You betray a certain confusion by comparing things like musical styles and cultural variations (which have been called ‘frozen accidents’ – things which might just as well have gone differently) with things like core moral principles such as the Golden Rule (or its variant, the Silver Rule) which appears in basically every human moral system. They are like ‘forced moves’ in a game, things which are necessary to even play at all. There are styles in chess strategy, too – 19th-century chess was quite different in many respects than 20th-century chess – but still, there are core concepts like material, position, threats, exchanges, opening, midgame, endgame, etc. Those are inevitable outcomes of what chess is.

Similarly, moral structures have similar things in common. There’s a lot of variation – just as there is in musical styles around the world – but core principles of cooperation, punishment, forgiveness, etc. obtain, because they must. There were a lot of different variants on Christianity early on, but the ones that survived did so because they provided a framework for a successful community. (Again, I recommend Wilson’s book mentioned above.) Variations that don’t work fall apart – or go even further astray, and you get Jim Jones or Heaven’s Gate.

‘Rap’ is not mandated from the fundamentals of music – rhythm, melody, harmony, etc. A musical style is like a species or perhaps a genus in biological terms; a lot of chance events along the way led to its development. As Nicholas Humphrey noted, if you were forced to alter history to prevent some work from having been created, and you had to choose from Newton’s Principia, Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, Mozart’s Don Giovanni, or the Eiffel Tower… you’d have to pick the Principia. If Newton hadn’t written it, someone else would have written a very similar work soon enough. But the others had very particular and idiosyncratic histories that would have been vanishingly unlikely to have been duplicated. (I became aware of this thought experiment through Daniel Dennett’s “Darwin’s Dangerous Idea”, another book I highly recommend.)

Within the world of music, as well as the world of morality, there’s room for a lot of variation, and there’s a lot that’s just historical accident. The principle of modesty is inevitable, given human sexuality… but the specifics of its application vary widely. Consider the progression from the clothes of Polynesian islanders, to American fashion, to the burqa. Despite vastly different and mutually incompatible cosmologies, primitive and modern religions still do work with these fundamental principles. Their expression is idiosyncratic, but you can still recognize them everywhere.

Imagine going back in time and teaching chess to, say, the Aztecs. If it caught on, we can imagine a lot of chess theory being developed. There would be fashions and historical accidents along the way – given their culture, we might suppose they’d play fairly aggressively, for example – but can anyone really imagine that they would not discover the principles of material, position and space, pawn structure, and so forth?

So yes, an American secular morality will take American religious morality as a stepping-off point, or at least a strong influence. It is, to that extent, derivative, just as blues grew off from both spirituals and African music; rock and roll was partially a fusion of blues and folk and jazz; and jazz, which had influences from ragtime, etc. Of course, unlike music, morality has more direct practical purposes and impacts, so a better analogy might be architecture.

When a new building material is introduced (concrete, steel, what have you) new buildings tend to resemble older ones, even though their internal structure may be quite different. A steel-framed building is internally quite different from a stone-based one, though they can both be used to make cathedrals. Over time, though, architects experimenting with new materials learn new applications not available with the older materials, or learn ways to combine the new and the old for things neither could do alone.

Secular morality uses different building blocks than religious ones, but it can still build structures that serve similar purposes. And yes, tearing down fences without understanding why the fences are there doesn’t generally work out too well – no one need remind me of the Terror of the French Revolution. Engineers and architects tend to be conservative because they are humble, and recognize that new techniques and methods and principles need to be tested. But because of that, a secular morality would do well to learn from the religious traditions that have evolved to some successful points.

Note, too, that physical laws haven’t changed in longer than 100,000 years, but architecture has as new techniques and materials have become available. Architects tend to be a conservative lot – as well they should – but they still do learn and update. Even Sedonaman does not live as a Hebrew tribesman from 6,000 years ago. I’m sure he’s worn a cotton/polyester blend at some point, despite the prohibitions in Leviticus.

Architects like to play around, but there are still walls, roofs, doors, windows, floors. Given that they are making places for humans to be, they must have such things. As times goes on, they might switch from stairs to elevators, but all buildings will have floors until we’re building space stations.

Looked at in this light, Rap and Art Deco are styles, but while rap can barely be recognized as music, Art Deco buildings are unquestionably buildings – and therefore much more like moral systems than any musical style.

Oh, and Sedonaman – I do hold on to the hope, despite our history, that someday you will read what I actually write and not what you suppose or imagine me to have written.

Mountain Man has stated that, “Secular morality has no meaning or context apart from religious morality.” This is absolutely true because a strictly secular law is the one that is arbitrary because it is only a matter of political power. So, the question becomes, which is better, to give political power to those who fear eternal damnation if they do evil, or those who do not fear it?

happpig, “a very devout secularist,” at least acknowledges moral codes as origins for some laws. He states that “morality is not the same thing as religion.” A point often overlooked here by both sides is what I alluded to earlier: in a religion there are dogmas and disciplines. It appears to me that most of those who reject religion do so not because of the dogmas but because of the disciplines they deem “arbitrary.” happpig is also “frightened” by “the implication that anyone follows the provisions of the 10 Commandments simply because they are the 10 commandments.” This illustrates the lack of understanding of why the “fence” was put up. Unfortunately, not everyone is a theologian on the level of St. Thomas Aquinas, and a religion that is universal has to be understandable by everyone. But, why such a person presents a threat to happpig is beyond me. Besides, how does it even concern happpig that someone chooses to worship God, honor his father and mother, not lie, steal, murder, covet, etc.? Such a person should be desired, not feared, even if he knows not the purpose of the Commandments. Even Mr. Ingles recognizes that it is a good that people not rob or murder others. [happpig’s comment reminds me of the time Hillary Clinton went to Red China for a meeting of the world’s feminists to figure out new ways for them to extract more out of society; meanwhile, there was a gathering of the Promise Keepers in Seattle to remind men of their responsibilities to put more into society, and the big news in the media was how the Promise Keepers were the real threat. So much for secular morality.

Mr. Ingles, our admitted atheist, on the other hand, has steadfastly denied religious origins for any laws. He said, “...secularists don't want to be murdered or robbed, either.” This statement ironically is nothing more than an appeal to the religious conviction that others treat him as they would want him to treat them. And any such appeal dooms his arguments. He is like the shaver in happpig’s hypothetical society: a free-rider who gets the benefits with none of the obligations. Not only that, but Mr. Ingles is not even a very good atheist. He sends his kids to get moral training from an institution (the Catholic Church) that neither he nor his wife thinks has any moral authority. However, I do agree with him that “human nature hasn't changed significantly in the last 100,000 years or so,” and is the reason I believe, contrary to liberal Leftists, that basic laws should not change. [And calling a bad behavior by a nice-sounding name doesn’t make the bad behavior good. For example, my robbing Mr. Ingles of his lawful property is not “a more equitable distribution of wealth.”]

Well, it’s the Fourth of July, and I’ve already spent way to much time not changing any minds.

P.S. for Mr. Ingles: I do not need a lecture on lobbying to change the law, nor one on the immutable laws of physics, whatever they have to do with the current discussion, other than possibly the Second Law of Thermodynamics which states that there is loss in every heat transfer, so there can not be more takers in society than contributors.

Henry VIII asked the pope for an annulment, and kept trying. He did not, could not declare his own annulment which unquestionably defeats your assertion that he was or considered himself endowed with devine right.

He may have wanted to declare his own annulment and claim it his devine right as God’s chosen king, but he did not. End of story.

And once again, you do not commit, so I have to guess. You have a peculiar (your quote, not mine) mind and if there were enough people with similar minds, your moral system would/could be employed and it would be supeior overall to religious morality?

Mountain Man makes an obvious point. Western secularism, atheism and the like are examples of splinters from Judeo/Christian faiths. You may theorize the similarities are by chance and examples of crossing paths, but it is a bit like theorizing that white kids mimicking black youth culture, wearing the clothes,jewelry and rapping is a case of paths crossing by chance.

The exposure to and heavy influence of religious precepts and moral law, particularly in earlier times when its authority was so powerful, not only cannot be seperated from any belief or non-belief system today, the weight of the evidence that this influence is at the root of modern western systems is too great to get around.

As simple and intuitive as it may seem to you to be able to state that a moral system quite similar would have developped without these influences, the job of proving it is about as difficult of proving the white kids in my example would have developped rap music had black culture not done so.

The attempts/theories are quite plausible, but usually rely on citing cases of isolated primitive cultures (which really is conterproductive, as the primitives invariably attribute their moral laws to a god or spirit of some kind).

I could even argue my own example. I might state simple, repetitive rhythms and rhyming lyrics predate rap and even find examples of some early anglo music I identify as the missing rap, and theorize that Eminem would have put two and two together and would have been the first.

But who would listen to my theory? Who but someone with a ideological motive would waste their time? A parallel path to modern western morality minus any influece from prevailing religious beliefs would have to be discovered (good luck with that) and atheists would have to prove their version of morality is the product of it.

Be it sun or sky gods, Jesus, or Yewah, the instrutions for how man should live and behave are traced to sources on high. The legitimate source is another debate.

Proponents of secualr or athiestic beliefs have to attribte there morality to religion. When they don’t, their contentions amount to nothing more than a laughable, “We would have thought of that.”

And I don’t have to believe that a game-theory morality is superior in all areas to believe that it’s superior in some areas. Religious-based morality is simple to explain, and some people find it psychologically satisfying, for example – game theory is less intuitive in some ways. Maybe it does take “minds of a peculiar structure” for it to work.

To be practical, religious and secular moralities do tend to converge on similar points, not unlike convergent evolution seen in the biological world. Again, take a look at Wilson’s “Evolution For Everyone” for a different take on religious utility – and the difference between “factual realism” and “practical realism”.

Again, it is obvious from his need for one church or another, or one religious authority or another, that Henry did not have the “devine authority” to “get ‘er done” without church approval.

He understood what he could get away with and what he could not. He got what he wanted, but not without a Church to grant it. Kings with devine authority, and who are recognized as having that authority, would need no such approval.

As for your previous posts, I will try to dredge something up. But I assumed you would not have suggested in earlier arguments that moral standards not based on religious concepts or scripture but rather, I assume, secualr committee-approved man-made “moral strategies,” were supperior, or else you wouldn’t have suggested them.

If you are not an advocate of your own ideas, please shut me up by explaining yourself better. There is no sense in me refuting something you don’t really believe in.

Oh, and can you point out exactly where I make “an appeal to throw away the training wheels of faith and move on to something more ‘logical’”? All I have stated is that religion is not a necessary condition for morality to obtain. Even George Washington accepted that, though I suspect that “minds of a peculiar structure” (look up the quote) are more common than he supposed. (Oh, and just to preclude a potential cheap shot, Washington used it in the contemporaneous sense of ‘special’ or ‘unusual’; the connotation ‘odd’ or ‘strange’ came a century later.)

As David Sloan Wilson put it in “Evolution For Everyone” (a book I commend to your attention), it’s not clear that we must depart from factual realism to obtain practical realism. That’s an open question, and while I have my suspicions, I’ve not made a definitive statement on that – because I’m not sure. But I don’t dismiss the idea out of hand. Literacy was once seen as requiring a mind of a ‘peculiar structure’, and universal literacy was considered an impractical, outlandish goal. Today, it’s considered shameful to not be literate.

Enjoy your Independence Day. It’s certainly worth celebrating, and I’ll be doing that as well with my family, whatever it’s attributed to.

Refering me to instances in history when the question of whether a king had devine rights does not validate your one-line thesis.

A king rules because his father gives him the chair. No matter how much a monarch believes God favors him (or whether the monarch is even religious) matters not if pop wasn’t king before him. I also suspect your average monarch isn’t going to admit he’s powerless if it should turn out there is no God.

The question of devine rights are the result of “certain” kings and political hacks who proclaimed them at their own risk. King Charles, for example, made the claim and ended up paying with his head.

King George III may have been dabbling in madness in anticipation of the fate that awaited him, but he never claimed (as far as I know) a devine right to rule over his subjects in America. If you have an instance of him making the claim, please forward it along.

Even Henry VIII, bold as he was, worked mightily to secure permission from the pope for an annulment. Had he devine rights, he wouldn’t have needed the pope. If he had proclaimed such a right, the break with Rome would have come much sooner.

There has always been a balance between King and church in Western monarchies. That balance tips on whether the king knows his place and whehter the church knows its.

As to my point about belief in a creator and our right via the creator being foundational, it appears the difference between you and me is you don’t have the same respect for the principle of our founding. Thankfulness (or at least true and respectful thankfulness which conservatives value highly) may be lacking.

That is not surprising. The beliefs and notions that inspired us to “be,” do not conform to yours. So they are downplayed, and not seen as central. Indeed, you even equate them with an accidental discovery.

Your analogy falls flat. Our freedom, liberty and self rule did not come about by accident. The United States of America is an example of an alchemist setting out to make gold and succeeding.

We have been resolute and on track (falling, but always managing to fall forward) ever since. Our achievements and unprecedented run as a free society, and our victories against forces that do not respect our liberties, have come from a strength you would prefer to ignore, or at the very least you believe could be replaced with something more logical.

You are wrong.

Try to shake a man loose from his government’s “moral strategies” and you will find it takes far less effort than parting a man from his faith. Faith, sir, is how we were founded, and is how we survived the worst of times these more than 200 years. Except in a theory, you would not be here without it.

Like many, I have seen you make what amounts to an appeal to throw away the training wheels of faith and move on to something more “logical.” You have suggested that we could construct “moral strategies,” for example that would replace traditional religious moral concepts.

God is dead, or should be? Whatever he did for us as a country was strictly psychologial and no longer needed? We’re smarter now and don’t need “magic.” Logic and science is the new God.

Maybe when the Pew survey of 35,000 (an exceptionally high sampling)shows a bit less than 92 percent of people in the U.S. believe in a God or a supreme being. By some accounts, that number is higher that it was at the time of our founding.

If nothing else, faith has been and remains strategic to our survival. About as many people have some degree of it in this country as there are drinkers of water.

During the worst times, when we find out the true value of moral strength, when people have had the choice to give up life, give in to anarchy, give all or give nothing, faith has always led us to the better choices.

As a government that exists by the will of the people, the United States has always respected the faith that fuels that will (criticized as it is by a loud minority whenever it displays such respect).

Another strength/fuel might do. Another foundation might serve. Logic and reason and game theory might have seen us through the struggle for independence, the Civil War and the two world wars.

Nah!

Happy Independence Day. Thank God for it, because He’s why we have it. Says so in the first paragraph; and so said we the people through our chosen leaders.

I’m out. Going to buy some sparklers.

Re: unchanging standards – As I’ve pointed out before, human nature hasn’t changed significantly in the last 100,000 years or so. Neither have the laws of physics.

You made my point for me. A changing standard by definition is not morality. A moral code carries with it the implicit assumption that it is something to aspire to, conform to, and adhere to. We change, not morality.

If by consensus or by gradual metamorphasis the standard changes, we are no longer talking about morality. We are talking about personal preference, pop culture, or something else.

Racial slavery has never been moral. Dietary restrictions and sacrifices are not morality, they are tenants or sacraments of certain religions.

Your example of shaving is a cultural convention, not a morality. Morals are not determined by majority vote. That’s why the unchanging standard is required.