I heard on a podcast recently that in some ways men who follow a religion find it easy to articulate their moral values and centre their actions around their values because their religion often prescribes those values, in some cases literally in written form.
To be honest I think this sounds great, especially as our world gets more complex.
So, for those of you who are non-religious, where do you go for your values, if anywhere, and are there any of those values that you have found particularly useful in defining yourself? Other than the obvious, like not murdering people.
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I’m non religious and don’t think in terms of “moral values” and certainly don’t have to “go anywhere to get them.” I just find myself disliking causing suffering.
I’m a woman, but I use my sense of character. I do what I think it right, and it feels wrong or I know it be wrong based on what I have learned through education or experience or empathy, I don’t do it. So, I do the right thing because it’s right and the wrong thing because I can be petty like that.
What do you mean? I’m a 38 year old man. I’m not particularly religious. I mean you know… I might pray during severe turbulence (😂)but don’t think about it after, if you get what I mean?
I also try not to hurt people. I don’t know where I “got that from”, it just… sort of seems like…
I don’t know. Is that weird? How else should I be? Do other people have to be told not to hurt other people/be selfish/unkind?
I’ve found the exact opposite. I have found religion, at least in America, is twisted and contorted to fit the values of its followers and that few beliefs have an explanation beyond “I don’t like it.”
I’m curious as to what podcast said this given it seems quite relevant to the discussion and I find it odd you didn’t say it.
You shouldn’t need a deity to know not to be a shitty person.
Treat people the way you want to be treated.
It doesn’t always work out perfectly, and you have to have common sense to know when someone is untrustworthy. But in general, be the person you would want to be around and surround yourself with people who do the same.
i don’t remember who said it but it goes something like this: if you need a threat of eternal punishment to not do something nasty you aren’t really a good person
The Golden Rule is as sound a foundation for a moral system as any. It merely codifies non-pathological human empathy.
Religions don’t really prescribe values. Especially with Christianity, the Bible tends to be read very selectively in order to support the morality which the believer already feels to be correct. They instead reflect the morality of the societies in which they grew, or against which they were originally a reaction.
Empathy, I don’t need to have someone telling me to respect others, help others, or not harm others so I can get some reward or avoid some punishment in the afterlife. I just look at other people and realize that the world is complicated and brutal at times, and I realize all those people could have a fuller life if we all just help each other a bit.
I’ve also found that since not being religious, it’s actually easier to empathize with others, because when I was religious I had a set of preset values I had to apply to everyone without regards to that person’s life circumstances. Now I can be flexible and way less judgemental, which means any help I might render to someone can be more tailored to what would help them specifically, rather than simply going, “Well… it should be like this because X book says so,” and having a catch all response to certain circumstances.
It’s a combination of “do no harm” and “treat others how you want to be treated.”
If the only thing holding you back from being a shitty person is religion, that says more about you than it says about religion. Follow the golden rule (choose for others what you would choose for yourself) and that covers most of it.
Also, if you actually read the bible, you’re being prescribed an archaic (and often barbaric) value system. I suspect you lean on religion for guidance less than you think.
The interesting thing is that people can subscribe to religious morals and beliefs, but they often have polar opposite views. Even within the same religion and even within the same denomination. It can be easy to take an a la carte view of morality when you have different authors, prophets, etc to choose from.
A secular person can do the same thing, although they just wouldn’t say that their views came from god or a prophet. You can start with you human empathy and go from there.
Ethics my man, ethics. I waffle on spirituality personally, but wouldn’t use it as the foundation of my values either way. Ethics and morality is a wonderful branch of philosophy that studies “right” and “wrong” and depending on your studies and internal monologue and debates, you can certainly construct an ethical system that works, without needing to appeal to a higher power. You do because it’s the reasonable, correct thing to do that leads to the best outcome for all.
That said, if there is a God, I’m likely Purgatory bound.
My sense of empathy.
Treat others how you would want to be treated
What men used as the source of their values before religion was invented.
And in my experience, men who are most religious are the least moral, compassionate, charitable.
But religion has no morals
“don’t be a dick” usually works in most cases.
Don’t need religion to have moral and ethical standards. The study of ethics and morality does just fine. Its actually better because it cuts out all the bullshit and gets to the truth of the matter.
I disagree with you, OP. I would rather think about myself and how I want to navigate through existence rather than being told how to think.
You do this enough, and you’ll find yourself looking for answers from someone else for all your problems. Despite the challenge, we need to be in charge of our destiny.
If you need religion to define what’s wrong or right for you…imo..I think you have a problem
Humanism. It’s really simple
Humanity’s success on this planet is a product of its ability to form cooperative societies and work together towards bettering our circumstances. If we were in a constant state of murder, rape, and theft within our own societal units, then there would be a breakdown keeping us from success.
It is not difficult to think that over 12,000 generations of homo sapiens, and many more generations of hominids filtered through however many iterations of cooperative and non cooperative characteristics to get to a point that we have a critical mass of inherently cooperative traits and an instinctual notion to punish non-compliance with this set of norms. Much like how living things have random mutations, which mean very little in the near term, can mean life and death for whole groups when there is a material advantage to stacked sequences of historically coincidental mutations.
So, we’re here because we work well with others. Because we trust enough in the aggregate that we are mostly likely going to be able to rely on others for collective survival.
I was raised religious and then left it of my own accord; but it wasn’t hard to keep moral values. Respect, Empathy, and Kindness can carry you much further than religion can. And I find that when I think of the moral values I want to uphold and aspire to, they come from the character traits I learned in Karate and not from the bible (Courtesy, Integrity, Perseverance, Self-Control, and Indominable spirit). A non-religious person can obtain moral values by thinking about how their actions affect others and choosing the way of acting that doesn’t infringe on someone else. They can read philosophy. Besides, it’s a huge assumption to think people need to be told how to be moral towards each other. If you put some wee ones together, they tend to share and take care of one another. It’s when cultural influence (which religion is part of) gets involved that people start to justify and adopt being a dick to one another.
I think wanting one single source to give you the answers is taking the easy way out and will lead to a mind that is easily manipulated. Don’t take the easy way out.
Philosophy. Thinking carefully about what I value, what I want out of life, why, what ways if any my varying ideas around ethics are inconsistent and the implications of all that on how I think I should live. There are some high-level approaches to ethics in contemporary philosophy that gives you plenty to think about. Normative ethical approaches like deontology, consequentialism and virtue ethics are some popular places to start. If you’re interested in an introduction to this stuff, I’d recommend a book like Normative Ethics by Shelly Kagan, a philosophy professor at Princeton.
Not being a dick
Most religions indoctrinate you as little kids to certain things so if that is how they are finding their values they are just finding the ideals in a fictional book that someone wanted them to follow so I kinda dont want to call those values but rules….. I just listen to my heart and mind. It may not be what others like but it made me pretty happy. I am pretty sure fictional comic book characters helped me find my values when I started reading at four up to currently. And other books.
The Golden Rule. Very simple.
My internal sense of “don’t hurt another person” generally steers me well.
I’m curious where religious people get their sense of values, considering there are thousands of contradictory religious texts.
I’ve always considered religious people fairly rudderless when it comes to morals and ethics, considering they need an external source to steer them
I just follow the “Don’t be a dick.” rule. I don’t need religion to tell me that. The problem with religion is that people will use it as a weapon to justify violating the “Don’t be a dick” rule.
People have been using religion as an excuse to justify their conquest, oppression and subjugation of people who don’t share their exact beliefs since religion has been a thing. I don’t want anything to do with that. Look at how the Romans used Christianity as a weapon to persecute and conquer the Gauls.
Common fucking sense.
Just try to be cool to people.
My values are a product of evolution. I don’t need a make believe being dictating my values
Being moral just because of your religion is nothing more than rule-following. That kind of blind thinking leads to holocausts and genocides. True morality lies outside of simple rules written on paper by unknown sources thousands of years ago.
I could write paragraphs on ethics in various situations, but a simple phrase usually works fine.
“Treat others as you would like to be treated”.
Start with the Platinum Rule: Treat others the way they wish to be treated.
Literally every rule about human interaction can be derived from this starting point. Every single one.
Thievery? Only if somebody wants to be stolen from
Murder? Only if someone wants to be killed
Adultery? Only if someone wants to be cheated on
etc.
Who says that religious values and morals are great? They have also evolved over time and are often a bit behind what society considers moral at the time.
I would say my top value is to try to act in a way I would like others to behave too (I guess that’s similar to the [Categorical Imperative](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Categorical_imperative)).
I also think we should try to do what’s best for the most amount of people – maximizing happiness across all humanity.
Apart from that I think you have to find out yourself what values and morals you find best.