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Moral Compass

I have a question based simply on my curiosity. Having been an Evangelical Christian (a pastor in fact) for most of my adult life and now an agnostic at best. I no longer hold the Bible as the standard for my conduct and behavior.

On what do you base your moral compass? What is right and what is wrong?

No right or wrong answers as far as I'm concerned. I'm simply curious to hear some of your answers.

ReverendJohnDoe 5 Apr 20
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65 comments (51 - 65)

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Its easy for me, put yourself in the sights of your actions, would you want to be there?

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The base that I have an ideal of society that I wish to live in, and I will behave in a way to stabilize this model of society.
Then you take the average of the society models of everyone and build the "moral of the society".

And that is the problem of religious morality, they wish for a very nice model of society, BUT they don't behave in a way to promote it.

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I suggest that you read some books re: humanism. Good without a god.

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Immorality is whatever hurts other people. However, morality is necessarily relative and the actions of one person is rarely ever something that can be obviously or necessarily wrong to another.

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Check with your local police.

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Approaching a decision, ask myself 'what's the right thing to do?'
Then I do it.
Sounds good, but sometimes I don't 'do the right thing.'
THEN I feel guilty about it and upbraid myself for being, among other things, a hypocrite.
That feels bad. It humbles me to realize I'm often selfish and self-serving despite my lofty ideals.
Sometimes the RIGHT thing objectively is not the right thing individually. I TRY to do what is objectively right.
The Golden Rule is a good guide to figure out what that is.

Golden Rule: treat others the way you wish to be treated.

Platinum Rule: treat others the way they wish to be treated.

@David_ver_3 I don't see any difference.
But it😕 sometimes irrelevant, because I'll be tempted and often give into the temptation to do what's right for ME regardless of what is good for the other person, if there is a choice to be made.

@Storm1752 Golden rule assumes everyone wants to be treated the same way as you; platinum rule acknowledges our differences. For the big moral decisions like violence and thievery there's probably not much difference. For just interacting with others there can be huge differences.

Just curious: when you say you do what is best for you, does your criteria for "best" include being a compassionate, respectful, pleasant person?

@David_ver_3 You are asking us to act irrationally, just how the fictious Jesus Christ supposedly wanted us to act.
Expecting us to 'turn the other cheek' only means you'll be slapped silly on that cheek as well.
It seems like we STILL hold each other up to a ridiculously high standard.

@Storm1752 One person's rational decision won't be the same as another's. Taking the "slap" as a metaphor for an act of aggression/violence, then a response in kind is likely to escalate the situation. Turning the other cheek may de-escalate tensions. Maybe not. It is perfectly rational for me to choose to be hit twice in the hope of stopping the aggression, while others may choose to hit back in the hope of domination & triumph over the aggressor. I choose to try for peace.

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I have no problem with a moral compass and simply base mine on common sense with consideration of people not unfairly harming other people while restricting people as little as otherwise possible. The Christian community has been telling us that the only compass in this regard is found in the Bible. You were presumably bombarded with that notion as a "tenent of truth" far more than me but I have never had a problem in that regard and I do hold morality to be very important.

OCJoe Level 6 Apr 20, 2020
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Does an action do more harm than good? It’s not all that complex.

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Empathy. The "golden rule" which is stated in some form in virtually every religion is "do unto others as you would have them do unto you". All you have to to is imagine how you would feel if you were on the other end of the deeds you do.

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  1. Strive to treat others as would want to be treated.

  2. Strive to treat others as they would want to be treated.

  3. Strive to never do anything to others that I would not want done to me.

  4. Strive to cause or do no harm.

  5. Reject hate and embrace love*.

    • The well being of others is as important to you as your own well being is to you.
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I treat people how I want to be treated.

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My gut!

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As to "moral", I ask what is the moral of the story? Morals are principles of right and wrong and good and bad(evil) behavior of a person.

Moral development comes thru stories, the moral of the stories? Stories told by parents to children or stories told by teachers to students. Where do you hear stories that you learn things about other people's experiences and the outcomes that worked for them or failed, so that you learn from their experiences developing your understanding of morals. Moral is often a general type principle that can be applied to different situations where from one situation to another there may be apparent gray areas where as rules and laws would most often give for a stricter black and white distinction.

Word Level 8 Apr 20, 2020
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Right and wrong can best be understood when viewed from along the lines of a principle, rule, or law.

If a law made it illegal to be chewing bubble gum while walking then it is wrong for a person in view of that law to be walking while chewing bubble gum.

The genius of the biblical text is that with the knowledge of good and evil, right and wrong can be better understand and it could discern the goodness of such a law that would prohibit chewing bubble gum while walking.

Rules and laws can be very arbitrary, that is based a lot simply on a personal opinion with little or no basis in principle.

Why should there be a law prohibiting chewing bubble gum while walking? What "GOOD" is such a law to make it wrong to chew bubble gum while walking?

Knowledge of good and evil is among the first of biblical stories for good reason and its genius. However, one does not have to study biblical text to aquire such knowledge just simply study many different dictionaries AND thesauruses to get a broad but generally objective understanding of what the words good and evil are all about.

Word Level 8 Apr 20, 2020
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Moral acts are those that enhance the well-being of while avoiding harm to intelligent biological entities.

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