"Do what is right. Religion may or may not agree; paying it mind costs time and energy. It takes time and energy to do what is right." Then I would write that out in a circle so the end comes right before the beginning.
'Religion' isn't a thing or a person you can 'pay mind to'. And no-one is born with a sense of 'what is right', it is something that is built up gradually, influenced by things on this (non-exhaustive) list:
- parents - friends - teachers - the media - things we have studied, formally or informally - religious scripture - our gut instincts - books we have read - our own experiences - the reported experiences of others - the teachings of religious leaders - our desires
Pretty much *any* of these, religious or non-religious, can result in a morality that is either good or bad from a Utilitarian perspective (which is the only vaguely objective measure I can think of). And pretty much all of them take time and energy to pay mind to. So there is no reason at all to single out the religious sources of information as being somehow different from the others.
Different people are more influenced by different subsets of them, and that's fine, but - crucially - if [it were the exhaustive version of the list and if] there were a person who didn't pay mind to any of them, that person wouldn't have any 'sense of right' at all.
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branchandroot
no subject
Date: 2011-06-30 02:30 pm (UTC)'Religion' isn't a thing or a person you can 'pay mind to'. And no-one is born with a sense of 'what is right', it is something that is built up gradually, influenced by things on this (non-exhaustive) list:
- parents
- friends
- teachers
- the media
- things we have studied, formally or informally
- religious scripture
- our gut instincts
- books we have read
- our own experiences
- the reported experiences of others
- the teachings of religious leaders
- our desires
Pretty much *any* of these, religious or non-religious, can result in a morality that is either good or bad from a Utilitarian perspective (which is the only vaguely objective measure I can think of). And pretty much all of them take time and energy to pay mind to. So there is no reason at all to single out the religious sources of information as being somehow different from the others.
Different people are more influenced by different subsets of them, and that's fine, but - crucially - if [it were the exhaustive version of the list and if] there were a person who didn't pay mind to any of them, that person wouldn't have any 'sense of right' at all.