Troubador

Do not imagine I do not value the contribution you have made in starting this thread. I believe it is an important question, and you have engaged with both erudition and courtesy. So thank you. I am not attempting to be disingenuous, but it seems at least to me that the issue we are having stems from the definition of Christian we are using. I would agree accepting your definatition of Christian, what you say follows logically. The sticking point is I'm not entirely convinced this definition of Christian really works from a practical point of view. There are dozens of denominations with wildly different doctrines and dogmas, all of which are strikingly diverse. What is a cherished belief to one sect is heresy to another. Making that specific point about God being the source of morality, and it's ultimate arbiter does not automatically make secular morality and ethics anathema to it. If in so doing that doesn't make those individuals Christian enough for you then fair enough, but that is a subjective observation on your part. The central tenets in Christianity are love God, and love your neighbour as yourself for a large number of people. Neither of which are incompatible with secular ethics. I could just as easily argue with that as a base for Christianity and that Christians who for example treat homosexuals abominably are failing in that basic tenet and are therefore not really christians. I am reticent however to do that as I am not inclined to let Christianity off the hook so easily. The definition of Christian I believe is wisest to adopt is very simply, merely any individual or organisation that self identifies as Christian. Accept or reject that definition as you wish, as you have made clear you are willing to discuss secular ethics with such people although you may choose to not define them as Christian because they are willing to accept secular ethics at all. However that is more than good enough for me.

I'll try and distill this down to its most simple: Ethics/ Morality need to be founded on aspiration to virtue, actually "because God says so" doesn't satisfactorily cut it. WasatchMan I dealt with your contention re: God creating morality, but I'll mention it again. If a Christian holds the belief of God the creator, and the physical world contains a logical rational system of ethics within it, said Christian can follow said logical/rational system without contradiction. The only issue that arises is when religious folk follow a dogma without question, but it is a gross misrepresentation to paint all religious people like this.

WasatchMan, I think we are getting somewhere here. I would 100% agree that morality/ethics, require intent. It is perfectly possible to perform an outwardly moral act, and yet not have possessed the intent to necessarily arrive at a moral outcome. If a married person refuses a sexual advance from a third party, but they do so out of a complete lack of attraction they haven't been particularly moral. If by contrast the refusal stemmed from a realization of virtue (a genuine respect for their spouse and desire not to put any children's futures at risk), then it IS decidedly moral. Zeroing in on religion again we do come up against many potential pitfalls, so let's examine an issue in greater depth to see if we can get some clarity. Take the issue of homosexuality. It is I would say safe to say that in Christianity homosexuality is generally defined as a sin. Now as we have seen wider society evolve (mostly! There is still some ground to gain here) past this attitude, Christian thought is often very much stuck in the dark ages here. Now of course the moral justification of this comes from the bible, and the belief that that the bible is the word of God. It is also quite obviously very morally wrong that Christianity has done this and continues to do so (at least to my way of thinking). So we have I think a perfect example of what I think you are trying to get at. The very belief in God not only fails at basic morality it is actually by this process engaged in an actively unethical position. It is by no means the only one, Catholic prohibitions on birth control, suicide bombers. The list is extensive. In the light of all this I would have no trouble with your assertion, if only every religion and religious individual behaved in this manner. Were that the case I would wholeheartedly agree with you, but it's not. There ARE religious individuals that put stock in encouragement of personal relationships with God and personal virtue. If that focus on virtue trumps whatever a religious organization like a church denomination tries to indoctrinate it's parishioners with then, I believe you have someone you can meaningfully discuss rational secular ethics with, but and this is crucial the moment you have a disagreement where the assertion "because God said so" or variations thereof is made I concede you have someone who you would struggle to converse meaningfully with.

I know, and I quite agree that individuals must be held accountable for their actions, but I think the vigor with which you make your case: that any action cannot be called trully moral or ethical without being first founded in logic and reason the reverse must also be true that a trully immoral/unethical action cannot also be thusly labeled without comprehension and knowing infraction of said logical/ reasoned ethical system. Perhaps this all hinges on a notion that somehow being in possession of a religous/ spiritual belief is somehow fundamentally incompatible with logic and reason. Which I think is an increasingly prevailing view in this day and age, but is not necessarily true. Is it not possible that in UPB's terms that a religous belief can come under aesthetic preference? I noted Stefan's love of bringing up jazz music by way of an example, which at first glance looks pretty harmless enough, but when you consider the violence between the mods and rockers in the second half of the 20th Century I think it is pretty easy to make the case that musical aesthetic preferences have been involved in decidedly unpreferable behaviour. Such a case is even easier to make if you move to sports teams supporters. Here in the UK we have had many occasions of football hooliganism. All over aesthetic preferences. To conclude if someone is willing to accept rational/logical ethics as the gold standard (or perhaps even merely entertain the notion therof) for human interaction, then any other thing they choose to believe (ie which football team is best, their favorite musical genre and yes wether they choose to believe in deities, Taos, animal spirits, magical prancing moon ponies or whatever), shouldn't really be a barrier to discussion. Of course that's entirely up to an individual who they choose to freely associate with, but I would possibly volunteer it is wisest to associate with those with aspiration to virtue.

Is this the sort of thing you are talking about? http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/businessclub/11175092/Britains-atheist-church-now-pulls-in-crowds-from-Berlin-to-Ohio.html

Ok now I am confused either the logical and rationally foundation is applicable to everyone, or it's not therefore universal. If you are saying it is impossible for a religious based belief system to at least have the capacity to be moral/ethical you are also saying it is impossible for them to also be immoral and unethical. Now I am sure you are not trying to hand out a free pass here! Forgive me if I have misunderstood, if this is a moral/ethical system that by design is ONLY to be applied to secularists then of course disregard the above.

Forgive me but isn't any moral/ethical system predicated on controlling people's behaviour? Also the fundamental tenets of Christianity are: 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' And: 'Love your neighbor as yourself' The gospel supersedes the Old Testament, and hence is the foundation of Christian ethics more than the Ten Commandments are. I appreciate the nuances of theological inquiry are not the atheists natural habitat, but in essence the foundation of Christian ethics is love. By all means take issue with the existence of God, but I think there is more than enough to work with re: rationalist secular ethics that should benefit benefit all of humanity and not just an intellectual elite.

Ahh I get you (sorry I was a bit slow there) a moral/ethical system founded on a lie (which in and of itself is a morally/ethically questionable act) cannot therefore produce a moral or ethical system. Hmmm assuming I've understood now, and apologies for not doing due dilligence earlier (ie reading!), I think again it depends on the Christian. It all hinges on your use of the world lie. A lie requires intent to decieve, and seeing as the individual Christian concerned may have an earnest belief, as such their position is not one born out of an intent to decieve anyone. In fact despite having from your point of view an irrational belief, as long as the discussion is centered entirely on the logical and rational why should there be a problem? In fact I would go so far as to say there would be quite a receptive audience amongst many Christians to see a workable moral/ethical system founded on logic and reason to apply to their lives. After all they have the aspiration to morals and ethics ready built in. As I said before you can talk about astrophysics with most modern christians without anyone jumping up and down about the earth being flat. Granted you might run into trouble with evolution in some circles, but not always. Remember though that Gallileo and Darwin are seperated by a good 150 years and religious thinking can move glacially slow at times. Correct me this UFB stuff is extremely new, and not even in the wider public consciousness yet, so I guess we'll see going forward.

One can have religious/ spiritual beliefs and still see value in reason. They are not mutually exclusive. Neither do religious beliefs automatically equate to stupidity. If that were so the considerable contribution to the sciences, arts and philosophy that men and women of faith have made over the millennia would not have occurred. Note it is not the case that having these beliefs equals intelligence either, just that one can be religious and be intelligent. One does not preclude the other. You can keep ignorant where it is, everyone is ignorant about something, also a staggering number of religious people also manage to fit in a quite terrifying amount of corruption. As to the central premise of being unable or unwilling to discuss morality/ethics with Christians (and I am assuming you count most religions there too, but willing to be corrected on that). Can I point out that depends on which Christians you speak to. There is tonnes of self contradiction in the bible, but there are also common sense guidelines that end up becoming bizarre points of faith in the modern world. Consider the prohibition on pork you find I the Old Testement/ Torah. Which modern day Christians mostly ignore, but you still see in practiced in some contemporary Jewish communities. Back in the day keeping pork safely stored and safe to eat was damnsome difficult so some bright spark probably came along and figured "I know if I stick this bit in our sacred text, people will stop giving themselves gastrointestinal distress, and the air will be a lot sweeter smelling for everyone". Some people still follow this rule today, despite it no longer being such a challenge to keep it safe to eat what with all the advances in refrigeration and general food preparation. So too it could be viewed with morals /ethics, slap in some sound moral and ethical ideas that people can follow (like the golden rule for example) without thinking too hard about it and everybody benefits. If centuries later some other bright spark comes along and categorically generates logical and empirical proofs for morals and ethics, well that's of value intrinsically for everyone wether they are religious or not. Kind of like Gallelio's assertion of the earth being a sphere and not the center of the universe, and in fact it rotates around the Sun. I would assert precious few modern Christians would argue that wasn't true today.

I think that can go the other way, in that if your fat and you hang around a lot of fit and healthy people it can inspire you to sort yourself out. Also it can be an observational measure of self esteem, sometimes attractive people who lack a measure of confidence will surround themselves with people less attractive as a bolster. This can occur with intellect as well, as a somewhat clever individual can get something from being the smartest person in the room, and often direct the group as a result.

Is there a difference between "I do not believe in God," and "I believe there is no God."?

I like the cut of your gib sir! I'm a little bit behind you (my son is about 2 1/2), but I'm finding him infinitely easier to manage now his language is coming in. My tack is twofold, first off we always do things together (clearing up toys together, letting him help on the easier nappy changes), all of this is fun quality time with daddy which feeds his desire to participate, but on the downside makes everything take much longer but he now understands teamwork which helps hugely. Secondly the increase in volume is his frustration at bieng told no. Now this might sound batty to you or I, but these are the tentative steps of emotional development and my personal take on it (your mileage may vary) is that piling a negative onto a negative kinda makes it worse (I'm talking the time outs), as the lesson being learned is that his natural emotional response is not acceptable, and the endgame with parenting isn't the repression of emotion but being able to successfully manage them. Imagine just for a moment your dealing with frustration and anger for the first times, it's going to be tough. So in your sort of situation my response would be to pick him up and cuddle him and say something like "I know this glass is really interesting and you want to play with it, but it's getting all nice, clean and dry time now, perhaps we can come back and explore it tomorrow," if that fails I just continue to cuddle him gently and soothe with words like "I know it's frustrating, you tell me me all about it" you ideally want to be at the threshold guiding him through emotional experiences. Now your little one is that bit older so I guess you can use more sophisticated communication with him. However when he starts to get back on task be ready with praise "I know you didn't really want to be doing this, but you're a really good boy for getting on with it and being part of the team. I am really proud of you." One final note you mention this happened at night time, which is more like as not tired time, so if I find things like that too challenging I switch the bath routine to the morning whilst he's fresh and not crabby, establish the ideal bathtime routine, and transfer it back to bedtime. Now obviously you're way ahead of me so you are well within your rights to write any of this off as "what does he know?". If that's your view fair enough, but I have experience with kids (including and especially those with special needs) so I'm applying some life experience I gathered before becoming a Dad myself. For what it's worth your little boy is lucky to have a dad like you. Hope it helps!

Ok to make a case for why forgiveness is broadly positive: Forgiveness is a prerequisite for reconciliation. If the prospect for reconciliation is taken off the table, and we were now to live in an unforgiving society it creates a whole host of philosophical problems. Now granted and has been pointed out upthread this ^requires^ contrition on the part of the perpetrator, and even action taken in restitution to make amends. If we take all that off the table, we limit and inhibit the possibility to heal and move a community forward. On a large scale consider the actions of Nelson Mandela, who upon becoming President of South Africa: - Invited one of his jailers to his inauguration ceremony. - Had dinner with the man who had tried to had the death penalty applied to his sentence. - Wore the Sprinbok rugby jersey at the 1995 Rugby World Cup. Now absolutely this has not wiped out racism or racial tensions in South Africa, but that reconciliation is not even possible without first forgiveness. I use Mandela as an example of how forgiveness on even a personal level can make a positive difference to the world, and sometimes forgiving actually creates the climate within which people will seek to make restitution.

Well I guess it depends on what causes someone to poke holes in the first place. Without having read the book in its entirety I do feel safe in venturing that it is a success in that it obviously works for some of the community here. The proof that is most interesting is if it works when rolled out across all of humanity, but even if it doesn't it doesn't mean it does not have value. That may be intellectually unsatisfying in that it's stated goal is to provide that complete rational framework for ethics, but I would contend that if it makes thousands of people consider the ideas of ethics, and aspire to live more virtuously then something has gone right somewhere. As is written in statements attributed to Socrates even if a Utopian ideal is impossible there is still benefit to be gained in trying to work towards one. So what ever else it should be respected that it is being attempted at all. Thank you for the quotation, it is not one I am familiar with.

Really good discussion here, and whilst forgiveness is generally a good idea, it requires some closer examination and picking apart. As as been correctly identified we tend to associate anger/hatred as negative, which I am inclined to agree is incorrect. Emotions are perfectly natural reactions to experiences, and as such are not inherently negative in and of themselves. However it's worth pointing out certain emotions experienced chronically can have positive/ negative outcomes with regards to an individual's health. Yet we should not forget that repressing feelings of anger leads to depression. So I don't think it's as simple as some people make it out. An individual's right to feel, experience and work through their own emotions is fundamental, so if you want to stay angry at your parents then have at it. Besides nobody has more insight into your experiences than you do. In addition by allowing yourself to feel aggrieved you have validated your status as a human being with a right to not be abused, which is an act of healthy self love in and of itself. Which leads to the understanding that emotions do not really exist in isolation, but involve incredibly complex interplays. People only hate the child abuse because they care about children for example, but it can and does get remarkably more subtle and nuanced than that. In essence I agree with anyone who claims that broadly speaking forgiveness is a positive thing, but I am uncomfortable when anyone ever tells anyone they "should " or "ought" to forgive in any specific circumstance.

Thanks for the welcome! I brought up religion because a dear friend is an atheist and we discuss philosophy and well pretty much everything, so I am cognizant of the contemporary landscape. In lots of ways I'm inclined to align with the secularists. I am only about halfway through the book Universally Preferred Behaviour, which I am obviously still digesting, but I do agree with two crucial suppositions in it (assuming my comprehension is up to snuff): - Ethics/Morality are not nor should they be the exclusive province of any religion/spiritual practice/ or political (state) ideology. This is self evident from the fact there are ethical atheists and unethical religious practitioners, and also if one examines Taoism (I'm not a practicing Taoist by the way but I confess to finding the Tao Te Ching beautiful) which can be either a philosophical or spiritual practice or both. - The difference to us as a species cannot be overstated if a reproducible and objective ethical framework can be found. I am not saying UFB succeeds or fails in this, but even if it turns out it doesn't I hope Stefan and indeed this community keep working toward it. I have the utmost respect and admiration for what is being attempted.

I cannot think of a scenario where bringing more empathy to the table would result in a less beneficial outcome. It's true it may fail to improve a scenario, but it cannot make it worse. Quite aside from improving the possibility of getting your ideas across, it may also enable you to view your own perspectives from different angles and hence to greater depths.

I don't think what I would suggest as an either/or proposition, but sometimes actions speak louder than words. If you are doing a good job actively raising your own child people will take note and frequently lend more weight to your opinion. Of course this only really works when the parents are in your social orbit, although often this will even work with a casual acquaintance. In terms of going in cold, say if you see questionable parenting from a complete stranger I guess that would depend on your skill set. I think another form of the rebuttal of "who are you to tell me how to raise my kids?" can come from the phrase "It takes a village to raise a child". We are all invested in the next generation even if we don't have them ourselves. Furthermore the number of people sequestered away parenting alone, with little/no support from the rest of the "tribe" so to speak is hardly conducive to sound mental health.

A big hello from England! I've poked about on YouTube and saw some of Stefan's videos and I was particularly impressed with ones where he was helping callers work through personal issues. A little bit of googling led me here, so I figured I'd dip my toes in the philosophical waters and sign up. I'm keen to learn about this peaceful parenting approach as I'm a father to a little one as well. I'd not heard of peaceful parenting until I came here, and I'll be sure to have a read round on it whilst I'm here. One disclaimer I would rather state up front as I was not aware until I came here it appears as though there is a strong atheistic tradition here. As a man of certain religious/spiritual beliefs myself I would feel I was being dishonest if I didn't own that upfront. That said I cannot stress enough I am here for the philosophy not to espouse any particular religion. I read the sticky Stefan posted above to religious types like myself (although some of the links do not appear to lead anywhere anymore) You will find no argument from me that religions have been responsible for untold human misery and suffering, and regrettably continue to be so. I look foward to spending some time here I suspect it will be an illuminating place.