What is Right and Wrong?

[DBloke]

MIGHT IS RIGHT !


I think every body has there own set of rules that they go by

Most of mine are basically along the "Dont be a arsehole" lines

The specific things may change, but generally, hurting other people is morally wrong.

Unless its sport

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[Sixty]

I find it quite annoying- and even offensive- when people suggest that only religious people can have morals. I'm an atheist, and I have morals. I may not keep the Sabbath day holy, but I certainly wouldn't murder someone.

Haha, I shouldn't get into this.

I do believe that humans just naturally decide what is moral and what isn't in this day and age. There are some religions that take things so literally and it gets way out of hand. The Bible is just, yeah, full of metaphors. If we were all a bunch of kids at the same time, with no adults, we'd more or less kill ourselves.

Religion was the thing to believe in then, so it obviously comes into play with morals. Now it is certainly possible for atheists to have morals, and anyone else for that matter. Just then, 99.9999% of people were religious, so I guess it bags the credit. People were easily led. If everyone was atheist, then there'd be questions for everything and too many people would panic. So yeah, setting up morals had to be associated with religion for people to follow it.

If you call someone who isn't of your religion immoral now because of that then it's just flat out ignorance.


People still manage to have different morals now. Somehow almost everyone has lost touch of what they were taught, I think that this is mainly due to parenting though. I just die a little inside when people litter, IT'S MORALLY WRONG TO ME. So yes, I think that in a century everyone will pretty much do this, same with swearing. No matter how disgusting it is, it's part of language change.

What is right is just what's logical for everyone to be happy. That's... good... isn't it?

[AndThen?]

I disagree with thatttt... I think morals are quite separate of moral beliefs, I reckon religion just claimed credit for a lot of them. It's not like murdering would have been considered okay without the ten commandments.

[Sixty]

...You never know!

[Napalmbrain]

...You never know!

Well murder has long been considered wrong in China, a country which has had almost no exposure to Christianity.

[Chewy]

Anything that hurts something physically or emotionally is immoral, I think.

I have a story. I got into an argument with a female classmate of mine (I should say that this happens very rarely, but I don't like her to begin with) over the origin of morality. She stated flatly that morality was defined by the Ten Commandments and that without God we would not be able to comprehend morality, and I countered that it's impossible to know whether the Ten Commandments influenced human behavior or if human behavior created the Ten Commandments (in the case that they were man-made, and there is no God), but that regardless, morality is something that humans as a species have always been capable of. As do most arguments, it didn't have a definitive conclusion.

I agree with that(top part), but make exceptions for stuff that does better in a long run but might slightly hurt some people in the present(can't think of any examples in particular)

But yeah I think those who think that people only have morals because of religion are very wrong. I treat other people nicely because I would want to be treated nicely. Not because religion taught me to.

If you only solely follow the ten commandments as your moral standards and are only acting moral so you go to heaven I believe you have very low moral standards because you are only acting moral to avoid punishment.

[navarre]

Morality is subjective. When someone is born, that person has no sense of what is right, what is wrong, and what is considered the norm. Over time, whoever raises the child, the environment and society around the child.

Just like to pick a few points:

A toddler has no sense over what is right or wrong primarily because they are sollipsists. I do not believe it has anything to do with them naturally not knowing.

But morality is entirely subjective. Hitler, who is generally regarded as morally wrong, believed that somehow, exterminating eleven million people was the right thing to do. He believed it was for the greater good that Jews, Communists, Roma, homosexuals and the like should meet their deaths and become extinct. So, if he thought what he was doing was right, and wasn't actually naturally evil, then surely the man had some morality in him?

I don't know- it's a complex situation. I suppose there is a minmum sense of morality in every human being, and that is what distinguishes us from other animals.

[navarre]

I disagree with thatttt... I think morals are quite separate of moral beliefs, I reckon religion just claimed credit for a lot of them. It's not like murdering would have been considered okay without the ten commandments.

Irregardless, religion has done a damn site of a good job of promoting morality. Perhaps you don't have to be religious to have morals, but i do believe most of the morals in society are derived from religion.

[Chewy]

Irregardless, religion has done a damn site of a good job of promoting morality. Perhaps you don't have to be religious to have morals, but i do believe most of the morals in society are derived from religion.

Well you never know, religion could have derived from morals, but let's not get into that in this thread Nonetheless I agree that it has done good in teaching people good morals.


As for the Hitler thing, that really does throw most philosophers views on morality off. You could say that he was just mentally unstable so his views on wrong and right were out of wack, but you have to remember that shitloads of people were following him. It really shows how many people's morals are derived from what authority tells them is wrong and right.

[Gikoku Harakami]

I agree with Kyle (Napalmbrain).

There are places completely untouched by religion, and morality is still there. Those with a human conscious, capable of emotions will probably develop their own morals.. such as seeing someone get tortured in front of their own eyes and question whether this is right or wrong, or seeing one of their loved ones hurt by someone else, and judging it as wrong.

I too find the belief of atheists having no morals to be offensive and narrow-minded. Religion did not create morality, and you do not need to study it nor have faith in God to feel what is right and wrong.