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From: torek@umich.UUCP (Paul V. Torek )
Newsgroups: net.politics,net.religion
Subject: support for areligious moral codes
Message-ID: <233@umich.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 17-Sep-85 11:57:09 EDT
Article-I.D.: umich.233
Posted: Tue Sep 17 11:57:09 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 19-Sep-85 05:26:28 EDT
References: <623@hou2g.UUCP> <5884@cbscc.UUCP> <1154@mhuxt.UUCP> <5906@cbscc.UUCP>
Reply-To: torek@eecs.UUCP (Paul V. Torek )
Organization: University of Michigan, EECS Dept., Ann Arbor, MI
Lines: 35
Xref: watmath net.politics:11050 net.religion:7682
Summary: Is there any support for *religous* moral codes?

In article <5906@cbscc.UUCP> pmd@cbscc.UUCP (Paul Dubuc,) writes:
>>      Here you've implied that no a-religious moral codes can supply 
>>valid reasons for *why* they should be followed.  Care to demonstrate that,
>>and how religious moral codes *do* supply valid reasons? [Sonntag]
>
>[That's what bothers me about you skeptics; you always expect that
>others should have to disprove the things you contend as well as
>prove the things they contend. :-)]
>
>Yes, that's my implication.  But you've shifted the burden of proof
>on that.  I think the burden of proof lies with those who contend that
>there are sufficient, compeling reasons for morality apart from appeal
>to a transcendent authority.

Ahem.  The reason for morality is that lack of it causes harm to
individuals such as myself.  I think it becomes crystal clear why the
areligious person ought to support an enforced public morality.  (Reasons
to be moral as an individual are a little more complex, but just as
explainable under areligous assumptions as under religious ones.)

>Religious codes do provide the transcendent authority.  

Wrong!  (I take you to mean that religious codes do supply valid reasons
for a moral code, over and above any reasons that might be supplied
without religion.  If you did not mean this, your statement does not
address Sonntag's point.)  If there were no valid reasons for morality
apart from religion, there would be no valid reasons at all; i.e. religion
could not supply any.

>  I would contend that you can't provide sufficient reason to
>compel others to obey any moral code without doing the same thing.

Refuted above.

--The untiring iconoclast, Paul V Torek


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