DISCLAIMER: That's what THEY say, I read it in a history book. I kinda disagree with it, although a person can have his ethics and stuff completely straight being an atheist.
wasn't it Nietsczhe (sp?) that said there is no use pretending there is any sense of morality if there's no God??
It is the knowledge of the law of cause and effect, action and reaction, that urges a man to refrain from evil and gather good. A believer in cause and effect knows only too well that it is his own actions that make his life miserable or otherwise. Karma.
interesting... i could go out and steal a car today...were it not for laws forbidding me to do that, the effect would be quite nice. i could cheat on my taxes, and chances are i wouldn't get caught...the effect would be me paying less in taxes. i dont' think cause/effect gets us to morality.
Greed and materialism do not have deep positive effects, so that doesn't really work. If you truly understand that, you wouldn't steal. Once again, it is ignorance.
you didn't mention ignorance in your post, above. just cause and effect. i agree greed and materialism don't have deep positive effects...but even that is in some ways a moral statement that assumes there is something MORE than the here and now.
I did post that "a believer in cause and effect knows only too well that it is his own actions that make his life miserable or otherwise." I don't think understanding that greed can hinder your happiness assumes nothing more but a real understanding of happiness and greed. Here and now is where it matters.
What comes around goes around. If you steal something from me 5,000 years ago, I'll come find you. People who are immoral tend to be habitually so. It's not just one isolated event, usually. So you might get away with it once, but eventually you'll get caught. Back then, getting caught often resulted in very bad things. Now days we have laws to help w/ that stuff and prevent 'very bad things.' But same still applies. Cause/Effect does not directly lead to morality. I agree. But there is a very close correlation. They often go hand in hand.
Cause and effect is everything, it makes the world go round. But it's an understanding of casue an effect that can lead us to morality. The defintion of sin is "missing the mark". I think a true morality is a calculation of "correct and not correct" not "wrong or right". Every situation is unique, there are no absolutes. I don't know about the 5,000 year thing...
but clearly people define "happiness" in different ways. unless you're saying there is an objective definition to "happiness." i have a few friends and acquaintances who would be quite willling to tell you they're entirely happy with a "me first" attitude and lifestyle.
If you do everything right, and avoid "going around", won't it "come around" to you anyway? You're gonna get your fair share of bad luck or whatever you want to call it, regardless of the way you act.
This "what goes around comes around" thing doesn't make sense, and there's no proof for it. There's nothing that says you'll recieve as much good/evil as you dish out.
I guess I confused everybody. I thought this was pretty straight forward. Sorry. If you are a habitually immoral person doing 'bad' things, if your not stupid, you might get away with stealing once, twice, whatever. But eventually you'll get caught. I'm not saying there is a way to measure this crap and these things even out in the end. I'm just saying if your a habitually immoral person, that lifestyle will catch up to you. What comes around goes around.
only because the law, which is based at least in part on society's sense of morality, was "artificially" put in place. that has little to do with the subject, which i believe was an innate sense of morality, and what the source of that might be.
Oh ok, now I get it. I pretty nuch agree with that. You keep playing with fire, you'll burn yourself a few times. So instead of getting better at fire games, you just stop playing with fire. Ofcourse, that doesn't mean you'll never get burned by anyone else, but you reduce the chances of it happening.
I am talking about a lasting happiness. The materialistic happiness wears off and you keep needing a fix, the sames goes with any ego-based happiness. And trust me, I'm not above this kind of happiness, but I do understand there is something deeper. We use the understanding of karma everyday. You do this, and that will happen. Not much to it, but the implications are profound. Every minuscule thought and action we make penetrates the cosmos, and the effects are infinite. Karma even explains our existence. We exist because the conditions were present to make us exist. The same explaination holds true for existence of the universe and so on.
i'm not disagreeing with your assertions about lasting happiness, but i still haven't the foggiest idea of how that relates to morality. in order to seek that sort of happiness in the choices you make, you would have to have some sort of awareness of it. i would agree that there's far more joy from giving than from getting...i'm right there with you on that one. but from what i can tell, most of the world doesn't get that at all. yet, they still have some sense of perception of morality. they still know that lying is something they shouldn't do, even when they choose to do it. they still know that cheating isn't a good thing. and they still say, "yeah...i really dislike the guy, but i'm not going to kill him." i don't think those decisions of action or omission have anything at all to do with some pursuit of a happiness that it appears most of the world hasn't even plugged into. my son is a great example. he's 4. he can't begin to understand the concept that giving is better than getting. he loves to get. loves it. but he still has concepts of right and wrong that are deeper than just "i'll get in trouble with dad if i do this." he can process that one choice is better than another simply because it's "more right."
but that's just programming. we can train rats to get cheese and avoid being electrocuted. put an electric fence up and your cows will learn not to touch the fence. that's a far cry from a sense of right and wrong...a sense of morality.
