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jadaryesterday at 6:06 AM4 repliesview on HN

> Secular just means you discuss more than one viewpoint.

Secular is simply the viewpoint that claims to equalize all viewpoints while at the same time discounting them all in favor of its own … and then stealing the good parts of my viewpoint. :) It means you can bring your priors into the classroom but I can’t. At least in a good seminary they are honest about priors and articulate why their viewpoint is different / better than others. Ethics is and always has been applied theology, answering the question “what do we do?” You can’t answer that question honestly or fully without answering the prior question.


Replies

godelskiyesterday at 8:36 AM

  > It means you can bring your priors into the classroom but I can’t.
I've heard about this from Fox News but I've never experienced it myself, even having grown up in a very blue state. I'm sure this happens somewhere, but I'm unconvinced it is the norm.

  > Ethics is and always has been applied theology
This is trivial to prove false. You even do it! "What do we do?" You've implicitly added "if god exists". You're so strong in that conviction you claim there's a former question and yet never wrote one down. I'd even argue it is important for theologists to ask "What do we do if god doesn't exist?"

You seem to be under the belief that without god there are no moral convictions. Well I'll quote a very famous conman, as I feel the same as him.

  The question I get asked by religious people all the time is, without God, what's to stop me from raping all I want? And my answer is: I do rape all I want. And the amount I want is zero. And I do murder all I want, and the amount I want is zero. The fact that these people think that if they didn't have this person watching over them that they would go on killing, raping rampages is the most self-damning thing I can imagine. I don't want to do that. Right now, without any god, I don't want to jump across this table and strangle you. I have no desire to strangle you. I have no desire to flip you over and rape you.
  - Penn Jillette
You can even find in the Bible plenty of passages to support his point. If the only thing stopping you from doing evil is the belief of punishment, then you are not a good person. Conversely, if the only reason you are doing good is because you are seeking eternal reward, neither are you good. One does not need god to have morals, one only needs have society and a theory of mind.

Hey look, we did Secular Ethics, and discussed religion! I disagreed with you, but you'll notice I never made claims about if I believe in god or not. You'll notice I make no judgement on you for believing in god. You'll notice, my entire argument is based on the origin of morals and really we've discussed is what is in a man's heart matters. This is no different than "Is an act of kindness good if one films themselves doing it?" There's a lot of gray in that question, obviously.

No ethics class is going to exclude you for being religious, as that would be unethical.

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tovejyesterday at 7:03 AM

I have to strongly disagree.

I've met people who have never been in touch with organized religion. They generally have excellent ethical frameworks. I've also read the bible, it does not have a consistent moral or ethical framework.

How can it be that areligious people have ethics if they need god for ethics?

Ethics is all about being human, it does not require a god, and it does not require anyone to understand even what a human is, or what process led to us living life together. The subjective experience of life and the subjective experience of life in a society is all you need to develop ethics.

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intendedyesterday at 11:19 AM

sorry, perhaps I misunderstand, but dont you /wouldn’t you take the best from others as well? Is that outside of consideration for some reason?