In class, we have had multiple discussions arguing whether or not good without God is good enough. This has taken on a debate between theism and atheism, but this is leaving several ideologies out of the discussion. Are the ten commandments and ‘the golden rule’ enough to judge someone’s actions as moral or virtuous? From a christian standpoint you can agree, but there are billions of people in this world who would differ on that assumption alone. For example, my sister is a firm Buddhist: she judges actions as moral or virtuous from a completely different perspective than the rest of us, focusing more on humility than the rest of us. What about the Jewish and Islamic faith? Morality is a subjective topic that can only be discerned by the “eye of the beholder”, so to speak. Without a common ground to judge morality, our discussion is relevant only to the debate between Christianity and atheism, inadvertently leaving out billions of other viewpoints and values.
I think you bring up a great point, Jonah, and I would like to build off of it. In class we frequently discuss morality, usually debating between christianity and atheism. When we discuss objective morality, we are under the assumption that the objective morals would be christian ones, but what if we are wrong? The population discussed in Benedict’s article seems very foreign and probably immoral to most of us; yet, what if their culture was the one with “correct” morals? In my opinion, objective morality becomes a much less attractive view when consider that your own morals may be wrong.
I agree that we cannot judge everyone’s morality based on the ten commandments of the Christian faith. Taking our more recent class discussions, some people who are of Christian faith tend to think that their way of believing is right or better than other faiths, when this is not the case. We have no way of telling who’s version of religion is the best, because we are all biased toward our own beliefs.