What you are describing is the situation in which social-normative ideals shape democracy. What in fact has happened is that democracy has become assimilated to systemic structures (economics, politics) which in turn have replaced the governance and direction of our society by normative rules. This is what Habermas calls the "paradoxes of modernity". We created something to free us, and it ends up enslaving us through over-rationalization and the bureaucratization of institutions.

"Democracy", to me just seems like a popular buzzword, since none of the governments of 1st world nations were ever intended to be "democracies" to begin with, but rather a system including checks and balances, such as to prevent mob rule and society's lowest common denominator associated with said morally degenerate and unlawful phenomena, rather than pander to it.

There's no individual's morals, there is only the species morals. Subjective morality ("I'm good (or evil) because...), is tied with Objective morality ("This way is good because...).

There is no distinct subjective morality, it is tied with objective morality in morality - if you judge yourself as good you are right or wrong.

If you have personal morals, they are righteous, or non-righteous.

I'd argue your statement is not particularly relevant here, in asserting that there's no "Golden Rule", or whatever your point is or was. — IvoryBlackBishop

The claim was that all religions are based on the Golden Rule. I simply pointed out that that is incorrect.
What is your objection?

You made that assertion, but I have no reason to believe you are "right".

You do realize that the notion of all people being equal is a concept based on Christianity, — Nobeernolife

Do you realize in the US the South used the Bible to justify slavery? That war was so dreadful because both sides thought God was on their side.

At the beginning of the US, Catholics were not allowed to hold office. I have a quaint book about how the Catholics are trying to take over.

We have done better than Europe when it comes to persecution of the Jews, but a main reason for the US constitution declaring freedom of religion was Christians killing Christians. The Mormons faced terrible persecution.

I have to wonder if young Christians today know anything about history? They sure do not know that God and Satan were feared! There could be no Satanism with Christianity. The notion of a loving God and apparently forgetting the religion is just as much about Satan, is relatively new.

The Golden rule is older than Christianity. Actually Christianity is Hellenized Judaism. We do not need religion for morals.

The Golden Rule in its prohibitive (negative) form was a common principle in ancient Greek philosophy. Examples of the general concept include: "Avoid doing what you would blame others for doing." – Thales (c. 624 BC – c. 546 BC)
Golden Rule - Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org › wiki › Golden_Rule

The game is not over yet. I think the pandemic will bring about changes and there is hope we will realize the democratic model for industry can greatly improve our economy and democracy! With the books coming out now, there is a good chance we willreturn education to education for democracy and that would be a huge improvement! I would love it if you responded to all my thoughts, not just the words you want to argue against. We can see the glass as half empty or half full and you are working on the negative while I am working on the positive and defending our democracy as I wish everyone would do. If you are right and I am wrong, then why should we support a very expensive military to defend our country. Morally it clearly would not be worth defending.

Cicero said it is our nature to make the right choice when we know what that is. In our past, those who dropped out of 8th grade to get a job, associated ignorance with bad choices, and this could be a national and private problem. It was their duty as citizens to be as well informed as they could be, so they could participate in civic organizations (unions, granges, fraternities), and government, to correct our problems and lead us to a nation of human excellence. WHEN WE THOUGHT LIKE THIS, WE WERE THE LEADER OF THE WORLD. We are no longer seen as the leader of the world.

Here is the introduction to a grade school history textbook first written in 1936 and reprinted in 1939 and 1942...

"The central purpose of this book is to make citizens better equipped to face realities. At every step the readers are made to see their relationship to everything that surrounds them. The role of people in every historical movement is made prominent so that the reader will understand his place and his importance in modern society, and accept his own personal obligation to be an intelligent and responsible citizen." America's World Backgrounds

This grade school text was written when we began mobilizing for the second world war....

"A democracy thrives upon criticism. When a free people, alert to change, studies its institutions to make them serve more richly the aspirations of the common man, it necessarily discusses the points at which improvements seem to be needed. On the public forum and in the national press interested citizens concentrate their attention upon the defects in the democratic pattern to the extent that a Martian observer might draw the conclusion that, in the opinion of its followers, democracy is a failure.

What the observer does not understand is that the public critics accept the fundamental principles of democracy so completely that they do not need argue about them...." Democracy Series

That last statement was true when we educated for democracy, we stopped doing that in 1958 and began educating the young for a technological society with unknown values. Our reality is very different today. Some changes have been good, but our lack of understanding of fundamental principles and believing the Christian myth that it gave us democracy, is wrong. It is seriously wrong. Our Christian Republic is not the democratic republic we inherited and defended in two world wars, and that is the result of the change in education.

Moral- only when democracy is defended in the classroom is it defended. And yes, democracy is about morality. Without that education, our morale is very weak. Morale, that high spirited feeling we have when we believe we are doing the right thing. The Spirit of America is dying. Just as the spirit of Jesus would die if churches turn to preparing the young for a technological society with unknown values.

As are other concepts fundamental to Western civilization, such as the sanctity of life or neighbourly love. Islam, for example, has none of those. — Nobeernolife

Whoo... where did you get that idea? For someone who wants me to respect all religions and not generalize, that sure seemed like a very US Christian thing to say! How many times have you read the Quaran and how many of your friends are Muslim?

:brow: And I was worried about offending you. No more worries about that. That was a hateful and wrong thing to say. It was so unbelievable that you would say that, I had to read and reread it several times to be sure that is what you said.

The objection to what we said about all religions being based on the golden rule, is your ignorance.

If you want to participate please get informed. You have to be a US Christian because you are repeating their false beliefs.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Rule

Cicero said it's in our nature to make the right choice when we know what that is.

He was wrong - humans do not do that all the time - not even a big percentile.

We need a push; incentive.

There is high ground for good, what Athena projects is some sort of alternative. Abusing the moral high ground, even perverting it.

We decide what's good, not individuals. We are what's good. What we think are evil, are some mix of good and evil.

I have grew 10,000 trees, to do a great burning of people. I could have grew 10,000 trees and that's all - that would have been good.

I have simply pushed my body to the limit but I've murdered 10,000 cattle. I could have just pushed - that would have been good.

Not all good requires forethought - you are made from good. You push your body - you grow a tree. What you do with that can be evil - but also good.

The Golden rule is older than Christianity. Actually Christianity is Hellenized Judaism. We do not need religion for morals. — Athena

I did not say that the Golden Rule is unique to Christianity. I said it does exist in Christianity, but not in all religions. Please read before commenting and do not make up false statements. Thanks.

Whoo... where did you get that idea? For someone who wants me to respect all religions and not generalize, that sure seemed like a very US Christian thing to say! How many times have you read the Quaran and how many of your friends are Muslim? — Athena

I have read the Koran and the Haddiths, have you? Obviously not, otherwise you would know that what I said is correct. Concepts like the sanctitiy of life, separation of religion and state, and neighbourly love do not exist in islamic teaching. I was simply stating a fact.

Whoo... where did you get that idea? For someone who wants me to respect all religions and not generalize, that sure seemed like a very US Christian thing to say! — Athena

Please stop making up things. I never said I want you to "respect all religions". I simply said you stop GENERALIZING about all religions, since they are very different. And, fwiw, I am neither US citizen or Christian.

I would love it if you responded to all my thoughts, not just the words you want to argue against — Athena

Here's the problem I have with your position in general - it is too ideo-centric. You don't seem to have a healthy sense of cultural/normative relativism. There is no limit to the possible number of ways to solve a problem and core institutions are precisely what need to be reformed from the bottom up. Democracy, socialism, these are just labels, not recipes. The solution required needs to unite many different domains, economic, social, spiritual, political. If the political dimension is going to be "democratic" then it will certainly have to be a different brand of democracy than I have seen in operation. I like the way many European democracies work, however, coalitions of parties. That seems to me a good model of co-operation.

I have read the Koran and the Haddiths, have you? Obviously not, otherwise you would know that what I said is correct. Concepts like the sanctitiy of life, separation of religion and state, and neighbourly love do not exist in islamic teaching. I was simply stating a fact. — Nobeernolife

But you missed these verses.

From the hadith, the collected oral and written accounts of Muhammad and his teachings during his lifetime:

A Bedouin came to the prophet, grabbed the stirrup of his camel and said: O the messenger of God! Teach me something to go to heaven with it. Prophet said: "As you would have people do to you, do to them; and what you dislike to be done to you, don't do to them. Now let the stirrup go!" [This maxim is enough for you; go and act in accordance with it!]"

— Kitab al-Kafi, vol. 2, p. 146
None of you [truly] believes until he wishes for his brother what he wishes for himself.

— An-Nawawi's Forty Hadith 13 (p. 56)[33]
Seek for mankind that of which you are desirous for yourself, that you may be a believer.

— Sukhanan-i-Muhammad (Teheran, 1938)[34]
That which you want for yourself, seek for mankind.[34]

The most righteous person is the one who consents for other people what he consents for himself, and who dislikes for them what he dislikes for himself.[34]

Ali ibn Abi Talib (4th Caliph in Sunni Islam, and first Imam in Shia Islam) says:

O' my child, make yourself the measure (for dealings) between you and others. Thus, you should desire for others what you desire for yourself and hate for others what you hate for yourself. Do not oppress as you do not like to be oppressed. Do good to others as you would like good to be done to you. Regard bad for yourself whatever you regard bad for others. Accept that (treatment) from others which you would like others to accept from you... Do not say to others what you do not like to be said to you.

— Nahjul Balaghah, Letter 31[35]

Well, that was a great maneuver avoiding all my arguments and leading things off in a different direction.

The subject of this thread is morality. The reasoning for democracy comes from Greek and Roman classics. One of my favorites is the Roman Statesman Cicero. He was a must-read in the day of the forefathers of the US. This is the literacy that is essential to our liberty and justice and could there be any reason for arguing against that, or arguing this is not what our founders believed democracy is about?

“What is morally wrong can never be advantageous, even when it enables you to make some gain that you believe to be to your advantage. The mere act of believing that some wrongful course of action constitutes an advantage is pernicious.”

― Marcus Tullius Cicero

Glory follows virtue as if it were its shadow. Marcus Tullius Cicero
Read more at https://www.brainyquote.com/authors/marcus-tullius-cicero-quotes

Virtue is a habit of the mind, consistent with nature and moderation and reason. Marcus Tullius Cicero
Read more at https://www.brainyquote.com/authors/marcus-tullius-cicero-quotes

The function of wisdom is to discriminate between good and evil. Marcus Tullius Cicero
Read more at https://www.brainyquote.com/authors/marcus-tullius-cicero-quotes

Ability without honor is useless. Marcus Tullius Cicero
Read more at https://www.brainyquote.com/authors/marcus-tullius-cicero-quotes

Our character is not so much the product of race and heredity as of those circumstances by which nature forms our habits, by which we are nurtured and live. Marcus Tullius Cicero
Read more at https://www.brainyquote.com/authors/marcus-tullius-cicero-quotes — Cicero

His quotes are so good it is hard to know where to stop, but with that last one, I must say, our social and economic justice would be much better if we read Cicero rather than when people read the Bible with its notion of why we are less than noble. The God of Abraham religions are not good for democracy because its moral reasoning is not compatible with the reasoning for democracy. Followers of the Bible tried to manifest Saints, but I believe we are more liking to achieve human excellence with the Greek and Roman classics.

Here's the problem I have with your position in general - it is too ideo-centric. You don't seem to have a healthy sense of cultural/normative relativism. There is no limit to the possible number of ways to solve a problem and core institutions are precisely what need to be reformed from the bottom up. Democracy, socialism, these are just labels, not recipes. The solution required needs to unite many different domains, economic, social, spiritual, political. If the political dimension is going to be "democratic" then it will certainly have to be a different brand of democracy than I have seen in operation. I like the way many European democracies work, however, coalitions of parties. That seems to me a good model of co-operation. — Pantagruel

For the organization of democracy, that is not what this thread is about, except perhaps if we focus on the necessity of checks and balances and what is wrong with tyranny. That would be very relevant to this moment in time and the problem with trying to rule as though single-handedly a person can rule a country and get good results. The importance of democracy and moral choices is knowledge, and one man can not possibly have that breadth of knowledge essential to good government yet the US is now run by a President who has dismissed everyone who doesn't kiss his ass, and put in their places people willing to kiss his ass, even though they don't have merit for the job and certainly lack honor because those with honor are walking away. That is a Christian problem.

I would absolutely love to talk about the US adopting the German model of bureaucracy that is Prussian military bureaucracy applied to citizens, and what Christianity has to do with this problem, and the New World Order, or the Military-Industrial Complex Eisenhower of warned us about, but shouldn't that go in another thread?

For the organization of democracy, that is not what this thread is about — Athena

Exactly. I would act morally whether or not legislatively required to. I internalize normative authority, as I'm sure do many people. Traditionally, the internalization of moral authority is viewed as a normal part of socio-psychological development.

Exactly. I would act morally whether or not legislatively required to. I internalize normative authority, as I'm sure do many people. Traditionally, the internalization of moral authority is viewed as a normal part of socio-psychological development. — Pantagruel

Traditional we educated for that, and the 1958 National Defense Education Act, ended that education.

Did you read the Cicero quotes and get this moral judgment is based on nature, not religion? That is, democracy is about searching for truth using scientific thinking, not "faith-based on mythology", and that search leads to good medicine and good government and is what made us great.

What is extremely important to us today is understanding why our president needs to be humble and honorable? Is a president someone who flaunts health precautions and speaks in favor of denial and carelessness, someone we want leading us now? Is he being a good example? Do we want our children growing up to be like him, and should money be the bottom line of all decisions, or are we having a moral problem?

Can anyone see, Iran and Muslims have grounds for saying we are Satan on earth, and why they are feeling far more pious and justified in opposing us because we no longer stand for a high morality? Since 1958 our bottom line has been military power and money. The values of the Military-Industrial Complex originated in Prussia and was adopted by the US, discontinuing education for good moral judgment and leaving moral training to the Church, and "authority" to those in power. Religion that has been behind one war after another. Our world image has changed and nations that were our friends now threaten us.

Can we talk about morals as Cicero did

“What is morally wrong can never be advantageous, even when it enables you to make some gain that you believe to be to your advantage. The mere act of believing that some wrongful course of action constitutes an advantage is pernicious.” — Cicero

It was morally wrong for the US to invade Iraq and doing so escalated wars and human suffering and the potential for a world war. A moral must include the future, and that must be more than 5 years. It must include more than what is good for the US at this moment in time. We are not thinking morally because public education stopped preparing the young for good moral judgment and left that to the Church. We now think Christianity invented democracy, and God favors us and His will is what we want and He will give us His "Power and Glory" to get it. I assume we should not take political discussion too far, but our image is no longer what it was. The world thought we would be the last nation to be a Military Industrial Complex and here we are, the strongest Military Industrial Complex on earth with China now right on our butts technologically and economically. The world expects much from us and we have a President who is making it very clear our focus is on our own interest, and that is not exactly a moral interest because it is only about our own interest. China has made it clear, it will play the power game with us. Russia has wanted to out-compete us. Too bad, the competition is not a moral one.

But you missed these verses. — Athena

None of those are from strong Haddiths and refer to interaction with kuffars. You really do not know what you are talking about here.

It was morally wrong for the US to invade Iraq and doing so escalated wars and human suffering and the potential for a world war. A moral must include the future, (snip) — Athena

I am not sure what any of your long confused ramble about US policy (which I certainly do not defend) has to do with morality or with my complaint about your generalizing about "religion"?

Glory follows virtue as if it were its shadow. — Cicero

Lenin was glorified for his virtues by millions. Then and now.

Lenin was hated for his vile, evil acts by milliions. Then and now.

Athena: who is the ultimate judge? Without invoking god.

There is ALWAYS two opposing solutions to every moral decision. Nobody can declare to be the ultimate judge, or name an ultimate judge.

Your fighting for morality and morally sound solutions to problems is making castles of sand on the seashore. A couple of waves, and they are washed away.

If you want to build relationships, morality is a nice word, but you must consider actual interests, needs, and wants, without any regard to morality, as morality is a mirage, a phantasm, a here-today-gone-tomorrow thing.

You got all it all wrong; what's definite creates the moral way(way because if we're discussing morality, there is being moral or immoral) if you're muttering under your breath that morality is a made up concept you're wrong. If your text looks wrong, it probably is, where it looks wrong, as your eyes are more advanced tools for thought than your hands/mouth. Look where you're wrong.

Please understand that there can be no good with no mathematical constraints. Killing wouldn't ever be bad if a life wasn't lost. Your words point to kill being a personal, solipsistic phemonenon, judged as evil because it's superficially maleficent. When the reason it's maleficent is clear, we lose a good life. For the point of fact, killing isn't always losing an important life - it can be good.

None of the words you said would string together if you could not target good with your sense, prior (by focusing and following the moral way), and then type accordingly.

To conclude morality is a real phemonenon which consists of a moral way that you can neglect.

To conclude morality is a real phemonenon which consists of a moral way that you can neglect. — xyzmix

I do not see how that follows from what you wrote.

Yeah I have a lot of pain in my mind. I went to type something else and I was distracted.

It's not the answer, it's a summation.

If you can sense me at all here, it has released this thought and is currently trying to evade with a softer lock.

Trust me, times are harsh for me.

It creeps up on me while I think and steals my thought train, trapping me in a word world of awkward silence. I falter, try to think - and am pressured so my thought is silent, neglect.

I'm like wtf let me think, I shout, get wrathful and it chases and punctures my senses.

I can talk or move my eyes.

Trust me I know the answer it's currently trapping me like that.

Whoa Nelly.

I think you preceded me in creating my ultimate invention: a parser, that takes nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, etc. etc. at random, and arranges them into syntactically proper sentences, with no regard to semantic meaning. Then watch the outcome.

Seems the topic has drifted a bit away from the OP.

Correct, I never see a consistent or honest definition of "religion" used, usually just a strawman or neologism in which it refers to "anything a person doesn't like", or neutral concepts such as "dogmatism" or "legalism" or "legalistic attitudes or behaviors" which have nothing directly or inherently to do with "religion", and exist in other contexts, such as political ideology, or secular "religion" or philosophy.


Such as the principles of the Secular Humanist "religion" (or philosophy if that is prefered), often ignorantly or dishonestly conflated with "atheism" by its adherants, which are simply accepted on "faith", "axiom", and so on, unable to be further asserted except by circular reasoning, and highly questionable and debatable to begin with, whether from a "religious", a "secular" perspective, or anything else; just being one of many different sets of philosophical axioms in existence.