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Every religion emphasizes human improvement, love, respect for others, sharing other people's suffering. On these lines every religion had more or less the same viewpoint and the same goal.
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No source entered for Contribution #3805
Do your little bit of good where you are;it's those little bits of good put together that overwhelm the world.
The day we stop killing off our own species, our world will become a book with no more torn pages.
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Source type: Website
Voiced Education Project
Zoe Taylor, McClure Middle School, Seattle, WA
"
Imagining the Color of Peace"
http://www.voiceseducation.org
Viewed on November 23, 2009
Contribution #3641
The breakdown of the world's ecology is causing a shift in environmental sensibilities tantamount to a second Copernican revolution . . . In the second Copernican revolution we may be forced to abandon the even more self-aggrandizing belief that we are the center of the moral universe and have a special, privileged status in the biosphere--anthropocentrism.
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No source entered for Contribution #3630
Secure in whom we are, rooted in one particular tradition or none at all, we have no reason to fear discovering God in the truth and wisdom of many traditions. Love casts out fear inviting us into happiness for all people and Creation.
Courage to be who you are is the cousin of loving the Divine, yourself and others.
We were born to unite with our fellow men, and to join in community with the human race.
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No source entered for Contribution #3550
The earth is ready, the time is ripe, for the authoritative expression of the feminine as well as the masculine interpretation of that common social consensus which is slowly writing justice in the State and fraternity in the social order.
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No source entered for Contribution #3548
The strongest bond of human sympathy outside the family relation should be one uniting working people of all nations and tongues and kindreds.
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No source entered for Contribution #3547
I am convinced that we must commit ourselves to the view that a universal ethics is possible, and that we ought to seek to understand it and define it. It is a staggering idea, and one that on casual thought seems preposterous. Yet there is no way out. We now understand how tendentious our beliefs about the world and the nature of human experience truly are, and how dependent we have become on tales from the past. At some level we all know this. At the same time, our species wants to believe in something, some natural order, and it is the job of modern science to help figure out how that order should be characterized.
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Source type: Book
The Ethical Brain
Page 178
Published by Dana Press
, New York
, 2005
http://
Contribution #3520
Whenever you possibly can, do good to those who need it.
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Source type: Book
Good News Bible
Page Proverbs 3:27
http://
Contribution #3423
Grant others the same rights as you claim for yourself.
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Source type: Book
Dresden Edition of the 12 Volume's of the teachings of Robert G. Ingersoll
Page ?
Published by ?
, Dresden, N.Y.
, 1922 (?)
http://Amazon
Contribution #3403
An enlightened society is one where all people - the rich and the poor, the literate and the illiterate, the black and the white, men and women - live happily as children of the same Lord. Thus experiencing the brotherhood of men under the fatherhood of God.
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From the discourses of Rev. Pandurang Shastri Athavale
Contribution #3394
Universal brotherhood under the fatherhood of God.
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From the discourses of Rev. Pandurang Shastri Athavale
Contribution #3373
Why does everyone take for granted that we don't learn to grow arms, but rather, are designed to grow arms? Similarly, we should conclude that in the case of the development of moral systems; there's a biological endowment which in effect requires us to develop a system of moral judgment and a theory of justice, if you like, that in fact has detailed applicability over an enormous range.
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No source entered for Contribution #3159
Man was destined for society. His morality, therefore, was to be formed to this object. He was endowed with a sense of right and wrong merely relative to this. This sense is as much a part of his nature, as the sense of hearing, seeing, feeling; it is the true foundation of morality . . . The moral sense, or conscience , is as much a part of man as his leg or arm. It is given to all human beings in a stronger or weaker degree, as force of members is given to them in a greater or lesser degree. It may be strengthened by exercise, as may any particular limb of the body.
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Source type: Book
The Papers of Thomas Jefferson
by J. P. Boyd
Page ME 6:257, Paper 12:15. Letter to Peter Carr, Aug 10
Published in 1787/1955
http://cited in Moral Minds, by Marc Hauser
Contribution #3161
Many are really virtuous who cannot explain what virtue is . . . But the powers themselves in reality perform their several operations with sufficient constancy and uniformity in persons of good health whatever their opinions be about them . . .
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Source type: Book
Illustrations on the Moral Sense
Page preface
Published by Harvard University Press
, Cambridge, MA, USA
, 1728/1971
http://ref. in Marc Hauser, Moral Minds
Contribution #3163
Earth provides enough to satisfy every man's need, but not every man's greed.
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Contribution #3131
Mr. J.S. Mill speaks, in his celebrated work, "Utilitarianism," of the social feelings as a "powerful natural sentiment," and as "the natural basis of sentiment for utilitarian morality," but on the previous page he says, "if, as is my own belief, the moral feelings are not innate, but acquired, they are not for that reason less natural." It is with hesitation that I venture to differ from so profound a thinker, but it can hardly be disputed that the social feelings are instinctive or innate in the lower animals; and why should they not be so in man?
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Source type: Book
The Descent of Man
Page Vol 1, page 71
Published in 1871
http://
Contribution #3040
A moral being is one who is capable of reflecting on his past actions and their motives - of approving of some and disapproving of others.
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No source entered for Contribution #3029
With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion.
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Source type: Periodical
The New York Times
http://
Contribution #2902
Let us contemplate the one simple nature of that peaceful unity which joins all things to itself and to each other, preserving them in their distinctiveness and yet linking them together in a universal and unconfused alliance.
--Many Voices / One Truth / Spirit of the World
(Because) the notion of absolute truth is difficult to sustain outside the context of religion, ethical conduct is not something we engage in because it is somehow right in itself but because, like ourselves, all others desire to be happy and to avoid suffering. Given that this is a natural disposition, shared by all, it follows that each individual has a right to pursue this goal. Accordingly, I suggest that one of the things which determines whether an act is ethical or not is its effect on others' experience or expectation of happiness.
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Source type: Book
Ethics for the New Millenium
Page 28
Published by Riverhead Books
, New York
, 1999
http://
Contribution #2784
Imagine a world in which every single person on the planet is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge. Wikis give us a place where anyone who is kind, thoughtful and intelligent can come and join us in building a better and more rational world.
There are a whole lot of religious people in America, including the majority of Democrats. When we abandon the field of religious discourse—when we ignore the debate about what it means to be a good Christian or Muslim or Jew; when we discuss religion only in the negative sense of where or how it should not be practiced, rather than in the positive sense of what it tells us about our obligations toward one another; when we shy away from religious venues and religious broadcasts because we assume that we will be unwelcome—others will fill the vacuum. And those who do are likely to be those with the most insular views of faith, or who cynically use religion to justify partisan ends.
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Source type: Book
Audacity of Hope
http://
Contribution #2533
What you should say to outsiders is that a Christian has neither more nor less rights in our Association than an atheist. When our platform becomes too narrow for people of all creeds and of no creeds, I myself shall not stand upon it. (on women's suffrage)
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No source entered for Contribution #2428
My call for a spiritual revolution is not a call for a religious revolution. Nor is it a reference to a way of life that is somehow otherworldly, still less to something magical or mysterious. Rather it is a call for a radical reorientation away from our habitual preoccupation with self. It is a call to turn toward the wider community of beings with whom we are connected, and for conduct which recognizes others' interests alongside our own.
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Source type: Book
Ethics for the New Millenium
Page 13-14
Published by Riverhead Books
, New York
, 1999
http://
Contribution #2395
Western liberal humanism is not something that comes naturally to us: like an appreciation of art or poetry, it has to be cultivated. Humanism is itself a religion without God—not all religions, of course, are theistic. Our ethical secular ideal has it's own disciplines of mind and heart and gives people the means of finding faith in the ultimate meaning of human life that were once provided by the more conventional religions.
Throughout the nineteenth century the True, the Good, and the Beautiful preserved their precarious existence in the minds of earnest atheists. But their very earnestness was their undoing, since it made it possible for them to stop at a halfway house. Pragmatists explained that Truth is what it pays to believe. Historians of morals reduced the Good to a matter of tribal custom. Beauty was abolished by the artists in a revolt against the insipidities of a philistine epoch and in a mood of fury in which satisfaction is to be derived only from what hurts. And so the world was swept clear not only of God as a person but of God's essence as an ideal to which man owed an ideal allegiance; while the individual, as a result of crude and uncritical interpretation of sound doctrines, was left without any defense against social pressure.
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No source entered for Contribution #1783
Our problems are not solved
by physical force,
by hatred,
by war
Our problems are solved
by loving kindness
by gentleness,
by joy
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Source type: Book
Heart of a Buddha
Published by Amitabha Publications
, Temple City, CA
, 2003
http://
Contribution #1456
All ancient books which have once been called sacred by man, will have their lasting place in the history of mankind, and those who possess the courage, the perseverance, and the self-denial of the true miner, and of the true scholar, will find even in the darkest and dustiest shafts what they are seeking for,--real nuggets of thought, and precious jewels of faith and hope.
In the past, the respect people had for religion meant that ethical practice was maintained through a majority following one religion or another. But this is no longer the case. We must therefore find some other way of establishing basic ethical principles.
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Source type: Book
Ethics for the New Millennium
by Dalai Lama
Page 20
http://
Contribution #1366
...it becomes clear that, given our diversity, no single religion satisfies all humanity. ... And since the majority does not practice religion, I am concerned to try to find a way to serve all humanity without appealing to religious faith.
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Source type: Book
Ethics for the New Millennium
by 14th Dalai Lama
Page 20
http://
Contribution #1365
I want to show that there are indeed some universal ethical principles which could help everyone to achieve the happiness we all aspire to.
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Source type: Book
Ethics for the New Millennium
by 14th Dalai Lama
Page 22
http://
Contribution #1364
The
love of one's country is a splendid thing. But why should love stop at the
border?
Perhaps only when people can enjoy their differences as a
resource of cultural enrichment do they become truly
civilized.
My call for a spiritual revolution is thus not a call for a religious
revolution. Nor is it a reference to a way of life that is somehow
other-worldly, still less to something magical or mysterious. Rather, it is a
call for a radical re-orientation away from our habitual preoccupation with
self towards concern for the wider community of beings with whom we are
connected, and for conduct which recognizes others interests alongside our
own.
Life, when fully lived under a variety of cultural conditions, can be euphoric and optimistic; it can be a joy to experience and a wonder to behold.
The great fault of all ethics hitherto has been that they believed themselves to have to deal only with the relations of man to man. In reality, however, the question is what is his attitude to the world and all life that comes within his reach. A man is ethical only when life, as such, is sacred to him, and that of plants and animals as that of his fellow men, and when he devotes himself helpfully to all life that is in need of help. Only the universal ethic of the feeling of responsibility in an ever-widening sphere for all that livesonly that ethic can be founded in thought. The ethic of Reverence for Life, therefore, comprehends within itself everything that can be described as love, devotion, and sympathy whether in suffering, joy, or effort.
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Source type: Website
Albert Schweitzer
Viewed on April 13, 2008
Contribution #638
What does universal ethics look like in a person?
(0 responses)
