Haven't you ever wondered where your particular brand of social morality comes from? And why it differs so much from its "Eastern" counterparts? Secular Western social morality only works as long as it benefits the "moral" person. I propose that it's far to dependent on personal gain and immediate gratification. In other words, it's being replaced by a commercial morality. Being "openminded" has almost become synonymous with being "moral" - you can believe anything as long as it doesn't conflict with others' interests, and others' interests may never conflict with your own. I'm allowed to believe anything as long it doesn't contradict what you believe in, or puts any "obligation" on you. Your morality will never evolve beyond itself this way. It's a self-serving and therefore self-defeating morality. Until a person can accept that his responsibilities extend beyond himself he can never grow morally. And until he accepts responsibility and accountability to what you prefer to call "ultimate morality", he will never be able to subject himself to it to the degree that perfection requires. In other words, his unredeemed "imperfections" continually cripple his intentions. Your next comment demonstrates this nicely: That contradicts everything you just said about your morality being better than Christian morality. If you don't even have an obligation towards those you owe your life to, what incentive for action do you have towards those whom you owe nothing? Christian morality requires more - because it doesn't pay homeage to an impotent ideal, it lives in the debt of a living Judge: 46If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? 47And if you greet only your brothers, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? 48Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect. (Matt.5) I think it's safe to say that "God has realized this too". But to bring it back to our topic: while you might not expect anything back from someone whose life you saved, what you won't expect or deserve in return is judgment. When you prevent someone commit suicide, you can expect anger because you have given them the one thing they obviously didn't want: life. Why are you angry at God's judgment that you should live and love? Is it so distressing to have to love as a matter of course, rather than being able to do it out of your own generosity and "morality". People don't really expect morality - they expect justice. The airy-fairy ideal of "ultimate morality" quickly goes down the toilet when someone shows you injustice, because it can't exact justice. That's where it exposes its weakness. People would like ultimate morality to hold some kind of authority, but it can't. I'll repeat my earlier judgement: the idea of "ultimate morality" is crippled because it expects you to baby-sit it even while you "strive towards" it. You can never hold another person to it because it doesn't have any willpower, it will be as strong as the weakest link; in fact the most 'ultimately moral' person in the world will be the one on whom all judgment will gravitate. He will try to teach those who would listen to follow the same morality, and people will hate him for it. He will sincerely accept personal responsibility for every wrong-doing person on earth, and be able to judge them and forgive them at the same time. You see, while you are trying to fill a void with your own personality, I'm trying to fill it with another personality.
Sorry about the delay. This is not my morality at all - remember that I am not dictating any specific rules, but rather reminding you of your human fallibility and ignorance and therefore requiring you to act accordingly. I could have written this, except for the last sentence. My morality is dependent on evaluating the consequences of your actions on others, so that your actions become a reflection of the kind of society you wish to create. Your actions but be representative of the way in which you want everyone to behave. Your morality, on the other hand, means that your actions only reflect your understanding of the will of God, which is your individual understanding and may come in conflict with the wellbeing of others. Everyone is treated equally - those who happen to save my life deserve no special treatment - they just did as they were supposed to do. Perhaps it's rather those who could have saved you but didn't that you punish. If I save someone's life, does that make me perfectly good? No. Does it mean I am automatically someone worth loving? No. Your argument could be equally applied to an Emperor under whose thumb you lived - if he grants you mercy for some slight to him, or gives you a chunk of land, are you indebted to him forever? No - dictators are not worthy of respect, and if he gives you land or mercy, then it should only be by obeying the law, and/or being moral, in which case he had to do it. 'Thank you' is all that is needed when people do good, because you must always do good. Perfection should be the natural state of things, not something so out of the ordinary that you have to throw yourself at the feet of the one person that does it. I still don't see why this is so important. If you are bitter about some injustice, make moves to change the way society works to remedy the problem. Interesting way to put it, but I wouldn't think that was something to be proud of! I've been arguing this subject and other facets of it on religiousforums.com - I'm begging you to pay us a visit in the general discussion forum! We're having some really good discussions and we need a good Christian perspective, and this discussion would really help throw some light on some of the issues. (You also need to explain to some quasi-religious people what submission to God really means.) I've explained my view on morality quite extensively there, too, although there shouldn't be much you haven't heard - but it does explain the importance of the Categorical Imperative. You don't have to of course, there's only 24 hours in the day, and I'll still be coming here Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
No problem. Actually, I appreciate it. This discussion is taking up more time than I realized. Not that I mind... but my boss might Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Fortunately nothing's chasing us. The difference is that I don't expect myself to act accordingly. I don't tolerate my sins, even though I recognize them. I guess you could say 'I give them hell'. Human fallibility is well and good, but it doesn't justify lack of faith or rejecting God. That's based on a misunderstanding and narrow definition of God's will. What you are exhibiting is already God's will (if you apply it consistently and with a real sense of responsibility), but it doesn't come near to complying to it. In that sense mine is a universal understanding (like the one you describe) moderated by individual responsibility and regulated by God's guidance. As far as is possible, I try to live in peace with everybody - but even when I lapse into anger or sin myself, I won't ever abdicate my commitment to doing God's will. It's always on my mind, and checks even my most accepted habits. In other words, my self-control might leave me, but God never does. It's this awareness that forms faith. I place myself under his judgment because I trust it, and it's clear to me I'm already operating under his judgment. God isn't waiting for me to give Him the right to judge me. That perspective also agrees with the Bible. If you doing what's right is your duty, you don't expect to be rewarded and it's nothing to boast about. You don't "deserve" more than someone who did less and accomplished the same (Matt.20). Also Romans 4: 4Now when a man works, his wages are not credited to him as a gift, but as an obligation. 5However, to the man who does not work but trusts God who justifies the wicked, his faith is credited as righteousness. But a King is isn't automatically a dicatotor - and neither do you automatically have the right to expect property. You are living on his land by his grace already - nothing you do can make you deserve it more. And let me ask you a question: do you pay taxes? If you're being a model law-abiding citizen, why are you paying tribute? What makes you indebted to the government enough that a simple "thank you" isn't good enough? Interesting that you say "perfection should be the natural state of things". Why isn't it, then? If God requires perfection because He is perfect, then aren't we missing something? Isn't this lack of perfection something that should be compensated for just to maintain the status quo? Because we're not perfect, and can you guess in which areas this lack of perfection lies? I'll give you one example: we're naked, so we wear clothes. Does that mean our bodies aren't perfect? No it doesn't, but it suggests we're compensating for something else - something unnatural. Shame, guilt, everything imperfect needs to be covered up somehow; crime, murder, injustice - covered up by lies and deceit; blemishes, spots, dirt - covered up by make-up and paint. All the imperfections of our bodies will eventually be covered up by the ground we're buried in, but what about the imperfections - the hidden thoughts, desires and intentions - of our spiritual lives, of our relationships with ourselves, with people... with God? All the things we hide from each other and we forget that God knows everything. He said to them, "You are the ones who justify yourselves in the eyes of men, but God knows your hearts. What is highly valued among men is detestable in God's sight. (Luke 16:15, also Psalm 44:20-22)We're exposed, we're naked emperors, all of us. It's not because God is a dictator or a particularly harsh judge - it's because He knows. It doesn't sound like something to be proud of, does it? You're right: it isn't. I'm not proud of the fact that despite my best efforts I'm still not perfect. Sometimes I think if I grew up in the jungle I might have been, but then what would I measure myself against? And the romantic idea of the "noble savage" has been sufficiently dispelled that I know we need society to achieve any kind of identity or civilization. But it's like being a fish in a shark tank - You need the water but you can't avoid the sharks forever. I need protection: something must cover me up, and I chose Christ because He called me. You might not understand what mean by that, but without God I would be trying to compensate for a void without having the hope of ever breaking even. You're on a boat called morality, you have no idea why you need the boat or where it's going, except that the water looks mighty dangerous and chaotic without it. I'm telling you why you have it, and why you can't afford to claim it as your own property. It belongs to someone, and that someone is God. You're safe because He provided safety, you're content because He made it possible to be content, but you can't ignore that the boat is being worn out by the storms. One crack and you could drown, one temptation and you're an exposed hypocrite, like me. You're lucky to be in a position where you're still afloat, but is recuing drowning people to join your fate getting you anywhere? I had a look at the site, but since this forum is already taking up half my day I haven't spent much time there. Sounds interesting though, especially since Kant's Categorical Imperative has similar holes in its boat than I described above. I submit: The categorical imperative on its own cannot differentiate between a conditional maxim and one that is truly moral--this requires a longer and more complex method of reasoning. One possible solution here would be to reformulate the categorical imperative so that it tells us what is morally permissible, rather than what is morally required. - Wikipedia: Categorical ImperativeCompare that with: 1 Corinthians 6:12 "Everything is permissible for me"--but not everything is beneficial. "Everything is permissible for me"--but I will not be mastered by anything. "Food for the stomach and the stomach for food"--but God will destroy them both. The body is not meant for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body.... 19 Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body.
What I meant was our inability to recognise the 'truth'. You can never 'know' that your God actually exists - you have decided to trust that He does (no matter how convinced you are), and you take the risk of acting according to your beliefs about it. I guess you could say that we all have three choices: The first is to make a leap of faith about something removed from humanity and live accordingly; in doing so, you can only justify your actions by referring to your belief. Then others can decide whether they want to accept that or not. The second is to act only according to ignorance - you make no leap of faith, and live according to universal principles that all should obey. Submission to God would not be allowed, because in doing so you would be accepting that anyone can act according to their own religions, now matter what the consequences on society. The third is to act according to your own whims, instincts and desires. You do what you like, when you like, and don't really care what others do. I believe that only the second is permissable. That isn't to say you can't choose the first or third, but society is under no obligation to tolerate it. Society wants you to submit to society, so if you submit to God or you submit to your own desires you do so at your own risk. I think the religions that survive are the ones in which submission to God and the obeying of His will do not conflict substantially with the rules of society. The crucial thing here is that even if God wanted us to behave differently than what could be reasoned by logic, unless everyone understood it equally like this, we could not in good conscience obey. Lets say God asked that we euthanize all people on their 70th year birthday. Now, this might be a good idea in all respects, giving them a noble death, they go to God, teaches their children self-reliance, gives a certainty, lowers hospital expenses, gives comfort to the olds since they're going to heaven, etc etc. If everyone knew that God did in fact ask this, and understood how it was a good idea, then we could do it. However, if we just had to trust the traditions handed down from Prophets, then we could not in good conscience kill any septogenarian who did not believe. That person might not be convinced that there was a God, and did not want to die yet. It's a bit like game theory in some respects. We are required to act as though God did not exist, no matter what. The trouble is just that we are not doing the best thing possible, because we are not willing to have faith. However, if the teachings were in fact wrong, then it's great that we don't kill the oldies. It's a gamble, and I prefer to play it safe and wait for reason to tell us to establish a tradition like that. (I of course don't think it would be a good idea, don't worry.) The government is hired by the people to run society in way that the people want. By not paying taxes I would be saying that I didn't want a body of people to dedicate themselves on running the society, and I would not have any rights to the benefits of that state. You might say that acknowledging and worshipping God are His 'taxes', but I did not elect Him, I do not perceive that He is doing any good, I don't even think He exists, and He doesn't need 'taxes' in order to run the world. Ditching religion for reason has allowed us to come a long way towards perfection! The Middle Ages were hell on earth compared to today, as far as I can see. Relying on empathy and equality instead of Scripture has been our saviour. You know I am not arguing that if something is legal, it must be good, or that if people say you are good, then you are. If someone who hides their imperfections from others was convinced to be good by being reminded that God knows all and that they will be judged accordingly, I don't think the sudden change in behaviour would be particularly impressive. Better to remind them that their behaviour is damaging to others and to themselves, that they will feel much better about themselves and lead much fuller lives if they behave appropriately. This is the interesting thing - your ideal is God, while mine is the perfect social human. When I am 'weak', I am acting to the detriment of other people, and use my notion of the ideal person to improve myself. The ideal person is a representative of the way in which I want everyone around me to act - that is my 'Jesus', you could say. Your God does not represent man, He is above and beyond society, and therefore His will is at odds with my social ideal. You're a real poet. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! See, I built my boat myself, I personally selected all the parts, while your boat is used - you just trust the word of the previous owner that it's seaworthy.
But we can recognize the truth... enough to realize its significance. If the evidence points to God, then however incomplete or hard to understand it is still evidence. You can't keep rejecting everything in the name of Ignorance, or you'll end up nowhere. (I'm not saying we have to accept everything that presents itself as the truth, but at least be reasonable about it). I understand the principle of your objection. But it supposes a theoretical god - and that's not the one I'm talking about. I'm just as opposed to people claiming to do things in the "name of God" to cover up their own motives (we're back at 'covering up', aren't we?) But the problem I have with option 2 is one you will easily recognize: acting out of ignorance. I don't believe it can ever be justified, especially when the stakes are this high. We both reject option 3 on the same grounds, so I'll try to explain why you might have to rethink option 1: Think of it as layered truth. One truth supercedes another, but doesn't replace it. One has higher authority, but never at the expense of whatever is true below it. The Bible shows exactly this kind of progression, and I've said something somewhere about people having a flat, 2D view of history. Why were such atrocities as described in the Bible ever condoned? Because that was as high as culture had evolved at the time. And that brings me to a further point: We can't let the truth stagnate. What is acceptable and moral today might have to be questioned in the future (are you surprised to hear this from a religious person?). But what will we measure these new demands by? Now apply the "layered truth" principle I mentioned. God continually requires more of us, not less. Starts with the basic premise that God created life (genesis). When people were still thinking gods expected human sacrifice, God stopped Abraham from doing what everybody thought was ultimately right and moral (Exodus). That's one "tradition of the prophets" that has been confirmed more and more, until it had become as unthinkable as it is. Add to that the decrees that condemn injustice and "faithless" faith (such as you describe above) and sets down the domain of God (Numbers). Add to that the commandments: 'you shall not kill' and 'honour your father and your mother' (Deuteronomy). You can never go back once you have learned a truth, but you can go forward. Thus the importance of studying the Bible and learning how to apply it with respect to humanity, but with greater respect to God. I'm not talking about religions or gods that have no life and give no life. Then he said to them, Give to Caesar what is Caesar's, and to God what is God's - Matt.22:21We offer to God whatever his holy, praiseworthy and good. The "taxes" He requires is that we support the institutions that serve mankind with the resources we have at our disposal. We owe our lives to Him, so we make our hearts, minds and belongings available to His cause. That's what "worship" means in the Christian sense. Morality should be consistent with common sense and integrity, but subject to God. What happened during the Middle Ages was a perversion of both. And you can't ignore the role monastries played to keep the faith alive, even while it was being abused. The Christianity we have today is a remnant of those refuges, not of the churches or rulers that essentially discarded it. You might think it was ditched, but it really underwent a revival - like the ones administered in the Bible by prophets such Isaiah. Religion by itself can be as dangerous as any other institution that commands authority, and just as prone to corruption. No, God does represent man - or He would have been just as fickle. But man represents God. When you strive towards a perfect social human, you are doing God's will and acting as his image. But unless you recognize His authority you are handicapped; you can't provide hope beyond what is humanly possible, or comfort where there seems to be none. The only man who represented God completely was Jesus, and resisting temptation and being without sin was only the start of it. But my point is, where did you get the parts from? They work so well because they accomplish God's will - but they are insufficient by themselves. Your boat is totally dependent on what you can see from your perspective. Why can't we learn from what our ancestors built using the same tools and the same materials, or listen to their advice on techniques and pitfalls? The things is, we do - and you did as well, maybe unconsciously. Where did you get your moral education, and where did they get theirs? The things is, I trust the prophets and apostles because their boat floated, which is evident because I'm still using it. It picked up Jesus to steer it along the way - what I'm doing is maintenance.
Jenyar, you still don't get what I mean about acting based on ignorance. We believe things that makes sense to us - we get the information, put it all together and build a worldview based on it. Yours is built around your belief in God, and mine isn't. In another discussion you could list all your reasons for believing in God and I could challenge them one by one, but we don't need to do that here (although I'm amazed you could claim that the evidence points to God). You have reasons for believing in God, and I have reasons for not believing. Given that, we need to work out how to live together. We can't realistically decide that every human needs to agree on the same worldview before we can live in harmony with each other, especially since we can't reliably and convincingly prove one particular worldview. Therefore morality has to based around this admission of ignorance (or if you prefer, lack of omniscience). Hence my morality being around other people. I am a liberal, so I want people to act in a way that maximises freedom for all. Your God is theoretical until the day that you can explain why His existence is necessarily true. Instead of just 'likely' or 'things that appeal to me don't make sense without it' or 'I really really want it to be true'. I judge all past actions by my own moral standards, and I believe them to be eternally valid (the traditional theist-atheist positions have switched!). For example, when Joshua invaded the Promised Land and slaughtered all who got in his way, he was declaring that it was okay for people to slaughter other people. He might say 'no, we're different, we're God's chosen people', but then he would just be saying that it's okay for people to slaughter others if they think they're God's chosen people - except that each tribe back then had their own gods, so they could all have slaughtered each other. We see the Holocaust as the most evil event ever, but God obviously thinks it's fine. Unless He changes His mind... Fine, sounds good - but how is it that we improve? Either we follow God's Word and stagnate, or we follow my morals and continuously improve. We have to continuously reject the past ways of dealing with things and improve ourselves. We determine what is right by comparing it with examples of wrong - like Joshua's genocide. Ergo, the Old Testament is wrong. The 'Layered Truth' principle doesn't work because it assumes that we are just improving ourselves, when obviously we are fully rejecting the old ways. There you mention 'hope' and 'comfort' again - is the problem just that you see no hope in a Godless world? One of the many nice things about atheism is the acknowledgement that it takes other people to provide hope and comfort, therefore compelling us more strongly to change the world so that everyone gets a chance; it's no good just to shrug our shoulders and claim that the starving orphan will go to heaven. He won't, so better do something now. And if you can't see a purpose in a Godless world, that's another great thing! We get to make a purpose ourselves! We have no idea of our potential, so lets just keep improving and expanding and see where it goes! I don't mind that I don't see our full potential, as long as I got to be a part of it. Firstly, it doesn't matter where I got the pieces from, only that I understand why they work; secondly, there are a huge number of pieces, most of which do not fit with other pieces. If God made all the pieces, He can only expect that I use the ones that I find most suitable, and He should expect that I don't just take those that make the most comfortable ride, but rather the ones that are best suited to all situations. To use a car analogy, the only argument that you can use, as far as I can see, is to claim that it's better to take a risky leap of faith and build a vehicle that will take you to your preconceived idea of Paradise, if it exists, rather than to do what I'm doing and building a car that will take me anywhere along the roads, fits like a glove with all the other vehicles, doesn't get in anyone's way, but in restricted to the roads (of reason). I'm hoping that the roads do in fact lead to everywhere, including Paradise, but if they don't, I'm okay with that, because I would rather have that everyone else also built my kind of car so that we could all explore the roads and drive among each other in the most efficient way, than everyone building their own weird vehicles in the hope that theirs will take them to Paradise, but which all cause massive traffic jams.
It seems we have come to a split in the path our discussion has taken. I believe that human morality used to fit like a (intrinsic and universally recognizeable human) hand into the glove of divine (or secularly speaking, "Biblical") laws. With that glove we can manipulate problems and information we could not otherwise manage, not least of all the problem of our salvation and dependence on God. That glove had a very definitive shape - a commandment for each finger - that served as a cast for a certain moral outlook... one that survived and overtook the greatest empires and governments the world had ever seen. But that cast had to be discarded as the hand matured. Today people tackle God and gods without gloves with total disregard. During the adolescence of civilization Christ recast the glove into human skin - his own. Some would accept it, others would relish the freedom of having nothing inbetween them and their actions. When you look at the deeds of Joshua and Saul, indeed everyone, you have to measure them by the gloves they were wearing - as they measured it themselves - and it's no surprise that it resembles an OJ Simpson case. Because laws are always insufficient; they're like training gloves. They show what we've been doing. We haven't rejected them, we've just outgrown them. But we're still guilty of the same things, only in more "mature" (civilized/modern/secular/personal) ways... The gloves are still soiled with blood, like David's hands - unworthy to build God's temple. You see the hands for what they are, I won't deny that. Many people don't see even that much. But here our roads diverge, because I see it from an eternal perspective, and how could I see it otherwise? Christ came from a distant destination, so did the first laws, and I'd like to drive a car that will get me there. I've exchanged my gloves splattered with innocent blood for ones that show my skin lashed and torn as it really is. You can exchange gloves when they don't fit anymore or they had become dirty, but you only have one skin - one life. Once that is defiled, no amount of soap will clean it. The injustice I had done to others is no longer greater than the injustice that was done to God. That is my morality. We still drive along the same roads (of reason), but we're both only here until we die. You say you follow an internal law, separate and above religion, but I recognize it: whether you call it the reciprocity principle or the categorical imperative, it is no different than Matt.7:12 So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.It's the skin with which we touch everything. But it's not perfect or complete, and it will disintegrate along with our blood and bones whether justice was served or not, and that's the problem. You're driving on empty.
Short one this time, because I want to get the fundamentals cleared up - none of that last post tackled the issue of ignorance: given that you cannot be sure you're right, what then is the right way to act? If both our basic moralities are the same, the only difference being that you add another dimension to it, namely a responsibility to the Divine, then there would be no problem, we could both evaluate actions as good or bad in the same way. But that isn't how it is. It is your beliefs that dictate your ethics, not, as is the case with me, the situation of ignorance and disagreement that you find yourself in with other people. That is, you would evaluate people's actions differently if you stopped believing in God, while reality, history, or society has no impact on my general view of morality, only on the usefulness of each individual action. For example, if I had a dream that Pretoria was about to be wiped off the map in some cataclysm, and I was somehow sure that this was going to happen, but I couldn't convince anyone, would you understand that I came and kidnapped you and dragged you away against your will because I wanted to rescue you (acting from the personal), or would you understand if I didn't come, because I could imagine how annoying it would be if every loon forced me to do certain things without being to explain the situation rationally (acting from the universal [i.e. the Cat. Imperative])?
OK, I follow you. The thing is, we're both acting out of the same basic "ignorance" - in my day to day life, I can follow the same universal laws and come up with less information than you do. In other words, we're sure of the same things (according to your criteria), but I'm furthermore sure of a greater application of the same laws. Where you can reasonably deduce that justice in a certain situation would require this or that, by faith I believe that the same principle applies universally... and that's nothing less than what Jesus said: Matt.25:45 ... 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.' In your example, I wouldn't appreciate you kidnapping me against my will, but I will take your warning seriously. This might seem like a contradiction to you, but it's not. You wouldn't be telling me any more than I already know: that wars and cataclysms should be expected. You would be the "prophet" in that sense, but if your faith is genuine, you would preach repentance, not escape. In practice my responsibility would be to stay in Pretoria and make sure those who didn't believe you had a chance to be saved - and not just physically. My life has already been rescued, and my life on earth will reflect that. Your example is interesting to me in another sense. Not long ago a few old school conservative Afrikaners spread the rumour that the black government were implementing a project called "Ubuntu", which is meant to discriminate against and eventually criminalize Christians. They suggested all Christians escape out of the big cities into the countryside and designated "safe zones" (obviously where they wanted to "stage a resistance") before this happened. But a Christian's responsibility is precisely where there is injustice and suffering, not to flee from it. "For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it," remember? So you're right, we do propose a dimension of knowledge that isn't of this world. But it doesn't excuse us from it - on the contrary. And here I disagree with you: beliefs always dictate ethics. If had to evulate your assertion: You're basically saying that your general approach to ethics can't be externally influenced. In other words, if it was misguided you wouldn't change it - you wouldn't even know it. That's the real ignorance without God: you don't have anything to evaluate whether your morality is sufficient to accomplish what it's supposed to. A note on faith: it doesn't suspend reality in order to justify the individual - that's abusing it - it means suspending your ignorance in favour of the individual, in favour of a greater sense of morality, in spite of reality. It lifts the person out of his circumstances to treat him as a human being in the holiest sense - as the image of God. If there is a God, of course you would evualate people's actions differently! You would maintain your individual morality, but you would expect it to be universally applicable. What makes you guilty also makes everyone guilty. That kind of responsibility isn't rationally defensible otherwise, and if morality isn't rationally defensible it is hamstrung. Look for example at the Hindu belief in karma - if they believe a person's status and suffering has been determined by his previous life, then they would be doing him an injustice to try and better it, because they are acting against what law of karma determined was just! If a naturalist believes nature determines our worth by natural selection and our chance of survival, and not God, you are making a reasonable statement about our suffering that is contradicted by any moral inclination that favours the weak. What you believe should determine your behaviour, or you are being hypocritical and inconsistent.
Right, ready again! I seek to apply my principles universally as well - otherwise they wouldn't be principles, but just gut feelings of how to act in a given situation. But you are not acting out of, or acknowledging, the same basic 'ignorance' at all - because you have faith. You are sure of the existence of God, which causes you to act differently than you otherwise would. This is the problem. Okay, so you're basically saying that you should act as though today was your last day on earth - be good, save yourself spiritually, and help others - and I accept that. But my point was, should I do things to you on the basis of my own firm beliefs, or should I just tell you about them and otherwise leave you alone? Like, if I thought that by dragging you kicking and screaming to a Catholic church, you would be saved, because the moment you entered you would receive a revelation and convert to Catholicism, and I wanted you as my friend to be 'saved' as I thought only Catholics could be saved, should I? The issue is whether we have the right to act on people in that manner, or just try to convince them with words as long as they are willing to listen. You would probably agree with me that coercion is not a good idea; but the consequence of that is a society in which freedom is paramount. You can talk all you want, but it is up to each person to accept or reject according to their own conscience. This is especially true given the fact that there are so many different versions of the truth out there. Therefore, we want a society governed by a principle of freedom and tolerance, where people are free to make up their own minds. In a society like that, people will believe according to their own conscience, and God Himself will have to respect the beliefs that people choose. If people just don't see things the way you do, being different than you, then it would be weird if God then judged everyone the same way. It can be externally influence, but only via the consequences it has on the world. I don't buy the idea that I am somehow obliged to follow some rule because my ancestors, or my family, or God, want me to follow it. It must reflect my values, or I am being dishonest to myself. Morality must be built on reality! Not what you hope is real, but what you actually know is real. Hitler didn't know much about biology, but he suspended his ignorance in favour of an ideology of racial supremacy, in spite of reality, that culminated in the greatest evil the world has ever seen. That's what I do - I just don't force it on others. You might act differently if you believe in God, but the way in which you treat others shouldn't be different. You should be good to others irrespective of the existence of eternal rewards. ...and on the same note, this is why in medieval times doctors were forbidden to actually try and cure people, because they believed in was God's will that people got sick, so to attempt to change people's fate was to resist the will of God. The atheist's view is the only just one - there are no universal, objectively measurable values, no standard by which to measure someone's worthiness, but those that we devise ourselves. We just happen to be, a weird consequence of the natural laws. We just find ourselves here, with certain likes and dislikes, and we just have to make do the best we can. Throughout history we have been constantly changing our views on what is 'good' and what is 'bad', and we will continue to do so. Nowadays we happen to have a society in which some traits are more beneficial than others, but that's just a reflection of the way in which our society happens to function, and we cannot measure our worth objectively based on that. Now, given that we are all here and have to live together somehow, we have to establish some rules in order that we may live together. We can use ideals to aspire to, and personalities like Jesus might appeal to some, but ultimately it is all about ourselves and others. Lets just stay focused on the people and improving this world, instead of trying to escape it like the believers of so many religions seem to want to do.
Someone's else's salvation does not rest on you alone but on the Spirit of God. You would be justified to do such if the Holy Spirit told you but it is otherwise it's infringing on someone else's personal liberty. Having such confidence that God would reveal a vision without being told by God would most likely be testing God. You are not obliged from the standpoint of considering all truths equal, but if your ancestors did believe in the truth, then you would have some responsibiltiy to believe in the truth as well. God is reality. Hitler formed his doctrines of racial superiority based upon what he knew of biology, but his fault was he believed he knew. Knowledge alone does not save, and provided Hitler's scientist knew a little bit more of physics, the world would be quite a different place. This is untrue, I think, besides the fact you wouldn't want to be cured by a medieval doctor. I think you mean medieval doctors were not allowed to cut up the dead as that would be perceived as defiling the corpse.
Welcome back! Just read your sentence critically once or twice. There are no standards but the ones we devise ourselves is already a contradiction. You can't tell people to devise their own standards and to obey another's at the same time. What do you do with the resulting conflicts of interest? It's interesting that this is exactly the kind of conflict you envision above. But there I agree with okinrus: Since salvation is not something we can enforce, but something that a person is invited to experience, the only Judge can be God's Spirit. Whether it is a compelling invitation or not is a matter between the invitee and God, not the Christian - although his responsibility is towards trustworthy testimony and credible witnessing, and imperialistic mentalities and personal agendas sabotage the message. I agree with you that secular morality is just as prone to evolution and modification as culture itself. But universal morality (or "absolute morality") is just an indication - a beacon, towards the real nature of sin. That it is a transgression against God, and therefore reconciliation and compensation is determined on God's terms. The morality you describe - the one that strives to ensure a harmonious community headed towards peace instead of chaos - is just a path of cobblestones next to the narrow road Jesus described. I'm not equating the various roads we use to travel between our individual definitions of 'good' and 'bad' (or advantageous vs detrimental) with the one road God has laid before us. They do show similarities, beacons we can identify and examine, but they are not always representative. Depending on the moral awareness/sensitivity of the community, a law that condemns adultery might take the form of stoning, while in another community it could just be frowned upon as a breaking of trust or honour, but nothing more. But this relativity disappears where only one Judge is present. However much Christians or any morally responsible community might wish everyone to be just as sensitive to moral decay as they are, the enforcement itself is subject to too many opinions. We are left with the assertion that there is a moral absolute, a moral "sum of your lifestyle", and with not much more. We can't say "adultery is always wrong" without alienating ourselves from communities that conclude otherwise, but we do state that adultery is always a sin, and always abhorrent to God. Hitler might have been able to establish a community in which he could justify genocide (and he was certainly intent on assimilating the world into that community), but before God he was as guilty as he eventually proved himself to be in the eyes of the "greater" community (I say that with a certain amount of irony). As a race of people, who (or which "community") decides our level of morality? Certainly not the lowest claimant, even more certainly not the highest one. Are we stuck in a "generally immoral" world forever? Society has always functioned as best it could. There were always some traits more beneficial than others. That's how we evolved into who we are, isn't it? But while moral traits are too nebulous to be taken seriously, they will never touch ground long enough, taken seriously enough, to steer humanity away from a moral drop off the cliff. Without the reality of God, we simply have no reason, no way to change. There just is no other reality compelling enough to justify a moral life beyond the average. Rev. 3:15 I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! So, because you are lukewarm--neither hot nor cold--I am about to spit you out of my mouth. You say, 'I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.' But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked. *edit* I have to add (at the risk of repeating myself, but to prevent possible misunderstanding) that clearly everybody have the same capacity towards moral behaviour, and even a good reason usually isn't a good enough reason to be moral. We were created with this capacity, and like other faculties we apply it freely. But the difference is in the conclusion. Not many people are willing to see their individually defined morality followed to its ultimate conclusion. We all know where we stand with our own moral laws. But that's just what "judgment" is - to evaluate the conclusion of behaviour, whether realized or not. In other words, if you can't even judge your own moral behaviour without having to depend on others, what use is it if it should be judged? Without God, there is no judge, and there can be no real judgment, no real accountability - only attempts that expose your failings even further.
Put it to a referendum, for example! The important thing is that people agree to obey the law even if they don't like it - the argument being that if everyone only obeyed the laws they personally agreed with, chaos would ensue. You just have to make sure you give people a chance to try to change the laws if need be. There are no objective universal standards, so we are forced to agree on some. A dictator will lay down the law himself, and only change it according to his own whim, which is highly inefficient. A democracy allows for constant upgrading of the system at the behest of those for which the laws work, which is not only very convenient, but involves the general public and gets them interested and thinking about how they want it, which in turn helps people understand why the laws are as they are. God doesn't do that - he just expects obedience. The honest man, however, will openly challenge the views he does not agree with, expecting answers. If the society is allowed to do the same, it will come up with it's own laws which it understands, and which will therefore work much better than something they only vaguely understand (which is not surprising, given that it's based on false assumptions, like the existence of God). Think of the mess past Christian societies have got into by implementing laws and teachings they don't understand. The point of morality, law, and justice is to allow us all to live among one another without everyone stepping on everyone else's toes. That's it! I don't understand your need for a higher arbitor to pass judgement a second time; the only opinion that matters regarding an action I perform is that of myself and other people, including everyone who might sooner or later be affected by my action. The consequences of actions can be pretty hard to know sometimes, but the more we learn about the world, the better we become at it. If I wear a propellor beanie, and nobody minds, what right does God have to declare on Judgement Day "Thou shalt not wear propellor beanies!"? If I instead go on a killing rampage, the people around me will punish me somehow - what business is it of God's?. If they don't find out it was me, and/or I for some reason get away with it or am allowed to do it, then it's still bad, and then the society doesn't work because a functioning society cannot work that allows such rampages. If no one punishes me, I die, and I then come before God who declares "Thou shalt not go on killing rampages!", again what right does He have to tell me this? If He condemns it, then is He speaking for the 'perfect society' that doesn't allow murder? Is He insulted that you killed His creations? Does He just not approve of the weapon you used? By answering this question, you will be defining God against some standard - like, 'the God of harmonious society' or 'the petty jealous possessive God' or 'the aesthetically demanding God'. This makes God into a representative God, like the old Greek gods. But you cannot say 'God knows best, we just don't understand true morality'. This does NOT work, and is again why past Christian societies haven't worked. It's all about what people think, they are all that matters. God's opinion is only relevant if our actions 'step on His toes' in the same way they might to people. But God has all the freedom in the universe, so nothing we do can get in His way. But Him telling us what to do with no reference as to why it is moral is simply immoral. See my point? And sure there are actions which are not good, although they do no real harm. Disregarding your health, gambling all your money away and that sort of stuff is not good for you; but then, that's your problem. Again, it's none of God's business. If you want to be an loser, then be an loser. Hopefully people will help you see the error of your ways, but in a way that shows you how you could live a better life if you pulled yourself together, not waffling on about responsibilities to non-existant entities. Okinrus, if the Holy Spirit tells you to drag me somewhere, please tell it that I decline in advance and will not hesitate to defend myself from you.
alaric I had just finished responding to your post when a power failure wiped everything. It was beautiful. Please be patient while I recollect my scattered thoughts and gather up the motivation to try again. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
OK, I hope I didn't forget anything important. God is not a dictator. You can only come to that conclusion if you have evidence that He is enforcing his will contrary to our efforts, and that his laws are oppressive. I'll show you that this isn't the case. God wasn't set in stone along with his commandments - his sovereignity and laws rest on a moral root that lies within each of us. That's the seed that gave us the reference point from which to judge ourselves in the first place, and that gives meaning to the language we call morality. It's called love. Law is a schoolmaster, as Paul said. Laws are supposed to make a person think about his own actions by giving him something to measure them by. Before a person goes to a referendum or a voting station, he has already decided on his own laws. The same with God's laws - there were cultural laws, but they were all subject to a relationship with God. One that would make sin all the more visible and love and forgiveness all the more necessary. An honest man will stay faithful to his own convictions, even when society disagrees with him. An honest Christian will stay true to the conviction that love is the greatest law of all, even when moral relativism has watered it down. Noah was such a man - what the Bible calls "righteous". God's command requires that we regulate ourselves, our motives and passions, before we have to make laws to regulate them. We can't keep compensating for sin, just like we can't keep compensating for crime - we have to find out where it comes from and address that behaviour. It's unfortunate that sin sabotages even the best intentions, and Christians aren't exempt from it. The problem isn't vague understanding of the problem - it's vague application of the solution. I do see your point, and you describe the problem very well. If God is only representative of love, He becomes nothing more than Eros or Aphrodite - an idol reprenting an ideal. That is why from the first He created only one representation - only one image that can be used as a reference: ourselves. When we step on each other's toes, we are stepping on God's toes, and that's why we need to develop our moral sensitivity. But sinning against another person is not the same as sinning against God in all respects, because the very act of sin separates us from God. It's the same separation I describe above: God-regulation, which comes down to self-regulation, vs. compensatory legalism. Knowing ourselves, and knowing how to treat each other, is the essence of what it means to know God. 1 John 4:8 Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. Throwing away a life that God gave you might be your business, but reconciliation is only possible if God makes it his business. We are obliged to show each other what is possible, and how it can be achieved. That's why we help people in poverty to grow their own gardens, why we make ourselves available to love those who expect no love. Through unselfish efforts they can become aware that a better life is possible, that better motives than power or profit exist. That's our responsibility towards God, and believe me, people who experience such concern for their well-being don't consider it "waffling". They want to know where it comes from, and I don't think "to ensure the survival of the species" is a valid answer. And it becomes even more God's business when people suffer under those who disobey Him. Of course, if you don't want to be part of God's family, you are free to belong to death or whatever fate you believe in. When you take God out of the equation, you are making morality just another system of beliefs based on nothing but blind instinct - to quote you, "Think of the mess past ... societies have got into by implementing laws and teachings they don't understand." Understanding only comes when you know and can predict the consequences. Without God, an immoral life has no worse consequences than a moral one - as long as you can circumvent or manipulate whatever laws have been created by society (of which you are part, don't forget) - you can come off scot-free. Then the underlying moral compunctions can be reasoned away as "evolution made me do it". Don't you find it odd that the greater the society the more their consensus of subjective assertions gravitates towards that single imperative of love - or self-consciously away from it? 1 John 3:21Dear friends, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God and receive from him anything we ask, because we obey his commands and do what pleases him. And this is his command: to believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another as he commanded us.To summarize: Our responsibility towards God is towards each other, and our failure towards each other is sin against God.
You believe we are "God", which makes the argument at best a blind assertion with no moral weight, and at worst a logical fallacy.
You mean, whether He is enforcing His will contrary to our will, and what right He has to do so - but being a dictator is not about oppression, it's about monopoly of power. If God creates us with the ability to think for ourselves, but then also 'lays down the law' and the consequent punishments for disobedience, then He is a dictator. However, if God created us with free will, and this necessarily entailed certain consequences of certain actions about which we cannot understand, then God is not a dictator even though he has the potential to do what He likes. By this I mean God creates life and for some reason thinks it's good, then humans gain self-understanding themselves and suddenly have the ability to send themselves to Hell (here I ignore the implications this has on God's supposed omnipotence) so God gets worried and tries to make them understand what they need to do to live eternally (submit to Him). In this way God is not a dictator, but rather a somewhat frustrated Creator who loves His creations but apparently doesn't have a very good grasp on the best way to get them to behave in such a way as to return to Him. If, on the other hand, the alternative were true, that God created us with the ability to disobey (or come to an honest conclusion that He didn't even exist), but then decided that we must behave a certain way and not another way, whether we understood why or not, and then punished us if we didn't comply, then He definately would be a dictator. If there was a seed of morality within us (perhaps a better metaphor would be a lodestone so we can instinctively know which way is North) then this is still an emotion, and emotions should not be blindly followed - you know this. So even if a subject living under a dictatorship inexplicably felt like he wanted to obey, even if this seemed rationally to be a bad idea, should he? No, right? I agree with all of this, if we agree that sin is self-destructive behaviour (not just disobedience of God, as the honest man would not hesitate to disobey a tyrannical or immoral God). The honest Christian is just an example of an honest man. I just don't see how those who regulate themselves and their motives and arrive at my position are sentenced to eternal death. Behaving toward your fellow humans in the way God intended depends on your personal inclination towards that kind of morality, while actual belief in God has not nothing to do with emotion, but is rather a completely rational thing - do you believe He exists, or not? If you need to be convinced of the evidence for the existence of God first, before you can become completely moral, then the odds are currently stacked against the independent-minded and sceptical people. Now this is something I can agree to! But then, you're just watering God down to a metaphor of our own ideal selves. But I happen not to aspire to the ideals of the Bible, like I've said before. For example, I don't think turning the other cheek is such a good idea, neither for you nor for the person that slapped you. Not turning the other cheek would therefore not be a sin, and not take me further from my own ideal (God). What do we do about that? You see Jenyar, you eventually have to say 'Turning the other cheek is ideal/godly because...', thereby identifying the standard that you use to show why God is good and worth following, and describing God as an entity that wants something specific for us, irrespective of whether we want it for ourselves or not. Why doesn't God just leave that up to us by encouraging democracy? If the seed really is there in all of us, democracy will allow us to end where He wants us to be anyway. Then it's up to Him to supplement that with actual evidence of His existence, so we can make the final step without having to make blind leaps. I thought you were arguing that it was the other way around? It's true that you can get away scot-free, but doing so harms society, and it is in society's interest that this doesn't happen. The ideal society is the one in which all behaviour which we deem 'good' is encouraged and rewarded, while anti-social and destructive behaviour is discouraged. It has to be universally understood that behaving in the best interests of the society is the same as behaving in the best interests of yourself. Religion tries this, and failed, communism failed, all manner of other dictatorships have failed too, because they don't realise that it is the people themselves that must determine their ideal society. Perhaps if you had written the Bible yourself, Christianity might be closer to the ideal than it is, but you didn't, and nowhere does it encourage democracy, meaning it is a bad guide. The greater the society, the more consensus, full stop. Lack of agreement causes collapse. This is exactly why religions and dictators always demand obedience before understanding.
************* M*W: I believe humanity is God, not each person individually. Individually, we are at risk of losing our soul (free will), but humanity together in unison is the One Spirit of God on Earth. Yes, it is an assertion. Yes, humanity as One does have moral weight. I realize you cannot understand any belief in God other than the one you've been programmed to believe, but I believe Christianity is illogical and fallacious. Our diverse beliefs will forever be a spiritual tug-of-war, but since Christianity is declining worldwide, it seems to be losing the battle.
