Anybody had any experience of the Unitarians?

[DCgirl]

Have been to a few Unitarian services, and quite enjoyed them. Would say I'm a Unitarian in that I don't believe in God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit, in spite of having been brought up a C of E Christian. If a loving God exists then I think there can only be Him, I don't think He'd have dreamt up all this having-a-Son-and-then-letting-Him-die-an-excruciating-death-to-atone-for-our-sins malarkey (that sounds like a man-made plan if ever I saw one).

The Unitarians have no creed, they argue that ultimately on moral questions you have to be led by your own conscience. Initially this bothered me because it seemed to be saying that morality is relative and there are some things I think are absolutely wrong, like murder, on which most people can agree, but also abortion, the wrongness of which is more contentious. But then I thought about and realised that being led by your own conscience doesn't have to mean allowing anything to go, it could mean speaking up and arguing for what you believe in whilst not imposing your beliefs on other people and giving them the freedom to reach their own conclusions (which if you've argued your case well will hopefully concur with yours!). The lack of creed makes Unitarian services very relaxing and unchallenging, which has come as a welcome relief after some of the church services I've attended in the past - at one Pentecostal church I went to the preacher argued that people who have sex before marriage, gay people and Catholics were all going to go to the Bad Place after they die; I thought 'Right, well that's me and most of my friends stuffed then'. (Yes, generally I'm pretty liberal and I highly doubt God minds).

But it also seems to me to result in a lack of spritual discipline. Chatting to the congregation at my local Unitarian chapel I get the impression that many of them drift in and out with few coming every week. Some describe themselves as of other religions, particularly Buddhism, and others say they just come to services to enjoy some thinking time. Is it just me or is a religion that has nothing more to offer other than a space to think not very substantial or satisfactory? And I'm still not sure to what extent people should be left to make decisions according to their own conscience. What about psychopaths who have no conscience? Maybe if you do away with any sort of creed you end up with a religion that is pretty meaningless.

Thoughts?

I believe that morality is entirely relative and subjective.

I don't believe that there is an objective moral code that humanity are burdened with from an outside entitiy. There are no absolutes at all.

Personally, I get on with it, and as long as I can live with myself, that's enough for me. No creed sounds great, if you have to have a religion, one that allows space to think for yourself is probably the safest.

In that case, crunchyfrog, should we do away with laws? Allow people to do whatever they want, including commit murder? There are lots of things most people can agree are wrong, including murder and stealing, suggesting there is an element of objectivity. Unless you feel that whatever is right for most people is right, in which case you subscribe to the philosophy of utilitarianism as opposed to relative morality.

Also if morality is entirely relative there is no such as human rights.

Sorry, no such thing as human rights.

I don't think the lack of moral/ethical rules in a religion is a problem - people with or without religion tend to have a general level of agreement about right and wrong, so people shouldn't really need a religion to tell them the basics. Most cultures and societies agree that the same things are wrong - murder, assault, rape, stealing, deliberate damage to other people's property. And they mostly also agree that there are situations where those things, while still not right, are justified - like harming someone in self-defence.

So I don't think it's the business of religion to tell people what not to do on those sorts of issues, because they shouldn't have to.

The areas where religions mostly say things are wrong, where society doesn't, tend to be either about sex, or about woolly "people ought to be decent to each other" sorts of right/wrong - and I think those are both areas better left to an individual conscience, though I'd hope everyone (with or without religion) would do the same.

Your other question is tricky - I'm not sure I'd feel there was much point in a religion which didn't require you to either believe anything in particular, or to do anything in particular, in order to consider that you belong there, as it seems too vague! But then my own beliefs are a lot vaguer than the denomination I belong to, and I'm not much of a one for regular attendance, so perhaps I'm being unfair to people who are at least being honest about what they follow.

And another bit of Quaker promotion! tho with some small print, and with a confession of guesswork. I don't know enough about Unitarians to be sure; and maybe you like the organised form of service.

Among Quakers we have 5 core values, apart from the obvious traditional Christian one of love. They are: simplicity, truth, equality, peace, sustainability, STEPS for short. But how any Quaker applies them to their own life is now unpoliced in normal circumstances. (There was a Quaker treasurer who went AWOL with a Large Sum; largely recovered, and we did not want him jailed.)

There are always other Quakers to ask for guidance. --I personally think the values are all the same; what differs is the order we put them in. Some rate loyalty higher than public spiritedness; some the other way about; and I am not sure there is a final answer to that one. (Would you shop your tax-cheat neighbour or not? what if the offender was a member of your family?)

DCgirl laws only work if the majority of people choose to follow them.

most people do not actually believe murder is wrong, once you question them - for a start, the definition of murder varies wildly from state to state and person to person. State sanctioned murder - the death penalty or war death - is just fine with many people. Again, some people think it's fine to steal intellectual property, to steal from shops perceived as rich, or to steal from society as a whole by not paying taxes.

And of course there are no such thing as human rights, not objectively. If there were, they would be universal, and they surely aren't - it's actually a new concept in terms of history.

There are no black and white rights and wrongs.

amuminscotland I have to say I think you're wrong when you say "most people have a general level of agreement about right and wrong" and that religion therefore has no role in advising people how to behave. Take rape, for example. Rape in marriage has only been recognised as a crime relatively recently. And date rape - even now people contest its validity as a crime. Just recently that police guy in Canada said it's not rape in the traditionally understood sense if the woman has allowed herself to be vulnerable e.g. by drinking or dressing provocatively. These are not my views, but it goes to show actually there is very little agreement about what constitutes right and wrong, a point crunchyfrog makes when she notes that many people who would consider a street murder wrong are fine with a state-sanctioned murder such as the death penalty.

The point is how do we govern society if we truly believe morality is subjective? If we take the 'morality is subjective' argument to its logical conclusion that means doing away with laws and allowing people to behave however their conscience dictates. But most people would be horrified at living in a lawless society, instinctively we feel there is something wrong about people just doing whatever they want, and again that suggests that morality is objective, though there is obviously disagreement on its nature.

By the way, I find the thought of living in a world with no concept of human rights terrifying. I don't know how people in antiquity didn't go stark raving mad. The world must have seemed such a barbaric place to them.

And thank you margotquaker. I find the Quakers interesting but I did go to a Quaker service and struggle with the almost total silence.

Morality is dictated by the social norms of the society we live in.

Therefore, I think it's immoral to make a child work and not educate them. In other societies, including our own not that long ago, that was not only OK, it was utterly normal save for a select few.

One generation ago, it was legal for men in Ireland to beat their wives with a stick (there were laws regarding the thickness of the stick.)

It's only really the last generation that have stopped seeing women and children as property. We still don't have equal rights to men in practice.

I actually think the whole concept of morals/ right and wrong is misleading. I can only do what I think is going to have the best outcome for me and mine at any given time. That may well conform to society's view of morally "right" - because after all, my decisions are going to be heavily influenced by the culture I was raised in. But it may not. But I won't see it as "wrong," because if I did, I couldn't do it! Humans are terribly good at justifying things to themselves.

Oh, trying to think of an example. How about leaving my husband? He didn't beat me, he wasn't a drunk. We both worked. He washed up every day. Yada yada. It has taken my family YEARS to understand why I left him. According to the rules of society, I am in the wrong (gawd bless 'is martyred self.) But I don't feel or think wrong, my children and I are far better off.

You didn't break the law by leaving your husband though. And whilst your family may not accept divorce large swathes of society do. So it's not quite the same as murder! And just because people's ideas about morality have changed over time it doesn't mean that there is not an objective morality. Just, as I've already acknowledged, that people can't agree on what it is.

What do you think about my argument that if you really believe morality is subjective the logical conclusion is to get rid of laws and let anarchy reign?

I don't think that that is the logical conclusion.

We are a social primate. Over time, humans have moved from small family level groups, to tribes, to city-states, to feudal systems, to what we have now. There is nothing to say that our current system is the best or most moral.

If there was truly an objective morality, presumably it would have to be innate, if not imposed by a god of one kind or another.

If imposed by a creator god, you have the problem of why such a being would create a planet/ species with "natural," objective laws, and then give them the capacity to disobey them. I obey the law of gravity without question - in fact, I am sadly unable to disobey it. I have to be taught how to behave in other ways. Therefore this morality is not innate.

If this objective morality exists in and of itself outside humans, you would expect to find it replicated throughout all strata of all societies. We don't. Even just taking murder as an example, there are lots of sub-structures in our own society today where murder is perfectly acceptable.

Laws generally reflect what the majority of people in a group already want and expect in terms of behaviour from others in the group. When that ceases to be true, either the laws change or the group does. (In totalitarian states, laws exist so that the minority can control the behaviour of the majority. Same general rule applies - when enough people change what they want and expect, the laws, government etc will have to change.)

The law of the land does not follow any objective moral code. It does not even particularly follow Judeo-Christian teaching any more, although there is pretence made of that. The law has changed just during my life time, that's enough to give the lie to the suggestion that it somehow comes from somewhere outside ourself.
I've rambled for ages. Basically, if something is innate, or objectively true and immutable, then one does not have to be socialised into it.