Sunday, August 7, 2011

Define value, and then explain why others should adopt your view of 'value' in lieu of religious moral law?

It benefits us all in general to live in a society where we generally treat each other according to the golden rule which I believe can be naturalistically justified. It would be a miserable world few would want to live in if we all went around taking what we wanted by force and killing people we disagree with. You can't expect others to refrain from treating you in ways you would not like if you treat others in a bad manner. You can't for example steal from your neighbor and expect they won't turn around and steal from you back or exact some revenge. A social contract that follows from the idea we must be willing to treat others as we ourselves would like to be treated can be nontheistically derived. Many cultures and different religions have their own version of this indicating it has ocurred as something beneficial to human across cultures. If you want your life to be worth someone going out of their way for than you have to expect that you will need to return the favor. I believe societies evolved because they offered us an evolutionary advantage over a law of the jungle approach to life. By banding together and creating structure that benefits all including the old, poor, weak, and different we discovered we achieved more and had more stablity and advantages.

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