[dbetteridge]

Morality is a social construct.

We created it for ourselves and at its core is our social nature and the ability to feel Empathy for other humans/creatures.

Now I lead with that because there are historical cases for both religious and non religious people committing horrific acts, both groups having whatever form of "morals" and still those acts happened.

Morals based on the idea of an all seeing eye are also questionable at the root, if you only do the "right" thing because you fear consequences then how is that better than the government, police etc acting as a your personal moral compass except to extend the potential punishment beyond the current perceived lifetime.

[thin_carapace]

if somebody feeds the needy out of the belief that they are doing the right thing under an all seeing eye, in what way is that worse than a non all seeing eye believer not feeding the needy?

[dbetteridge]

But those aren't the only options?

There's 4 at least

Seeing eye believer feeds the needy

Non believer feeds the needy

Non believer doesn't feed the needy

Believer doesn't feed the needy for some reason or another

That said I never said it was worse, I asked how it was better than "the state" acting as an all seeing eye for the masses.

[thin_carapace]

indeed you never said it was worse. i asked a counter question without answering yours. so to answer your question, the state is comprised of men. men are inevitably selfish creatures who do not perform a behaviour unless it is judged to be in their best interests given the context. lots of people have the behavioural pattern of community encoded with fuzzy logic above 0.5, that is to say the majority of the time men will probably act in ways that account for the needs of others. but the majority of the time is not an exhaustive sample space and plenty of people will all too happily give the downtrodden their moniker, unless kept in line by a set of community enforced morals. a state based legal framework is secular and does not account for any morals. conclusively, without a set of morality to keep them in check via community enforcement, a minority of the population is enabled to exploit their community.

im sure you have an opinion on that viewpoint, but im still curious as to whether you have an answer to my question.

[dbetteridge]

To answer your first question (apologies should have done so in the first reply)

It isn't worse, objectively the end result is favourable even if the "driver" for it is not (to me).

I accept your counter point that at a macro level society requires a set of checks and reinforcement to bias individuals towards social good behaviour, community enforcement is obviously one and religion can be another.

But I would argue that while the state legal framework is secular it encodes some moral principles that society has agreed on such as murder, theft, harming other physically or otherwise etc.

I also hold no issue with others holding beliefs that shape their morality, I just reject the argument that people without a god cannot have innate morality or a secular morality (a common refrain).

[thin_carapace]

part of me already knew you believed that, not sure why i had to push back. its a valid point that secular society does to a degree encode morality. i believe the morals encoded by religion were formed from trial by fire and are probably more likely to result in continued human existence as opposed to whatever anybody came up with in the last N years, but im sure we shall find out shortly just how well different schools of morality work out on that front. i dont think the common refrain is accurate, however it does point to the truth i alluded to (that a significant non-majority of humans will always behave deleteriously to those around them unless forced to behave differently). i do have an issue with holding beliefs that shape morality, however this is a seperate discussion and bringing up examples like 1 religion accounting for 95% of blasphemy related executions in the past 50 years is just going to get me muted, even with the intentions to demonstrate examples of beliefs shaping morality in ways i dont agree with personally.

[dbetteridge]

I appreciate the measured discussion on what can be a thorny subject.

So extended clarification on the "belief shaping morality" point.

I hold no issue with it, until one person's belief driven morality impinges on another persons own autonomy, you're free to act on your own life and person based on your beliefs but using that belief system as a weapon to cause others harm or reduce their autonomy as a person is where I draw the line.