i am pretty certain that moral predate religion. they are easily explained in terms of altruistic tribal strategies. more later.

I think that religion may reinforce morals, but tot doesn't give us morals. Indeed there is a lot of immorality within the Bible ~ and within the Christian church.

i don't even think religion reinforces morals - it hijacks them to place itself in a fallacious position of moral authority and twists them to suit its own purposes.

Of course you are both correct but to each his own and on their own terms.

Some religions, especially power hungry religions - centralized religions, expect one group to follow one set of moral beliefs while the others teach much simpler moral hazards. i.e. seven deadly sins, and the ten commandments vs do no harm.

Janimal of course you are right Morals and Ethics existed before common religion but at what cost. I can picture a system much like described in my last paragraph but enforced through the end of a sword much like the Ancient Sumerians or Aztecs. People have the ability to live together in peace but do they know the real difference between right and wrong? I'm a pagan so I can steal as long as it causes no damage to a person and as long as I can live with it tomorrow but if I were still a Christian it would be off limits. I can provide examples!!

ah - the old victimless crime postulation. don't worry, i fiddle my hours, my taxes, and will screw the government and corporations out of everything i can. it's peasants survival strategies, and i have absolutely no moral dilemma with it. steal from my neighbour though and i will slap you.

i think religion has to be considered in separation to moral codes. ultimately, religion is not a reflection of universal reality. it is the manipulation of our evolved god instinct, and as such merely another system of politics, like capitalism which manipulates our greed instinct, and communism which manipulates our altruism instinct.

yes, some facets of religion have sought to do the 'right thing', as in the teachings of jesus, or buddhist adages, but this is still manipulation, be it for the individuals own good, or for their control.

morals and ethics stem from our tribal nature as a species, for this purpose it is useful to divide humanity into three levels - the individual, the tribe, and the species.

the individual does not by and large know right and wrong. these concepts come from the collective thinking of the tribe (which is the great strength of the human intellect), and 'right and wrong' may in that framework be defined as 'of benefit to the tribe' or 'harmful to the tribe' in terms of the collective. stealing would therefore be considered bad because it breeds resentment and mistrust within the tribe and compromises its effective operation.

the human species is a collection of tribes, and when competing interests between tribes come into play, these moral codes are overruled and co-opted by strategies which put your own tribe at an advantage. so while it is considered wrong to steal within your tribe, the same may not apply to stealing from another tribe, because the repercussions are not felt by anyone you care about.

so we end up in a world where it is wrong to mug and murder a granny down the end of the street and you will rot in jail for it, but it is ok to murder peasants in iraq and steal their oil.

the key to human harmony lies not in its myriad of misconceived and misguided religions or moral codes or other political systems, but in the ability of the individuals ability to think beyond the tribal competition strategies and consider the whole of mankind as a single tribe,the wellbeing of which must be considered in everything. and i can quite categorically say that religion will NEVER give us this.

this is exactly why i do not believe in national boundaries or cultural separations, i want to see an ultimate end to all religion, and a global strategy for wealth distribution. it is the only way mankind will come out of the mire it has made for itself and wallowed in since the year dot. i also believe that mankind will never do these things because humans are inherently too selfish and stupid, and the species is therefore ultimately doomed.

I certainly don't disagree with you on most of these points but how do we make that transition? Lenin and Trotsky both surmised that the New Peoples Russia, as decreed by the RSDLP, would follow a system where religion was abolished and after a few hard years they had fifty years of relative peer-to-peer peace.

You kind of scare me when you start talking of tribes and such. . . . Competition is what its all about in the world of capitalism.

I really don't think that morals and ethics are hardwired into the human brain but taught. If this was the case then we would have much less worldwide criminality. If you bare a child andx then raise him with a pack of dogs in a kennel then he will think he's a dog - Right? Environmental factors are everything.

hmmm. they also had 50 years of hardcore oppression and poverty, because religion was not abolished as part of some altruistic atheist secularization, but religion was abolished simply to eliminate a competing power base.

i've never believed what happened in russia in practice never even remotely resembled communism. it was just a dictatorship in a thin disguise, so i cannot view the secularization as being just what it claims to be.

competition is our downfall it's why we are killing each other for resources. we need to overcome our competition impulse and become egalitarian, sharing beings.

i don't think morals are hard wired either. they are collectively learnt by society and this is why they are so easily hijacked by hideous religious codes.

Yes you're certainly correct. The Bolshevik idea of communism never lived up to it's promise merely because of the maniac that followed Lenin, or so I believe. Stalin took the greatest promise ever made and turned it inside out. An internal dictator along with all of the outside pressures made it impossible for the idea of true democracy to prevail. Lenin and Trotsky had the answers but Lenin died before they could become fact. Most Socialists are utilitarians, leaving them out of the religious rat race so there is more to this conversation - Plus Trotsky was not at all for eliminating the church for he said it would '...create repressed ill feelings among the kneeling proletariat."

Once again we come back to the question is it better to teach ethics and morals with the end of a sword or myth based manipulation. There is only one choice left. . . and that is simple training-teaching such as "Morals and Ethics 101" for kindergardners but will that work without the large imposing "hellfire" edifice that most people grew up believing in?

I am glad you said that about competition. I believe you are the first person I have actually heard say that, besides myself, in such simple language and actually mean it. Humans are so scared to say such things. . . they may be labeled socialist.

i see the socialist label as a compliment. i can't see why humanity can't see its way to socially responsible capitalism...

"socially responsible capitalism"

No such thing. As much as I love FDR I feel that his ideas were a step in that direction however it didn't take very long at all for the forces of capital to start tearing down what he did to save our necks.

Capitalism in itself is our destruction because it knows no ends and knows no limits. At one time "the good people" could point their fingers and say "there they are they did it," or 'they're doing it," but now we would all need mirrors granted that a few need bigger mirrors but we're all in on the madness and that is why it's our DOOM. I hate to be so dramatic but there's really no other way to be.

I am just as guilty as the other guy.