Re: Secularism and Atheism
ajazali and muqawwee123 … that is exactly the case … there is a sense of good and bad within us, but it is fully realised through the prism of religion. I do feel however that every person has the nature of being good without having to believe in God, but that good is not commendable for the purpose of akhira, it merely comes in to play for this dunya.
A tit for tat ethic is still a form of goodness it is merely less good than the concept of forgiveness. Aspects of forgiveness do exist with the maternal model too. However, this is when people leave rationale and include “well being” in to their equations for assessing what is good or bad.
To clarify … I am not saying a tit for tat process is the ethic, but I am saying that “fitness for purpose” is not the only conclusion that comes from evolution. I don’t believe in evolution, but there were opinions that stated evolution is about “mutual gain” not about “survival of the fittest” … From a philosophical point of view humans are ALIKE - so what is good for me is good for you, what is bad for you is bad for me … these are all logically deductible.
But that above process looks at the equation in isolation … Now considering the relative component.
If you have some item call it X then it means that I do not have X - shown as 'X … If X is good for you - that means either 'X is bad for me or serves me no good and no bad.
For AX … = +1
Since A is like B then it follows that B’X and AX is an injustice. Unless …
AX(B) - which is that A shares the goodness of X with B.
It can be determined if you try hard that sharing and forgiveness are similar in logical steps and hence virtuous because they lead to justice.
If religion is the only thing that can give us a sense of good then how can we say that the people without religion will be punished? They can argue before God that, “I didn’t have religion therefore I could not make the conclusion of good and bad - hence I was unable to deduce the good of religion because in order to have done that I needed religion” …
To avoid this confusion … and potential get out clause … We must as religious people say that a sense of good and bad is possible without religion or God, but when religion comes to us so we can analyse it - it teaches us how to enhance that sense of good and bad - through the prism of religion our already present sense of good and bad is enhanced. So it means some good needs to be present without both faith and God in order for the people to conclude God.
Others who do not wish to entertain this say that guidance comes from Allah (SWT) which is true, but an effort a step needs to be made first, otherwise a skewed form of fatalism results and people will have an argument against punishment entirely saying that there is no justice in people doing what they are compelled to do and then get punished for it.
yes, if someone starts looking for rationale in every mater of life then i can prove easliy his/her that morality is not required at all. Good and bad both are within us, religion enforces for good.
caring others so others will care us is not ethic, sort of interdependance means neither good nor bad.
aspect of frogivness in maternal model is not ethic either, that is some sort of personal liking behavior. As you must have seen a mother of one child will not have same feelings for other child of other mother