Secular values, how would you summarise them?

[Thinking Aloud]

but "help your neighbour - one day you might need their help" is a positive thing to do"

How about "help your neighbour, even though they'll never be able to help you"? Is it reasonable to expect people to help others knowing that the favour can never be returned?

I think that's a wonderful aspiration for anyone, and as I said before, some will and some won't. It's human nature. I don't think we can ever expect (or require) people to do that though.

[Trolldor]

What if your neighbour is a pedophile? Is helping them the right thing to do?

One-liner philosophies are stupid. (OMG irony?!?!?!?)

[Azathoth]

but "help your neighbour - one day you might need their help" is a positive thing to do"

How about "help your neighbour, even though they'll never be able to help you"? Is it reasonable to expect people to help others knowing that the favour can never be returned?

I think that's a wonderful aspiration for anyone, and as I said before, some will and some won't. It's human nature. I don't think we can ever expect (or require) people to do that though.

How about helping people out because you actually want to not because sky daddy is watching

[NoFreeWill]

I don't think one could ever legislate communal responsibility"

Don't we do this already with rather hefty taxes and a bloated welfare system? At least that is the case in Australia. Not sure about your country.

[Thinking Aloud]

I don't think one could ever legislate communal responsibility"

Don't we do this already with rather hefty taxes and a bloated welfare system? At least that is the case in Australia. Not sure about your country.

That's a levy which the government sets, and yes, if you want to define it that way, then it already happens. I was thinking in terms of taking action as an individual to do something voluntarily. Some will, some won't.

[AshtonBlack]

A value system, as far as I can see, isn't just about whether it's secular/religious.
IMHO, it's when those value systems are unable to adapt with the pace of human progress that individual rights become less important than the party/leader/religion/cult.
For example, North Korea, is largely secular in the strictest sense you mentioned, but it is highly dogmatic and resistant to change and Saudi Arabia is very religious, but also highly dogmatic and resistant to change.

[Trolldor]

Except in North Korea they pray.

[AshtonBlack]

Except in North Korea they pray.

Indeed, but do you think that any of the "big" religions would recognise it as such? If they don't my point stands and if they did, I'd be pissing my sides with mirth.

What I'm trying to say is...... (reads own quote, how fucking egotistical!)

"Dogma is the enemy, not religion, per se. Rationality, genuine empathy and intellectual integrity are anathema to dogma."

[Trolldor]

What they recognise is irrelevant. Either North Korea is a theocracy or none of the major religions qualify as religions, there are too many similarities between them.

[floppit]

One notable absence seems to be something that was at the very core of the secular regimes of Russia and China, and that is a communal responsibility to each other...

And one that I never achieve but work hard to also not forget - the stranger is worth as much as my closest loved ones, there is no rational extra worth to the people I might have met or favoured.

Not absent, just not a dictate, more a personal decision and there in lies an important difference - I cannot compel all others to protect the vulnerable but that doesn't prevent me holding it as a value.

[Pappa]

I don't really think there are such things as Secular Values. A religious person can be as equal a secularist as an atheist can. Secularism only has one definite value and that is the conviction that the state should be separate from religion.

[Trolldor]

I don't really think there are such things as Secular Values. A religious person can be as equal a secularist as an atheist can. Secularism only has one definite value and that is the conviction that the state should be separate from religion.

Which goes back to my original inquiry as to what he meant.

[mandy]

maybe im wrong but i think i have proven in my two other threads that without God, morals are all messed up:
http://rationalia.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=10115
http://rationalia.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=10328

if you take God out of your life, then all values are whatever you invent.
you can make em up as you go. so, for atheists its a wash and go life.
you guy are so free.

for me the Allah's police officers have cordoned off certain areas of life, and i am not permitted to enter them. they are good cops. they always do things by the book.

________________________________________

[Pappa]

if you take God out of your life, then all values are whatever you invent.
you can make em up as you go. so, for atheists its a wash and go life.
you guy are so free.

for me the Allah's police officers have cordoned off certain areas of life, and i am not permitted to enter them. they are good cops. they always do things by the book.

________________________________________

But the values in your book were just made up by some guy once anyway. So really you're doing exactly the same.

[Tigger]

if you take God out of your life, then all values are whatever you invent.
you can make em up as you go. so, for atheists its a wash and go life.
you guy are so free.

for me the Allah's police officers have cordoned off certain areas of life, and i am not permitted to enter them. they are good cops. they always do things by the book.

________________________________________

Yeah but we do wash.