MORALITY

Ethics, Morality and Gods

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A rather common claim made by different belief systems is that they not only hold the high moral ground but that they also have the ultimate incarnation of ethics. Associated with this is usually the seconds claim that beyond the boundary of their specific belief resides a wasteland of no ethics or morality but instead … Read more

Thinking about Non-belief: Being Good without a God

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There is a prevailing belief that morality is rooted in religious belief and that those without such beliefs have no basis for morality. It is nonsense of course, but because such thinking is so common, it is important that we should examine such claims, and so today I’ll take you on a brief tour of … Read more

Mr Stanley has a daft Telegraph article – In response I’d argue that secular morality is superior

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Tim Stanley writes in the UK’s Telegraph a rather strange religious blog posting entitled “Christianity is neither Left nor Right, but radical and daunting“. I guess this is perhaps the time of year when the religious go into overdrive … here are a few extracts with my thoughts (in red) … I’ve always found Easter … Read more

Claim: Religion is a force for good

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In today’s UK Guardian, we have an insanely silly article by Joseph Harker. Now please do not misunderstand me, this is not an attack upon Mr Harker, but is instead criticism of the quite popular and completely mythological view that religion acts as a force for good. I remain confident that Mr Harker is indeed … Read more

Top 5 Non-Religious Books on Living a Good Life

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There is a prevailing, and fairly common belief, that we need religion to live a truly ethical and moral life, and that a life without a god (pick any, they all claim it), leads you down the road to immorality. It is pure nonsense of course, and tempting as it might be to explain why, my immediate motivation for this post is not to go there, but rather to highlight a rather interesting list of secular books on the topic of living a good, and yet completely godless, life.

Well-known British philosophy professor, A.C. Grayling, has had a lifetime ambition to distill into one volume the very best secular thoughts, and so after many decades of work, he finally completed it, (if curious, you can click here for more details on his new publication “The Good Book”). Anyway, my point is not to point you at that specific book, but since I’m on the topic, do check it out. Instead I want to make the observation that he spent a heck of a long time  plodding through thousands of texts to complete his book, so he has now got specific recommendations – a Top-5 list of books “on how to live a satisfying and morally good life.” …

I was quite surprised at a couple of them.

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God and Disaster

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A C Grayling has written a few thoughts that are well worth pondering over, here is an extract.

One thinks with sorrow of the hundreds of thousands whose lives have been horrendously lost or affected by the great Japanese earthquake and tsunami, which will put a black mark against this year 2011 in the annals, coming so soon after the earthquake that hit Christchurch in New Zealand. The events are almost certainly linked tectonically, reminding us of the vast forces of nature that are normal for the planet itself but inimical to human life, especially when lived dangerously close to the jigsaw cracks of the earth’s surface.

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