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Sunday, May 15, 2011

Morals and Laws

How was man moral before he received the words of God? Indeed, was there ever such a time? Men were righteous and good even back in the mists of time, even before the start of the religions we know of today. There were good people even before Abraham.

Mankind may be good, even outside the scope of our religions and their dogmas. Man was created with the ability to be good. The potential to be good is innate. Therefore, even if people say God is dead, this does not touch Morality and Goodness. It may render certain dogmatic beliefs out of date, but the need for Virtue is even greater. We ignore Virtue at our own risk, and Virtue is in our actions, not in our adherence to this our that law, for as previously said, mankind was virtuous even before Abraham so Virtue is beyond laws.

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4 comments:

Unknown said...

Some years ago I read a piece entitled "can We Be Good Without God?" the author concluded we could not. Not sure on this myself. I think I could argue either position.

Montag said...

Give me the name, and I'll look it up. Sounds interesting.

There is a distinction between good without religion and good without God.

To be honest with you, it is the type of argument to stay away from, for it neither persuades a hearer to goodness, nor to belief in God. Same thing for the contrary: it neither dissuades you from goodness if you are already moral, nor does it lead you to atheism.

Being good is enough of a task without worrying about the aetiology of the Good.

Unknown said...

The article is on the Net, of course:

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1989/12/can-we-be-good-without-god/6721/

Montag said...

I'll give it a try.