People used to behave morally because they thought God was always watching - in some ways God today is the collective, and the collective is watching.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
Morality arose largely as an empirical defence of the individual and society. Ever since intelligent beings began to be in contact, and consequently in friction, they have felt the need to guard themselves against each other's encroachments.
Doing something because God has said to do it does not make a person moral: it merely tells us that person is a prudential believer, akin to the person who obeys the command of an all-powerful secular king.
Morality is the herd-instinct in the individual.
The great rule of moral conduct is next to God, respect time.
Therefore the great mediator of any community is human morality.
Morality binds people into groups. It gives us tribalism, it gives us genocide, war, and politics. But it also gives us heroism, altruism, and sainthood.
What we call 'morals' is simply blind obedience to words of command.
Mere heathen morality, and not Jesus Christ, is preached in most of our churches.
It has been wisely observed by the greatest of modern thinkers that mankind has progressed more rapidly in every other respect than in morality.
Because of the diverse conditions of humans, it happens that some acts are virtuous to some people, as appropriate and suitable to them, while the same acts are immoral for others, as inappropriate to them.
No opposing quotes found.