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> As a Catholic, I think I can tell you that it might be more nuanced. I believe that ethical norms are not some arbitrary rules, but are a bit like the part of

> As a Catholic, I think I can tell you that it might be more nuanced. I believe that ethical norms are not some arbitrary rules, but are a bit like the part of a manual for some device that says under what conditions the device works properly and under what conditions it may break, only for humans. As in "if you commit adultery, you will end up unhappy; you have been warned". Forewords: I was raised in a Catholic family, in a Catholic environment and I was a practicing Catholic up to almost 18yo. Then, I changed my mind through reading and experiencing the world as a young adult, and now I 'm probably biased the other way round (just like smoke quitters). No offenses intended, don't feel attacked. I really struggle to understand how nowadays we are still somehow blind to the fact that religions were always basically a way to pass ethical behaviors to the population, playing the "almighty divine being" card. Just like you would tell a child that Santa Claus is bringing their gifts and he and his assistants are watching you all the time, and know if you are good or naughty, and bring presents accordingly. Our society has - or should have - grown up by now, and we should be able to teach a shared ethical background without the need to use the God device. There is no need for a God that will give you his love Heaven or Hell to treat someone that is just like you, the same way you would like to be treated.

AussieWog93 3y ago
You could make a similar argument about capitalism. We _should_ have grown past it by now, but we haven't, and every time we try to invent a replacement system we end up making things worse. You can see the ethical decay unfolding in real-time as societies turn replaced the old, rigorously tested system of religion with shiny new secular ethics.
- brabel 3y ago
  > You can see the ethical decay unfolding... The Nordic countries are all among the least religious countries in the world, yet they seem to have some of the most ethical societies on the planet if you consider human rights, democracy and low violence to be the result of an ethical society. The most religious countries in the world are all at the very bottom of rankings taking into consideration any of those factors.
  - CrimsonCape 3y ago
    I think your example is not a good one. Nordic countries have the concept of Jante law. If you can verbalize such a concept and also recognize that it exists in your society, by definition it makes your society more intolerant than a culture that has no such concept (such as the USA). In fact, I would argue the open-ness and tolerance of nordic culture is specifically exploitative of the cultural expectation that you do not raise concern or object and are expected to be in agreeance with everyone else that "this here is a tolerant society". It's a valid theory that the fastest culture to adopt any philosophy will be the one that has the population with the greatest number of people who don't disagree.
- petsfed 3y ago
  I think a case could be made (although I'm struggling to do so myself) that the growth of mercantilism, and then capitalism, could be understood as direct challenges to Abrahamic-religion-based ethics, especially as capitalism directly discourages altruism. I think this is a thesis I need to do some work on to either reject it or let it mature, but I think this is an interesting starting place. It is worth noting that the early Christians frequently practiced collectivism and rejected the concept of individual property rights, although that was ~2000 years ago, the faith has evolved sine then. All of this to say, I do not believe its that secular ethics per se are the cause of the decay, but rather that the religions of the world have not made a compelling enough case to sway people away from rejecting altruism in the name of personal enrichment. The situation is made considerably worse by the fact that a fair number of the global religions see the spoils of personal enrichment as evidence of righteousness, and altruism as at least adjacent to sin.
iraqmtpizza 3y ago
[flagged]
- petsfed 3y ago
  > the same people who threw away roughly two thousand of years of the most successful philosophy have doomed themselves to a demographic death spiral I don't think this is true. Falling birth rate is positively correlated with key markers of quality of life (especially infant survival rate, education, overall lifespan, and productivity) irrespective of dominant religion or religiosity in general. edit: changed "infant mortality" to "infant survival" so as to not contradict "positively correlated"
  - iraqmtpizza 3y ago
    Sorry, that doesn't explain the massive fertility gap between atheists and theists or the fact that atheists are nowhere remotely near replacement rate
    - petsfed 3y ago
      Just to understand here: you're claiming that since atheists have fewer children, they'll eventually be out-bred by the religious? Atheism is, in general, a consequence of, not a cause of, all the things that also result in lower birth rates. Birth rates in the US started to fall a lot earlier than religiosity did.
      - iraqmtpizza 3y ago
        LOL none of that remotely explains the massive fertility gap between atheists and theists. You can talk about the general population until you're blue in the face. That doesn't change statistical facts.
        petsfed 3y ago
        I'm saying that atheism and lower birth rates are caused by increases in overall quality of life. I'm not addressing whether or not atheists in fact have fewer children. That seems self-evident. I'm saying that you're misidentifying cause and effect here. I will say that its a little weird to suggest that atheism will die out simply because atheists will have fewer children. Atheism is not, in general, spread via proselytizing or family or community education (religious apathy, certainly, is spread that way but not motivated self-identification as an atheist), so much as what you might call "anti-religious experiences": experiences that set a person to seriously questioning then rejecting the concept of god(s). For good or ill, modern scientific knowledge has made religious experiences (that is, powerful emotional experiences that so defy explanation that a person feels compelled to accept them as the work of god(s)) much rarer.
throwitaway222 3y ago
Not everyone is as smart as someone that thinks of the golden rule "on their own", therefor religious ethics has its place. Also, we grew up in a society that already had this in place, essentially you could have grown up on this planet instead: https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Battle_Lines_(episode) https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Battle_Lines_(episode), and you would probably grab a gun, shoot someone because they had something you wanted rather than thinking of the golden rule at all.

AussieWog93 3y ago

You could make a similar argument about capitalism. We _should_ have grown past it by now, but we haven't, and every time we try to invent a replacement system we end up making things worse. You can see the ethical decay unfolding in real-time as societies turn replaced the old, rigorously tested system of religion with shiny new secular ethics.

brabel 3y ago
> You can see the ethical decay unfolding... The Nordic countries are all among the least religious countries in the world, yet they seem to have some of the most ethical societies on the planet if you consider human rights, democracy and low violence to be the result of an ethical society. The most religious countries in the world are all at the very bottom of rankings taking into consideration any of those factors.
- CrimsonCape 3y ago
  I think your example is not a good one. Nordic countries have the concept of Jante law. If you can verbalize such a concept and also recognize that it exists in your society, by definition it makes your society more intolerant than a culture that has no such concept (such as the USA). In fact, I would argue the open-ness and tolerance of nordic culture is specifically exploitative of the cultural expectation that you do not raise concern or object and are expected to be in agreeance with everyone else that "this here is a tolerant society". It's a valid theory that the fastest culture to adopt any philosophy will be the one that has the population with the greatest number of people who don't disagree.
petsfed 3y ago
I think a case could be made (although I'm struggling to do so myself) that the growth of mercantilism, and then capitalism, could be understood as direct challenges to Abrahamic-religion-based ethics, especially as capitalism directly discourages altruism. I think this is a thesis I need to do some work on to either reject it or let it mature, but I think this is an interesting starting place. It is worth noting that the early Christians frequently practiced collectivism and rejected the concept of individual property rights, although that was ~2000 years ago, the faith has evolved sine then. All of this to say, I do not believe its that secular ethics per se are the cause of the decay, but rather that the religions of the world have not made a compelling enough case to sway people away from rejecting altruism in the name of personal enrichment. The situation is made considerably worse by the fact that a fair number of the global religions see the spoils of personal enrichment as evidence of righteousness, and altruism as at least adjacent to sin.

iraqmtpizza 3y ago

[flagged]

petsfed 3y ago
> the same people who threw away roughly two thousand of years of the most successful philosophy have doomed themselves to a demographic death spiral I don't think this is true. Falling birth rate is positively correlated with key markers of quality of life (especially infant survival rate, education, overall lifespan, and productivity) irrespective of dominant religion or religiosity in general. edit: changed "infant mortality" to "infant survival" so as to not contradict "positively correlated"
- iraqmtpizza 3y ago
  Sorry, that doesn't explain the massive fertility gap between atheists and theists or the fact that atheists are nowhere remotely near replacement rate
  - petsfed 3y ago
    Just to understand here: you're claiming that since atheists have fewer children, they'll eventually be out-bred by the religious? Atheism is, in general, a consequence of, not a cause of, all the things that also result in lower birth rates. Birth rates in the US started to fall a lot earlier than religiosity did.
    - iraqmtpizza 3y ago
      LOL none of that remotely explains the massive fertility gap between atheists and theists. You can talk about the general population until you're blue in the face. That doesn't change statistical facts.
      - petsfed 3y ago
        I'm saying that atheism and lower birth rates are caused by increases in overall quality of life. I'm not addressing whether or not atheists in fact have fewer children. That seems self-evident. I'm saying that you're misidentifying cause and effect here. I will say that its a little weird to suggest that atheism will die out simply because atheists will have fewer children. Atheism is not, in general, spread via proselytizing or family or community education (religious apathy, certainly, is spread that way but not motivated self-identification as an atheist), so much as what you might call "anti-religious experiences": experiences that set a person to seriously questioning then rejecting the concept of god(s). For good or ill, modern scientific knowledge has made religious experiences (that is, powerful emotional experiences that so defy explanation that a person feels compelled to accept them as the work of god(s)) much rarer.

throwitaway222 3y ago

Not everyone is as smart as someone that thinks of the golden rule "on their own", therefor religious ethics has its place. Also, we grew up in a society that already had this in place, essentially you could have grown up on this planet instead: https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Battle_Lines_(episode) https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Battle_Lines_(episode), and you would probably grab a gun, shoot someone because they had something you wanted rather than thinking of the golden rule at all.