Another Morality Poll

[bloom]

Some people reject religion (for these purposes - I'm talking about the major God-based religions - Judaism, Christianity, Islam).

Some people reject religion AND morality. (They may substitute their own morality - but the idea is that they reject the standards of the community).

I don't think that people generally openly reject morality without first rejecting religion (or they reject them both together).


On edit: to clarify - I mean to reject for one's self - not to reject a religion for what others are doing.

Morality, in the strictest sense of the word, deals with that which is regarded as right or wrong.... These concepts and beliefs about right and wrong are often generalized and codified by a culture or group, and thus serve to regulate the behavior of its members. Conformity to such codification may also be called morality, and the group may depend on widespread conformity to such codes for its continued existence.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morality

So I would like to know what you think. Please vote and discuss.

[MADem]

1. None of the above

If people want to practice religion, no skin off my nose. Further, I don't reject it, I just don't worry about it. I am more concerned with temporal issues of late.

Morality--it ain't either/or. I have my own standards, and to some extent they dovetail with community standards...but then, it all depends on what community you are talking about. The people I hang out with are on the same page that I am on, for the most part.

[LiberalVoice]

7. ditto to that

[TechBear_Seattle]

2. So non-major and non-god based religions are not religion?

Where would you place Hinduism (third largest religion in the world, with an estimated 900,000,000 adherents), Buddhism, Jainism, Wicca, Shinto, Santeria and the hundreds of indigenous belief systems?

You are not exactly batting 1000 on these "religion and morality" questions, Bloom.

There are hundreds of millions of people on this planet who reject monotheism and the concept of a Big Brother who goes in to conniptions when you do something naughty, and that is just the Hindus. Try again.

[BlooInBloo]

10. Why is the simple name "religion" sooooo important to you?

As if a rose by any other name wouldn't smell as sweet - sheesh.

I personally find it odd to consider something that isn't god-based to be a religion as well. But that doesn't *diminish* it, or *insult* it - it just means it's something *different*. Why do you seem to insist on writing as though it's some kind of insult?

[TechBear_Seattle]

11. Bloom gave a specific definition of "religion"

Some people reject religion (for these purposes - I'm talking about the major God-based religions - Judaism, Christianity, Islam).

More than a billion people alive right now reject that definition of religion and thus are placed in the class of those who reject religion. To put it very bluntly, that is bigotry, which is why I am insulted. How DARE someone tell me that I reject religion just because I do not share his!

As for your statement about something that is not god-based being a religion, consider: Most of the billion or more "rejecters of religion" do not believe in a monotheistic god. For that matter, Jews, Christians and Muslims all worship different gods (Yes, they do. Go ask an imam for his thoughts on the Trinity, or a rabbi about the deity of Christ.) Buddhism requires no gods at all. And you would tell these people they have rejected religion?

[bloom]

13. I was going to include a non-God based option

but I wanted to keep it simple.

I figured that it wouldn't a hardship for most people to say if they rejected a God-based religion or not.



As with anything else - you are certainly welcome to start your own poll. I don't see why you have to get so bent out of shape about mine.

[BlooInBloo]

17. Yes. With a hearty congratulations! LOL - But that's not the point....

Hinduism (for example) is what it is. Who cares if we give it the name "religion" or not? Seems pretty infantile to insist that "it IS religion it is it is it is! Wah! Mommy!!!! Tell Billy that Hinduism is religion!!! Wah!!!"

That's what I hear from your complaint at any rate. It's just a name. Get over it.

You seemed to ignore it last time: Just because somebody doesn't count Hinduism as a religion DOES NOT MEAN THEY'RE DENIGRATING HINDUISM. It is COMPLETELY mysterious why you seem to think otherwise.

[TechBear_Seattle]

21. Suppose I defined religion

As only those where adherents are required to make blood sacrifice of farm animals; anyone who has not sacrificed a live chicken, goat, sheep, bull or horse within the last year has rejected religion.

Would you be so sanguine (sorry, couldn't resist) about how "religion" is just a name whose definition does not matter?

[BlooInBloo]

22. {shrug}

... If you can't recognize the difference between those definitions that bear some resemblance to common usage and those that do not, there really isn't much I can do to help...

Of course there are constraints on the "freedom of definition". Google "tonk tink plonk" for just one example of this (not a joke).

The OP's definition bears some resemblance to common usage. I bet if you asked an average American Joe what the number one thing s/he associates with religion, it would be some kind of God. Is the average Joe wrong/provincial/narrowminded in doing this? Dunno. Maybe. But such is common usage... Don't shoot the current pollster/messenger because you don't like the message....

And like the OP said: you don't like his poll? He's not stopping you from making one of your own, rather than bitching - you are.

[muriel_volestrangler]

36. By ANY common definition of religion, Hinduism is a religion

and to exclude the third largest religion in the world (and the fourth, and fifth, and ...) does seem to show either a very bad understanding of English, or perhaps an ulterior motive in the poll (just as some protestant fundamentalists claim that Catholics are not Christians, which seems to be designed to be an insult, since it goes against all logic). Hinduism does indeed have some kind of god (several, actually, but, like Christianity, you can get into complicated discussions of aspects, personalities and so on), but they do not normally capitalise the word. But the OP gives an apparently complete list of religions to be considered.

[bloom]

39. I was limiting

...the discussion to major God-believing religions in this country.

That was the subject of another poll to which my poll relates.

So that is what my "ulterior motive" was.



Esp. - how likely is someone to say that they themselves reject moral standards - as someone who ascribes to a God-believing religion or as one who does not. It's not complicated, really.

[muriel_volestrangler]

40. OK, I didn't know this continued from another thread

that was US-specific. I myself am outside the US, and here in the UK, both Hinduism and Sikhism have more adherents than Judaism.

Since the US is only 5% of the total human population, it would seem more useful to consider the whole world where possible, even if we only have personal experience of parts of it.

[Loge23]

3. Do what YOU want. Don't change me.

I could care less about morality and religion as it applies to any individual.
What I absolutely hate is when these issues are applied by someone else to me.

[Warren DeMontague]

32. Ewwwww! What are you, some kind of "libertarian" type?

Believe it or not, for some folks around here, saying that someone has a mind-your-own-business mentality is supposed to be an insult.

:crazy::crazy::crazy::crazy::crazy:

[bloom]

34. "mind-your-own-business mentality"

Actually - no one has said that is an insult to my knowledge. Although there are quite a few people who are running around mis-characterizing what I say.

It's one thing if some want to "mind one's own business" - it's another thing when people say they don't want laws that infringe on their's or anyone else's behavior. Since not everyone behaves well - treats others well - civilization as we know it deems that laws are useful (the court system then infringes on the people who are NOT minding their own business very well). There are some anarchists that disagree with that. Maybe the libertarians do as well.

[radio4progressives]

4. Subject title is misleading - Should have said "Another Faith Based Poll"

I participated in this poll but i shouldn't have..

I positively hate being deceived by "Faith Based" promotions.

on edit: to clarify my meaning, religion and morality does not denote the same meaning to me.

[bloom]

27. I wasn't presuming that religion and morality are the same.

Far from it.

And it wasn't meant to be a promotion.

I'm sort of fleshing out some ideas - but what got this started the idea that of whether atheists reject community standards of morality more than people who consider themselves to be religious.

It might be that they reject them because the community standards are too low - or they could reject them because they think that community standards interfere with their life. It could go either way. That's how I see it.

[Goblinmonger]

41. Question for you

Why do you speak of atheists in the third person? I will respect you when you say what your beliefs/lack of beliefs are, but I see why it gets hard for other people and why I constantly refer to you as an Uncle Tom. In this post alone you say "whether atheists reject community standards" and "THEY reject them because." Most atheists don't talk about themselves that way. It seems very "Bob Dole." My claims of Uncle Tom come from this impression of distancing and referring to your "group" as the others (i.e. I have nothing against the blacks) while propping the mainstream theist view of the world.

Maybe you can shed some light on this because I will be having to repeat Uncle Tom pictures pretty soon.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

5. Morality is a human construct.

Defining "evil" or "good" always lies in the mind of the indiviual. Groups of people decide the standards that they want their community to live by. Gandhi was considered "moral" by many people. So was Hitler. The Puritans who burned the "witches" were "moral". The Taliban commited murder in the name of "morality". Jesus was crucified because he went against the morality established by the dominant religion. Slavery was considered moral because it allegedly saved the immoral savages from a life of immorality.

Therefore, I reject both religion and "morality" as a lack of responsibility.

[sui generis]

6. The community isn't always right

Morality is silliness. Isn't it funny that "morality" is a term used to judge what other people are doing, rarely one's self.

Practice the golden rule. Do no harm, to yourself or others. Help yourself so you can help others. Help others.

It's easy, doesn't require stone tablets or ancient parchment scrolls or chosen people or someone with a tin-can telephone directly to god.

I reject both religion and commonly understood "morality".

[MADem]

12. And what defines 'community?'

Your state? Your region? Your town or city? The people you hang out with? The neighbors on the cul-de-sac and the next two streets over?

The construct of the question just begs for misinterpretation, dudgeon, and much heat but less light.

[bloom]

14. I don't think it's that different

whether you are talking about the morality of the community or State.


Certainly different towns do have different ideas - but I would expect that people have a general sense of whether they agree with the morality of the people who live in the area that they consider to be their community or whether they don't.

[MADem]

18. But the term is way too loose

The people who live in Austin TX are very different from the people who live in Waco, but it is all TX. The community of San Franscisco is quite different from Simi Valley, but it's all CA. Where do you draw the line? Is it geographic, or is it self-defined? If you live in Lowell, MA, and you are Cambodian, your sense of "community" might not match Mitt the Shitt Romney's.

It's just way too loose a construct; open to way too much personal interpretation. Kinda like the blind guys and the elephant--you see in the question what you want; and everyone talks at cross-purposes. It's a question that pleads for arguments and misunderstandings, IMO.

[bloom]

28. I was out in the "community" this evening

so I was thinking about this.

I agree that there are many different "communities" that we could identify with.

With this question I proposed - like someone suggested there is the legal aspect - since it is laws that end up affecting what people are punished for - whichever communities that make those laws will end up being what one decides to accept or reject or fight or acquiesce to or ignore or whatever.


But there are other "morality" type of considerations that don't have much to do with "laws" per se.

I was thinking how different it is - the community of people around here - who are more interested in creating art/poetry/music than they are in material possessions - people who are deeply concerned about the environment - people who treat each other well (And I live between towns - so I pretty much feel like I choose which town I identify with - they are pretty different).... I was thinking how different that is from the "community" as it seems to be when you turn on the television.

I mostly turn on FSTV or something similar. But when you turn on something and the community of people seem like they are far more interested in what they own, how they look, no regard for the environment, treating themselves and each other badly - you get a pretty different idea of what community morality is - with the typical TV view. I suppose there might be communities that are more like the TV view. I wouldn't want to live there.

[sui generis]

26. agreed - "community" essentially means whatever majority

writes the laws that govern you - at least, that's what I meant.

[Crunchy Frog]

8. I dislike the use of the term "reject".

I don't consider my attitude towards religion to be "rejection". I don't buy into any system of religious belief, but that doesn't mean that I "reject" it. It simply isn't compelling to me, or it doesn't serve my particular sets of spiritual or psychological needs.

I do have a very strong sense of right and wrong. I wouldn't be on this site if I didn't. My opinions are not entirely in conformity with the majority of our society though, so maybe I would be regarded by some as "rejecting" morality as well.

[TechBear_Seattle]

9. I had to go with choice 3

"I reject religion and also (the community standards of) morality."

I entirely reject religion as you have defined it. I entirely reject your extremely narrow definition of morality. It is NOT, however, correct to say that I reject either religion or morality as defined by less narrow-minded strictures.

[zippy890]

15. what does religion have to do with morality?

or morality with religion?

I believe in living my life according to moral values and ethical standards. This has nothing whatsoever to do with religion.

[Zynx]

16. This is a truly impossible argument.

Let's take the religious portion out of this and just stick with the morality issue. Religion will simply obscure the real issue here.

When a community defines something as moral and attempts to establish a "moral standard" as such, they could very easily define something truly agregious as moral or something silly as immoral. For example, the Catholic Church used to say that even thinking about sex was immoral.

However, at the same time personal standards of morality are equally dangerous since when one becomes one's own moral judge they can justify virtually anything. I could justify something stupid like killing people now isn't really murder since they'll die anyway sometime. Or I could say that stealing isn't really wrong since I don't believe in a right to private property. These are extreme examples, but they prove a point.

In short, the debate about morality is far too complicated for my tastes. There are a few basic rules I live by and will not break under any circumstances, but much of it is always a grey area for me.

[bloom]

29. I think you make some good points

And it's interesting to think of all the Catholics that I know who accept their religion - but reject some of the moral precepts set forth by that religion.

So really they accept religion and reject it at the same time. But part of that is that they are abiding by the community standards of morality (which says that birth control is perfectly acceptable - for instance).

I think the "personal freedom" thing does tend to get rather overblown around here.(Esp. by the libertarians).

I think some of that is a reaction against what they perceive to be moral standards that they see as too tainted by religion. That's why I have the poll questions the way I do.


I agree there are basic things that most people want everyone to agree on. Honesty, for instance. A certain degree of respect. Not trampling each others daffodils. Whatever.

[Warren DeMontague]

19. Sorry, but that's an extremely poorly worded OP & poll.

A) "Morality" and religion are not necessarily synonmyous, much less linked. In many cases, these days, they seem to be mutually exclusive. To argue that rejecting religion somehow leads to rejecting morality, like it's some kind of gateway drug, is deeply offensive. Of course, that doesn't stop someone or other from trotting out the old "you atheists are incapable of being moral" saw, every so often.

B) Wikipedia -with contributions put together by people who generally have a vested interest in promoting the POV from which they are contributing- is HARDLY the authoritative source on matters that are subjective, like the definition of "morality". Killing gays is the 'standard of the community' in some places. FGM is the 'standard of the community' in many societies. Maybe those practices constitute 'morality' to you, they sure don't to me.

(I would add, too, that for DU, a majority of polled posters -some 71%- believe pornography is "healthy and normal". Therefore, in the community of Democratic Underground, by your own definition, morality means consenting adults looking at sexual material containing other consenting adults is healthy and normal. Just FYI.)

[mongo]

23. ..

:thumbsup: :applause: :patriot: :toast:

'nuff said.

[Strong Atheist]

24. Howdy!

:hi: ;)

[bloom]

33. ...

A) I don't presume that religion and morality are synonymous and I don't expect other people around here to presume that either.

B) I think it's worthwhile having a starting point. I also don't think that "killing gays" is the "standard" of any community.

Lynching was closer to being widely accepted by some communities back in the 20's - where the whole town came out. I don't think there is anything comparable to that today. It certainly does say something about a community if those are the standards, at any rate. I certainly believe that people should challenge such immoral or anti-moral (or whatever you wish to call them) actions and attitudes. Just as we challenge our country's immoral war.

Do you think that people should NOT challenge immoral practices/standards that a community/state/nation has adopted through consensus, propaganda or any other means?

If you think we should NOT - what's the point of this website, anyway?

[muriel_volestrangler]

37. I'm amazed you haven't heard of the death penalty for homosexuality

Iraqi cleric wants gays killed in "most severe way"

In the midst of sectarian violence that threatens to drag Iraq into civil war, the country's influential Shiite cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani has issued a violent death order against gays and lesbians on his Web site, according to London-based LGBT human rights groups OutRage.

Written in Arabic, the fatwa comes from a press conference with the powerful religious cleric, where he was asked about the judgment on sodomy and lesbianism. “Forbidden,” Sistani answered, according to OutRage, “Punished, in fact, killed. The people involved should be killed in the worst, most severe way of killing.”

Considering Sistani's stature and influence within the Iraqi Shiite majority, OutRage member Ali Hili declared the cleric's statements extremely dangerous.

“Sistani's murderous homophobic incitement has given a green light to Shia Muslims to hunt and kill lesbians and gay men,” said Hili. “We hold Sistani personally responsible for the murder of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender Iraqis. He gives the killers theological sanction and encouragement.”

http://www.advocate.com/news_detail_ektid28049.asp

9 countries with the death penalty for homosexual acts in 2000

[bloom]

38. I was really thinking the discussion

was about communities in the US. Since those are the standards that we live with.

Looking back - I can see that the poster I responded to was referring to standards that might be anywhere. Though my point still stands. Some people seem to be saying that some communities have standards that we should not tolerate. And yet don't like the idea of group pressure to improve standards - because it could result in group pressure on themselves - in ways that they wouldn't like.

[Redstone]

20. Why the fuck would I have to "reject religion?" I'm NOT religious, but

that doesn't mean I "reject" it. Bad, bad choice of words. the fact that I'm not religious does NOT mean that I don't think others should be; it's their choice, so who the hell am I to "reject" it?

People can be as religious as they want to be, no skin off my back.

Redstone

[beam me up scottie]

25. Is intolerance moral?

IMO, religious bigots really should refrain from questioning the morality of others.

[Nikia]

30. I do not reject religion and my morality goes beyond it

I have recently discovered that my morality is somewhat unhealthy for me as I hold myself to unreasonably high standards that don't necessarily do anyone else any good anyway. For me, it makes sense to hold myself to higher standards because I give other people the benefit of the doubt and I believe that one is judged according to one's own conscience, that is if you do something purposely that you believe is wrong, you are doing wrong even if it doesn't really do harm to others. I am rethinking some parts of my morality.

[Inland]

31. Is the choice "reject" or "obey"? I admit they exist.

I admit community standards exist, but I don't follow them all. No, it's none of your goddamn business which ones!

[Goblinmonger]

35. Seriously, Dude

don't quit your day job to become a survey writer. I took my intro to stats grad class with a bunch of dumbasses, and they would not have turned that in for a final project. You would be laughed at uncontrolably by ANYONE who knows anything about constructing survey questions. You make so many fucking assumptions in those options, it is almost like a satire of bad polls.

Oh, and since I have been gone for a couple day, I just want to remind you: