ethics and faith

Hi xris, this is my first post on the discussion forums by the way.
Could you explain what you mean by separating faith and ethics?

I agree xris that believers should not impose their beliefs on other people. That includes selective child birth or anything else. The more we interfere in other people's lives, the more we open the door for them to interfere in ours.

Faith and ethics are inseparable for the believer. Typically, faith traditions are preeminently concerned with ethics.

Law is influenced by religious belief - so long as the people have any say in what is and what is not law. To take away religious influence from law is to eradicate republicanism and democracy.

Here's the thing, though: some religious moral influence is negative, others are positive. But the same is true of the ethics of atheists: some of the influence is positive, other times the influence is negative.

Religion is not the issue: the issue is the nature of the morality. If "do unto others as you would have them do unto you" is good moral guidance, that the guidance comes from religion is of absolutely no concern. The Golden Rule has been expressed in religious and secular terms, yet the teaching is the same.

Instead of being concerned with religious morals, we should be concerned with the moral teaching itself.

Im only concerned when fundies are denying the rights of others and by their influence of secular laws.

I think the influence of fundamentalist "Christianity" is one of the biggest tragedies of human history, but, since we (in the US) live under a form of government that allows the people to select leaders, it seems to me inevitable that, so long as there are substantial numbers of "fundies" we will have to endure their influence.

But I would argue that "faith" in the sense of "religious tradition" is not the problem. Misguided faith certainly can be.

As for whether or not the religious family should be allowed to keep their vegatative son alive, well, if the family was not religious but wanted to do this would it make a difference?

Im only concerned when fundies are denying the rights of others and by their influence of secular laws.

the issue is not whether or not their arguments stem from a religious source, but instead the issue is whether or not their moral arguments make any sense.

Then your initial thesis needs to be cast out.

I'm right there with you when the fundamentalists are trying to deny rights: but we have to bear in mind that the issue is not whether or not their arguments stem from a religious source, but instead the issue is whether or not their moral arguments make any sense.

After seeing a TV programme on designer babies i was troubled to see in secular country how ethical laws are influenced by believers opinions. I think faith and ethics should be separated completely. Is there any believers that agree with me?

Ill do my best,welcome by the way,certain persons of faith deny the right of parents to choose a healthy child without inherited birth defects. They would say you are denying the children life by excluding them from selection when selecting healthy children "eggs". Their opinions are formed by their religious beliefs rather than by ethics or secular logical. I for one say its ethically wrong to bring a child into this world knowing its illnes or deformity will bring pain and suffering.logically it will burden the health service creating shortages of facilities and medical assistance to those who are already living.I hope that is clear.

Without sounding to confrontational do you think a countries laws should influenced by religious beliefs? I would not deny the right of the faithful to not choose by medical means, but should the wider population be made to bear the consequences of their decision.I had a father in law who because of his age was not given dialysis and was allowed to die. Two wards away a teenager who had been in a vegetative state for seven years was being kept alive because of his parents religious respect for life. It was costing seventy thousand pounds a year to keep this lad in a vegetative state and it was only eight thousand pounds a year to give dialysis..not logical or ethical in my opinion.

Standardizing religious ideas of morality is itself unethical. Every individual should be able to follow their own standard of morality as long as it does not conflict with the ethical laws of a civil society, and that goes for religious people as well.

This is what I think. these people are thinking they are basing their thoughts on religious believes yet I think they are interpreting it wrong unless their religion specifically states what they say. I'm going to say egg instead of sperm because it's easier to use as an example and doesn't really matter in this case.

So they say when selecting a healthy sperm they are excluding potential children by using a decision instead of chance? Do they not realize that when normal sexual intercourse takes place millions of sperm don't "get a chance" If they are going to be following all of what they say then they better use up all the sperm or they are breaking their own moral code. I think it is just people that don't fully understand what they are saying.



That's an interesting one. Since they are religious then they believe that their is a soul in humans. The question then becomes is the soul still in the body of their son. Their is no way to prove that though. Though if there is no soul still in the body then, in their eyes, it is no different then pulling a dead body out of the ground and pumping blood through it as death occurs with a parting of the soul.

Though with both of these answers I'm answering only inferring that their beliefs are as I assume them to be.



That whole paragraph sounds like something that could only come out of a moral absolutists mouth. How are you to say that standardizing religious ideas of morality is unethical? Why can't someones standard of morality conflict with the laws of a society? It's not inherently wrong from a relativist point of view and since its not then there is no way you can say someone shouldn't do that. Of course you could get away with keeping that paragraph like that just add: "That is just my opinion" at the end though.

Morality may be subjective, but the ethics that support a civil society are not. Standardizing religious morals is unethical because its foundation is a an unverifiable claim (the existence and revelation of an omniscient God), and it is tyrannical and morally absolute to do so (the European Dark Ages for example). We learned during the enlightenment that making any religion the mode of a civil society's ethics is unethical. Ethics should be designed to benefit the individual human rights of all people in a civil society.