Morals were stolen by religions, not created by them

[Politesse]

i never took this as atheism vs theism or religion vs secular . i took it as a response to a common christian (or other specific groups )claim.

How is it different in any respect, save for the specific name of the God being credited for the innovation?

 

[icehorse]

No, you're not turning this around. What is the evidence for your claim? If it is dependent on my personal opinions, it's not evidence for your claim. So are you making a claim, or not? There's no point in producing a "counter" example if there is no example. What "advanced animal societies" have demonstrable rules against murder, and how can you demonstrate that those animals had atheist philosophies? And when did humans acquire this rule from those societies of animals, and how can you demonstrate that those societies were atheist?

Don't worry, you don't actually have to produce all that. That you aren't sure whether the rule is "thousands" or "millions" of years old makes it clear that you are speculating, not deducing. And they have a word for folks who speculate on the basis of belief whether or not evidence can support that belief...

And no, a premonotheistic society proves nothing. You said "religion", not monotheism. If you're changing your argument because you knew you couldn't defend it, be honest about it.

I think you're the one turning this around. To restate the OP: the religious often claim that morals originate from "their" god, and that these morals were "Revealed" to them. I'm asking for one example of a religious moral teaching that didn't have an earlier origin.

 

[LuisDantas]

How is it different in any respect, save for the specific name of the God being credited for the innovation?

There is considerable difference. Various god-conceptions have sharply diverging roles (that is one of the reasons why heresies were sometimes treated as a thread to social order).

Monotheisms, at least those that take Abraham as a prophet, seem to be at quite the disadvantage here.

A Muslim society tend to expect people to submit to God's law, to feel ashamed of questioning it, and to feel even more ashamed of implying that it may somehow not be eternal.

To a lesse extent, the same attitude is found among some Jewish and Christian communities as well. But for the most part those two religions tend to accept that gratitude to God does not mean pretending to be with no moral discernment of one's own.

Pagan communities tend to have a far less dogmatic view, and focus on a personal journey of discovery of values. Their deities seem to be interested in supporting and promoting certain attitudes, not so much in determining what is morally valid or not.

Hindus vary considerably. Some seen to be almost Abrahamic in this regard, others realize that the responsible transmission of Dharma is far more meaningful.

 

[Politesse]

I think you're the one turning this around. To restate the OP: the religious often claim that morals originate from "their" god, and that these morals were "Revealed" to them. I'm asking for one example of a religious moral teaching that didn't have an earlier origin.

Well, no. You specifically claimed that the prohibition of murder predated "religion". You seem to value evidence, so I'm trying to help you evaluate your beliefs from that perspective. Would you prefer to just talk about our feelings? If your example can't be proven to be a case where a moral law preceded religion, you're actually arguing against your own position.

 

[Politesse]

There is considerable difference. Various god-conceptions have sharply diverging roles (that is one of the reasons why heresies were sometimes treated as a thread to social order).

Monotheisms, at least those that take Abraham as a prophet, seem to be at quite the disadvantage here.

A Muslim society tend to expect people to submit to God's law, to feel ashamed of questioning it, and to feel even more ashamed of implying that it may somehow not be eternal.

To a lesse extent, the same attitude is found among some Jewish and Christian communities as well. But for the most part those two religions tend to accept that gratitude to God does not mean pretending to be with no moral discernment of one's own.

Pagan communities tend to have a far less dogmatic view, and focus on a personal journey of discovery of values. Their deities seem to be interested in supporting and promoting certain attitudes, not so much in determining what is morally valid or not.

Hindus vary considerably. Some seen to be almost Abrahamic in this regard, others realize that the responsible transmission of Dharma is far more meaningful.

I meant more specifically in the case of Hammurabi's code. It seems very similar to the Torah in justification. The gods gave it, therefore it must be followed.

 

[LuisDantas]

I meant more specifically in the case of Hammurabi's code. It seems very similar to the Torah in justification. The gods gave it, therefore it must be followed.

How religious is a precept, if it happens spontaneously among various different religions that are otherwise not related?

 

[icehorse]

Well, no. You specifically claimed that the prohibition of murder predated "religion". You seem to value evidence, so I'm trying to help you evaluate your beliefs from that perspective. Would you prefer to just talk about our feelings? If your example can't be proven to be a case where a moral law preceded religion, you're actually arguing against your own position.

Thanks, I don't think I need your help. I will ask you however how much common-knowledge data do you need to see, before we can proceed with the actual discussion and end your obfuscating detour?

 

[Quintessence]

Wow! If religion cedes its claim to the moral high ground what else does it have to offer?

Quite a lot, actually. I wish more people acknowledged that.

^ What he said.

(Especially considering many, many religions have never claimed to have moral high ground to begin with. That's pretty much just a thing with exclusivist branches of certain religions who are all "one true way" and "we're right, you're wrong" about stuff.)

 

[Quintessence]

I think you're the one turning this around. To restate the OP: the religious often claim that morals originate from "their" god, and that these morals were "Revealed" to them. I'm asking for one example of a religious moral teaching that didn't have an earlier origin.

Doesn't everything relating to human affairs have an earlier origin? I mean, it's not as if we were around at the beginning of time and space.

I still don't get why this matters, and how it is at all relevant to the core question you seem to be aiming at. There is not any evidence for what you're demanding one way or the other. Remember, that human history pre-dates anything and everything that would leave a record of evidence. We don't even know when religion began within the context of human culture. Think about that for a moment.

 

[Politesse]

Thanks, I don't think I need your help. I will ask you however how much common-knowledge data do you need to see, before we can proceed with the actual discussion and end your obfuscating detour?

If asking for specific examples is an "obfuscating detour", why are you asking for specific examples? You haven't really offered any data, common knowledge or otherwise, so i guess "more than none" would do for a start.

 

[Thana]

Here's an equal opportunity challenge for folks from any religion:

Can you name a moral that originated from a religion?

As far as I know, the morals stated in scripture were stolen from the known philosophies of the time. This is an important question, because one of religion's major claims is that mankind would be adrift if not for supernaturally "gifted" morals. If - in fact - religions' morals were not original, then that claim is groundless...

There is nothing new under the sun.

 

[Politesse]

How religious is a precept, if it happens spontaneously among various different religions that are otherwise not related?

Now that is a more interesting question. Do you think religiosity is a matter of history, or association? It would be interesting to learn to what degree folks see something like "don't kill" to be a religious issue at all, especially in a secular society where persecution of such a crime would be seen as a civil, not religious, responsibility.

 

[Kuzcotopia]

Here's an equal opportunity challenge for folks from any religion:

Can you name a moral that originated from a religion?

As far as I know, the morals stated in scripture were stolen from the known philosophies of the time. This is an important question, because one of religion's major claims is that mankind would be adrift if not for supernaturally "gifted" morals. If - in fact - religions' morals were not original, then that claim is groundless...

Fiddle with your genitals in this way, but don't fiddle with them in any of these other ways?

 

[icehorse]

Doesn't everything relating to human affairs have an earlier origin? I mean, it's not as if we were around at the beginning of time and space.

I still don't get why this matters, and how it is at all relevant to the core question you seem to be aiming at. There is not any evidence for what you're demanding one way or the other. Remember, that human history pre-dates anything and everything that would leave a record of evidence. We don't even know when religion began within the context of human culture. Think about that for a moment.

Let's get back to the OP, with perhaps some clarification. Most of the religions we know about have been moth-balled. Only a relatively few have substantial members today. The OP is concerning claims made by religious folk - in these modern times - that they are the holders of the moral high ground because their morals come from their god. The "revelations" from the gods that are all the rage today are well within the bounds of history. For example, we have plenty of historical evidence of times before any of the Abrahamic scriptures. So, if say an early Egyptian god revealed some morality, that would would predate an Abrahamic god's claim to that moral truth. Put another way and by example, the 10 commandments merely codified a bit of the well known, pre-existing morality of the day (and tacked on some weird stuff, but that's another discussion).

So I agree, the origins of morality are murky at best. But what we know for sure is that they weren't originally revealed by a modern god.

 

[LuisDantas]

Many (too many, it seems) of my atheist colleagues seem to think that religiosity demands theism. I do not.

Now that is a more interesting question. Do you think religiosity is a matter of history, or association?

May you elaborate or give an example or two? I did not understand what you mean with this question.

In any case, sure, history and community are core elements of any religion.

It would be interesting to learn to what degree folks see something like "don't kill" to be a religious issue at all, especially in a secular society where persecution of such a crime would be seen as a civil, not religious, responsibility.

One interesting aspect of secularism is that it changes theism and religion, by virtue of delimiting what is not to need religious reference. Civil responsibility is a fairly recent concept, at least when measured by the standards of the history of religion.

So IMO it is not necessarily the case that those parameters of behavior used to be religious and are now secular (or "more" secular). That is a valid and probably necessary reading, but it may also be described as society itself learning to deal with diversity of beliefs by choosing to reach agreement on common parameters rather than need supremacy and subjugation of minorities of belief.

And that is - or should - be possible because religions are shaped by fairly universal social and psychological needs that actually do not have a whole lot to do with deity beliefs. People don't avoid murderers because God, Allah or Isis told them to; they avoid murderers because they want themselves and their loved ones to be safe and sound. Discouraging murder is a practical need as opposed to an article of faith, although it is certainly true that healthy religions will and should be expected to develop behavior codes that are morally sound.

Similar agreements for similarly pragmatic, fairly stable motivations may be reached about other parameters as well.

 

[Politesse]

Let's get back to the OP, with perhaps some clarification. Most of the religions we know about have been moth-balled. Only a relatively few have substantial members today. The OP is concerning claims made by religious folk - in these modern times - that they are the holders of the moral high ground because their morals come from their god. The "revelations" from the gods that are all the rage today are well within the bounds of history. For example, we have plenty of historical evidence of times before any of the Abrahamic scriptures. So, if say an early Egyptian god revealed some morality, that would would predate an Abrahamic god's claim to that moral truth. Put another way and by example, the 10 commandments merely codified a bit of the well known, pre-existing morality of the day (and tacked on some weird stuff, but that's another discussion).

So I agree, the origins of morality are murky at best. But what we know for sure is that they weren't originally revealed by a modern god.

I feel like this has become a very different sort of claim, though I guess it is hardly news for an atheist on this forum to say "religion" and mean "some if not all conservative Christians", despite RF's many fine polytheist, animist, and liberal theist posters.

But even with the revision, some of your basic problems are still there. One is that the oldest traditions have spanned the whole of written history, and indeed most of our earliest texts are "religious", with modern devotees no less. It seems likely that there were religious echelons that predate these early foundations, but we don't actually know that, and could not reasonably decide whether the chicken or the egg came first, in an exceedingly murky prehistory almost certainly populated by folks who saw no distinction between religious and secular sources of authority. Even more recent religious movements ultimately lay claim to earlier texts such as the Vedas or Hebrew Scriptures, before the creation of which we have little in the way of a detailed record.

Another is that you are conflating specific forms of religion such as texts and modern labels with the monotheistic claim that morality comes from God. By which I mean, I don't think when a Christian or Muslim says that morality comes from God, they don't actually mean that it comes from the Bible or the Qur'an, they are serious about it coming from God. Which means that proving that a thing existed before a given book entered history doesn't affect their basic claim. The books are there to give moral advice (and in this role they are very important) but they don't create the thing they describe. Muslims in particular maintain that although the Qur'an was the last and greatest warning, it preaches the exact same Message that has always been preached by true Prophets. You can read the Bible this way too, though being an anthology, it talks less about itself.

So I'm not sure your invisible opponents would be likely to make the claim you're trying to oppose in quite the way you are putting it. God, not religion, is the source or morality. And He is not, presumably, predated by anything. Unless the claim of his existence and nature is entirely false. Conservatives do get very upset by conversations about given passages in other cultures' texts predating their inclusion in Scripture, but that isn't specifically why.

 

[Politesse]

May you elaborate or give an example or two? I did not understand what you mean with this question.

In any case, sure, history and community are core elements of any religion.

Oh, I suppose I did vague that a bit. I mean, what do we mean when we say that something is "religious"? Do we mean that it came from a specific religious tradition, in some historical Bob-told-Mary-who-told-Steven-who-wrote-a-book-that-said-"Don't-steal" sort of way? Or do we mean that people tend to see rules like that in religious terms, regardless of what specific religious lineage they associate it with?

One interesting aspect of secularism is that it changes theism and religion, by virtue of delimiting what is not to need religious reference. Civil responsibility is a fairly recent concept, at least when measured by the standards of the history of religion.

Sort of. Civil responsibility is as old as cities. Seeing it as a separate, secular responsibility rather than one underscored by divine imperative is more recent, though even that idea has some roots as it were.

And that is - or should - be possible because religions are shaped by fairly universal social and psychological needs that actually do not have a whole lot to do with deity beliefs. People don't avoid murderers because God, Allah or Isis told them to; they avoid murderers because they want themselves and their loved ones to be safe and sound. Discouraging murder is a practical need as opposed to an article of faith, although it is certainly true that healthy religions will and should be expected to develop behavior codes that are morally sound.

It's something a moral code must address for pragmatic reasons, yes. But I'm not sure how much that means in terms of how it is understood. Saying a thing is not "religious" because it is "practical" seems like an even more modern reduction and a bit anti-religious in implication. Anyone who has ever studied the rituals of their faith knows that there are practical reasons for a lot of rules. The objects you're going to use first are on the right side of the altar, because most priests are right handed. Kosher laws will protect you from a lot of Old World diseases. But those don't make those rules or rituals "non-religious", to a religious-minded person. Rather, you sort of expect that the fundamental rules God established for the universe will have some practical benefits. And even a very obvious moral rule still needs to be included in The Rules. Did The Rules create the crime? No, but they would be pretty bad rules if they didn't include "try not to kill people in a way that will upset the wrong other people."

 

[icehorse]

I feel like this has become a very different sort of claim, though I guess it is hardly news for an atheist on this forum to say "religion" and mean "some if not all conservative Christians", despite RF's many fine polytheist, animist, and liberal theist posters.

The OP was addressed to any religious folk who claim the moral high ground.

But even with the revision, some of your basic problems are still there. One is that the oldest traditions have spanned the whole of written history, and indeed most of our earliest texts are "religious", with modern devotees no less. It seems likely that there were religious echelons that predate these early foundations, but we don't actually know that, and could not reasonably decide whether the chicken or the egg came first, in an exceedingly murky prehistory almost certainly populated by folks who saw no distinction between religious and secular sources of authority. Even more recent religious movements ultimately lay claim to earlier texts such as the Vedas or Hebrew Scriptures, before the creation of which we have little in the way of a detailed record.

Already answered.

Another is that you are conflating specific forms of religion such as texts and modern labels with the monotheistic claim that morality comes from God. By which I mean, I don't think when a Christian or Muslim says that morality comes from God, they don't actually mean that it comes from the Bible or the Qur'an, they are serious about it coming from God. Which means that proving that a thing existed before a given book entered history doesn't affect their basic claim. The books are there to give moral advice (and in this role they are very important) but they don't create the thing they describe. Muslims in particular maintain that although the Qur'an was the last and greatest warning, it preaches the exact same Message that has always been preached by true Prophets. You can read the Bible this way too, though being an anthology, it talks less about itself.

So I'm not sure your invisible opponents would be likely to make the claim you're trying to oppose in quite the way you are putting it. God, not religion, is the source or morality. And He is not, presumably, predated by anything. Unless the claim of his existence and nature is entirely false. Conservatives do get very upset by conversations about given passages in other cultures' texts predating their inclusion in Scripture, but that isn't specifically why.

So how is it that the people who claim to know their god's morality come to know it? Isn't their only evidence - shaky as is it - their flavor of scripture? How else might they come know their god's moral laws?

 

[McBell]

hmmm... plagiarized? dishonestly taken credit for? usurped? borrowed?

If the religious said that they were the keepers of learned wisdom, I wouldn't have started this thread. It's not what is claimed.

You assume theft without support.

So the question is how is your title anything other than appeal to emotion?

 

[McBell]

and your counter example would be?...

Counter example of what, exactly, your bold empty claims of theft?
First you will need to establish ownership.
Then you will need to establish the theft.
You do not offer up either.
You merely make the bold empty claim of theft.

Then you have the gall to not only assume the other side is goundless but boldly reveal your hypocrisy in the process?
Rather interesting "argument" you make.
One wonders if you are merely looking for a choir discussion?