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Originally Posted by TrueUCHIHA
Tsuna, I apoligize for my weird sentence structure. however you have been able grasp what i was trying to articulate quite well.
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Well, hurray for that. Given that you didn't reply to my post, I'm assuming you're waiting on me to expand upon the arguments I didn't address due to confusion over your intent?
In that case...
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You mean to say that, regardless of whether an individual follows or believes in a certain religious faith, the fact that he or she has been exposed to the morals and values of said faith makes it an inevitability that he or she's personal morals are influenced by it.
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Since you said I hit on your points well, then I'm going to address this:
Arguing the point that one is influenced regardless of personal beliefs, to put it shortly, transforms your argument from regarding one's individual concept of morality to an argument addressing the idea of nature versus nurture. Miburo touched on this in his earlier post:
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Doesn't matter. As human beings, we're capable of reason. We can separate one from the other. And there are tons of moral theories that do just that. Like virtue ethics of aristotle, for example. You can base your morality around logic. You don't need to rely on religion at all to do so.
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Regardless of whether someone is raised in a religious environment, the capability of reason and logic is part of what makes us humans
intelligent beings rather than mere animals who act on instinct. I could argue the point that as humans, we are not inherently primal by nature, but then you could also argue the case of
Victor of Aveyron.
This is not a jab at your intelligence or lackthereof, but simply a clarification: If you don't know who Victor is, he was a feral child who had lived the majority of the first twelve years of his life in the wild, away from civilized society, only later to emerge from said wild
into civilization. He was studied by a French biology professor, who observed him as being "close to the wild state of an animal". However, you can't really explore this case because Victor was virtually incapable of being educated, even so far as language - not because he was too primal to learn, but because he was deaf-mute, and unable to be taught.
Focusing on his feral-ness, now; given this example, you could say that though humans
are capable of reasoning and logic, that regardless of said capabilities, it is the
nurturing of said qualities that allows us humans to be "intelligent beings" who live by the rules of logic. But that's another debate entirely, and I'm drifting too far from the point.
The point is, the fact of one's morals being influenced by religion is the same as saying that the factor of human intelligence itself is based upon one's nurturing environment... For example, someone who is completely deaf may not be capable of
actual spoken language (though they may use sounds to convey meanings at times, I have experienced) not because they are incapable of learning it, but because they have never been subjected to spoken language, and therefore have no means to learn it.
In short: Yes, because we live in civilized society where everything from laws to traditions to popular media are influenced by religion, whether or not we believe in said religion is void - we are surrounded by it from birth, it is in our schools, our governments, even the values of our respective societies as a whole, despite whether or not said values, governments, schools, or what so have you, are directly related to religious beliefs.
Although this is certainly true, one's personal beliefs need not have anything at all to do with religion. Even if one could argue that said beliefs have
stemmed from religious backgrounds, that does not mean that one's moral system is irrevocably based on religion itself. This is where rationality comes in.
The fact of the matter is,
just because we, as a people, are influenced by religion by nurture does not mean we are incapable of reasoning and morality in the absence of it.
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Lets assume for this situation by moral i am talking about positive morality by todays standards. As i said before morality and religion have become so intertwined that if a man was to lead a moral life by todays standards and didnt believe in or profess a god dos not mean that he is living a moral life absent of religion. He is simply living a moral life in which the belief and/or fear God is not the reason for his morality, however the man is still influnced by religion wether it be based of the law or some thing else which is ultimatley linked to religion.
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See above.
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"There was a billboard in NYC subway station from an atheist group:
“A Million New Yorkers Are Good Without God. Are You?” -This illustratres that Athiest can not believe in God and still be "good" yet it also illustrates that so many assoscitate That the sense of Good is tied to religion. And not just religon now. All religion from Zoroastrianism to Shinto.
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Generally speaking, this is a valid point.
However,
public opinion does not equal fact. Just because the majority of people believe something is true, doesn't necessarily mean it is.
Everyone used to believe the world was flat, until someone proved them wrong. They also used to believe that the Sun rotated around the Earth. But we now know it doesn't. Just because a "fact" is generally accepted as a truth
doesn't mean it is definite.
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Going by your logic you are saying that because you are ignorant to the existence of something that means your are in no way influenced by it. I wont take the time to debunk this because the flaw in this statement is to great to be counted as a valid argument.
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This statement makes no sense. How can you be influenced by something when you
aren't even aware of its existence?
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Originally Posted by Nerox511
hey no problem, your argument was rock solid. if i wouldn't have the same oppinion, the view point was the only "weak" spot.
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The viewpoint as in the Western thing? Yeah, I agree, but not including that would leave it open for a counter-argument on the fact that those religions are really only more "recognized" in Western society. More specifically, in the United States. It's better to acknowledge a weakness in an argument based on one's personal experiences with their environment - i.e.: I only know the "big" religions as they are considered in the US rather than say, Russia, because I don't live in Russia, and thus don't know the situation there - than to just leave it wide open like that.
Maybe it's just the way I've learned how to debate over the years, but it's better to address all facets of an argument than to leave anything unexplored.
@
ninja:
Protip: Agnosticism and Atheism are not even remotely the same thing.