Theism Counter-Productive for Ethics in Multifaith Systems

Premise 1) Religion establishes ethical regimes.
Premise 2) Religion is subjective.
Premise 3) Modern society has a variety of Religions.
Premise 4) Ethics are to reduce conflicts in society.

Conclusion) If we use religion as a basis for ethics then it will not be universally accepted leading to ethical conflicts within our communities.

See: Middle East for example of competing ethical systems based on religious dogmas.

   

False conclusion.

Premise 1 assumes only Religion can be ethical. That proof is not evident.

Welcome to the site.

   

Thanks for the Welcome

I would disagree that Premise one asserts that "only" religion establishes ethical regimes. Consider this statemnt: "Humans have habits". This statement does not mean that other animals do not develop habits too.

Indeed the whole conclusion is that religions create ethical conflicts because it is based on subjective "morals". This leads to radicals flying planes into buildings and believing that it is an ethical thing to do while many in the world do not subscribe to those as "ethical" actions.

Common ethics cannot be based on religions as these are not shared values. Killing civilians should be against the law and any "god" or "allah" should not give a freebie. Ethics can only be derived from law and not faith.

P.S. Though I recognize it needs clarity and if given the ability to edit orginal premise I would to be:

Premise 1) Religions and Secular law establish ethical regimes

Which is not self evident in the orginal apriori.

   

I didn't say that 'only' religion establishes ethical regimes. Quite the opposite. It is your first premise "Religion establishes ethical regimes" implies that you are expecting religion to promote ethics.



Again, false conclusion. It's not the religion or the morality of that religion that causes people to fly planes into buildings. It's how and what the followers are taught.



'Common' ethics aren't so 'common'. They are free from their religious meddling. Read 'Ancient Wisdom, Modern Ethics' by the Dhali Llama.



Again, false premise. Ethical regimes can be free of religion, and religious /Secular regimes - history has shown us can be far from ethical.

You're trying to blame the special case on the generic item. Radicals aren't the cause of religious woes. But I agree on your overall theme. Morality needs to (and does) flow from society, not religion.

   

Someone just finished their first year philosophy course.

   

3rd year, 20 years ago.

   

Fun!

Lots of loaded statements in there that could use some clarification.

I would target premise 2 for clarification and argue against premise 4.

Welcome!

   

I was actually speaking of Rus's original post.

   

The problem is I do not see how we could create a universally accepted set of rules, if we want men and women to have equal rights then it is going to have conflict with some religions. If we want everyone to have the same rights regardless of their religion we are going to have a problem with Islam. There are religions out there (Islam being the biggest) that do not accept any rules other than their own. They are willing to use force to impose it on anyone they can. Remember according to Islam there can only be Islamic Law, so any law or ethic that is not Islamic will never be accepted by them.