Is Morality an Open and Closed Matter?

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Originally Posted by Hurricane

I'm not saying it is the religion of Islam. Extremist Muslims who do horrible things account for a tiny percentage of the population. But they're a lot more vocal/active about it on a world scale than, say, extremist Christians so therefore when people think of an example of extremist religious violence, they probably think of extremist Islam. That was kind of what I was getting at, and I think we're in agreement in that every religion has a number of unsavory characters.

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Yeah I understand, and I didn't think that you were going against Islam by the way.

Yes it is true that when we think of vocal religious extremism within the context of our time, we do think of Islam. Christianity already had its day (the Crusades, etc.), tommorow it will be some other group of religious extremists wishing to enforce their views upon the world.

(Here I am not reffering to the average religious induvidual, only those who believe that they must enforce their religion to the extent of killing people)

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Originally Posted by Hurricane

I'm not saying it is the religion of Islam. Extremist Muslims who do horrible things account for a tiny percentage of the population. But they're a lot more vocal/active about it on a world scale than, say, extremist Christians so therefore when people think of an example of extremist religious violence, they probably think of extremist Islam. That was kind of what I was getting at, and I think we're in agreement in that every religion has a number of unsavory characters.

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I do not agree at all. You are absolutely wrong. You forgot Hitler? At times Christian extremists are worse.

One thing about extremist Christians is they are so much engaged in converting people of other religions. In Nepal for example they have opened so many missionaries, schools, hospitals and engage in social and charitable activities. But at the back of their minds all they want is spread their faiths.

They throw money and the poor and the downtrodden get some support from them and follow their religion. For a while they can help them financially but in the long run they disrupt the age old civilization and culture. They disorient and acculturate the indigenous people with their philosophies or ideals which they spread with their dollars and pounds and Euros.

I am not speaking against ordinary Christians but about those who take money as their tools for converting the highly vulnerable. Their ideas totally disrupt the harmony that remained intact for centuries.

Great point about the missionaries, blaze.

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I am not speaking against ordinary Christians but about those who take money as their tools for converting the highly vulnerable. Their ideas totally disrupt the harmony that remained intact for centuries.

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...And I'm not speaking against ordinary Muslims. I'm speaking against those that use violence and terror to spread influence. Killing people disrupts harmony, too.

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I do not agree at all. You are absolutely wrong. You forgot Hitler? At times Christian extremists are worse.

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Calling Hitler a "Christian extremist" is a little shaky. His religious beliefs are very much in debate, and are generally agreed to be much more complicated than just saying that he was a Christian. There are plenty of good examples of bad Christians besides Hitler. (David Koresh, Jim Jones, etc.)

The missionaries thing is a good point. I really dislike that a lot of missionaries use aid as a sort of carrot to get people in need to believe in Christianity. It's dishonest and doesn't have the best interests of the people they're trying to help in mind.

Extremists always come up in these discussions. So perhaps we should examine the norms: What is considered moral to the average Muslim, or Christian, Judaism, and all other religions?

It's been a long time since I've posted here. Just got bored and thought I'd post back.


Anyways here's my take.

Things that are artificial are also by default open ended because humans could have made them however they wanted to. Differences in morality is no different from differences in metric and the english system.

On the other hand, if morality is derived from human nature: say humans are naturally (through evolution) selfish though inclined to help others as long as it does not harm theirself, then all people would agree that it is moral to help others. This is an example of closed morality.