JohnnyFlotsam
Premium Member
True enough, but that does not make their morality relativistic, from any perspective other than that of a dogmatic evangelical Christian. My atheist friends are at least as rigorous as any of my religious friends, and far more so than most, when it comes to setting, and living by, their moral guidelines. Freemasonry is quite clear on the notion that right and wrong transcend sectarian dogma, even if it finds fault (quite correctly, IMO) with the failure to believe in a "higher power".Therein lies the crux of my argument. You have placed the word moral in quotation marks. That is the very definition of the moral relativism of which I am speaking.
I would assert that both are moral, regardless of the whether the motivation is extrinsic or intrinsic. If your atheist friends are moral, that is wonderful; however, that does not put them right with a God in which they do not believe. From a Christian perspective, which is the specific religion to which this thread was posed, they are doomed regardless of their morality or disbelief.
Again, true enough, but that is not the same thing as saying that, absent fear or some other motivation, we can't act morally. Demonstrably, many do just that.Even so, there is actually no motivation for someone who does not believe in a higher power to act morally or keep anything in bounds.
Some are, to be sure, but I reject, out of hand, the notion that we are all "born sinful". More to the point, I reject the notion that anyone who has been "motivated" by fear is truly "moral", no matter how upright his walk or what magic words he has uttered.If the end result is ultimately nothing, then the impetus becomes to live for the moment. If a person is doing good and acting upright, they are motivated by something, whether it be fear or some desire. When whittled down to basic primal existence, man is a very dark and dangerous creation.