Origin of Human Morality Explained in Two Paragraphs

[Dardedar]

DAR
I am on a Bible errancy list where Bible errors and the topic of biblical inerrancy is discussed. This was posted today.

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ATTORNEY REVEREND FLUFFY
Really, is there anything more obvious and self-evident than the natural origin of morality? You take a pad of paper. You write down everything that you DON'T want to have happen to you, i.e., I don't want to be killed, I don't want to be raped or otherwise assaulted, I don't want to be swindled, I don't want my property to "disappear," I don't want anyone to give false testimony about me, etc., etc., and by the way, I don't want any of these things to happen to anyone whom I love or care about.

You give the pad of paper to your spouse. S/he fills in the stuff that you missed or forgot or added because you're an asshole ("Hey! What's this about 'all women must wear a burqa'?"). Then the pad goes to your kids ("I don't want a cheap-ass allowance"), and then your neighbors ("I don't want no stinkin' pad of paper shoved in my face") and the other villagers. In a short period of time, you have the moral framework which will later form the basis of all of your laws. You haggle. You draw lines in the sand over the ages of consent and emancipation and boozing it up and such -- the kind of stuff that no two societies have EVER agreed upon.

Not only was "god" not a part of this very simple exercise in common sense, but "he" wasn't even invited to the party. Yet, apparently, we need entire books to explain this natural phenomenon to us. Well, all right, but I did it in two short paragraphs.

Humans are masters of both pain avoidance and self-interest, so it stands to reason that we all have mental lists of all the pain we'd like to forestall for the sake of ourselves and our loved ones. According to theists, however, we need the full power and might of an Invisible Skypappy to transcribe these mental lists to paper.

Yeah, I don't think so.

Jack Corbin

[ibdiginit]

I think Mr. Corbin is correct in his assertion that morality exists independently of supernatural oversight.

My view is that morality is a necessary component of any society. We certainly won't want to cooperate with each other for our mutual benefit, if we're raping, killing, stealing from or sleeping with each other's spouses.

Any cooperative effort between individuals necessarily requires some type of protocol outlining what is acceptable and what is not.

The only need to introduce an all powerful, all seeing avenger of sins is to enforce our protocol through fear of punishment and to further the notion that ALL transgression is noted and will be acted upon.

[Barbara Fitzpatrick]

Pretty much it. Mature people work out a system allowing the group to live together in more or less harmony - and then invent an all-knowing, everywhere present, policeman to enforce the system on those not quite so mature (the "it's OK if I don't get caught" group).