smokeybearsb said:
Actually, humans aren't quite as simple as just "Other people told us to feel this way so we do." Even society at large didn't spring up with no provocation. Society did not come to existence out of nothingness simply to tell people how to act. Just as people like you are tired of religious dogmatic hypocrisy, other people are tired of their own social surroundings and come to conclusions counter to them.
But society is not artificial. Society is created by people, whose sense of morality and ethics had to come from
somewhere. Religion likes to think it comes from a higher power, but before there even was the concept of religion there was a concept of "good thing" and "bad thing." Usually gut emotional. One could call it instinctual even. "Family hurt = bad. Spear stolen = bad. Me want hurt bad person. So do they. We go hunting for bad person now."
Sympathy, ambivalence, vengeance, anger, sadness, happiness. These are some of the root human emotions that we've extrapolated into the forms of social standards we call "right and wrong." And it's natural to see how they came about.
You take a solely high-end view of morality. Morality as justified by a universe. This is a view that betrays your Christian upbringing--oft times, Christians feel the need to justify morality with a higher power or a benevolent universe. Others just follow the rules of their religion simply to secure a place for themselves in a hypothetical afterlife, but that's something else entirely.
Morals, as they exist in human history--and before recorded history--have always been something deeper than that. More instinctual. More
human. Humans are social animals. We create societies, not the other way around. Morality exists, if not in a universal sense, then in a personal and social sense. And refusing the existence of morality just because it doesn't live up to one's preconceived notions of a cosmic natural force is a
really dick move. And you're telling us you're going to stop believing in right and wrong simply because you're starting to doubt the existence of a giant magical old man telling you what's the best way to get into his Happy Place Afterlife?
Really?
The only people who honestly, truly believe in nihilism are either sociopaths or self-absorbed wankers not quite dumb enough to choose solipsism but not smart enough to accept morality as it is.
Just man up, become an atheist or agnostic, and be cool to other people. You honestly don't want them to stop being cool to you. Trust me.
"Be excellent to each other. And party on, dude."
