Are there terms, with possibly nuances, to describe a person, who by all appearances is an honorable person, does or does not believe in God, but does not have a prayer or church life, but whose morality seems to be based on the legal system and that which is generally acceptable in society?

universism?

http://onelook.com/?w=*&loc=revfp2&clue=honorable+agnostic

secular humanist is often used.

a deist (most of US "founding fathers" called them selves deist.. believed(to some degree) in god, but where not members of organized churches for the most part.

a mench (a yidish term) it mean a Man.. but idiomatically, it mean a good man.. a mench is the kind of guy that marries a widow with a kid or two, has some more, (adapts or doesn't) but treats all the children equally.. (loves, provides for them, leaves them an equal share in estate..--and mever mentions that or lets on that they aren't all his biological children (but on the other hand, encourages the kids to see and keep up with their biological grandparents/uncle/aunts/cousins--he walk the line.. (perfectly!))

I don't know whether freethinker, for a practitioner of Freethought, comes close or not.

Agree with etaoin, seculair humanist.

seculair humanism

Or a good Godless person, (if you want common words)

Some old-fashioned terms would be
salt of the earth - often used of farmers, builders and other blue collar workers
upright - possibly a bit stiff with it
worthy or man of worth - ?a bit boring?
a good solid citizen - see worthy
honourable - implies that he has faced a test of that honour and won
dependable - and probably predictable
decent - a mench as above, "no movie star but pffft, what are looks"

please note, the above nuances are the opinions of the poster and may not reflect the views of this site or anyone on it.

PS welcome aboard shawnee

I'm not sure 'secular humanist' quite fits the bill. That term describes someone who holds to a particular philosophy, but says nothing necessarily about their individual personal morality. There are also different kinds of secular humanist, viz optimistic and pessimistic humanist.

Perhaps 'Relativist' or 'Relative Moralist'?

>'Relative Moralist'

Does not relativist come pretty close to opportunist?
Humanism is not just a philosophy. It's also a way of living.

Given these qualifications I might suggest the term "strawman" but since I object to this sort of back-handed definition in others I won't. I believe that human moral codes are a natural result of the evolution of a successful social species.

Perhaps, but it's a very broad description.
We are talking specifically about secular humanism, not christian humanism, but even with that type of humanism there are many subsets.

I wouldn't put relativist and opportunist as synonyms, no. A Relativist is someone who holds to the IDEOLOGY of Relatvism, ie, that there are no moral/legal/religious and/or epistemological absolutes. An opportunist can belong to any creed or belief system and is simply someone who is quick to take opportunities with both hands when they present themselves. Opportunist is an active word focusing on the doing of actions, whilst relativist is a more passive word describing beliefs or world view. Opportunist usually has a slightly pejorative edge to it also - the implication is that they take advantage of situations for their own gain, sometimes at the expense of others.

Since we're saying what we believe in this context, I believe they aren't.

My opine:
The decay of human moral codes is the result of natural evolution.

...or devolution?

So, you believe that humans were originally "perfect" or lacking in "decay" or what? Sounds sort of Garden of Eden-ish!

I think devolution would indicate that is the case, However I think that some in society tend to follow their conscience which is eventually smoothed out or less inhibited due to constant bombardment. Take television for instance. Half naked swearing gun totin people fill our screens. Slowly it wears down peoples conscience like an emery wheel. To some kids, it becomes acceptable. What next?

Why is'nt devolution de-evolution?

To me it makes no logical sense, and there is no empirical evidence for it, that human morals and law are "a natural result of the evolution of a successful social species."
My opinion is that human morals and laws result from the fact that we have a God-given conscience that tells us there is such a thing as Right and Wrong. The categories of morality are nuanced by culture, but that there IS morality is intuitive and innate. That innate sense of morality is one thing that separates us from other social animals who are quite 'successful' without having laws and codes, so it's not something we "need" in an evolutionary sense. The only "need" we have arises from our imperfect nature, so that restraints have to be imposed on people to stop the whole world descending into anarchy and chaos. When law is removed, we end up with Mogadishu.

But is this thread getting too off topic and metaphysical?

An opportunist could excuse his ways by seeing himself as a relativist. I see a relativist and opportunist are not synonym, like you pointed out the differences.
So we're back at word matters.

My opinion is that human morals and laws result from the fact that we have a God-given conscience that tells us there is such a thing as Right and Wrong.

I don't see any empirical evidence for this view. Outside of cartoons and other forms of popular culture, I do not see little imps sitting on your left and right shoulders whispering into your ears that eating locusts is Right, but mixing linen and wool is Wrong. When one looks at the history of humans, one notices a great many contradictory ethical systems. To posit that one out these many is the one true one and all others are deliberate perversions which were created by people who willfully go against their conscience is a bit much to take, but then people's propensity for credulity is enormous.

But perhaps we are getting off topic and wandering in the field of anthropology.

Said Faldage with heavy irony. (Either that, or you're wearing a rose-tinted welding mask).

If we ever meet a successful social species, we should adopt their moral codes at once! :-)

Which is precisely what I did not posit.


yeah, look at all the people who uncritically accept the gospel of Richard Dawkins...


Agreed (and Theology too)... so we'd better stop.

>so we'd better stop.

now that you've got a favorite shibboleth in...

-joe (it's always nice to claim that closing shot) friday

hee hee, that's sibboleth to you...

not to make light of your jest (well, okay, to denigrate the heck outta your weak japery), but OED has this meager entry for 'sibboleth': rare To speak with a special pronunciation.

-joe (or meagre) friday

Which is precisely what I did not posit.

Whew, that's a relief. So we are agreed then that it is to be the Manusmriti or the Highway (Route 66 id est).

yeah, look at all the people who uncritically accept the gospel of Richard Dawkins...

Old Man Strident? I find him at least as annoying as the intelligent designers [sic]. As a lapsed Jack Pastafarian, it's Russell's Celestial Tea Cup for me.

The moral code of a succesful social species is to herd aphids by the thousands in my apple tree. A had to do something very a-moral about it.

'Aphids in my Apple Tree'

I'd read that book.

Old Man Strident? I find him at least as annoying as the intelligent designers [sic]. As a lapsed Jack Pastafarian, it's Russell's Celestial Tea Cup for me.

I enjoyed The God Delusion.

I enjoyed The God Delusion.

I sympathized with most of his thesis, but I did not enjoy reading it. Like, he's always at eleven.

On the Doomsday Clock?

An Asymptotic assumption!

I think our favorite peditum senex is saying that's where Dawkins's amp is set. I think it was The God Delusion I read, just to see if he really did say that Science could solve everything as was claimed by someone in the anti-Dawkins camp. Eleven sounds like a pretty good one word summation.

Everyone knows intuitively that if you say something louder it becomes truer.

peditum senex

Now that's closer to the flavor of the English term. Whilst we're here, I should mention that there are two reconstructed PIE roots dealing with farts and farting: *pezd- (A-H and Pokorny) 'to fart loudly' and perd- (A-H and Pokorny) 'to fart'.

But to say Dawkins is as annoying as the Intelligent Design camp is grossly overstating matters.

Depends what annoys you I guess.
But...
1. Is there such a thing as 'the Intelligent Design Camp' per se? 'Intelligent Design' is as broad a term as 'Theist' or 'Humanist' or 'Muslim'. I don't think it's that centralized. It includes people ranging from fundamentalist Christians to Agnostics.
2. Dawkins is only one person, whereas 'The Inteeligent Design Camp' are many. Even if he is only almost as annoying, that's quite an achievement for an individual.

It all grates on the nerves, but Dawkins is grinding a better axe.

Well have to agree to differ on that one.

Perhaps Sagan is more to your taste?

This is a great book.

Perhaps Sagan is more to your taste?

Perhaps, I've only really seen him on TV and read his Contact. The Demon-Haunted World looks interesting. I'll push it down on my stack o' books.

The (EXTREMELY few) 'agnostics' in the ID camp seem to have a political agenda (e.g. Berlinski).

I don't know that I agree with everything Dawkins says, but I agree with most of the specific commentary I've read and heard. Also, I was very fond of his book, "The Blind Watchmaker." Most of his specific comments are reasonable (to me), but a lot of what his opponents have said about his views don't seem to resemble his actual views as I've heard him express them.

There is, of course, the title of his book, "The God Delusion," (which I have not yet read and therefore neither endorse nor reject), but what else would one expect an atheist to write?

Issue: There is a resurgence of religious people who want to present to the public that science supports their specific religion. There are some very specific areas in which science might have some to say. For example, 'belief' occurs in human brains so it's conceivable that neurologists might be be able to study it. But "god" (as most people understand it) is a supernatural phenomenon and is therefore outside the scope of science. There are various ID advocates who are very coy on this and will say, "We don't say 'the designer is God' ... it MIGHT BE an alien. There are nuances to this, but the vast majority of these guys are very clear (J. Wells, et. al.) that the designer is god. In the Dover case, one thing that irritated the (conservative) judge was the fact that the ID crowd had replaced the "creator" references in their book with "designer" and then in various other ways tried to cover their tracks.

We allow religionists to influence scientific discussion without challenging them on it - and as a result (partly of this and other things) we have a generation of people are absolutely convinced they "understand science" and yet who do not. On youtube, I regularly come across apologists, for example, and even people with modest backgrounds in science who are utterly confused on the basics, but think they're just fine.

A specific example is the almost universal misunderstanding of what a scientific law is.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XTaiP04UlxE

I read that as "this link was an example of such a misunderstanding". After a minute or two, I realized that was you in the video (you look different without the hat). I'm guessing you don't disagree with what you've said.

"I'm guessing you don't disagree with what you've said."
Yes. It's me in the video. While, in fact, I often do disagree with myself and am sometimes ridiculed by my daughters, friends, and colleagues for arguing with myself in the hallways, kitchen, toilet, parking lot, etc., in this particular instance I can only express agreement with myself. Usually I'm quite congenial with myself, but sometimes the discussion gets heated, words are exchanged in anger, and I don't speak to myself for weeks until we make amends.

"There is a resurgence of religious people who want to present to the public that science supports their specific religion."

That's true (of Buddhism, Hinduism and various cults as well as Christianity), but that's not what Intelligent Design is. It is a very broad movement (if it can even be called a Movement). It is not necessarily even Theist per se, as you point out, though of course in practical terms most of its proponents will be Theists. But it says nothing of the nature of the Intelligence behind the Design, and is not intrinisically religious but a valid scientific line of enquiry.

"We allow religionists to influence scientific discussion without challenging them on it"

Seems to me that "Science-ists" (as opposed to Scientists) think that the reverse is okay - it's fine for "Science" to influence religion, but not the other way round.

It also assumes that materialism is the only valid philosophical basis for science, which is not a rational assumption and in fact ignores the history of science in the real world, and the place that Theism has played in it, from Christian, Jewish and Muslim scientists over the past thousand years or so.

As for ID, it is argued for by its proponents on at least as rational and scientific a basis as those who argue for non-Intelligent Design (or is that non-Intelligent non-Design?). The arguments from "Irreducible Complexity" for example, are logically powerful and not ones that can be summarily dismissed and pooh-poohed just by taking an a priori materialist stance. They are not a priori but a posteriori arguments based on deductions from observation of physical reality and must be answered as such with logical counter argument and evidence. So far I see little of that in the response of the Dawkins brigade, but simply a smug, demeaning "oh this is not real science" and "we know better than you," attitude. They are the Spanish Inquisition of the Scientific World, not interested in Truth but mere Conformity.

i've sort of stayed away from this since Intelligent design became the topic.

IN US--a court case ruled that intelligent design is not science (the standard that Intellegent desing proponents hold for hold for "sciencetific theory" would allow astrology, (yes, astrology) to be called a science. (so what sign are you?--don't you believe (and that is KEY WORD Intelligent Design is based on UNPROVEN BELIEF--(ie religion) not on PROVE ABLE FACTS )in the stars?

Intelligent design is psuedo science, it is religion mascarading as science. it was developed to get around the law (and it failed) that prohibits the teaching of religion or religious beliefs in US schools.

you can check out the PBS web side, (i think it was a 2 part NOVA broadcast but it might have been FrontLine.. (it was broadcast earlier this year.)

there are mountains of evidence that the term intellegent design was chose to mis represent faith as fact.

"...that's not what Intelligent Design is"
That is exactly what ID as a political movement is.

"it's fine for "Science" to influence religion, but not the other way round."
That may be true of some few scientists, but a very few. I think most people with a scientific outlook think that, yes, religions could benefit from re-examining their assertions through evidence, but the main squawking is because religion is losing its primacy. People used to just accept what religions said - they would pick one and then try to justify it. Nowadays, people are challenging this, "Why should I? Why *that* particular belief?" Many religions do not operate well in that sort of environment.

"It also assumes that materialism is the only valid philosophical basis for science, which is not a rational assumption and in fact ignores the history of science in the real world,"
Materialism can mean several things and it gets a bad rap. The materialism on which science rests is this: that if it's not material, it's not something that can be studied by science. It took us a very long time to figure this out. It doesn't assume there is no supernature. It doesn't assert there is no supernature. But if there is a supernature, we cannot discern using science - and if it interferes too much, science will not work. Yes, many religious people have contributed to science, but their religion did not. This is no more relevant than the fact that chemistry used to be merged with alchemy, or astronomy with astrology. It took a lot of time and missteps to figure out what didn't work - and just as importantly WHY they didn't work.

"As for ID, it is argued for by its proponents on at least as rational and scientific a basis ..."
While they have convinced a gullible and uninformed public, they have not convinced many actual scientists of this - and almost none of the top tier scientists (nobel winners, national academy winners, etc.) - and for good reason.

Irreducible Complexity (IC) is a poster child for poor science. And there is a very good reason it is not good science - it cannot be disproved. It has been refuted in the case of bacterial flagella and a few other things. Behe and his followers deny this, but it's true. The refutation is devastating as the judge at Dover realized. Behe does not recognize this refutation. Such a refutation would in his own words falsify IC. Apparently he doesn't understand falsification. "Behe" (modified 6/25) admitted under oath that he wasn't even familiar with most of the current papers on the subject, because they couldn't possibly refute IC. He doesn't know and he doesn't care about the evidence.

IDers and other creationists often like to compare themselves to Galileo. This is highly ironic, because none of Galileo's contemporaries doubted his genius. They disagreed with his conclusions, but no one doubted that he understood what he was talking about. The same cannot be said for the vast majority of creationists, to include IDers.

This is interesting. There are a number of very good word posts that could come out of this, because much of the turmoil is raised by a complete misconstrual of what science is and how it works and WHY IT WORKS, as well as what they theory of evolution is and what the evidence for it is. The case against "Darwinistic EVILutionism" is based largely on barbershop gossip.

"They accepted the results of science; they rejected it's methods." -- epitaph suggested by Carl Sagan for planet Earth.

"The greatest obstacle to discovering the shape of the earth, the continents and the ocean was not ignorance but the illusion of knowledge."
-- The Discoverers, by Daniel Boorstin, Former Librarian of Congress

This is exactly the kind of uninformed name-calling rant that proves my point. I'm not saying anything more about it.

Next topic of discussion: the usurpation of ontology by the sciences and the death of philosophy.

Onward to page 300.

And not a moment too soon.

God abhors a naked singularity!

Long live philosophy.