Well, then, if you've read the whole thing, then certainly you came across the verse that explains your failure to understand the Bible, didn't you?Originally Posted by atiguhya padma
"The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned." I Corinthians 2:14
That, in a nutshell, is why the Bible makes no sense to those who read it only to discredit it.
"I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen, not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else." - C.S. Lewis
Brilliant. I should be memorising this verse.
Your reasoning seems somewhat circular here, or, at least to be risking circularity. You don't believe it's possible to have morality without God because you take a Hobbesian view of humanity because you believe in a Christian God.
Just out of interest, how do you square this version of the Christian view with the parable of the Good Samaritan?
I haven't read Hobbes or Rousseau, except, the latter, in a pinch, so I don't want to damn either of them without a hearing, but their positions, at least as you lay them out here, seem simplistic and excessively polarised. All yin or all yang. In practice, don't we see evidence for both altruism and selfishness as innate, even in very young children. It always seems to me it's the very small kids, the ones who aren't self-interestedly watching the budget perhaps, who want to give money to beggars.
OK, I realise this doesn't exactly constitute a philosophical proof.I've been mulling over your question about what philosophy my Dad's starter explanation of democratic freedom led to. For reasons that go beyond point-scoring pedantry, the question seems clearly to require a working definition of philosophy itself or of 'a philosophy', at least. Break it down to its Greek roots to 'love of knowledge' or 'love of wisdom' and you've got something that seems clearly weighted to epistemology. This is limited, obviously, but this is where I feel your inquiry is leading, to whit, yes we don't really like the idea of murder, we wouldn't want anyone to do it to us or our loved ones, even to strangers, but how do we know it's wrong, absolutely, in such a way as allows us to legislate against it? To put it in, I think, Kantian terms, we think we know this, but how? How is this knowledge given to me? Note that Kant was a Christian, but never felt able to resort to God as an explanation. From his philosophical perspective, it isn't one because it simply removes the question to a transcendent, inexplicable realm, an unknowable realm. God is one of Kant's noumena - an unknowable, something about which we cannot have any certain knowledge. Hence, it has nothing to do with philo-sophy.
Of course, lots of religious people don't require Kant's proofs. They know what they know because they know it in their hearts, have faith etc. - even if, up to the point where proof broke down, they were quite happy to use proofs. This is, of course, the point where non-believers have very little option to throw up their hands and leave the field.
If you'll forgive me, zep, to say this statement lacked rigour would be kind.At a collective level, yes; on an individual level, self-interest will generally be the primary motivating factor.No evidence, no rational deduction. What am I supposed to do? Just say, oh right, yeah, of course?
As it happens, I actually agree, if this was the implication, that in extreme situations such as tyranny, acts of self-interest predominate. Anyone in doubt about this just needs to read Primo Levi's accounts of life in Auschwitz. However, part of the point about those accounts, I think, is that the memories of those acts of self-interest in extremis are part of the emotional burden that concentration camp survivors carry. In other words, they feel bad about having behaved selfishly, even in this situation where they had very little choice - which implies a conscience and a deep-seated desire to do good. Not for nothing are situations like this described as 'dehumanising', I think.
Let's not get sidetracked. I'm not citing instances of past or present misdeeds in order to simply trash religion completely - even if that was my intention when I did it in a certain previous thread. The matter at hand, I think you'll agree, is the question of how we derive our morality. All I'm trying to show is that religion, far from being our only possible hope of having a moral code, is no guarantor of moral behaviour at all.A fair statement applied to history - however, most examples of Christian misbehavior on a large scale can only be found by going back a few hundred years. Radical Islam now wears that crown proudly. I don't think America's prior history with slavery makes it a terrible country now.
Possibly. Or possibly, and, yes, I admit it, this is my view, the idea that an ideology guarantees rightness makes it much more likely that oppression will occur. Look at the Stalinist purges. At a certain point, they reach an almost comical pitch of the nonsensical in which the mere idea of this rightness is enough to drive murder and imprisonment on a massive scale - even as the precise notion of what it was people were supposed to be right about becomes indistinct. Zizek tells a story about Shostakovitch being badgered by a Kremlin official to admit certain information that could be used to condemn a friend of his as traitorous - or be condemned himself. Shostakovitch didn't have the information and went home to spend an agonising weekend imagining his time was nearly up. On Monday, as requested, he went in to see the official and was told that the man had, himself, been arrested as a traitor.I appreciate your fairness; both examples suggest that ideology ultimately can be warped to serve flawed and self-interested human beings who also happen to agree with a certain ideology.
It's this kind of excess of certainty that Christopher Hitchens is talking about when he tries to claim that apparently atheistic phenomena such as Stalinism and the Khmer Rouge were actually implicitly religious. He doesn't make a very convincing case for this at all in my view, but the point does touch on something interesting, which is the way that, at precisely the point in the nineteenth century where it's becoming harder and harder to sustain religious belief philosophically, a powerful move towards certainty asserts itself, like the return of the repressed, in the form of Hegelian dialectics and, thence, Marxist dialectical materialism. It's a sign of the shift taking place that Marx went so far as to justify his system by calling it 'scientific', indicating clearly that the certainty he believed he was offering had nothing metaphysical about it. But it's a last gasp, nonetheless, one that, one might hope, utters its uncanny last post-mortem squeak with Francis Fukuyama's End of History, an attempt to justify capitalism and democracy as absolutely right on the same dialectical terms at a point when everyone really should have known better.
But, as your own line of questioning seems to me to apply, how do we know what's good?The Wiccan ethical admonishment sounds nice, but I'm uncomfortable with its emphasis on will - on what I desire, what I want. It provides a mitigating condition, but its primary thrust deals with doing what one wants. That is very different from Christian theology which pretty much bypasses what an individual wants to what an individual should do. There's a difference. Acting in a way that "harms" nobody is very different than acting in a way that benefits other people. I'm not dismissing the validity of the Wiccan assertion - I'm pointing out how different it is from Christian ethics which says avoiding evil is not enough - one must actively do good.
It's a bit of a sideline, but I disagree about your interpretation of 'will'. It's not necessarily synonymous with 'want'. It could just imply the future tense - do what you are going to do. This, to me, seems the right degree of ambiguity. Whether it's 'want' or 'are going to do', it's only a problem if you think that, off the leash, people are just going to go around committing acts of destructive self-indulgence (well you would think that as a Hobbesian, I guess). I think it allows a lot of room for doing good, but, crucially, doesn't insist on it. Insisting on it seems too rigid, a repression that will ultimately result in a backlash and it also removes volition in moral acts. You asked how my father's schema amounted to anything other than 'fear of retaliation', but how does a religious morality that absolutely insists on acts of virtue amount to anything other than fear of punishment and desire for reward? Where are our good Samaritans in that? The ones who actually have empathy and a moral sense, rather than just a moral rulebook? The ones who do good because they want to?
Actually, you virtually never see these guys trying to defend their atrocities. Usually they just try to say, it wasn't me, someone else did it. That's what was being described on the news last night. The guy was either the leader of a Lords Resistance Army that had forced women to murder their own babies (I know. WTF?) or, in his version, an unwilling conscript.But that's the point, b: YOU see them as harmful - but the governments/groups enacting these atrocities have defenses for them - and without a stable moral frame - a transcendant morality that exists beyond cultural differences - we have no ground from which to condemn them. If we do condemn them, we are automatically implying a standard of morality that they should acknowledge as well - but if it's simply OUR morality, what gives us the authority to condemn/judge at all?
Yeah, it's almost like God talking to me.Don't you love it when that happens?
Or Kant's notorious murderer at the door after your children example, in which he says that the obligation to tell the truth is not void. Uh oh.I will - to an extent - agree with you. The Biblical injunction against lying - IMO - is suspended if my telling the truth (here comes the cliched "Jews in the cellars, Nazis at the door" scenario) will end up in the suffering and death of an innocent person.
OK, maybe, but we're on more solid, potentially universal ground if we make those principles practical. If I say to a war criminal, who might, for the sake of argument, also be a member of a sect that sacrifices virgins, 'You are a criminal because God says murder is wrong.' he'd reject my argument on his own moral terms. The ground is no more solid than if I say 'You are a criminal because I just know somehow that murder is wrong.' since this man has a different conception of God from mine.But in that instance, I have violated a "smaller" restriction in favor of the greater good - because the saving of a human life outranks truth-telling (especially truth-telling that cooperates with evil). That said, we cannot make all ethics situational - but we should clearly be using a set of noncompromising principles to guide us.
He might still try to reject it if I said, 'You are a criminal because you took the lives of people who were no threat to you and who were not willing to give up their lives', he might try a moral defense, but he'd have a harder time. The principle at work: possession is nine tenths of the law. In terms of maintaining social stability, it's a good 'un. He can recognise the terms because he can see that, if the situation was reversed, he wouldn't want the acts he committed to be committed against himself and might even consider them unjustified.
You might say, OK, but this doesn't really imply a morality, just a practical governing framework. And I might agree. I might even go on to say, what's the need for a morality at all as long as we know that we are protected from unprovoked harm? i.e. from injury or removal of our property by another person to whom we've done nothing wrong. As long as that is in place, why shouldn't people 'do what they will' and practice any moral code that suits them?
Roughly the same governing principle also occurs, of course, in the Bible: 'Do unto others as you would have them do to you.' At which point, it does rather look like a (wonderfully simple) guideline for moral action, but one that is, very much, grounded in the practical. No need for a deity to impose such a law. One can see the logic of it immediately and could derive it without reference to a deity.
Of course, to take an unHobbesian view, if you were to accept that morality is innate, the matter would be different. I'll get back to this...
Sorry, but, once again, you're on shaky ground philosophically, not because you're obviously wrong, but because you're simply making a bald statement without any kind of evidence.Scientists can argue away - our day to day decisions and behaviors suggest otherwise
I don't think we've got space to get into this. We'll have to agree to disagree.(notwithsanding random acts of morality that occur - with far less frequency I would suggest than in decades past).
"'History', said Stephen, 'is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake.'" - Ulysses
Good. Yes, the Bible can instill morality, but that's not the point of the argument. The point is, do we absolutely need religion to give us morality?But the Bible does that as well - most people who follow the Biblical commands to give to the poor, to offer compassion to the suffering, to serve the community rather than the self - find that they are more satisfied and fulfilled than when they serve themselves.
And where are your Hobbesian monsters of self-interest now? Why are these people more satisfied and fulfilled? Why does it feel good to do good? Because God rewards good deeds with an immediate sensory kickback? Or because of an innate moral sense to which altruistic action speaks?
Don't get me wrong. I don't think we're all just Rousseauian noble savages who will be more moral the less we learn of society's ways. People do seem to require moral guidance at times. But the point is, something in them responds to this, often with a kind of relief.
This is what I said I'd get back to. Do you want to say, 'How can we have morality without a God to impose it externally?' which seemed to be your initial question, or, 'How can we have the moral sense we do, internally without a God having put it there?' I don't mind if you want to switch to the latter, but please be aware that it would seem to contradict the terms of the previous question, which depend on humans having no innate morality and therefore requiring guidance.
I'm actually slightly at a loss as to how an intelligent person such as yourself can make a statement like this. When has religion ever possessed this degree of monolithic certainty? When has Christianity? Many, but not all Christians agree that the Bible is the word of God, but doctrinal debates have continued among them long after its writing, often with very specifically moral implications.Divinely inspired law has one unbeatable advantage over human-made law: it cannot be manipulated by those in power; it cannot be changed by fickle masses. Therefore, its stability is considerably higher than law established by human beings.
Even if you could somehow get the entire world to agree a set of supposedly divinely imposed moral dogmas, though how you'd do this even God doesn't seem able to imagine, do you really really think that would prevent manipulation by the powerful? What about the Borgias? Selling of indulgences? Jim and Tammy Bakker? etc. etc. Why do you think Lutheranism even happened if not, in part, because of and in opposition to perceived manipulation by the existing powers that were?
Unlike you, with your sense that spontaneous acts of morality occurred more frequently in the past, I rather think we've moved on somewhat. However, that's not to say that the limited moral framework I outline is foolproof. Abuses, especially by the powerful (some of them avowedly religious people) continue to an almost incalculable extent. But, unlike you, I'm not arguing that an all-encompassing morality that will absolutely ensure nothing but moral acts is possible, let alone derived from God.
Quite the contrary. I think it's an imperfect world people by imperfect people, most likely because it was not created by a god. But, even if you don't accept this lack of a god, as you don't, you surely admit that the evidence of moral imperfection is all around, some down to the complexity and ambiguity of issues, some down to out-and-out, fully self-aware corruption.
What is the proper moral response to this imperfection? Gleeful acceptance? I think we can agree that won't do.
But I also think the assumption of a divine moral certainty is inadequate. It's not that, in the end, it allows us too much space not to continue thinking, not to take each case on its own merits. I wouldn't argue that because, as I've said, the debates continue even when one thinks one has got the word of God. It's just that, far from being our only possible source of morality, it doesn't seem necessary, for all the reasons I've given.
So we can't accept the things of the Spirit unless we have the Spirit? How are we supposed to get the Spirit in the first place if, without it, its 'things' seem foolish?
It's interesting that even when Corinthians was being written, there were people who thought this kind of thing was 'foolishness'.
This would seem to apply to more than just people who read the Bible 'only to discredit it'. It would also seem to apply to people who just can't see the sense in it, even if they wanted to.
Since I'm at work (and students will be here soon) I'll have to answer the shorter of your two responses.
I am working off of a couple assumptions, based upon what the Bible says.
1. God created all of us, and He loves us.
2. Because He loves us, He seeks to be in relationship with us.
3. Whether we acknowledge Him or not, He still works to bring us into relationship with Him.
4. This is generally accomplished through the Holy Spirit's influence upon us - the Holy Spirit convicts us of our need for God.
5. Depending upon our circumstances, and the "softness" of our hearts, we will hear that conviction in "louder" or "softer" volumes.
Often-times, the only way for our heart to become softened is for God to allow us to see our need of Him - which may come in the form of a failure, a loss, a trial of some sort.
Either way, it is the heart that truly wants to understand that is given the insight. The attitude with which you approach scripture determines whether or not you'll understand it. Even if you don't know God at all, but you approach the scriptures with an open mind and a heart willing to listen, He'll open your eyes. But if you come looking only for "proof" of some position, if you only come looking to discredit, or to scoff - well, that's what Paul is talking about. You won't get anywhere and it will strike you as nonsense. But I tell my students something similar when they poo-poo great literature: their dismissal of it may be due to the failure of the book - but it may also be due to their immaturity, and perhaps their lack of wisdom/experience to appreciate the profound nature of the book. King Lear - for instance - becomes much more powerful to read once you've had children. As a teen, the play is interesting, but not the harrowing and devastating examination of family dynamics that it is to a parent. The Bible operates similarly.
"I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen, not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else." - C.S. Lewis
It's not that morality is impossible without God, it is that without God morality has not true, stable force upon us. Since I believe that people generally function on self-interest, without a transcendant morality, we risk becoming a law unto ourselves.
I'm not sure I understand the question.
I use the two as sort of rough sketches of the two views of humanity - Rousseau believing that human nature is basically good, Hobbes believing that human nature is basically evil.
Those altruistic children were raised by parents who - more than likely - instilled within them something pointing towards the moral action of taking care of the less fortunate.
But Kant ignored the fact that - even if God is ultimately unknowable, we can know - from the Bible - what he expects of us in terms of moral behavior.OK, I realise this doesn't exactly constitute a philosophical proof.
But what about the other option: that the morality that God provides us with makes sense and is the one that benefits humanity the most? What if part of our faith in God is based on the logical cohesion of things like His moral framework?
I think our default position is self-interest. It takes a heroic effort to be selfless in such situations as those you describe above.If you'll forgive me, zep, to say this statement lacked rigour would be kind.
As it happens, I actually agree, if this was the implication, that in extreme situations such as tyranny, acts of self-interest predominate. Anyone in doubt about this just needs to read Primo Levi's accounts of life in Auschwitz. However, part of the point about those accounts, I think, is that the memories of those acts of self-interest in extremis are part of the emotional burden that concentration camp survivors carry. In other words, they feel bad about having behaved selfishly, even in this situation where they had very little choice - which implies a conscience and a deep-seated desire to do good. Not for nothing are situations like this described as 'dehumanising', I think.
Religion cannot guarantee moral behavior because moral behavior must be acted out by human agents - and human beings will always struggle with morality (which always deals with how we treat others) because of our innate self interest. Religion is irrelevant - it is God that matters; unless morality come from a basis that humans cannot manipulate, it is liable to be abused by our self-interest.
The issue at hand, though, isn't so much religion and its zealots as it is the basis or morality. Religious people do immoral things - sometimes cloaking it in a very sincere belief that it is God's will to do something really immoral (the Inquisitions come to mind, as does the psychopath Fred Phelps and his vicious anit-gay stance). Despite the missteps by religious people, the moral framework of God IS valuable.
There are certain "goods" that are universally accepted. Life, family, friendship, work, play, the experience of beauty, knowledge, integrity.
Although your discussion of "will" is very good, I don't think it applies. If the Wiccan dictum uses "will" as "in the future," then it is merely saying "do what you plan to do" which really isn't even worth saying. If "will" is used as I take it - desire, want - now we have a statement that deals with morality because I'm being told that I can do as I wish as long as no one is harmed.
The Bible's insistence that we do good, I think, is an inunction from God that is meant to nurture our souls; He created us to be in loving relationships; every immoral act we do does a violation to our hearts that has consequences both in our relationship with him and each other.
Fair enough - but do you really think they believe they're doing something wrong? Why would a group assent to do something they believe is wrong? Or is their lack of a defense simply a way to avoid entering into a dialogue they know they will not fare well in? Either way, the actions are being taken, and the censuring from other sources has little effect. Only monetary sanctions seem to speak. Moral ones go unheard - because if morality is humanly established, what hold does it have on me?
I love those moments (depending on what He's telling me).Yeah, it's almost like God talking to me.
That's where Kant is wrong. The Categorical Imperative is WAY more rigid than Christian morality.
But here's the thing: morality is a reflection of God's character - they aren't random rules He arbitrarily picked to enforce. That is largely why I believe most of us have an innate sense of moral behavior imparted to us because our creator implanted within our hearts a certain way of interacting with the world around us. We were created to love - because that is the primary characteristic of God. I'm not suggesting that saying "God says so" carries moral force to someone who doesn't believe in Him. I'm arguing that from a philosophic position that once we start agreeing with the criminal, we lose our moral high ground.
The fact that the criminal wouldn't want his actions perpetrated upon himself suggests his awareness that what he did was wrong. Because if behavior has no moral content, then why should he fear reciprocation?
Because, although avoiding evil is a basic minimum, but I don't think it goes far enough in producing good people. Think about raising children - should we apply that dictum to parenting? To our relationships? I'm not sure avoiding evil/harm is sufficient.
Unless the diety implanted such an idea in us in the first place. Genesis says we were created in the "image" of God - this refers not to likeness, but to characteristics. I take this to mean that He gave us His attributes - love, kindness, compassion, justice - a sense of morality. Those things can be corrupted, but He gave us those things in the first place by making us like Him.
Morality is innate, but not because of evolution. See comments directly above.
How much evidence do I need to prove that human beings generally base much of their behavior around what they think is best for them? How many marriages have fallen apart because one of the partners is "unhappy"? How many babies have been aborted because people didn't want to deal with the consequences of their actions? How many people are currently suffering in this financial disaster because of self-interested banks? How many people have lost their savings or retirement because of ruthless CEOs? Come on - do you really want me to go on?
No argument there.
We don't need religion to provide morality; we need to acknowledge that its source is divine so that it has binding power. Otherwise our only choices are moral relativism, utilitarianism (which leads to totalitarianism), or "might makes right."
Self-interest never completely goes away - but we can choose a higher course of duty. Many people, I think, are surprised that serving others, that doing good, that making an altruistic sacrifice - feels good. Perhaps it lacks the immediate gratification of choosing selfishness, but it provides a quieter, yet deeper, feeling of satisfaction. That doesn't mean it's always easy to choose. Doing good doesn't feel good because of anticipation of reward: it feels good because God designed us to love each other. Sin warps that into self-love - which - like any drug - tastes really good, but hurts you later. Doing good to others doesn't always feel good at the time (like eating well or exercising) but you feel better later.
God doesn't need to "impose" morality from the outside; it's already inside us, but sin has corrupted it so that the Bible exists to remind us of what we innately know but either have forgotten or choose to twist around until it serves us.
Remember: I'm not talking about religion or Christianity as much as I'm talking about the Bible. There's a difference. The Bible does not cover all moral issues (like slavery, abortion, euthanasia, etc) - but it does provide us with principles to use in our assessment as to how to respond to these issues. The certainty is not placed in particular denominational dogmas, but the basic principles of morality that the Bible acknowledges - which would be easier to attack if they weren't things that are generally acknowledged as being good.
The fact that God had to use human language to communicate His character to us automatically means that His word is liable to be manipulated. That is unavoidable. I'm not suggesting that returning to a God-based morality would solve all problems - I'm suggesting that without it we are caught in ethical quicksand because our platform for making ethical judgments is seriously compromised.
I'm not arguing that in the least. My post above pretty much gives my position. I don't believe in a moral utopia - but disconnecting God from morality loosens morality's power to hold us in check. A good book on Natural Law philosophy ravels this out better than I can.
We are morally corrupted - but the Bible explains that; we were created by a perfect God and we existed initially as perfect beings; however, we were given freewill, and we used it - and because of that, our perfection disappeared and we have become corrupted in our ability to apprehend God and obey Him.
We must look to something higher than our corrupted selves to guide us.
Perhaps. But morality's force largely comes from what stands behind it. Just like a parent who carries out threats with consequences, the moral law must have something behind it that gives it authority. If the parent never consequences, his threats become meaningless to the child. If the authority is us, then we can revise it at will until it bends to our will. If the authority behind it is God's, then we have to acknowledge its authority and act accordingly to the best of our ability.
"I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen, not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else." - C.S. Lewis
My point is, how do you propose to make this stable force work, given that you admit that believers still fail, often quite egregiously, to live up to your god's moral code?
You're still predicating your entire argument on something you don't seem to think it's necessary to prove - this dominance of self-interest. You do need to prove it. It's not apodictic or axiomatic.
The question was how you square your idea that we are driven by self-interest with the parable of the Good Samaritan, the story, said to have been told by Jesus, of someone offering help without either fear of punishment or desire for reward, i.e. without being governed in any obvious way by self-interest. By the by, the Samaritans were people whom the Jews, to whom Jesus was primarily preaching, regarded as enemies, which increases the sense that the act was purely altruistic.
Just because you say it's so, doesn't mean it is. Again, to recap, I was talking about children who want to give to beggars, even when their parents don't want to.
I don't know what to say to your response, Red. Are you seriously trying to suggest you've never felt these kinds of altruistic impulses without being told to? I'll do you the credit of simply saying I don't believe you. Other than that, all I can tell you is, some of us have.
He ignored this because he was in pursuit of philosophical certainty, not, as he makes clear in an early work, Dreams of a Spirit Seer, superstition or hearsay. My point, in bringing him up, was only that - that his project was philosophical. I made this point in direct response to your question about what 'philosophy' my father's explanation of democratic freedoms led to.
My overall point in doing so was that, yes, it is indeed difficult to justify our values on strict philosophical grounds, however, if you want to make this point, you have to go all the way with it. 'Because God says so', is not accepted as a philosophical proof, because it doesn't prove anything.
I'll anticipate a possible retort: it would be if we all accepted the Bible as God's word. This self-evidently won't do, for reasons I've already given. Christianity was the dominant belief system in Europe from the Middle Ages almost to the present, but has been riven, throughout the period, with theological debates and disagreements. The word of God appears to be open to interpretation, even interpretations that have allowed popes to sanction holy wars against unbelievers.
If it makes sense in itself, we don't need a God to tell it to us. That's the main point I've been trying to argue. Everything I've written has been in response to your question, stated as follows:
There you go. It's comes from the fact that it makes sense - it's something that can be worked out logically. The only thing left for you is to retreat back to your idea that we need God to impose this logical framework through reward and punishment and/or a transcendent gaurantee of perfect rightness. In fact, if it makes sense, we don't even need the transcendent gaurantee, just the sense.
Your faith in God. Just to be clear, I don't have one.
I don't know, Zep. To some extent, what your faith is based on is up to you, but this, again, is hopelessly circular. Presumably, this is the 'moral framework' laid down in the Bible, which you believe is the word of God. To even believe it is His moral framework you're being convinced by, you'd have to have faith in his existence first, so I don't see how the moral framework could, in itself, be the basis for your faith.
So you keep saying. Without doing any work to prove it.
Yes, and people make that effort frequently without being religious, or without believing in the God from whom you believe you get your morality.
Are you saying that the effort required for selfless action implies we're always overcoming our default position of self-interest? You can just as easily argue it the other way: that really selfish action also requires a huge effort to suppress one's conscience. I'm guessing you'll say, well, that's because we've been told by some higher authority that sefishness is bad.
All I can say is, you really haven't proved the point. You're just saying what you believe and what you appear to believe defiantly in the face of overwhelming evidence that human beings are capable of both extraordinary selfishness and extraordinary selflessness.
But what about situations where no one would begrudge the self-interest morally and yet conscience still comes into play? Why did some concentration camp survivors, for instance, feel 'survivor's guilt'?
More unsubstantiated insistence, but I'll go along with it. I'd just like you to show me a basis that humans cannot manipulate. The Word of God, as it appears in the Bible, seems not to provide that.
And another bald statement without anything to back it up. Earlier you suggested the possibility that
to which I retorted, yes, and if it does make sense, we can work it out ourselves logically. So, in that sense, I might concede that the moral framework you think God provides us with is valuable, it's just that there's no need for a god either to provide it, since we can work it out, or to guarantee it absolutely, because the sense it makes is its own guarantee of validity.
You're arguing now almost as if I'm trying to set up Wiccan morality in opposition to Christian morality. I'm not, I'm just trying to show that we don't need a God, Christian or otherwise, to instill morality in us. I'll admit your point that morality probably requires a little more of us than simply not doing harm, to whit, it probably requires that we do good.
Er.... I'd have thought you'd be able to answer this one yourself: self-interest, the thing you believe is our default position; either, in this case, the desire to commit sadistic acts for themselves or to win in battle even by unfair means.
Its own internal sense.
You said above that 'Religious people do immoral things - sometimes cloaking it in a very sincere belief that it is God's will to do something really immoral'. It seems then, for the nth time, that divinely established morality doesn't have a stable hold on believers either.
As far as I understand this concept so far, I agree.
Well, then you've answered your own question:
In your schema, it comes from God because you believe God imparts an innate sense of moral behaviour to us. But I guess what you're trying to say, now, is that, yes, we have this innate moral sense, but we need to believe in God and read his word in order to bring it out and overcome our desire to sin. Is that accurate?
No, but you seem to have been saying, despite my proofs against, that it does, in the same way, for all the people who believe in Him.
The only reason I started talking about convincing criminals that what they'd done was wrong was because you seemed to be concerned with how we might arrive at a universal moral code that allows us to condemn them:
This seemed to me to suggest that we should agree with criminals, in that they should understand what they were being punished for in order to, like, imply 'a standard of morality that they should acknowledge as well'. Something I would agree with. Now I see that you want us to agree with God, but not with the criminals. Is that what you meant?If we do condemn them, we are automatically implying a standard of morality that they should acknowledge as well - but if it's simply OUR morality, what gives us the authority to condemn/judge at all?
I can't really see what you're getting at. I'm not talking about reciprocation, for one thing, I'm talking about understanding that an action is wrong because you wouldn't like it if it was done to you. You surely don't need a God or a transcendent morality to tell you that you'd find being robbed, injured or murdered unpleasant?
It's a big question. The doctrine of 'no harm' is frequently evoked in child-rearing, e.g.
Authority figure A: Small boy, will you please stop picking at that/making that noise/getting yourself dirty?
Authority figure B: Oh, leave him alone. He's not doing any harm.
This is just a massive subject. From what I can gather, but it's all pretty much fragments picked up hear and there from chit chat, TV etc. child-rearing experts believe that the way you treat a child, from a moral point of view, is largely a self-fulfilling prophecy. Assume they're basically decent and treat them with respect and they'll be decent and respectful. There also seems to be a strong emphasis on praising their good actions and being very clear about explaining why they're wrong actions are unacceptable.
I don't have kids, but various friends of mine do. I don't see them actively telling their kids to do good deeds or anything, but I do see the kids, frequently, being spontaneously kind.
Again, I'm uncomfortable with the idea of telling people to do good because then there's nothing of themselves in it, they're really just acting as the instrument of the person who told them to do it'; they're not giving anything of themselves etc. and the idea that they need to be told fails to recognise any good impulses they have of their own.
No, I just want you to
a) see that, just as there are, indubitably, countless acts of extreme inhumanity and selfishness, there are countless acts of kindness and decency too. What about all the people who regularly give to charity, risk their lives to save others, protest, in huge numbers, against what they perceive to be unjust wars and dictators, take in foster children, provide free medical services to the poor etc.? A guy in South Africa is currently on a 21 day hunger strike to try to get his country and others to take decisive action against Robert Mugabe.
b) explain to me precisely how, if God imparts an innate morality to us, our 'default' position can be said to be one of self-interest. Are you saying God imparts the innate morality and then the devil immediately takes control?
But, as I say above, if, as you suggest, it just makes sense, isn't that binding enough?
More unsubstantiated argument. How does utilitarianism lead to totalitarianism? How do you know it always would? I'm not denying that it would, but you can't honestly be hoping to convince me by just saying whatever you happen to think is true without any kind of proof?
Anyway, as I said before, those aren't the only options. There's also 'Do unto others as you would have them do to you', a perfectly good principle that is so obvious in its sense that we hardly need a God to provide us with it. As you say, it just makes sense.
And you say, yourself
and
I might quibble with the details, especially the religious ones, but I'm happy to agree with the substantive point that doing good feels good, love feels better than hate etc. You say this comes from God. I say it's the evolved tendency that holds societies together and allows for perpetration of the human race. Potato Potahto.
sin has corrupted our innate moral sense at what point? The moment of conception or birth?
Right, because they make sense to people even without a religious framework or a belief in God.
Oh. Poor God, doing his best, but it's not good enough, to be clearly understood. Are you saying he's not all-powerful?
By what? By what that doesn't appear to be just as able to compromise a God-based morality?
But it doesn't. The only extra leverage God would seem to have is eternal punishment/reward. But you can get the reward and dodge the punishyment just by repenting. (Also, as an aside, as Rozzy's posts in the Christian Hell thread suggest, the original gospels may not actually have communicated anything about an eternal punishment.)
You haven't yet given one good reason why.
Would you agree, at least, that, as the example of Stalinism indicates, when humans believe themselves to be guided by something higher, they run a serious risk of losing touch with the reality of their imperfection and acting as if they do have perfect understanding?
No. Authority based solely on punishment or power is tyranny. The check on that in democracies is reason. Authority figures of any kind gain respect by behaving rationally and giving reasons for the things they do that are understood by the people over whom they have authority.
It's clear you understand this because you've already argued against 'might is right' as a governing principle. You've also suggested several times that the value in Christian morality is that it just makes sense. What makes sense does not require a powerful authority figure to be 'behind' it, nor can we be said to be behind it. Its authority derives from its internal logic.
BUMP *weeks later*
So, did I win then?
Ummm...No.
I'm not discussing whether the system "works" - I'm philosophically stating that without a transcendant base, morality becomes more susceptible to manipulation by humans. Yes - God's morality can be manipulated, but since the morality exists to be verified (His word), it's harder to twist into unrecognizable shapes.
How do you suggest I "prove" this? What would convince you I'm right?
Our "default" behavior is selfishness, unless overridden by something "higher" (like a moral framework). The Samaritan's act was altruistic - so? I never said we were helplessly selfish - I said it's the default position unless something higher intervenes - a moral code, fear of punishment, desire for the good opinion of others, etc.
Exceptions exist, yes. No statement of human behavior can ever be 100%.
Yes - I have those impulses. But more often than not my first instinct is to take care of me.
OK. Point noted.
God's morality isn't about "philosophical proof" - it's about how human nature works vs. how He designed it to work. The Bible tells us that the law exists to show humanity their need of God - that without Him we cannot be "good" in any way, shape or form. But that's a tangent: I'm not suggesting that God's morality is any more valid than another "morality" except that it is more stable because it exists beyond human creation; because it is established by a divine being, it has more authority than humanly-created law.
OK - and I'm not asking the world to accept God's moral law. I'm simply saying that the consequences of the reality that you've described is that totalitarianism becomes easier once man becomes his own arbiter of right and wrong because then law can be made to serve the state's will - whether the state is just or not.
Sure - but just because it's "common sensical" doesn't give it the same authority. Common sense can be challenged or bypassed by circumstances. God cannot.
Addressed above. I'm talking about the power behind the law. A police officer can order 20 people what to do (though he's only one man) because people know that the entire law of the state stands behind him. If the only authority a cop had was him/herself, why listen if there's more of us than him/her? It's the authority behind the officer that gives him/her their power. The same is true for moral law.
Understood.
God's moral framework is not the basis of my faith, and I'm not sure I've ever indicated that to be so. My faith in God is based upon my upbringing, my study of His word, and my personal experience as a Christian. The moral framework actually took a while to accept and understand.
Give me some parameters and I'll see what I can do.
True - but the Bible tells us that all good comes from God - so that any "good" behavior by anybody - believer or not - is a result of God's presence in that person's life. Since God created us all, He doesn't need to ask permission to be a part of someone's life, though He will - with continued rejections, eventually withdraw from an individual. But this takes a long time and many, many rejections.
Yes I am.
Do you have children? I do - and I work with teen-agers for a living. Raising kids generally is a revelation as to how human nature works.
Humans are capable of both - but you seem to want to paint me into an "either/or" corner and that's not what I'm saying. Without the intervention of something mediating, I believe we will tend to look out for ourselves. If our first inclination was to take care of those around us, I would suggest a much lower divorce and abortion rate. Not every decision to terminate a marriage or a life is done for justifiable reasons. As well, the incidence of extramarital affairs suggests that doing the right thing isn't as compelling as you'd like to make it seem. That's just a few examples.
Could be the moral framework that they were raised with. Christians are taught to believe that "there, but for the grace of God, go I." That's one explanation.
God's word can be manipulated, but not permanently because someone else can examine it and challenge the interpretation taken by another individual/group. It exists to be referenced. But humanly-established law can be changed so that there is not standard to check it against.
Already addressed already.
Just pointing out the difference between the two.
Good point.
Whether believers adhere to it doesn't change its stability - because ultimately, we will be held accountable for our behavior as measured by that law. That's the difference. If human law changes to allow random murder, how could anybody be held accountable? It would be "right" because it's "legal" (the reality of positive law) which is different from divine (or natural) law - which allows us to evaluate the justness of the positive law. God's law allows us to validate the justness of human law.
[QUOTE=blp;667320]As far as I understand this concept so far, I agree. [//QUOTE]
Phew!
Yes. But that innate moral sense has been corrupted by sin (the fall in Eden) which now gives us a predisposition towards self-interest that conflicts with that innate moral sense (kind of the angel and devil on our shoulder cartoon).
It should - but being a Christian doesn't mean the battle against self-interest simply disappeared. We struggle with that selfishness too. Christians aren't that different from those who aren't - we're simply supposed to be working on those things.
The postive law is sufficient to condemn a criminal. We need divine law to validate the justness of the positive law that condemns the criminal.
No. Criminals don't have to agree with our interpretation of the law - but the positive law should agree with divine/natural law.
You're right. That should be obvious - but that didn't stop Nazi Germany from legitimizing the extermination of human beings based upon ethnicity.
Not doing harm doesn't mean that an action is beneficial or edifying. A child scratching his genitals in public with his hand inside his pants isn't "harming" anybody, but is his action appropriate, beneficail or edifying in terms of preparing him for society?
TSorry - "friends with kids" doesn't give one any authority in the area of childraising any more than being single and having married friends gives one authority in committed relationships. Raising your own kids - I dare suggest - would radically alter how you see human nature.
I'm not telling anybody they need to "do good." But - if you don't actively train MOST children to be good and think of others (generally what we mean by being "good") they will tend to think only of themselves.
I've already admitted that "a" is true above.
I've already addressed "b" above as well: sin has corrupted the integrity of that innate moral sense.
As I said above: "makes sense" can be shoved out of the way by exceptional circumstances (like some of the ridiculous "Patriot Act" components that were terrific violations of American citizens' civil rights, all in the name of "national security").
Seeing moral choices as a means to an end makes people into "means unto ends." Once the "greater good" becomes the standard for morality, we can do all kinds of detestible things for the "greater good" (whatever the powerful state tells us that "good" is, by the way. Without a divine law to measure the state's laws against, how can we protest these laws?).
But the reality that God is behind the Golden Rule means that we understand that it can't just be pushed out of the way without serious moral consequences.
"Evolved"? How does a moral sense "evolve"?
Yes. We are "born into sin."
Yes - but that's because God created them and they bear this "stamp" of their maker within them whether they acknowledge Him or not.
How patronizing.
I'm suggesting that God attempting to put His ideas into human language is like us trying to put quantum mechanics into dog barks. He's working inside the limitations of our existence.
But there is a final accounting with God. That is the authority behind the law. Even if you manipulate God's law, you will ultimately answer for it from He who created it. You might get away with it for now - but not permanently.
No. God knows the contents of the human heart. Repenting just to save your skin doesn't work if not sincere. The Bible also teaches that repeated sinning "hardens" one's heart against repenting. The longer you sin, the less likely it becomes that you'll even WANT to repent. It's a dangerous gamble to bet on a "deathbed conversion."
I've given numerous reasons thus far in this post.
That is a risk. CS Lewis postulated that the "higher" one flies, the farther down he falls - saying that the greatest saints make the most horrendous of sinners.
With God, reward or punishment is a function of reality - not His arbitrary choice; choosing God is its own reward; not choosing God is its own punishment.
Already addressed above more than once.
"I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen, not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else." - C.S. Lewis
"Not in entire forgetfulness,
And not in utter nakedness,
But trailing clouds of glory do we come
From God, who is our home:
Heaven lies about us in our infancy!"
William Woodsworth
Laid back says ''If we consider things from scientific point of view, we find that everything in nature, right from a simple leaf to a blue whale or to just whatsoever else we can think of has a beautifully planned system.'' Like Cancer -birth deformities, Mental illness, a Rabbit found underground dead with a dead baby rabbit stuck in the birth canal?
You haven't stated it, but I am taking your position to mean that those instances make you doubt the existence of the divine. They also make you doubt the existence of the soul, I presume? What about any other ideal? Love? Hope? Faith? Should we not have hope because of some evils in the world? Should we not have faith? Hope, faith and love are all completely integral in coming to know God. They're also necessary for us as human beings. We aren't fulfilled without them - external, material objects don't satsify us permanently or ultimately.
In the words of a song by Michael Card:
"So surrender the hunger to say you must know
Have the courage to say I believe
For the power of paradox opens your eyes
And blinds those who say they can see"
Some of us laugh
Some of us cry
Some of us smoke
Some of us lie
But it's all just the way
that we cope with our lives...
What I meant is that you think of anything in Nature- living or non-living, you will find there a beautiful planning i.e. a complex mechanism by which a system (leaf or a stone or water, etc) perform its tasks or hold itself together. It makes you marvel, how everything happens by itself. If you study the physics or chemistry or biology of anything in Nature, you will find this planning there and to which scientists would not dispute. Further, if you take any human made objects ( Are humans anywhere near creating life in the laboratory with all know-how available whereas the life on its own evolved by itself as per science many billions of years ago? Also are we anywhere near putting an end to death? The day science gets there; I will start having doubts about God) like cars, TVs cell phone, nuclear bomb etc, what we have actually done is studied only the laws (science) of nature and harnessed this knowledge in coming out with our inventions. But why nature works in a particular way, why positive and negative charges attracts and like charges repels, do we really know?
Second point I guess from your remarks are that you say there is also a bad side to nature. Examples that you have given. I fully agree with you. But even in the bad things that happen, there is a mechanism still working, but working now in a particular way owing to failure of a normal mechanism. Perhaps you are indirectly implying that if a good God is there then why bad things happen. I don’t know the answer and I only guess that it is a part of our learning in earth. If all remains good for ever, then we may take everything for granted. So the pain, suffering, losses, deaths etc are there which make us reflect on our transitory happiness and make us seek God, seek for everlasting happiness.
Do also read my next post, where I have used your example.
I have been mulling over this for some time. What do you say? It is a bit long but if you are able to finish it, and it makes your shake your head with amusement or disgust, do comment.
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Is it not possible that God is actually the director of the continuous drama that is being played in world day and night, week after week, year after year? He operates silently from backstage but it is He who calls all the shot, pulls all the strings. And does so, so quietly, and so furtively that we fail to feel His presence and start believing that this whole drama runs on its own without any one directing it.
One day 9/11 happened. Misguided persons, pent up emotions take the control and succeed in their mission of terror. The whole world watches the TV replays again and again. Unbelievable. What is the world coming to? What the heck the God can be doing? How come He let such a thing happen? Or is it God’s doing? He must have been aware of all this and still He let this happen?
Is it actually His way of asking us, Can you still believe on me after this. Can you still hold on to your faiths.? Or is God trying to send a message to humanity: Life is too short, too uncertain, don’t take yourself as invincible.
A Sunday afternoon. Sunny day. The city center is buzzing with activity. People are purchasing, tourists are sight-seeing, there is a zing in the air, lovers are gazing deeply into each-other’s eyes, oblivious of the world. Everything is looking fine with the world. A car comes at a breakneck speed and crushes a little kid who just moments ago was chuckling with glee. The kid’s young mother is inconsolable. Everyone who sees the sight is shocked, heartbroken. Why an innocent kid has to die this way?
Simple… A fast car, out of control. Probably the driver was drunk or casual or lost somewhere in thought or some other thing. But such things happen in the world. It can happen to anybody. There is no God. World runs on its own by its own rules.
Or again is God playing trick on us. Is He luring us into believeing that the whole drama runs on it own. Probably challenging us can we still believe in Him after this.
If we look around, watch TV or read newspapers, we will find plenty of bad and sad things happening: Rapes, unsolved grim murders, fit persons becoming severely handicapped for life, Mentally sick people, people dying of hunger or committing suicide out of loneliness, a rabbit found underground dead with with a dead baby rabbit stuck in the birth canal etc. We will find the world rampant with bad things.
Can it be God playing trick on us. Playing His drama so effectively that we begin to suspect His presence. Is He challenging us- Can you still believe in me? Can you still cling to your faith if your world going topsy-turvy?
Coming back, why that kid had to die. We can see it only as the death of a seven year old- a bubbly life coming to an abrupt end in an unnatural way. But may be there is a reincarnation thing after all. For God the kid is not seven year old but a soul taking birth again and again in various human forms in earth. May be even earlier than Buddha, Muhammed, Christ, Krishna and others. In His eternal play, may be in a karma theory we don’t know much about, the soul was to stay only for seven year as that kid. God sees the kid as an eternal entity ever existing and He is working towards the entity’s final union with Him. With our limited knowledge about an event, what for us is mindless, unforgivable and too callous, for benevolent God who sees everything in full light it may only be a passing show in an eternal play.
Yes, there are no proofs for these things. It seems that God sees to it that there are no proofs of the type atheists seek. And believers just have to march forward on a faith that may get tested time and again.
__________________________________________________ _
mm.. What happened?
I just hope that atheists and believers are not aiming their guns at me.
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