Redemption for all?

[M. T. Cross]

Oh, but we do know what truth is - Truth is a Person - Jesus!

"Thomas said to him, “Lord, we don’t know where you are going, so how can we know the way?”

Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you really know me, you will know[a] my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him.” (John 14:5-7)

While I respect your conviction I could counter with Truth is Manannan, truth is Odin or Thor.

fcool could counter with Truth is a petri dish

Thing is - none of us know that for sure.

I can point to the prophecy thread I posted and say Truth is Morrigan, cause her prophecy certainly has come true......

Most likely fcool is the only one that could show solid evidence.

[Woody]

Quote:

I can write you a book about the time I spent in Iceland and tell you it is true. Doesn't mean it is though.

Exactly. And you give me ANY two Christians - and there will be vast differences on what they think "truth" is. No two are the same when you really get down to it. And each Christian has their proof texts to prove what "truth" is.

Btw - you and I need to share our experiences about being in Iceland. :)

[fccool]

Quote:

I have no beef with the wisdom of Jesus at all. Would be mind blowing if more of those that followed him followed his example more often.

I really don't think that Jesus morality is in any way superior than that of the modern one.

If one would say that one can't love someone unless they hate their mother or father in comparison, or that being angry with someone or looking at a woman with lust is the same as committing these deeds... I certainly would not prescribe that morality as exemplary or exceptional.

While morality of Jesus is much better than that of OT, I still think that anyone on this forum could greatly improve on it with a little bit of a common sense.

While " do to others what you would have them do to you" on the surface would sound great, but it's a subjective morality that does not really work. There's nothing wrong with being a sadist then, if you are a masochist. There's nothing wrong with being a selfish narcissist. There's nothing wrong with being a rapist who enjoys being raped too. It's an incomplete idea of human relationship that's elevated to the point of being divine, when it's not. I think that "do no harm to other" is a much better motto to follow, and somehow such simple concept is missing from Biblical morality as a simple and explicit statement.

[JoeMo]

Quote by MTCross: "take a look at the discussions you all have with each other - it happens all the time. Its easy to dismiss the likes of me - but I see those seeds of hatred planted all the time amongst the fellow believers."

What a telling statement MT. I stated this on another thread that you responded to. Very few others did.

“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” (John 13:34-35)

Are we showing our love for one another here? What kind of witness are we putting forth to non-believers that come here to visit us? The gospel of Jesus is love - not personal insult and splitting hairs! I'm kind of embarrassed.

For my part of sowing those seeds of hatred, MT, I apologize. Believer or not, you are just as important to God as any of us are; and He loves you just as much as He loves any of us. Your questions deserve to be answered without us amateur theologians getting in each other's (and your) way.

[M. T. Cross]

Quote:

I can write you a book about the time I spent in Iceland and tell you it is true. Doesn't mean it is though.

Exactly. And you give me ANY two Christians - and there will be vast differences on what they think "truth" is. No two are the same when you really get down to it. And each Christian has their proof texts to prove what "truth" is.

Btw - you and I need to share our experiences about being in Iceland.

Exactly. And if you talk to any two Asatru you will get the same thing. We joke about it in my religion that something is highly wrong if we actually agree on something But there is a difference I have noticed. I have never seen a full blown angry argument between two Gwyddons on an issue.

I wish I could say I have been to Iceland. Such rich heritage. I would also love to go to the Faroe Islands.

[fccool]

Hey fccool,

If one learns about Jesus, believes who He is; believes He does what He says He does; and emulates His life, one is living the Truth.

If you are a believer, Jesus is truth for you. You say truth is concrete. I agree. But my version of truth may not agree with yours. Yours may not agree with someone else's.

Truth does not have multiple versions. You can't redefine a word to fit whatever you choose to believe about. Truth is a complex word that alludes to proper representation of reality.

It's not a person. It's not an action. You can't "live the truth". It's like saying that you can eat justice. Truth is a comparative claim that says that certain statement about concept, action, or idea X is an accurate representation of X in reality.

Saying that Jesus is the truth, is like saying that yellow is a brick. It's misplaced use of language terminology and concepts that sounds "wise", but means very little on the surface.

You can say that what Jesus said was true, you can't say that Jesus is the truth, except in some metaphorical and vague way that's void of meaning.

[M. T. Cross]

Quote:

I have no beef with the wisdom of Jesus at all. Would be mind blowing if more of those that followed him followed his example more often.

I really don't think that Jesus morality is in any way superior than that of the modern one.

If one would say that one can't love someone unless they hate their mother or father in comparison, or that being angry with someone or looking at a woman with lust is the same as committing these deeds... I certainly would not prescribe that morality as exemplary or exceptional.

While morality of Jesus is much better than that of OT, I still think that anyone on this forum could greatly improve on it with a little bit of a common sense.

While " do to others what you would have them do to you" on the surface would sound great, but it's a subjective morality that does not really work. There's nothing wrong with being a sadist then, if you are a masochist. There's nothing wrong with being a selfish narcissist. There's nothing wrong with being a rapist who enjoys being raped too. It's an incomplete idea of human relationship that's elevated to the point of being divine, when it's not. I think that "do no harm to other" is a much better motto to follow, and somehow such simple concept is missing from Biblical morality as a simple and explicit statement.

I agree to a point. I think Jesus put some things into perspective for the society that he was born into. It has been latched onto and it has a great basis. I agree that it is an incomplete message and the great flaw I see in it is that people have used it to do away with self accountability. I disagree in that I don't think it is as passive and forgiving as many seem to think it is.

[M. T. Cross]

Quote by MTCross: "take a look at the discussions you all have with each other - it happens all the time. Its easy to dismiss the likes of me - but I see those seeds of hatred planted all the time amongst the fellow believers."

What a telling statement MT. I stated this on another thread that you responded to. Very few others did.

“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” (John 13:34-35)

Are we showing our love for one another here? What kind of witness are we putting forth to non-believers that come here to visit us? The gospel of Jesus is love - not personal insult and splitting hairs! I'm kind of embarrassed.

For my part of sowing those seeds of hatred, MT, I apologize. Believer or not, you are just as important to God as any of us are; and He loves you just as much as He loves any of us. Your questions deserve to be answered without us amateur theologians getting in each other's (and your) way.

Oh not to worry Joe - thing is, we are human. In this state of existance we have many many great qualities potentially waiting to be unleashed. But another part of our nature is to be "right". I think that may be my biggest quam with the use of the word rightous. To many take it to mean being right all the time whatever the cost and no matter who gets hurt along the way.

[Overaged]

I agree that it is an incomplete message and the great flaw I see in it is that people have used it to do away with self accountability. I disagree in that I don't think it is as passive and forgiving as many seem to think it is.

What would make it a "complete" message in your mind? Why do you say it is not as "passive" and forgiving as most think? I would agree re the passive part, but not the forgiving part of your comment. lol. Incase you are wondering.

[fccool]

Quote:

I think Jesus put some things into perspective for the society that he was born into. It has been latched onto and it has a great basis. I agree that it is an incomplete message and the great flaw I see in it is that people have used it to do away with self accountability. I disagree in that I don't think it is as passive and forgiving as many seem to think it is.

Theology of NT is essentially Hellenized morality. By the time of NT there's a tension between the brutal ritualism of Jewish tradition, and much milder and reasonable Hellenistic attitude towards reality.

Religion constantly improves with the culture. It does not drive the cultural norms or morality. It evolves with it. It can be said for virtually anything pertaining to religion, be it sacrificial system, music, ethics, rituals, conduct, hierarchy, and whatever you'd like to stick in there. All of it is an age-old evolution of traditional thought.

I mean, think about it... what we call the "Infallible word of God" today was actually voted in by bunch of people who thought it was ok to torture someone for disagreements of belief... not as a final book either, but a constantly changing collection of writings that was not finalized and agreed upon universally until 15-16th century.

There was an inherent need to do away with Jewish sacrificial system. It was outdated, inefficient, and plain absurd. Hellinized version of sacrifice was the concept of pharmakos (that's where we get the term pharmacy). Pharmakos was essentially a person on which all of the problems were blamed, and who would be walked and cursed through a crowd of people. The person would be said to take upon himself the curse, and act as a savior at the same time, because they would take upon themselves the curse that was placed upon the entire society.

Such practices, of course, were not constrained to ancient Greece. Other cultures would have similar sacrificial rituals that would take a blameless virgin, who would then take upon themselves the curse, and by dying save the entire society. These would be celebrated as both cursed and as saviors. It's a fairly common pattern.

Christian story is essentially a composite of these ideas that we see gradually evolving, through disjointed ideas about a Messianic figure that were later were expounded into gospels using the familiar Pharmakos story of the savior that takes upon himself the curse of the mankind by surrendering himself to a cursing crowd that kills him as means to save the mankind so that the angry God would forgive the society.

Christian theology did not offer anything new in such regard. Subsequently, there are formation of "details" that were originally missing from the narrative. For example, Paul or any other contemporary authors of his do not mention the virgin birth, the miracles, the betrayal, or any other details. Such stories come much much later, and oddly enough, resemble many stories that you would find in contemporary folklore. If there was original narrative of Jesus, it was that of a rebel-pharmakos who took upon himself the sins of the world and put an end to all of the sacrifices by sacrificing himself. All of stories about sayings, parables, and miracles came much later. Neither these were the only ones. There were plenty of stories and gospels circulating. What eventually happened was sterilization by removal of conflicting ideology, and attempt to reconcile the narrative by only allow the semi-coherent letters and creeds that provide minimum amount of conflicting narrative and ideas.

The person of Jesus is essentially an evolutionary patchwork of religious stories that pre-existed for centuries. Not to say that there was not some historical figure on which such stories were base, nevertheless the Biblical characters seem to be rather caricature and 1-dimentional in their portrayal, and lack much of the reality and coherent reasoning behind their actions. Antagonists like Judas are just written in to advance the plot. To sum up, it's just very poor writing enshrined in a variety of a vague sayings and wisdom. It's simply obvious that someone needed to write a narrative, and various pre-existing stories were fused together to make it coherent. Sometimes, the authors reach for prophesies that had nothing to do with what happened, like the "virgin birth", which actually was not "virgin" in the OT passage, or the odd insertion of "out of Egypt I called my son", which in original OT had nothing to do with messianic promises.

The point being that the story as a whole was seemingly contrived, which is why it took 20 years to evolve into the paper draft of it, which then took a name of the apostle for legitimacy.

[JoeMo]

fccool and MTCross,

You are both very well versed in your belief systems. I commend you for your research and studies. I also have often wondered why we accept the conclusions of a bunch of Catholic guys who got together over 1,500 years ago to decide what is and what is not Scripture. There are apocryphal Christian and Jewish writings that are referred to the Bible (e.g., the Book of Enoch referred to in Jude). Why isn't the Book of Enoch in the Bible?

You have both essentially asked "what is truth?"; and effectively countered most assertions. I have a "version" of the spiritual truth that I am convinced is right. Can I prove it to you or anyone else? No. I can prove (or at least demonstrate) the physical truth that pure water under standard temperature and pressure freezes at 0 degrees Celsius - you can see that. I can prove mathematically that 3 X 4 = 12, and 6 + 6 = 12; therefore 3 X 4 = 6 + 6. You can see that. You can't "see" or "feel" spiritual truth - that's why it's called "faith". Hebrews 11:1 says "Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." Notice it says "evidence" not "proof". The proof of my faith to me is that it works for me a lot better than other spiritual paths I've tried. It started as an experiment; and now it's an experience.

I pray that you may be blessed with a similar experience. See you on the boards.

[M. T. Cross]

fccool and MTCross,

You are both very well versed in your belief systems. I commend you for your research and studies. I also have often wondered why we accept the conclusions of a bunch of Catholic guys who got together over 1,500 years ago to decide what is and what is not Scripture. There are apocryphal Christian and Jewish writings that are referred to the Bible (e.g., the Book of Enoch referred to in Jude). Why isn't the Book of Enoch in the Bible?

You have both essentially asked "what is truth?"; and effectively countered most assertions. I have a "version" of the spiritual truth that I am convinced is right. Can I prove it to you or anyone else? No. I can prove (or at least demonstrate) the physical truth that pure water under standard temperature and pressure freezes at 0 degrees Celsius - you can see that. I can prove mathematically that 3 X 4 = 12, and 6 + 6 = 12; therefore 3 X 4 = 6 + 6. You can see that. You can't "see" or "feel" spiritual truth - that's why it's called "faith". Hebrews 11:1 says "Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." Notice it says "evidence" not "proof". The proof of my faith to me is that it works for me a lot better than other spiritual paths I've tried. It started as an experiment; and now it's an experience.

I pray that you may be blessed with a similar experience. See you on the boards.

You are kind of saying the same thing as I. I can't prove or even explain my experiences, gut feelings or anything with the Deities I have a connection to. So for the most part I don't even try.

What I am striving to do here Joe, is to point out the similarities in different beliefs systems. I can't say that you are wrong, I can't say that fcool is wrong. I don't think either of you are.

[JoeMo]

Right on MT.

The biggest differences I see between Christianity and other world religions (at least where deities are involved) are:

1. In other religions, believers are called to seek for their gods. In Christianity, God seeks out the believer.

2. In other religions, believers must make sacrifices in order to be saved. In Christianity, God sacrificed Himself so we could be saved.

JoeMo

[M. T. Cross]

Right on MT.

The biggest differences I see between Christianity and other world religions (at least where deities are involved) are:

1. In other religions, believers are called to seek for their gods. In Christianity, God seeks out the believer.

2. In other religions, believers must make sacrifices in order to be saved. In Christianity, God sacrificed Himself so we could be saved.

JoeMo

1. Not my experience at all.

2 " " " " " " " "

[JawgeFromJawja]

Quote:

I have no beef with the wisdom of Jesus at all. Would be mind blowing if more of those that followed him followed his example more often.

My responses are in blue -- Jawge

I really don't think that Jesus morality is in any way superior than that of the modern one.

The modern one? Which, in 72,000 words or less, is "the modern one"?

While " do to others what you would have them do to you" on the surface would sound great, but it's a subjective morality that does not really work.

On the surface, this statement sounds good, but first tell us what "a subjective morality" is, as opposed to an "objective morality".

There's nothing wrong with being a sadist then, if you are a masochist. There's nothing wrong with being a selfish narcissist. There's nothing wrong with being a rapist who enjoys being raped too.

Tell that to the majority of women and a lesser number of men who have been raped. Rape is a violation having nothing to do with the sexual deviations of sadism and masochism. Those women (and fewer men) who have been raped are never the same. They feel less secure, less trusting of people, God, and the Universe, than before being raped. Attending a rape victim in the emergency room is always an affront to the sensitivities of those attempting to evaluate, then counsel and console the victim. An affront not because of having one's concepts of morality, ethics, and good being called to question, but because of the palpable damage to the soul itself of the rape victim.

It's an incomplete idea of human relationship that's elevated to the point of being divine, when it's not. I think that "do no harm to other" is a much better motto to follow, and somehow such simple concept is missing from Biblical morality as a simple and explicit statement.

Motto? A motto is something shallow and ephemeral, such as experienced in most political rallies and campaigns. Motto? Where is love, agape, in a motto?

George C King, MD - a guy thoroughly disgusted with the human race from time to time in the past.Don't tell policemen, medical professionals including nurses and doctors, and officials of the justice system about a "subjective morality". Objective is what one can see and measure, and too often the objective results of not loving one's fellow man as one's self are enough to make you vomit and weep simultaneously.

[Overaged]

George C King, MD - a guy thoroughly disgusted with the human race from time to time in the past.Don't tell policemen, medical professionals including nurses and doctors, and officials of the justice system about a "subjective morality". Objective is what one can see and measure, and too often the objective results of not loving one's fellow man as one's self are enough to make you vomit and weep simultaneously.

[Gibs]

JawgeFromJawja,

Heb 13:8 Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever.

You can trust Him as He does not change ever!

1Jo 4:4 ¶ Ye are of God, little children, and have overcome them: because greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world.

[fccool]

Quote:

The modern one? Which, in 72,000 words or less, is "the modern one"?

Sure, by modern one, I mean evolved with culture and scientific progress. The one that does not require anyone to die in your place in order to be forgiven. I would consider that highly immoral.

Quote:

Tell that to the majority of women and a lesser number of men who have been raped. Rape is a violation having nothing to do with the sexual deviations of sadism and masochism.

What? Did you even read my point? My point was that "do unto other, what you have them do unto you" would actually justify an action of a rapist who enjoys and wants to raped. He would just do unto other what he would want other do unto him, which is rape. I don't defend rape. I merely point out a huge hole in such oversimplistic reasoning that's very self-centric and subjective. There's nothing more subjective than "do onto other as you would them do unto you". What would that even mean for a guy who grew up in prison, and thinks that people should be stabbed for ratting other people out, including himself. It's just a terrible model for morality.

Quote:

Motto? A motto is something shallow and ephemeral, such as experienced in most political rallies and campaigns. Motto? Where is love, agape, in a motto?

There's plenty of love in a Motto, because Motto is from Italian for PLEDGE . In general, it is a motivation that summarizes a desirable behavior... to which I point out "Do no harm to other" would be much better desirable behavior pattern than "Do onto other as you would have them done unto you", which is not a call for unconditional AGAPE love as you would call it, but rather a conditional self-centric morality that thrives on personal and subjective preference. If the main precept of Biblical morality can be improved on with such ease, then perhaps you can reconsider the divine origins of it. I think God surely can come up with something much better in a split of a second.

[fccool]

Quote:

Objective is what one can see and measure, and too often the objective results of not loving one's fellow man as one's self are enough to make you vomit and weep simultaneously.

What would be a measure of not loving your fellow men? How about stoning them to death, or piercing their pregnant wives with a sword?

Come on J! You know that what we have today has nothing to do with the "Becauty" of Biblical morality. We simply progressed and threw away any nonsense that does not fit with essential idea of causing no harm to people around us. That's what all modern morality is based on - to deter causing harm. We don't need a Biblical standards to all of a sudden see that rape is a terrible thing.

Bible has a set of subjective morality. It constantly changed, constantly constructed per-era that it was "given". Now, we have something entirely different, and much better.

I wonder what Mr. King would say when he observed a group of people stoning a defenseless man to death for picking up sticks on the wrong day. I'm sure he would be proud about the amount of loving care that's present in such society :)

[cheddar]

I wonder what Mr. King would say when he observed a group of people stoning a defenseless man to death for picking up sticks on the wrong day. I'm sure he would be proud about the amount of loving care that's present in such society

I bet people didn't pick up sticks on the Sabbath anymore after that. Violence can be a deterrent.

[fccool]

Quote:

I bet people didn't pick up sticks on the Sabbath anymore after that. Violence can be a deterrent.

[JawgeFromJawja]

Quote:

The modern one? Which, in 72,000 words or less, is "the modern one"?

Your response is in multiple paragraphs. My responses are in color to each paragraph.

Sure, by modern one, I mean evolved with culture and scientific progress. The one that does not require anyone to die in your place in order to be forgiven. I would consider that highly immoral.

Here, I will assert that the highest morality is based on love. A morality evolved with culture and "scientific progress"? what kind of positive evolution produced the Holocaust? Is the death of 6 or more millions of the brightest and most productive of a society positive? Is the sentence of death for those who dare oppose a doctrine of death and denigration, obliteration of its opposition, progress?

Further, you will find, if you are inclined to seek, that ethics, morality, and such ephemeral subjects as altruism make the "objective scientist" uncomfortable. Even so, observation and notation of recurrent patterns of behavior consistently based on particular doctrines policies,or teachings is "objective". The differences between "objective" and "subjective" become very fuzzy when one is speaking of observed behavior.

Quote:

Tell that to the majority of women and a lesser number of men who have been raped. Rape is a violation having nothing to do with the sexual deviations of sadism and masochism.

What? Did you even read my point? My point was that "do unto other, what you have them do unto you" would actually justify an action of a rapist who enjoys and wants to raped.

This is masculine bovine feces. Nothing justifies rape, including rape perpetrated by deviants. Yes, there are deviants, those who do not feel constrained by the laws and mores of decency to which all cultures must ascribe to prevent chaos and cultural dissolution wrought by our id, which is the animal force acting on all of us.

He would just do unto other what he would want other do unto him, which is rape. I don't defend rape.

It certainly looks as though you are defending rape, and possibly multiple other departures from norms of behavior that a culture as a whole agrees on. Do you understand the concept of norms, or of statistics in general? Can you possibly justify the whimsical, individually and culturally destructive behavior that is unacceptable because of its individual and general destructive effects?

I merely point out a huge hole in such oversimplistic reasoning that's very self-centric and subjective. There's nothing more subjective than "do onto other as you would them do unto you". What would that even mean for a guy who grew up in prison, and thinks that people should be stabbed for ratting other people out, including himself. It's just a terrible model for morality.

Mercy. The overwhelming majority of people in any culture did not grow up in a prison. Usually, your subjectively biased protests to the contrary, those in prison wind up incarcerated for challenging norms of behavior that would tend to stabilize and provide peaceful milieus to a culture.

Quote:

Motto? A motto is something shallow and ephemeral, such as experienced in most political rallies and campaigns. Motto? Where is love, agape, in a motto?

There's plenty of love in a Motto, because Motto is from Italian for PLEDGE . In general, it is a motivation that summarizes a desirable behavior... to which I point out "Do no harm to other" would be much better desirable behavior pattern than "Do onto other as you would have them done unto you", which is not a call for unconditional AGAPE love as you would call it, but rather a conditional self-centric morality that thrives on personal and subjective preference.

You have not shown any of this, particularly the label "subjective", to obtain.

If the main precept of Biblical morality can be improved on with such ease, then perhaps you can reconsider the divine origins of it. I think God surely can come up with something much better in a split of a second.

Even so, disagreements not withstanding, AGAPE.

[fccool]

Quote:

Here, I will assert that the highest morality is based on love.

I think that "love" is too subjective due to the vagueness of the term. I'd say that empathy is a better choice of a word.

Quote:

A morality evolved with culture and "scientific progress"? what kind of positive evolution produced the Holocaust?

The same one that produced a leech, or a fly that can kill you with a bite.

No one is saying that all of the evolutionary result should be viewed as a positive development by us. They are not, but the mere fact that these did not survive shows that it's not the best morality to espouse.

Quote:

Is the death of 6 or more millions of the brightest and most productive of a society positive? Is the sentence of death for those who dare oppose a doctrine of death and denigration, obliteration of its opposition, progress?

I'm not exactly what you are trying to say here. Just because these things happen does not mean that we should view these as positive developments. These were obviously harmful to both sides of the fence. We can clearly see it, and we can clearly oppose it solely based on the "do no harm" principle.

Quote:

Further, you will find, if you are inclined to seek, that ethics, morality, and such ephemeral subjects as altruism make the "objective scientist" uncomfortable.

Who does it make uncomfortable? Dawkins, for example, will be the first one to tell you that altruism is a great thing that everyone should be aspiring to imitate.

Quote:

Even so, observation and notation of recurrent patterns of behavior consistently based on particular doctrines policies,or teachings is "objective". The differences between "objective" and "subjective" become very fuzzy when one is speaking of observed behavior.

Objective in this case does not mean told by a person with no subjective preferences or interpretation. Everyone has these. What we mean by "objectivity" is generally an ability to indiscriminately give a voice to every competing set of opinions, and then decide which one presents the best arguments and evidence that reflect reality, and by reality I don't mean ad-hoc rationalizations of reality.

Quote:

It certainly looks as though you are defending rape, and possibly multiple other departures from norms of behavior that a culture as a whole agrees on. Do you understand the concept of norms, or of statistics in general? Can you possibly justify the whimsical, individually and culturally destructive behavior that is unacceptable because of its individual and general destructive effects?

I'll have to repeat again. Nowhere do I defend rape. I simply state that based on Christian formulation of golden rule... if there was a rapist out there who enjoys being raped... "do onto others as you do onto you" is not the best morality to follow. I don't know what's so difficult to understand here.

Of course you can't justify rape, but it's because it's obviously harmful, and not because God said it was harmful, or because you've read that it was harmful in a book somewhere. And that's my entire point. Morality is a progressive cultural construct that you grew up with and learned from your parents and society. If you grew up in aboriginal tribe that ate people, I doubt that a voice in your head would persuade you that it was immoral. Morality has to be taught, and it's a progressive cultural construct that changes constantly.

"Christian morality" of today is nowhere near the Christian morality of the Christians in the 1st century. Whatever you mean by "Biblical morality"... it's a cherrypicked version that's taught in our churches today.

Quote:

Mercy. The overwhelming majority of people in any culture did not grow up in a prison. Usually, your subjectively biased protests to the contrary, those in prison wind up incarcerated for challenging norms of behavior that would tend to stabilize and provide peaceful milieus to a culture.

Thankfully, no they did not. But, you are merely re-enforcing the point I'm trying to make. If the normality of the behavior is derived from the established majority of society, then what does it say about objective morality?

If it's ok for one society to stone people to death, and not ok for us... what can you say about "everlasting moral principles here". It's nothing more than ad-hoc adherence to the pre-existing cultural moral standards, and then ascribing it to be "God-given" to gain cultural acceptance. In ancient world it was a fairly standard practice.

Quote:

You have not shown any of this, particularly the label "subjective", to obtain.

Sure, I'll break it down for you.

1) Humans are born without information about instinctual moral behavior. They can do either. Children can lie, and naively point out lies of parents by telling the truth. It has nothing to do with "sin nature", and everything to do with lack of initial peer-pressure enforced standardized moral behavior. FYI "moral" does not always synonymous with "good". Moral merely means acceptable. You would argue that it was moral for Israelites to exterminate competing tribes by command of God. I would argue that indiscriminately kill women and children judging from my standards of morality was not a good things to do.

2) The "subjectivity" of morality lies in the constant revaluation of what's considered "normal". Back in the day, it would be "normal" to kill an animal because you screwed up somehow. Now, that would be atrocious. This is just one example, but I could go on for pages is necessary.

3) And lastly, the "subjectivity" of morality lies in comparing your behavior to norms established by a pluralistic society. There was nothing immoral about treating a woman as a subject back in the Biblical times. Whatever "equality" passages from the Bible there are, these are merely clasping for straws in terms of how such "equality" was practiced all the way up until the recent century.

The relative gender equality that we have today was a long process of societal mechanics driven by movements of women who got fed up with being treated so. Therefore, looking back, it's easy to find a couple passages and then interpret these as "advocating equality". We interpret these from the subjective perspective of our moral standards that are SUBSTANTIALLY different from those of the writers of the Bible.

I could give you more, but I hope that's enough.

[Overaged]

1) Humans are born without information about instinctual moral behavior.

2) The "subjectivity" of morality lies in the constant revaluation of what's considered "normal".

3) And lastly, the "subjectivity" of morality lies in comparing your behavior to norms established by a pluralistic society.

[M. T. Cross]

Originally Posted By: EmptyCross

I agree that it is an incomplete message and the great flaw I see in it is that people have used it to do away with self accountability. I disagree in that I don't think it is as passive and forgiving as many seem to think it is.

What would make it a "complete" message in your mind? Why do you say it is not as "passive" and forgiving as most think? I would agree re the passive part, but not the forgiving part of your comment. lol. Incase you are wondering.

It lacks a lot of the "why" and the "how". It also lays out some rather black and white rules to a species that does not live a black and white existence. Which of course leads to much debate and interpretation. What it condemns in one part it condones or looks the other way about in another. It teaches both a tolerant love and a judgemental condemnation.