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Old 10-16-2020, 09:07 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by mpholland View Post
The word and definition of "moral" were created by man. It has nothing to do with God. Morality has to do with an "idea" of right and wrong, particularly as it pertains to a society, but it can be individual also.

Imagine the world without a God? Which one? The world is full of "Gods", just as it is full of societies. Right and wrong aren't black and white. What is "right" in one society or culture could be very "wrong" in another. Your God has a set of rules, the main being the ten commandments. The followers of Christianity developed their own moral code to adhere to that. The followers of other religions have their own morality. Many similar, some different. Agnostics and atheists have morals also, especially if they are a society. Your morality stems from the Christian religion, but don't think for a minute that people who aren't Christian don't have morals. All societies have definitions of right and wrong. Just because they don't fit your code doesn't make them immoral. That would only be from the "window" that you are looking at them through. Your window might be cleaned with Windex from the inside, but still dirty on the outside.
No need for me to re-invent the wheel here. This covers it: C. S. Lewis and 8 Reasons for Believing in Objective Morality

This does a good job as well: CHRISTIAN AND NON-CHRISTIAN MORALITY

The quote in question about this is this:

Quote:
There are two ways in which the human machine goes wrong. One is when human individuals drift apart from one another, or else collide with one another and do one another damage, by cheating or bullying. The other is when things go wrong inside the individual – when the different parts of him (his different faculties and desires and so on) either drift apart or interfere with one another. You can get the idea plain if you think of us as a fleet of ships sailing in formation. The voyage will be a success only, in the first place, if the ships do not collide and get in one another's way; and, secondly, if each ship is seaworthy and has her engines in good order. As a matter of fact, you cannot have either of these two things without the other. If the ships keep on having collisions they will not remain seaworthy very long. On the other hand, if their steering gears are out of order they will not be able to avoid collisions. Or, if you like, think of humanity as a band playing a tune. To get a good result, you need two things. Each player's individual instrument must be in tune and also each must come in at the right moment so as to combine with all the others.

But there is one thing we have not yet taken into account. We have not asked where the fleet is trying to get to, or what piece of music the band is trying to play. The instruments might be all in tune and might all come in at the right moment, but even so the performance would not be a success if they had been engaged to provide dance music and actually played nothing but Dead Marches. And however well the fleet sailed, its voyage would be a failure if it were meant to reach New York and actually arrived at Calcutta.

Morality, then, seems to be concerned with three things. Firstly, with fair play and harmony between individuals. Secondly, with what might be called tidying up or harmonising the things inside each individual. Thirdly, with the general purpose of human life as a whole: what man was made for: what course the whole fleet ought to be on: what tune the conductor of the band wants it to play.
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It seems, then, that if we are to think about morality, we must think of all three departments: relations between man and man: things inside each man: and relations between man and the power that made him. We can all co-operate in the first one. Disagreements begin with the second and become serious with the third. It is in dealing with the third that the main differences between Christian and non-Christian morality come out.
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