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Originally Posted by SignMeUp  First i would like to direct you people to the following website, http://www.skepticfiles.org/atheist/authorit.htm
Quick Summary of Milgram Experiments:-
The Milgram Experiment is about how people can sometimes do really immoral things like torture/kill other people without having the intent to do so.
The experiment was designed to find out how the Nazi soldiers could carry out the mass killing of jews, without questioning if what they were doing was "right". The premise is that most people will blindly do what someone else says, if that person is in a position of authority.
With regards to the article it doesn't go as deep as i would like into the subject of theists being blindly obedient, more so than athiests/agnostics. The irony of this article is that religious people seem to think that morality comes from god/religion.
The question i am asking is, does believing in something without proof leave you vulnerable to situations like this?
Many times the volunteers were told to carry on after they had protested, they were told by the "men in white coats" that the person being shocked was not being harmed by this action. |
The Milgram Experiments were truly groundbreaking. When I first read about them, I thought my "moral compass" would surely have prevented me from continuing to administer more and more apparently powerful and painful shocks despite what I was being told by the experiment administrators. Then again, I'm not quite so sure.
Prior to my retirement from one of the world's largest companies, after 31 years' service, I had terminated the employment of several people whom I genuinely liked because it was what I percieved was expected of me. They weren't bad people; they were simply unable to compete in a workforce where a high level of performance was the standard. I touched all the bases in order to comply with the applicable legal requirements, and none of the terminations were ever challenged in court or by any government agencies.
That gave me a modicum of assurance that the actions I'd taken were "right", but I still think about those people and wonder what became of them this many years down the road.
It's not that I have any basic philosophical problems with the concept of an employer's ability and right to demand peformance of its employees according to the standards it sets. It's just that the potential damage to my former employer's profitability by keeping the people I fired on the payroll was negligible when compared to the devastating effect their terminations had on their lives.
I think that, had I been faced with the same dilemma in the context of my own company, I'd have done the same thing; perhaps even more readily because of the more substantial impact a low-performing employee might have on a smaller company. On the other hand, maybe I'd have gone the extra mile with the folks rather than being so concerned with my employer's expectations and the minimal legal requirements necessary for bringing about an unchallenged termination.
Milgram Experiments and Theists??? 
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