likely to support women's rights and gender equality, as well as gay and lesbian rights. Religious individuals are more likely to support government use of torture.

<snip>

Cross-National Correlations of Quantifiable Societal Health with Popular Religiosity and Secularism in the Prosperous Democracies

<snip>

few hundred years ago rates of homicide were astronomical in Christian Europe and the American colonies (Beeghley; R. Lane). In all secular developed democracies a centuries long-term trend has seen homicide rates drop to historical lows (Figure 2). The especially low rates in the more Catholic European states are statistical noise due to yearly fluctuations incidental to this sample, and are not consistently present in other similar tabulations (Barcley and Tavares). Despite a significant decline from a recent peak in the 1980s (Rosenfeld), the U.S. is the only prosperous democracy that retains high homicide rates, making it a strong outlier in this regard (Beeghley; Doyle, 2000). Similarly, theistic Portugal also has rates of homicides well above the secular developed democracy norm...
<snip>

Although the late twentieth century STD epidemic has been curtailed in all prosperous democracies (Aral and Holmes; Panchaud et al.), rates of adolescent gonorrhea infection remain six to three hundred times higher in the U.S. than in less theistic, pro-evolution secular developed democracies (Figure 6). At all ages levels are higher in the U.S., albeit by less dramatic amounts. The U.S. also suffers from uniquely high adolescent and adult syphilis infection rates, which are starting to rise again as the microbe’s resistance increases (Figure 7). The two main curable STDs have been nearly eliminated in strongly secular Scandinavia. Increasing adolescent abortion rates show positive correlation with increasing belief and worship of a creator, and negative correlation with increasing non-theism and acceptance of evolution; again rates are uniquely high in the U.S. (Figure 8). Claims that secular cultures aggravate abortion rates (John Paul II) are therefore contradicted by the quantitative data....

<snip>

In general, higher rates of belief in and worship of a creator correlate with higher rates of homicide, juvenile and early adult mortality, STD infection rates, teen pregnancy, and abortion in the prosperous democracies (Figures 1-9). The most theistic prosperous democracy, the U.S., is exceptional, but not in the manner Franklin predicted. The United States is almost always the most dysfunctional of the developed democracies, sometimes spectacularly so, and almost always scores poorly. The view of the U.S. as a “shining city on the hill” to the rest of the world is falsified when it comes to basic measures of societal health. Youth suicide is an exception to the general trend because there is not a significant relationship between it and religious or secular factors. No democracy is known to have combined strong religiosity and popular denial of evolution with high rates of societal health...

<snip>

...The least theistic secular developed democracies such as Japan, France, and Scandinavia have been most successful in these regards. The non-religious, pro-evolution democracies contradict the dictum that a society cannot enjoy good conditions unless most citizens ardently believe in a moral creator. The widely held fear that a Godless citizenry must experience societal disaster is therefore refuted. Contradicting these conclusions requires demonstrating a positive link between theism and societal conditions in the first world with a similarly large body of data - a doubtful possibility in view of the observable trends.

<snip>

[Humanist_Activist]

7. See, I was too lazy to do the legwork on cites, thanks for that!

:hi:

[NMMNG]

8. No problem

:hi:

[Odin2005]

6. Great post! K&R

[dmallind]

9. All valid. Religion does provide a normative framework however

Yes, Enlightenment philosophy and its progeny have informed much of modern moral norms. It wasn't religion that decided women should be equal, or that children should not work in coal mines. The ethical priorities in Christianity follow cultural norms rather than lead them, but religions ARE very good mechanisms for reinforcing these norms. Kids especially may have a tough time universalizing the "Golden Rulr" (which of course predates not only the Enlightenment but Christianity too) from a purely philosophical viewpoint, but the idea that it's one of God Jr.'s big principles will get it stuck in their heads regardless of how erratically and how recently Christianity's focus on it has arisen.

[Humanist_Activist]

11. You don't need to get philosophical about it in order to normalize it...

Most people have, built in as it were, a sense of fairness and empathy. The idea is to encourage the development of those senses in children. My mother didn't tell me that stealing was bad because Jesus said so, she simply asked me how I would feel if someone stole from me. Then she would tell me to go to my room and think on that until I can come up with a reasonable answer. I was 7 or so when this happened, she always encouraged me to be thoughtful of others.

My mother is a Christian, but not too religious, so I never was raised to think about what God/Jesus thought about my actions.

[dmallind]

14. I really don't think people DO have a built in sense of fairness

They may, hopefully, get one inculcated by peer pressure, force from more powerful cohorts, and parenting, but the only built in human morality, as demonstrated by the few real examples of "feral" children, is take what you can and keep it until it's taken from you.

[Humanist_Activist]

16. If what you say is true, humans would have went extinct 100,000 years ago...

and so called feral children were not raised in a natural properly socialized environment. Even our closest relatives, Chimps and Bonobos, understand fairness, and when things are unfair(usually to them) they can tell. Are you saying human children are less developed than even our closest relatives?

I find it interesting that you feel that the only "natural" human state is self interest, its more an examination of your mindset, rather than reality.

[salvorhardin]

17. Another book you should read

Primatologist Frans de Waal's The Age of Empathy: Nature's Lessons for a Kinder Society. http://www.amazon.com/Age-Empathy-Natures-Lessons-Society/dp/0307407764

Not only do people have a sense of fairness built in, we inherited it from our evolutionary predecessors.

[Boojatta]

21. "as demonstrated by the few real examples of 'feral' children"

Is there a built-in faculty of language that constrains languages, or are language universals merely a byproduct of the fact that if we could travel far enough back in time, then we would observe a very restricted variety of languages in existence?

[Boojatta]

20. "My mother is a Christian"

That is obviously irrelevant.

As you yourself wrote ...

The advancement in ethics are rooted in the Enlightenment, and in scientific advancement

What does your mother know about the Lorentz transformation, the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics, and the Many-Worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics?

[salvorhardin]

12. Actually religion played a huge role in progressive populist politics and did drive social change

For example, the Social Gospel propelled many of the abolitionists, and Theosophy's leaders' had a huge impact on Indian Independence. Those are just two examples.

I recommend Horowitz and Kazin.

Occult America: White House Seances, Ouija Circles, Masons, and the Secret Mystic History of Our Nation
http://www.amazon.com/Occult-America-Seances-Circles-ebook/dp/B002MY9HN8

American Dreamers: How the Left Changed a Nation
http://www.amazon.com/American-Dreamers-Left-Changed-Nation/dp/0307266281

[dmallind]

13. But not on the issues I actually mentioned eh? nt

[salvorhardin]

15. Actually, yes

You said:

It wasn't religion that decided women should be equal, or that children should not work in coal mines.

If you're not aware of the role of Social Gospel ministries in the suffragette movement, from before the Civil War straight through the 1920s, or early union organizing, then you really need to read some more history. Progressive populist politics as we know it today would not exist without all the new religious movements and occultists that came about during the 2nd Great Awakening.

You just can't minimize the impact religion had on this country, both good and bad. From the very beginning, this country has been shaped by kooks, freaks and radicals of all stripes and the vast majority were deeply religious and acted as they did because of their religious (or spiritual) faith.

[Boojatta]

18. Did Darwin do any work in biology that can help biologists determine ...

whether two given organisms (such as Darwin himself and Frederick Douglass) are members of the same species or members of different species?

the theory of Evolution itself, Darwin's brainchild, partially came about because he (...) believed that the races were inconsequential variations of the same species, not different species as some of his contemporaries argued as a justification for slavery

**

the theory of Evolution itself, Darwin's brainchild, partially came about because he came from a strongly abolitionist family (...)

What contributed to making the family abolitionist? Do you have any indications of what things might have played a role?

[Humanist_Activist]

25. Don't have an answer to the first question, as to the second...

I can think of many different factors, the first being that Darwin came from a family of naturalists(what we would call scientists today), that, while they are still products of their time, still emphasized using reason and observation before coming up with conclusions. Perhaps the greatest influence was his grandfather, Erasmus Darwin, who came up with his own theory of evolution, but never fleshed it out, and indeed failed to come up with the brilliant mechanism of natural selection like Charles Darwin did. Erasmus was a strong abolitionist, natural philosopher, physician and inventor.

Another important factor is that, from his grandfather's time to his own, being in a well esteemed family in Great Britain, was in the same time period where the slave trade was falling out of favor in the British empire, mostly due to ethical factors founded on the Enlightenment.

On a side note, Erasmus Darwin was at least as interesting and almost as influential as his much lauded grandson, he was a poet who wrote poems hinting at his ideas on evolution, slavery, the big bang and big crunch, and was also an inventor, even designing a rudimentary hydrogen-oxygen rocket engine.

[Boojatta]

19. What "happiness records" are you relying upon?

the least religious nations in the world also have the best happiness and civil rights records

How do you measure how religious a nation is? For example, is China more religious than the USA? Alternatively, are people in China happier than or enjoying more civil rights than people in the USA? Or should we ignore small and obscure countries like China and the USA and focus attention elsewhere to observe the overall trend?

[Thats my opinion]

22. interesting post

but if you take a good look at the history of theological formation, you will realize that it is just as much subject to evolution as any scientific discipline. To assume that theology is stuck in any period is to misunderstand it.

[darkstar3]

23. To assert that theology can be treated as a single entity is to misunderstand the whole concept.

[Humanist_Activist]

24. I don't see how theology is even pertinent to my post...

we are talking about the development of ethics as pertains to human interactions, not speculations into what gods think about it.

[trotsky]

26. And what's even more interesting is that...

the "evolution" that theology has undergone is almost without fail on the heels of secular progress.