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Sorry to clue you in on this cupper because it will get your "Theologitis" to flare up.....but the Bible is no better or worse a basis for morality than anything you (or any other Secularist) have to offer.
Nothing that you think is a moral guide or source of morality has anything on the Bible from a objective standpoint.
That which you criticize is just as good as anything you have to offer...and can probably crush anything from you in the "enduring power and influence" department.
Sure. Might as well take morality from Mein Kampf, too, while we're at it. One is just as good as the other so if I find a book that tells us to go out and murder, I might as well go out and murder.
It's someone nonsensical to think that the Bible is no better or worse than anything secularists come up with especially given the fact that we've had to consistently turn away from the Bible in order to have a civil society. After all, there's nothing in the Bible that says child molesting is wrong but working on the Sabbath demands a death sentence - with a cruel and inhumane method of execution, I might add.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by GldnRule
Sorry to clue you in on this cupper because it will get your "Theologitis" to flare up.....but the Bible is no better or worse a basis for morality than anything you (or any other Secularist) have to offer.
Nothing that you think is a moral guide or source of morality has anything on the Bible from a objective standpoint.
That which you criticize is just as good as anything you have to offer...and can probably crush anything from you in the "enduring power and influence" department.
One could include the Koran, Vedas, and even Confucius's writings as being included in the enduring power and influence" department. Confucius may even last longer.... He at least can be clearly understood, makes sense and translates easily in to Occidental languages.
Problem with the Bible is, is that it was written in a time and place when certain activities, such as slavery, were accepted as normal and no one spoke out against them. Not Moses, not Abraham,. Isaiah, and certainly not Jesus.
On that issue alone, it loses its credibility as a moral guidepost. I maintain my two commandment construct is better.
... what about somebody who has a coherent package that has mutually exclusive values from yours? Think of the extraterrestrials or the Hindus prior to British colonization. You can have coherent moral systems that are incompatible.
And when that happens, the group on whom an incompatible but repugnant system is being imposed, will to the extent possible, fight it and when those two cultures duke it out, either the better adapted one will win, or due to temporary power imbalances, the weaker will be subjugated regardless. But over time, the more functional society will win out.
Someone else, Arq I think, mentioned the classic Star Trek episode The Savage Curtain in which a powerful alien pits good guys against bad guys and can't see the difference in their philosophies. And Captain Kirk points out that the difference is in what they value and had to be offered as an incentive to "win". The bad guys want power, the good guys want freedom / justice / fairness. In the long run it is the latter that ends up winning out because people are willing to die for it rather than simply conform for it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by GldnRule
On his view, there is no way to adjudicate which one is right or wrong. Indeed, there really is no truth about which one is right or wrong. And secondly, why adopt a moral point of view at all? Why not simply be a nihilist and claim, as Ruse and Mackie do, that these moral feelings that we have are simply the products of biological and social evolution? So Nielsen really can't justify his moral beliefs. He has these moral intuitions, and I said in my first speech that certainly without God we can build systems of morality. We can recognize objective moral values without God. But what we cannot do, I think, is consistently hold that human beings retain objective moral value in the absence of God.
We can hold anything we want to, god or not. I hold that human beings are valuable, even if not objectively so, in the absence of god, and I dedicate my life, such as it is, to that end, with as much and often more tenacity than theists do in my experience ... in part because I don't imagine that an invisible sky wizard has it all in hand, I realize that is up to me and my fellow humans to be active to these ends.
What a theist is actually doing in making this argument is revealing their own moral weakness and indolence and feigned helplessness. If you sit around waiting for invisible beings and powers to make things happen you are simply caving to fatalism.
Quote:
Originally Posted by GldnRule
Now Nielsen responds at this point, "But look, what basis do you, Christian believer, have for affirming objective moral values? If you say it's just divine commands, that's arbitrary." I wouldn't say it's based on divine commands. I would say it's rooted in God's nature, which is what Plato called "the Good." It is rooted in God's very character.
No doubt he / you WOULD say that, but talk is cheap. Saying something doesn't make it so.
Because most humans, flawed though they are, have wide (and deep) agreement on many important moral principles (for instance, that murder is a great harm), it's tempting for some to assume that this must come from someplace other than humanity, that it must be inherent / axiomatic / ineffable / objective "rightness" that a deity has "written on our hearts". But the simpler and more logical explanation that just as you can count on human folly, you can also count on human nobility and rational self interest. It's just that this runs counter to the fundamentalist narrative of original sin / utter depravity and the misdiagnosis that human folly is somehow lodged in the physical body or at least the material world and that therefore human virtue must have a locus outside the body and perhaps outside the material in some mythical "supernatural" realm.
Sorry to clue you in on this cupper because it will get your "Theologitis" to flare up.....but the Bible is no better or worse a basis for morality than anything you (or any other Secularist) have to offer.
Nothing that you think is a moral guide or source of morality has anything on the Bible from a objective standpoint.
That which you criticize is just as good as anything you have to offer...and can probably crush anything from you in the "enduring power and influence" department.
You quoted me in the previous post however I never once have asked the question of how did zodiac let this happen. I have given my idea of where we get morality and my definition of the word harm and how it relates to morality. The OP has basically rejected all of this on the basis that morality must come from a single authority who never changes, in other words the OP implies the only acceptable answer is god. The OP also insist that in order for it not to be God the must be a universal agreement of all definitions.
The implied rules of these threads are : let us discuss where morality comes from but anything other than from the Bible has to be universally accepted without exception or it is inadmissible. If we got our morality from the Bible slavery would not be immoral, we would view rape victims as villains and the killing and raping of villages by soldiers would still be acceptable. The sole reason for including the Bible in this discussion is that the OP and others have insisted on a single authority or else wanted proofs of where our morality comes from. Proofs they do not present for their views.
If a Christian wishes to discuss morality or harm with non believers leave out your special rules. Inferring that it comes from the Bible but not wanting examples from the Bible used against you is stacking the deck.
You see debates like this a lot on this board. As well as the broader issue of "The Problem of Evil" being used to slam Religion and/or God Belief. A big percentage of Atheist treads point out something that happened, declared it as "bad" or "evil"...then ask, "how could a all loving & powerful God allow this to happen?"...........
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I do not slam God or faith. I do not blame God for terrible things happening.
God is use by ideologues to blame terrible world events on groups they wish to oppress and marginalize.
A woman's rape is because God hates this or that. Ebola is caused because LGBTQ citizens might get to marry. Rape is wrong, but it is not a fact.
There seems to be an escape clause. Jesus did not equivocate.
My point to the op was this; if someone wishes to use logic, and claims to know logical principals of reasoning they should use those principals to defend, not a yes or no question, but a true or false question.
I do not slam God or faith. I do not blame God for terrible things happening.
Neither do I. In fact, I am an atheist precisely because I do not do that. IF I were still a believer in the standard tri-omni fundamentalist god, I would HAVE to slam that god or faith in that god and blame him for terrible things. Simply because that god explicitly makes certain representations and promises to his followers that he completely dropped the ball on. A ball that he supposedly claimed to have possession of.
By exiting the faith, I was recognizing that life is too short and god too not worth it to have my knickers in a twist about it.
But that doesn't prevent me from pointing out the illogical, schizophrenic aspects of fundamentalist thinking in this regard. IF they want to hew to their particular sort of interventionist god then they have to confront the same things I had to confront, willingly or (as in my case at the time) not.
One could include the Koran, Vedas, and even Confucius's writings as being included in the enduring power and influence" department. Confucius may even last longer.... He at least can be clearly understood, makes sense and translates easily in to Occidental languages.
Problem with the Bible is, is that it was written in a time and place when certain activities, such as slavery, were accepted as normal and no one spoke out against them. Not Moses, not Abraham,. Isaiah, and certainly not Jesus.
On that issue alone, it loses its credibility as a moral guidepost. I maintain my two commandment construct is better.
You are free to believe what you want, but I think you should understand
1) You have displayed an extreme lack of understanding of the Bible. For example, your argument about slavery is another example that you do not have the ability to objective interpret the Bible. The only thing you understand about slavery is through your own cultural lenses. Slavery in those times is not the same as slavery as you and I have learn about in this country. I recommend you research what slavery was during those times. It's just like how people greet one another. Depending on where you are, and what culture you subscribe to, the way you greet one another can greatly change. So if I said I greeted someone, there again is no universal definition of the word, it depends on the culture. The only way you can begin to understand the Bible is to first understand the culture at the time. You can't even read a history book and understand why people did the things they did, if you don't understand the culture of the time.
2) your argument about the two commandments have been debunked and mutilated. If you can't define harm universally then the definition of your two commandments will always be subjective, which means it will vary from person to person, which means you can't tell anyone what's right or wrong, anymore than they can tell you what's right or wrong.
The only thing you understand about slavery is through your own cultural lenses. Slavery in those times is not the same as slavery as you and I have learn about in this country ... The only way you can begin to understand the Bible is to first understand the culture at the time ...
2) ... If you can't define harm universally then the definition of your two commandments will always be subjective, which means it will vary from person to person, which means you can't tell anyone what's right or wrong, anymore than they can tell you what's right or wrong.
The snippets above illustrate the logical inconsistency of saying on the one hand that the Bible's utter failure to take a strong moral stance against slavery (and in fact that it issues edicts about how to be a PROPER slave-owner) MUST be understood as culturally relative, and yet morality MUST be understood as culturally irrelevant and immutable. Which is it?
The snippets above illustrate the logical inconsistency of saying on the one hand that the Bible's utter failure to take a strong moral stance against slavery (and in fact that it issues edicts about how to be a PROPER slave-owner) MUST be understood as culturally relative, and yet morality MUST be understood as culturally irrelevant and immutable. Which is it?
What do you believe slavery is? Because I'm not sure we are referring to the same type of slavery.
That's where we need to start because you, like others, are being too presumptuous when it comes to the Bible. You are assuming that slavery in that time was immoral, so it needs to be be addressed. If you understand what slavery actually is, then you would understand from a cultural standpoint, nothing is being condemned, everything that is condemned by the Bible is culturally irrelevant, unless it specifically states it.
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