“Why go to the Bible [about woman suffrage]? What question was ever settled by the Bible? What question of theology or any other department?
The human mind is greater than any book. The mind sits in judgment on every book. If there be truth in the book, we take it; if error, we discard it. Why refer this to the Bible? In this country, the Bible has been used to support slavery and capital punishment; while in the old countries, it has been quoted to sustain all manner of tyranny and persecution. All reforms are anti-Bible.”
~ William Lloyd Garrison, Oct. 18, 1854.
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How are morals determined? How do we know what is right from wrong?
The short answer is, wisdom. Where do we get wisdom? Life experiences.
How do we determine right from wrong? We each have to do that based on our wisdom and sense of empathy.
For example, I think it is wrong or immoral to eat animals when other food is available. A meat eater does not. We are both using our wisdom/sense of empathy to come to different conclusions. We can both make arguments for our position and so it is ultimately left to the individual to decide what is right and wrong.
And of course what might be right in one situation may be wrong in another and so we have to wisely assess each situation to determine the proper (moral) behavior.
Bottom line is we (as individuals and as a group) determine morals.
That seems to be a slippery slope to relativism.
Morals constantly change. It was once considered moral—godly even—to own slaves. It was moral to not let women vote, to put children to work in factories all day, to beat animals, to kill your child for disobedience, to kill your wife for suggesting worshiping a different god, to kill women on their wedding night if their hymen was not intact, to murder homosexuals, etc.
Is it moral to lie? Sometimes.
Is it moral to steal? Sometimes.
Is it moral to kill? Sometimes.
How do you think morals are determined?
I just wanted to ask how you thought morals came about, or even ethics, because often I hear people rebuking things that happened in the Bible - slavery, for instance, has guidelines laid out in the Bible - but then they turn around and say that morals are determined by the individual or by the culture. Don't those two cancel each other out?
Personally, I get my morals from the Bible, but I can distinguish (from something like, for instance, slavery) according to cultural context.
Ethics is just the study or science of morality so ethics came about naturally as we gave thought to our behavior.
You can argue you get “some” of your morals from the bible but it cannot give guidance on many things you are faced with in our contemporary society. So you have to use your own wisdom to make decisions.
By the way, not sure why anyone—a woman in particular—would look to the bible for moral guidance. There is no more immoral book I know of.
I'm inclined to disagree. I think the Bible is still very relevant today. There may be certain things that it does not specifically lay down because there is a 2000+ year age gap, but it all comes down to "love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and mind" and "love your neighbor as yourself". I try to model my life after Christ's; that gives guidance to every day life.
I hope you don’t model yourself after the Jesus character. That is the most intolerant character in literature. “Obey me or be tortured forever” could just as easily be the central message of the bible as “love your neighbor as yourself”.
I am all for loving my neighbor but I do not see how loving the LORD does anything for anyone. Except line the pockets of all the preachers.
My pastor certainly isn't rich. Our money is going to help the community and to outreach. But that has little to do with the point.
Interesting how you say Jesus "character". He's a real person.
-Tacitus, in his Annals says that Christians were blamed for the fire in Rome (why would they be called Christians if there was no Christ?) and goes on to specify about Pontius Pilate giving the death penalty to this man, and also the geographical location and time period.
-Pliny the Younger, in his letters (I believe to Trajan), spoke about giving the Christians words to pray to false gods to break them of their belief (again, why would they be referred to as Christians without a Christ?) and talks about Christian practices dating all the way back to the time when Jesus was said to have ascended to Heaven.
-Josephus in Antiquities mentions Jesus' little brother James, paralleling the book of Mark.
Jesus was a real person, not a character.
And let's just suppose for a second that Jesus really was God. He really was God, and he really did have a message of the way to be saved, and there really was only one Way and only one Truth and he was the one who had it. I think he had a right to speak with authority if he really was the God of the Universe.
IF Jesus WAS God and there was only one way to be saved he certainly had the right and obligation to state it. But I would say any being that would create a place of eternal torture is by definition a demon not a god. Oh, that’s good. Will make that my post for the day. :) Will be back to address your other points.
Jesus, as presented in the bible, is most assuredly a character. A real person was not born of a virgin. A real person did not walk on water. A real person did not talk to Satan or spend 40 days in the wilderness and then be attended to by an angel. A real person did not die, come back to life and float into the clouds as people watched. These are stories, myths, taken directly from old testament stories/myths which were inspired by older myths from surrounding people. Was there possibly a man named Jesus who had followers and claimed to be something special? There were many such real people. But the biblical Jesus is fiction.
This site will help address your comments about the extrabiblical substantiation of Jesus:
http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/scott_oser/hojfaq.html
It gave me a "404: Page Not Found" error.
This might seem like a stupid question, but:
"A real person was not born of a virgin. A real person did not walk on water. A real person did not talk to Satan or spend 40 days in the wilderness and then be attended to by an angel. A real person did not die, come back to life and float into the clouds as people watched."
Why? Why is it impossible for a miracle to happen?
Hmmmm. I just copied and pasted the link and it worked. Might try it again or go to infidels.org and do a search for historicity of Jesus by Scott Oser.
Miracles could happen I suppose. Invisible pink unicorns could fly around my closet at night too. Anything is possible but the question is, is it probable? Or is their a more probable answer? My studies have shown me that it is far more probable that these are stories/myths that are no different from older myths. They just happen to be part of a belief system that is so ingrained in our culture that we just accept them as true. But there is no more reason to believe these supernatural events actually occurred than there is to believe Santa is real.
Hmmmm. I just copied and pasted the link and it worked. Might try it again or go to infidels.org and do a search for historicity of Jesus by Scott Oser.
Miracles could happen I suppose. Invisible pink unicorns could fly around my closet at night too. Anything is possible but the question is, is it probable? Or is their a more probable answer? My studies have shown me that it is far more probable that these are stories/myths that are no different from older myths. They just happen to be part of a belief system that is so ingrained in our culture that we just accept them as true. But there is no more reason to believe these supernatural events actually occurred than there is to believe Santa is real.
To add to your original question...
Morality can be based on two truths.
First Truth
All life (when in a state of well-being) desires life over death.
Second Truth
A state of well-being is preferable to a state of suffering.
So the desire to foster well-being is moral or good and the desire to cause needless suffering is immoral or evil.
The difference that I see between invisible pink unicorns and miracles (despite the fact that "invisible pink" in and of itself is a contradiction!) is that there are no documented cases of invisible pink unicorns flying around in anyone's closet at any time, but the miracles that Jesus performed were recorded by, in most cases, four different people.
Also, the difference that I see between Jesus' miracles and other ancient myths is that you really don't see people walking around proclaiming the wonders of ancient Greek gods and such, but millions of people still hold belief in Christ.
Again, there are no documented cases of Santa (except for the saint that he was named after!), and everybody who's roughly eight years old or older knows that Santa isn't real. Santa's hardly a belief system anyway. But of course there are documents about Jesus and the miracles he performed.
Also, I think I'd agree with you on those two points, just not necessarily that they are the basis of morals. Is that utilitarianism, then? If a state of well being is preferred to suffering, then the goal would be to attain well being for as many as possible, right?
Invisible and pink a contradiction? You blasphemer! I worship my invisible pink unicorn and he talks to me. Well mostly I talk to him. But he answers me in wonderful ways. Sometimes he will bring a person into my life that I am just sure is his doing. He’ll make a certain scripture in the pink pages (our holy book) really catch my eye. Things like that.
Just like lots of people think their God has a beard even though he’s invisible, we know if we could see our unicorn he would be pink! Hope that clears up the confusion! :)
If you study the origins of the 4 gospels you will learn that no one knows who wrote them, They are anonymous and the names, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John were used to give them authority. Mark was written first and Luke and Matthew based/copied much of theirs from Mark. John’s version came last and was a different -more influenced by the mysticism of the time. You’ll notice how the birth story grows in each later version. Jesus becomes more supernatural as time goes on. (about 40 years from Mark to John I believe). And none of these so called miracles were special. They had all been done by other people before Jesus. That was the thing back then. People claimed to do miracles. Just like they still do today. I get an email every week from a scumbag tv preacher who has all these desperate people come in to his church and he takes there money and instead of telling them to go to a hospital he pretends to work miracles. He is a con-man and I want to slug him in the face. But the people want to believe it is true and so they flock in every Sunday night. If these eye witnesses wrote a book they would swear this man was working miracles but of course he is not. I have been there in person. It is shameful.
You say millions believe in Jesus as if that means it must be true. Actually, I think it may be 2 billion. I think a billion are Muslims. But it is quite possible that over time there will be more Muslims than Christians. So you can’t go by numbers. They are meaningless.
Yes, I think the idea that the ideal is the greatest happiness for the greatest number is Utilitarianism. The little I have read about it gave me the impression it was pretty darn good but seemed to lack something. Need to refresh my memory-
You got me - you can't base something's truth off of numbers! The point I was trying to get across is that the more people believe in something (and the longer time period it stays alive) is, as a general rule of thumb, a good indicator for how true it was. Don't you think that if they'd made up the Gospels, that the story would have come out by now? That Christianity would have been, at some point, proved to be without a doubt false?
"Invisible and pink a contradiction? You blasphemer! I worship my invisible pink unicorn and he talks to me. Well mostly I talk to him. But he answers me in wonderful ways. Sometimes he will bring a person into my life that I am just sure is his doing. He’ll make a certain scripture in the pink pages (our holy book) really catch my eye. Things like that. "
Anti-intellectual Christianity, I see. Quite detrimental to the cause that those who still love the Lord with all their heart, soul, and mind are fighting for. Sure, certain Scriptures are good for certain occasions. I have no kids, thus, I do not spend much time poring over instructions from Scripture on how to treat my kids. Certain Scriptures are more appropriate for me, but I don't randomly flip through the Bible until one "catches my eye". That's really not how Christians should read the Bible.
There are people who have blessed my life, and I thank God for them. Sometimes they are answers to prayer.
Actually, I just had an interesting thought. If you really were certain there was an invisible pink unicorn in your closet, and you worshiped him, and I was a Christian and I firmly believed in God and I had evidence that there wasn't a magical pink unicorn, then I would probably try to persuade you to believe in the God that I believe in, and back that up with the evidence I know. But if you believed there was an invisible pink unicorn, and I believed in no god and only science, I am not sure why I would try to persuade you that there was no unicorn. If you thought you loved him, and you enjoyed communication with the unicorn or at least what you thought was communication with him, and you thought your life would be better with the unicorn, and after you died then you would go to live with the unicorn, I'm not actually sure why I would persuade you that the unicorn was nonexistent.
Don’t you think if Islam was actually false it would have been discovered by now? What about Mormonism? Judaism? Buddhism? Hinduism? Scientology? Jehovah’s Witnesses?
I would say these along with Christianity and every other belief system HAVE been discovered to be false by millions. But no one can PROVE it because it is an unprovable thing.
To your question about why I would try to persuade someone that was comforted by their belief in a God that it was a false belief...
Excellent question. First of all I have learned that I can do very little to change someone’s mind. I can possibly be a small influence but each of us has to walk our own path, find our own way.
There are times it would be very inappropriate to even engage in such a conversation such as when a person is close to dying or grieving the loss of someone. ...
I just deleted lots of rambling reasons and decided the quote at the bottom of my blog says it much better than I could--
Many men without morals have attacked religion because it was contrary to their inclinations. Many wise men have despised it because it seemed to them ridiculous. Many persons have regarded it with indifference, because they have never felt its true disadvantages. But it is as a citizen that I attack it, because it seems to me harmful to the happiness of the state, hostile to the march of the mind of man, and contrary to sound morality, from which the interests of state policy can never be separated.
~ Baron d'Holbach
I will say, I have no real need or desire to convert (or deconvert) you. You may be a much happier and more productive person as a believer than you would be as a non-believer.
I value the dialogue, the friendship and the common search for truth. I feel like I have much to learn from you and others like you and if we can all come away from such conversations with a little more empathy for one another it is well worth it. And of course, for me anyway, these conversations are just plain fun!
OK, that makes sense. It's the people who say things like it's their duty to relieve people of the burden of religion that somewhat annoy me.
To the first part of your post, I would say that Christianity has been around longer than many of those (save Judaism of course, and I'm not sure about Buddhism or Hinduism). Many of those derive from Christianity as well, which I would say is a rather large indicator that they are untrue. (If someone claims they've had a revelation that they need to just tweak the Bible a bit in order for it to be truth, I think we can be fairly assured they're either just wrong or lying.) Also Islam was predicted in the Bible, so I don't think Islam is ever going to go away.
Just wanted to say this conversation helped me simplify my basis for morality. Thank you!
Morality can be based on the empirical evidence that all life (when in a healthy state) “prefers” well-being and life over suffering and death.
So the desire to foster well-being can be called moral or good and the desire to cause needless suffering, immoral or evil.
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