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Pastimes : Let's Talk About Our Feelings!!! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: The Philosopher who wrote (40590)	6/15/1999 6:38:00 PM
From: Ilaine	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 108807

Agree that this thread will never agree on a definition of "immoral." I would also suggest that we will have a hard time defining "unacted upon." For example, if you lust after your secretary (sorry, don't mean to be personal, just let's assume you have a secretary and that you lust after her - or we could assume I lust after my secretary - LOL! please don't tell her!!!) Wouldn't you behave differently towards her than if you didn't lust after her? And maybe behave differently towards your wife, as well? Maybe we should pick a fictional character. Let's be dull and boring and pick John Doe. John Doe, horny reprobate that he is, on one fine day in June, feels the following emotions: upon viewing his secretary bending over to put paper into the copy machine, feels a fleeting sensation of lust; upon being trapped in a conversation with a man he casually detests, idly wonders what would happen if he punched the guy in the nose; upon arriving home after work, and finding that his wife has not yet come home from work, entertains for a moment the wish that she would be killed in a car wreck, as painlessly as possible; seeing his daughter walking down the sidewalk with her two best girlfriends, feels a fleeting sensation of lust for all three of them. He has never cheated on his wife, has always behaved like a perfect gentleman to everyone in his entire life. Are John Doe's thoughts, upon which he will never act, immoral? And is John Doe an immoral person for having these thoughts, which he immediately squelches.

To: The Philosopher who wrote (40590)	6/15/1999 11:48:00 PM
From: Jacques Chitte	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 108807

>First, of course, you have to define immoral, which will take this thread about two hundred posts without reaching any conclusion,< Oh LOL. Well if quantity does indeed have a quality all its own - I feel good at having brought us one post closer to the goal. Immoral atheists? Hmmmm. I would submit that what atheists can be is unethical. The atheists I've encounntered are not amoral people - indeed they are often highly ethical. Absent an external imposed referent of morality - the process of negotiating shared ethics is at once the most wonderful and most exasperating activity I can imagine. Not counting sex on a bungee cord.

To: The Philosopher who wrote (40590)	6/16/1999 12:19:00 AM
From: E	Respond to of 108807

<<<and offer the thesis, for discussion, that a purely atheistic society can no morality or immorality.>>> Would that mean that I CAN DO ANYTHING I WANT? Why din't they 'SPLAIN THAT TO ME BEFORE NOW? This is terrible! Think of all the time I've lost! I'd better get started laying my nefarious plans without a moment's delay!

To: The Philosopher who wrote (40590)	6/16/1999 1:34:00 AM
From: Dayuhan	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 108807

But what does morality mean to an aethist? Pretty much the same thing it means to a non-atheist. I will be intentionally provocative here and offer the thesis, for discussion, that a purely atheistic society can no morality or immorality. If you assume that morality comes from religion, or, to stretch a point even farther, that it comes from God, your thesis is of course reasonable. If you believe, as I do, that our moral codes are based on human experience of what behaviour is socially expedient, there is no connection whatsoever between morality, religion, and God, and no reason why an atheistic society should not be as moral - or likely more moral, as they would have fewer devices for rationalization - as a religious one.