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

To: Rick Julian who wrote (25280)	10/6/1998 4:09:00 PM
From: E	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 108807

This is a false conundrum. Even if you happened to think adultery was fine for you and your wife, you could presumably understand that if you didn't feel that way, you wouldn't want an outsider doing things that outraged you unto your wife. You cling to the notion that it is better to hold an ethical precept because you believe it to be the wishes of a posited Powerful Entity than to hold it because you, and the members of your community, have learned that it is the precept that leads to the greatest good for the greatest number.... like the Golden Rule.

To: Rick Julian who wrote (25280)	10/6/1998 10:03:00 PM
From: Craig Richards	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 108807

Can you be any more specific about what constitutes moral behavior (from an atheist's perspective) beyond the generality of the Golden Rule? There are a lot of Buddhist teachings that guide me about morality. Interestingly, even though these teachings do not talk about God, their version of morality is similar to the standard Christian one. However, the Buddhist teachings have a great advantage to me, in that I can use them to understand new situations not covered explicitly by Christian teachings, without having to send an e-mail or some other communication to God, who never seems to be home when I call her <g>. In short, actions motivated by our own egos cause suffering. Actions motivated by a desire to benefit others do not cause suffering. Ignorance can also cause suffering. The 3 major branches of suffering are hatred, greed and ignorance. The root cause is seeing ourselves as separate from others. To use the Christian language, actions that cause suffering are immoral, while actions that benefit others are moral. Obviously this is a subject that is difficult to learn completely over a lifetime, so this short paragraph can't come close to explaining this properly.