Atheroy, My comment about assinating all Muslims was not meant to be taken seriously - it was merely an example of how a potential means to an end is highly questionable and I'd consider immoral. Kat
Jenyar, Try Webster - 1 a : conformity to a standard of right : MORALITY b : a particular moral excellence. What did you think it meant, apart from a rule from your imaginary friend? Kat
Morality as defined by people, because that can have no particular excellence. It's as useful as the people who agreed upon it. With that defintion, there is no exemplary virtue, and what every person decides is "moral" should be their own business. Can you explain to me why it isn't?
Jenyar, Agreed, and usually because of mutual agreements for the benefit of the group or a particular culture. That is incorrect, the level of excellence is determined by the group. Agreed, since there is no such thing as an absolute standard and shouldn’t be. The world is an ever changing and very diverse place and likely to become even more diverse as the population grows. The world population 2000 years ago was only 150M, whereas today it is 6B, so it is to be expected that there will be more widely divergent values and moral codes compared to the primitive and ignorant times when the bible was written. Not quite, remember we live in communities, since that is the way we evolved, and we are able to reason that certain values and codes are of mutual benefit. For most of those we need to have common agreement with others in the community. I think I have answered that. But virtue and moral codes are entirely dependent on the needs of local communities and cultures. If an attempt were made to impose a global or absolute standard then you would severely limit and stifle the diversity and differences between cultures and those are the strengths of the human race. Kat
Right. Now, a certain community of US Army recruits decided that degading Iraqi prisoners was acceptible. True, they belong to a greater community, who belong to a greater community who belong to the human race. Who gets to set the standard? Why stifle their diversity?
kat, i know you were joking and all, but anyway "Too simple. Assassinating every Muslim in the world would probably eliminate 99% of all terrorists – this is a good thing, right? I do not believe the ends justify the means." actually, it would only eliminate an extremely small amount of terrorists, muslims have basically only made 1 terrorist attack.
Alain, >>actually, it would only eliminate an extremely small amount of terrorists, muslims have basically only made 1 terrorist attack. Yes, how ironic! What a presentation, what a blow-up by the media!
Jenyar, But they weren’t trying to promote their actions as virtuous. And just look at the negative reaction from the rest of their community who clearly can see the immorality of their actions – we don’t need imaginary gods to figure these things for ourselves. Kat
I don't mean to edge in on your conversation here, but you said something here of importance. "their community." There are communities who would praise what happened, if framed in their ideology. Exactly. The situation was wrong to us. It was wrong to a very large number of people and nations who work together with a mutual acceptance of certain moral codes. However, just because it was wrong to us, doesn't make it wrong. Do you think that the members of the Axis of Evil ever thought(think) of themselves as evil? Who were the bad guys, to them?
Halcyon, What does "wrong" mean? I think you get the point - morality is relative. You can only say that something is right or wrong in absolute terms if there was such a thing as an absolute standard, which there isn't. But that is one of the claims made by theists in support of their particular deity. The trouble is each theistic religion generates its own "absolute" standard, and all are different. And all that does is bring us back to cultural differences and the reality that these alleged god given absolute standards were written by men entrenched in what their culture felt was right and wrong. The nearest we will ever come to an absolute moral standard is to develop our minds and our ability to reason clearly. From there it is not difficult to determine what things have value and are virtuous and what are less desirable. Kat
I meant the word(the second time) as an incontrovertable truth. At first, earlier in the thread, I thought you were arguing against the stand you just posted, but you went into a little more detail just now and I saw where I misunderstood.
Kat, Sorry but I felt I should say something. There are so many people with wack views that it's hard to tell what's a joke and what's not. It doesn't help that this is the internet. No worries. a
What are you saying? As long as they know it's wrong, it's OK? They certainly don't seem to care what the rest of their community think (in all probability they think they know better than the rest of teir community). Even if they did promote their actions as being virtuous in the context of war, what has changed? My whole point was that you can't justify your actions yourself - you can measure them, but that makes no difference if you're already off-centre. The whole concept of morality depends on some kind of centre from which we can measure ourselves. You say that centre lies inside each of us, I say it doesn't. I never said that's why we need God. I said God provided us with that ability. What prevented those soldiers from "figuring it out for themselves?" and I ask again, who are we to stifle their "diversity"? If you aren't already reasoning clearly, how do you know that? How do you know that our ability to reason things out is sufficient to guide our actions, if it evidently isn't the case at the moment? Unless you suggest you have already attained that standard, in which case I ask: if you believe it's relative, why should your perspective be any more correct than any other? It certainly is based on any consensus of society, because laws don't encourage developing your mind. Another thing you should ask yourself is, are we making progress, and what do you measure progress by?
Yo Jenyar, If I may butt in. Quote Jenyar: "The whole concept of morality depends on some kind of centre from which we can measure ourselves. You say that centre lies inside each of us, I say it doesn't." We certainly seem to have a god given preloaded file, named - "morals v1." And I suppose different cultures would have different moral values stemming from group needs and parental influence. But why fob of moral responsibility on an invisible factor like god. That`s passing the buck. Specifically if that god has an easy exit for immoral discomfort. Quote J: "I never said that's why we need God. I said God provided us with that ability. What prevented those soldiers from "figuring it out for themselves?" and I ask again, who are we to stifle their "diversity"? The Aztecs ripped the still beating hearts out of their sacrificial victims to appease their god. Can we judge them? How did their god influence their moral ability? How did the god of the torturers of the Inquisition influence their moral ability? Now that`s when "diversity" becomes interesting. Quote J: "Another thing you should ask yourself is, are we making progress, and what do you measure progress by?" Yup, the million dollar question. Sadly it seems progress is slow. What is your take on this question Jenyar? Allcare.
Huh? Muslim terrorists have attacked the Trade Center twice, the embassy in Beirut twice, the barracks in Beirut, Pan Am 109, and the Achille Lauro.
Not so. How can anyone justify passing the buck of their own responisbility to the One the gave him that responsibility in the first place? On the other side of the coin, however, we have the idea that we establish our own morality. Some say individually, some say socially, depending on what they're trying to justify. That's passing the buck. I'm not saying we can't, and even less that we shouldn't - just that without God the loophole is too big for any laws we come up with to be persuasive. Their gods demanded human sacrifice (so that they could survive). YHWH never condoned nor demanded such wholesale slaughter. The one instance where He did, it was to punish such a culture of immorality and injustice, and ultimately establish a kingdom that would foster the solution. His justice just pulled the noose tighter around our necks, and without Christ we would have had no knowledge of the solution. Israel showed that man could survive by moral purity with God's help, but that without Him morality is subject to too many liberties to have any redeeming value. The god of the Inquisition was the ego of power, not the humility of servitude or the example of Christ. Anybody who follows their reasoning and compares it with the Bible is be able to see their hypocrisy. But even that is a generalization. It's a bit unfair to hold Christians responsible for the corruption of their leaders. Where they were wrong they were proved to be wrong, and that should be the moral. There were many Christians who sheltered condemned people, and they never get mentioned - what about their morals? I think moral progress is an illusion akin to the egotism that led to things like the inquisition and the holocaust. Humanity is just as bad and just as good as it ever was, only on a larger scale and with wider margins. We can't deny that as a race we are generally able to discern between good and evil, but as individuals representing the human race we are prone to temptation and corruption. In the global village, the world's consensus on what is good and moral just exposes the hypocrisy of those who refuse to be guided by it. But it's like looking in a mirror and seeing your own flaws in it. You can point them out, but you're powerless to make a compelling argument to remove them without revealing yourself as a hypocrite. Wars are good example: they show the exposed heart of the world, for better or for worse - US and Iraq is a nice fresh example. Yet we are fascinated by them. Somehow wars personify everything that we wish to accomplish - this is reflected by every movie on circuit (The Last Samurai is a relevant example). We are afflicted and conflicted, and the world is cutting off its own hands because by building its own kingdom it's digging its own grave. And that discrepancy is our enemy - the enemy that Christ faced head-on and conquered. He represented the defeated victim, the forgiving God, and the justified man. He showed the true face of humanity.
Yo Jenyar, I love your take on our moral progress Jenyar, I absolutely agree. This is quite simply "beautiful". Quote J: "We are afflicted and conflicted, and the world is cutting off its own hands because by building its own kingdom it's digging its own grave." It certaily seems from the perspective of human history that we have covered no ground whatsoever. Standing out from this gray depressing landscape are the individuals who made, or at least tried to make a difference. In every instance I recognise that these "heroes" (for want of a better description) have dominated, contained, or at least understood the beast called "ego". What do their examples mean to us? Do we read their stories as hope for the future of mankind? Or is one gesture of pure human compassion a universe redeemed? I greatly understand and admire your faith Jenyar, and you are a shining example for all out there and specifically those that would care to call themselves "Christians" Quote J: "He showed the true face of humanity" Which is of course, human. And looking at our human enviorenment, we have the ironic combination of the good, the bad, the ugly and the beautiful. Mankind collectively seems to focus on the negative, whereas our individual endevours often seem to persue the positive. Allcare.
Stretched, Thanks for the compliment Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! But we can't get away from the fact that the collective is made up out of individuals. While it may not represent what most people like to think of themselves, it certainly reflects what most people think of each other. Once again we're looking in a mirror, and I think we should be honest about what we see. Inhumanity and civilization can no longer be categorized as it used to be, i.e. 'we' are civilized, 'they' are barbarians. Colonialism (under whatever banner it was done) and subsequent globalization has smudged those convenient boundaries so that we're now forced us to confront the imperialist in each of us. The enemy is no longer a race or a group of flesh and blood (yet, how often do we revert to that mentality) but the archons of evil - what Paul called the "powers of this dark world" in Eph.6:12. Sure, the old adversaries remain - we still have our dictators and oppressors - but they're no longer foreign enough that we can distance ourselves from them. In a time when our own armies shame the countries they fight for and abuse the freedoms they stand for, we need heroes (I think it's a good description) to look up to, but we also need to be those heroes. Stories might inpire, but which of them provide any real hope? Which of them provide an example to end all examples? Corruption comes from inside, but at the same time it's foreign to humanity. It destroys everything we try to build. It's as if our hands are smeared with blood and it rubs off on everything we touch. You can't wash blood with blood, you need something clean, but at the same time blood demands blood, if justice is to prevail. And that's how redemption works. Pilate might have washed his hands in water but that didn't take away his guilt, worshippers might make sacrifices to appease gods that are never satisfied, and believers might get baptised with John's baptism of repentance without ever being cleansed... I think everybody knows what I'm going to say next.
Yo Jenyar, Yup. I think I dig what you are saying regarding the shame the so calles "armies of the rightous" are causing in their battle for god knows what. (get americans out of my land afganistan/iraq) The sides are blurred and the agendas are in flux. The world as we know it seems to be unknown and maybe the paradigm is shifting into uncharted and frightening seas. Just maybe the glibness of the cliched "history always repeats itself" is on the run and we have to face real strangeness. As for the archons of evil, I find these hard to ascribe to an outside or supernatural evil force, but rather find them in the more apparent and exposed dark heart of man, and the hollow society he has created. So what do we need to wash the blood off our hands, if so much has already been shed in the name of that which could possibly redeem us, ie the religions of man. Because of our very nature we have poisened the well from which we could drink and quench our thirst. So what is the answer Jenyar? How do we shed our humanity without shedding our very breath? Allcare.
They're the same thing, as far as I'm concerned. What we call psychology today were attributed to evil spirits then. The "dark heart of man" definitely doesn't refer to the organ, so what you're saying is in essence the same thing as Paul. What people generally call "the supernatural" is just a convenient metaphor for things we might not see or understand, but that are realities nontheless. It could even be called an "outside force" because it's common to so many people, yet so foreign to us personally. Religion won't redeem us. Not even the one provided by God to Israel was sufficient to redeem them. That was not its purpose. Religion is dead without its heart. Hebrews 10 1The law is only a shadow of the good things that are coming--not the realities themselves. For this reason it can never, by the same sacrifices repeated endlessly year after year, make perfect those who draw near to worship. If it could, would they not have stopped being offered? For the worshipers would have been cleansed once for all, and would no longer have felt guilty for their sins. But those sacrifices are an annual reminder of sins, because it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins. 8First he [Christ] said, "Sacrifices and offerings, burnt offerings and sin offerings you did not desire, nor were you pleased with them" (although the law required them to be made). Then he said, "Here I am, I have come to do your will." He sets aside the first to establish the second. And by that will, we have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. We shouldn't shed it - that's the problem. We're letting go of everything that used to be sacred and honourable in the name of science or progress, and we don't realize that those things were more integral to being human than gravity or the big bang. We've overcompensated. It's as if humanity has ceased to trust itself (with good reason), but instead of embracing God they have rejected Him. We're like lovers with damaged pride, unwilling to do what it takes to restore the relationship, trying to justify ourselves and satisfy our own egos. Rejecting God has made it impossible to forgive humanity - to forgive ourselves. 19Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way opened for us through the curtain, that is, his body, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near to God with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful. [Now see what he says it looks like in practice...] And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds. Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another--and all the more as you see the Day approaching.I hope you don't mind the quotations, but they're important if you want to understand what I'm saying.
