Where Do YOU Get Your Morals From?

[@jeanne89]

Just finished reading your book. Excellent. Learned a lot and has really clarified my thinking in responding to today’s culture’s spirit of the age.

[@SpeakLifeMedia]

Glad it was helpful!

[@christianbensel]

Great book, I completely agree.

[@sillygoose9070]

'Morals' come from the society you find yourself in. 'Ethics' come from your own conscience.

[@artax7664]

Duties come from the combination of transcendent morals and societal structures and ideas. Morals are just transcendent. There’s a higher law of right and wrong that we all appeal to.

[@markmooroolbark252]

The endless obsession men like Shermer have with painting women as the oppressed group in history and today is so irritating and blind to reality. In any of the most extreme examples given of patriarchy where things like female genital mutilation are practised you will find (aside from the fact women are more in favour of this practice than men) that the men in these societies are treated far more brutally. In Iran, thousands of men are imprisoned, tortured and executed every year in numbers which dwarf any such treatment of women. Yet such is the utter disregard we have for male suffering that even the most educated people ignore this cold irrefutable fact. I might add that male genital mutilation is a practice still encouraged and accepted in our society today. I find the acceptance of the brutal treatment of males and the disdain shown to those who dare to even point out the disparity in empathy given is a far more unexamined human behaviour than the alleged propensity of humans to be racist.

[@someonesomeone25]

Morals dont exist. No need for illusions.

[@SuperpowersUniversity]

Moral = M = My Or = aura al = alumins /Light/ emotions Knowledge is a Super Power

[@artax7664]

Words change. There was always a transcendent right and wrong that we all appealed to, today we call them morals in English.

[@dogsandyoga1743]

33:30 Using the founding fathers doesn't hold, because clearly they were talking about a very specific "we" at the time. Which is why a moral system based on "God" is still subject to whomever is in power. Hence, subjective.

[@artax7664]

This assumes that the God they are appealing to is made up. “Self evident” truth.

[@pweinbrenner]

In the preamble to the Hammurabi Code, care for oppressed is expressed, "When Marduk sent me to rule over men, to give the protection of right to the land, I did right and righteousness in . . . , and brought about the well-being of the oppressed." Although Judaism and Christianity took it to new levels, I don't think the powerful taking care of the weak is unique. They were a clan society and their codes express this, just as the West is an individual society, and the codes express this. I do agree with what Glen is saying, but God is working in all men, and just not the heirs of Abraham.

[@SpeakLifeMedia]

I agree that God is working in all people but the Hammurabi Code has inequality baked into it. There are different laws and different punishments for different people and even if there are some laws more compassionate than others, the equality of all people is the distinctive contribution of the Jesus revolution - which is different from what we find 'in nature/science' as well as in cultures.

[@MrSeedi76]

Lost me in the first 10 seconds after claiming there was a thing called "trans ideology" 😂.

[@artax7664]

Trans ideology: men can become women, women can become men, gender is a spectrum, and everything that comes with that. Kinda obvious.

[@markh1011]

It's rather unlikely that we get our morals from a god who condoned slavery and worse.

[@theautodidacticlayman]

Which socioeconomic system do you think a God would condone?

[@HearGodsWord]

Mark perhaps you're going to offer a better answer?

[@theautodidacticlayman]

@@HearGodsWord I’m just trying to imagine a sustainable system that doesn’t involve a slave, aka someone who has to work, haha.

[@markh1011]

@@HearGodsWord _"Mark perhaps you're going to offer a better answer?"_ Humans defined what they think is good and bad.

[@markh1011]

@@theautodidacticlayman _"Which socioeconomic system do you think a God would condone?"_ You'll have to ask an omnipotent being. I imagine it would be one that doesn't involve keeping slaves and beating them.

[@alanmill793]

G'day Glen, theists are barking up the wrong science tree, as are many non theists such as Shermer who is not drilling down far enough and long ago enough, but neither are you Glen. Shermer is being superficial with his narrative and so are you. The science that is used to analyze and describe morality is political science. Physical science cannot do it because morality is a political issue as it deals with power relationships. Politics is not a direct product of evolution, it is a by product of evolved capabilities such as reason and empathy (or lack of empathy). Politics does not exist floating around the universe waiting to be found. It is a human activity which led to morality and social living and eventually other political outcomes such as democracy and authoritarianism. So, how do you specifically ground moral obligation on Christianity, Glen, with a non-optional reason that can't be dismissed out of hand or denied? I have watched a lot of your output and commentary but have yet to see you deal with this issue. You haven't dealt with it here either as far as I noticed. Did I miss it? Without dealing with moral obligation first, you are putting the cart before the horse when it comes to morality. Do you subscribe to the standard Christian explanation of grounding moral obligation on your alleged god's alleged commands/will or do you use something else? Political science is the science to use for morality as morality is political, it’s the rules of social living. Morality is a practical political solution to a practical political problem - how do we live socially? What rules are needed for living socially? This political process is required as social living is necessary, as you and I have already agreed. Even if you only applied it to your in group, social living is still necessary. It is necessary regardless of the size of your in group society or a combined ingroup/outgroup society. Self interest depends totally on group interest, whether it is the old school in group or the broad society group that contains many groups. This necessity, which can't be dismissed out of hand or denied is how we get an ought from an is - social living is necessary therefore we ought to follow the rules of social living. If you think morality comes from Christianity, then you have your history wrong, your ethics wrong, your science wrong and your politics wrong. And you have Hume wrong as he put a qualifier in his famous statement though he was adamant that you can’t get an ought from an is using theism as it relies on two things that are not similar. Hume understood that the world was a much larger place than he had access to and his knowledge of much of the world was limited or non existent but he was aware that there were unknown knowns, particularly in the far east. How do you specifically ground moral obligation on Christianity? Have you got a non-optional reason that can't be dismissed out of hand or denied and will be accepted by everyone across the planet?

[@ProsperityManifested11000]

You get morality from genes

[@HiHoSilvey]

Please explain how you know that.

[@Alien1375]

And society.

[@ProsperityManifested11000]

@@HiHoSilvey because human beings are fundamentally just a complex animal. We know behavioral traits are to a large degree heritable. Professor edward dutton talks about this in his podcasts and videos. Their are twin adoption studies that show that twins raised apart are very similar. Not just in physical traits but they have similar incomes and job types, and interests. We as a society have been sold a narative of blank slateism. We dont talk about other animals this way because we dont have psychological hang ups about it. Social rules decend from genetic proclivities, then practicalities and circumstances gradually form a general morality that the tribe because of their genes then enforce as law or as social reprisal, thats really what a law is a states morality.