Kant is all about moral and liberty of thinking. He drew a defining line in time separating the time of virtue and the time of individual rights. You can't possibly deny the importance of Emanuel Kant.
Maybe you meant it would be a waste of time to try to teach such complex philosophy to young children. That I would agree. But to say that Kant is not that that important is just irritating. I hope they at least teach it in college.
Your criterium is human suffering, by this you assume egalitarianism and liberalism (as opposed to totalitarianism) as good things. The ideology in Mein Kampf (that's to say, I've never read Mein Kampf so I'm deducing the ideology from the actual events in the 30's and 40's) holds that not all humans are morally equal, hence those million deaths may be warranted in their view. It's also strongly nationalistic, obviously opposed to liberalism (as 'defined' before), so even the deaths of actual citizens may be warranted.
The bottom line is, you've got to ask yourself: what makes you think that the current Western system is better than the nazism of the 40's? And if you find the reason(s), you need to try and strengthen it/them with rational arguments, if possible. Otherwise, you do end up with relativism (which does not equal the end of morality or tolerance of whatever you find gruesome).
Well, if you want to go that deeply into the issue, I use the good old-fashioned Golden Rule: If I wouldn't want to undergo something, I'll assume that nobody else does either. This does assume that every person has the same emotional capacity as me and is "morally equal", but I consider that a fair assumption. Consider that any person, when hurt, will show similar signs of pain or when happy, shows similar signs of joy; also consider that all of the literature and collective creative output of humanity dwells on similar emotional themes. There are vast differences across cultures, obviously, but all of these differences are merely variations on a theme. Similarly, people vary greatly in their physical appearance, intelligence, and emotional makeup, but the similarities clearly outweigh the differences - no one would consider two humans less similar than a human and, say, a cat. Since all humans are fundamentally similar, it's perfectly logical to make the associative connection and assume that if an action would cause me pain, it would most likely hurt another person to a comparable degree. Since I prefer to not experience pain, I conclude that performing that action is immoral.
All of this reminds me of my question. Do you believe that the Christian moral system is fundamentally rooted in human happiness? Specifically, do you think that God gave humanity this moral system by whatever means for the purpose of making us happy (or at least happier)?
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I hide myself within my flower
That, wearing on your breast,
You, unsuspecting, wear me too -
And angels know the rest.
Well, there's a bit more to it than that. Judaism is the religion of the old covenant made specifically with Abraham and his descendants, i.e., the nation of Israel. Christianity is the new covenant made with all people. Christianity did originate from Judaism, but it's a whole separate thing; the same is true of Islam.
Right, I was simplifying. It's a new covenant, but it is STILL the same God.
Have you met god? Can you tell me what shoes is he wearing right now? I doubt it. Ok in your mind maybe when you pray you hear his voice or something. But fact is God is not physical. Even if he does exist (which is possible), you can't touch god and you can't see him physically. So the eternal entity we call "god" lives in this intelligible space only accessible through conscience (or soul).
Neuroscientists have observed that when people report having "spiritual experiences," the right temporal lobe is the area of the brain that's active. If some of these experiences are authentically from God, then God clearly is able to manipulate a physical medium (our "gray matter"). He's not identifiable as a discrete material entity, that's true. But that doesn't mean that He's utterly non-physical; perhaps He works upon us in a fashion analagous to a force, like gravity or magnetism.
And if humans are the only ones that have a soul, then I guess aliens don't have a god. At least not the same one, because I'm sure they also would have to have some type of conscience.
I don't know whether humans are the only animals to have souls. The question is really irrelevant to Christian doctrine, which holds that we're capable of affecting the standing of our souls through free and deliberate acts of will. If other animals are also capable, then no doubt God is in communication with them too.
If a tree falls and no ones around, it makes noise but no one is there to hear it. So if god exists but there's no one to worship him or think about him, then his existence suddenly becomes futile.
If God were a tree, and if He purposed to fall down and be heard, and if there were no one around to hear Him fall... then He would create an audience.
Interesting. Then I guess a crusade is the only option to keep Muslims from dividing themselves? What else do you suggest? Should we send a missionary to convert most Muslims to Christianity? Should they do the same with us?
Again, I don't care whether Muslims are divided amongst themselves. It's probably healthy; quite possibly there should be more divisions. But it's a matter, not of religious doctrine, but of basic human goodness and fundamental morals, that divisions should not delineate lines of oppression and slaughter. I mean, it's good that there are both Shi'ites and Sunnis, because in their differences they are able to broaden and deepen the discussion of what Islam means. Differences of opinion can lead to progress and innovation, not just bloodshed.
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Love. Forgive. Trust. Be willing to be broken that you may be remade.
Stan's a bit busy at the moment (though I see he's reading the thread), so he's given me leave to do some of the heavy lifting. Older members know who I am; newer members can just ask them.
Quote from Ghyrt »
@EDIT:
One more set of questions:
Do you believe that God is more lenient in the judgment of people who have had minimal exposure to Christianity. How do you reconcile the many religions, denominations, and codes of belief (agnosticism and atheism included) with God's desire to evangelize, as expressed in Matthew 28:16-20?
You've said that making God's existence undeniable would amount to coercion. If God's existence isn't immediately obvious, are people justified in doubting? What do you believe is the extent of responsibility of non-believers to pursue religious enlightenment?
As a brief addendum to Stan's previous answer, you should check out Romans 2:12-16 for Paul's words on a similar issue:
Quote from Romans 2:12-16 »
All who have sinned apart from the law will also perish apart from the law, and all who have sinned under the law will be judged by the law. For it is not the hearer of the law who are righteous in God's sight, but the doers of the law who will be justified. When Gentiles, who do not possess the law, do instinctively what the law requires, these, though not having the law, are a law unto themselves. They show that what the law requires is written on their hearts, to which their own conscience also bears witness; and their conflicting thoughts will accuse or perhaps excuse them on the day when, according to my gospel, God, through Jesus Christ, will judge the secret thoughts of all.
From the Christian perspective, the pursuit of "religious enlightenment," as you rightly call it, is of one substance with the pursuit of truth, beauty and virtue. Those who strive for such things with candor and humility are reckoned to be capable of arriving at an acceptably "Christian" position without ever having heard the gospel specifically. Pope Benedict XVI noted as much in an early lecture (Nov. of 2005) on Augustine's meditations on the Psalms, declaring:
Quote from Pope Benedict XVI »
[Augustine] knows that also among the inhabitants of Babylon there are people who are committed to peace and the good of the community, despite the fact that they do not share the biblical faith, that they do not know the hope of the Eternal City to which we aspire... "They have a spark of desire for the unknown, for the greatest, for the transcendent, for a genuine redemption" [writes Augustine]... And he says that among the persecutors, among the nonbelievers, there are people with this spark, with a kind of faith, of hope, in the measure that is possible for them in the circumstances in which they live... With this faith in an unknown reality, they are really on the way to the authentic Jerusalem, to Christ... [Again from Augustine] "God will not allow them to perish with Babylon, having predestined them to be citizens of Jerusalem, on the condition, however, that, living in Babylon, they do not seek pride, outdated pomp and arrogance."
Of course, as Stan would agree, it is dangerous to rest on the laurels of ignorance as though this could preserve one from judgement; to paraphrase Martin Luther King Jr., it is on the content of one's character that one shall be judged, and those who commit vile acts without knowledge of Christ have still committed vile acts.
Quote from KurCE »
I thought they changed it because it made everyone fear for their souls if they didn't believe in God. Then after the majority of the population believed in God, they changed God to make him a nice happy God that loves everybody.
Since the "they" in every instance you use it is highly variable, this does not seem especially likely.
Quote from gerg »
Surely God recognises the ambiguity over his existence, and thus wouldn't a truly caring god understand and not care about a person not believing in him?
One of the implications of omnipotence is that the question of God "not caring about something" becomes useless.
The other issue here is that "not believing in Him" isn't just one thing happening. That is, a lack of belief (or an active disbelief, if you prefer that distinction) is not separate and discrete when it comes to other matters involving the person in question. It has implications too; it affects behaviour and thought - perhaps even effects them - in some fairly profound ways.
If you mean a real and sustainted disbelief in God, then that's hardly going to be the only thing about you with which God might take issue when all is said and done, but if you only mean a mere lack of belief, there's similarly no reason at all that God should (or even would) find it prudent to validate your apathy.
Now, a few things in Vulcain666's post...
Quote from Vulcain666 »
You are not mistaken. That is true. Respect of others is a universal value in almost all religions.
All that changes is the little dude up in the sky (sitting on a cloud, burning underground or even smoking in space!). Sometimes that dude is wearing a beard, a hat, I heard somewhere he plays a flute, has some horns, sometimes it has multiple arms and legs, sometimes it's blue, red, green or black, more often white.
He is, in fact, mistaken; different religions are not united in essentials while different in superficials. Pause a moment and consider how absurd that idea is. If different religions are united in anything it will be precisely those things that are most superficial, as in ceremonies or vestments or manners of worship. The cities of Europe were not sacked by Saracens and Moors for a thousand years because they did not like our hymns. We did not burn their citadels over the singing of the Muezzin.
The nature of the God being worshipped is not a superficial quality of a religion. People who live outside of the religious sphere are very fond of announcing how silly it all is for X and Y to be fighting when an infant could see how very similar they really are, but to declare as much is to court great folly. The Xians know very well what it is they believe - certainly better than someone who neither knows nor cares anything about it - and are quite meticulously interested in what it is that those who follow Yslam believe as well. The reverse, naturally, is also true. That two groups who live with it and know a great deal about it seem to think it's worth arguing about should probably silence the candidly ignorant outside observer, but it seldom does.
Tradition, culture and language differ. But in the end, all religions have the same purpose: try to unite a bunch of hysterical, desperate and angry humans.
This would come as news to most religious people and traditions. The purpose of many religions (not all) is to pay homage to their respective gods in the manner that religion prescribes, and, in so doing, live lives of virtue and honour. If this comes at the expense of "[the unity of] a bunch of hysterical, desperate and angry humans" - that is, if "brother will betray brother to death, and a father his child, and children will rise up against parents and have them put to death" - it's of little consequence.
The problem is that they're all trying so hard to unite an organism (our planet) that was already "united" (or should I say neutral?) by default. Because the way I see it religion is a paradoxical system that divides in order to unite. And when there are multiple systems trying to achieve the same unachievable goal, the result is a crusade, the inevitable inter-massacre of the dumb.
You're actually quite close to the truth here, and I commend you for it. There is a drift of paradox at the heart of many such matters, as you say, but paradox properly understood is not the same as irreconcilability or falseness. What's more (and what I find most admirable about what you've said here), the clashing of differing systems aimed towards different goods does create great turmoil. We can see it even in non-religious matters, as in the current troubles resulting from the simultaneous pursuit of both liberty and security.
You've hit on something not commonly understood, or at least not commonly accepted, and that is the fact that real and dreadful conflict does not necessarily require a good and evil side. This is not to discount the existence of good and evil, by any means, but rather to reflect on how, in a world where things are so very different from one another, the coming together of two separate goods can create conditions as difficult as a war against the tyranny of Hell.
Goods move people to great passion when they are threatened or undermined, and it should not surprise us, then, that there are vigorous debates over what would seem in the abstract to be minor questions of interpretation. When things are delicately balanced, though, a few inches could be everything. How be if religious conflicts were the more terrible because the goods for which the participants fight are that much greater? As Chesterton noted in a reply to Robert Blatchford, dropping the principles of liberty, fraternity and equality into decadent France created a wave that splashed the heavens and drowned ten thousand men. What might a drop of God's own blood do?
Speaking of morality, that's the only good thing about religion. The whole moral values of it. That's the only thing I like about religion. Not the book. Not the stories. Not the threats. Only the moral. I wish we all kept the same moral values and threw the rest in the trash.
There would be no reason at all to do this.
We don't need a book to know how to behave. We don't need a man to tell us what to think or tell us was is true and what is false.
No, you don't "need a book" to tell you how to behave, but I think you're overselling your ability to just "know how to behave."
Also, I don't believe for a moment that you would actually "keep Christian moral values" (for example) having thrown away the book. Or, for that matter, that you keep them now; would I be wrong in suggesting that you keep the parts of that system that you like while ignoring the rest?
Every man is capable of judgment and reason.
But not with the same candor and humility. It's a pretty poor system that has to deny the existence of idiots to work properly.
I hope my two cents didn't offend too much. Even though it was the point of one cent and a half.
No offense at all; I hope I've offered none in return.
r3p3nt, your questions seem to be directed specifically at Stan, and flowing from your own discussion with him, so I'm going to leave them for him.
Quote from Darklightz »
Here's a question I like to ask Christians; When you go about your day, do you do what you do because it feels right to you, or because it was told to you by a priest or the Bible?
Most of what I do during the day is amoral, so it's not a question of feeling right or being told by anyone. The rest is a mixture of utility, self-congeniality and, yes, moral reckoning. A heavy component of the Christian life is the formation of conscience, which, like any faculty, can be fed or starved (figuratively speaking). As time passes, the distinction between "it feels right to you" and "a priest/the Bible says so" collapses.
More from Vulcain666:
Quote from Vulcain666 »
And if humans are the only ones that have a soul, then I guess aliens don't have a god. At least not the same one, because I'm sure they also would have to have some type of conscience.
This is riddled with non sequiturs. First, humans are reckoned to be alone in the world as we know it in having a soul that reflects the combination of body and spirit; plants and animals can be said to have "souls," broadly defined, but they are not imbued with the spirit in the same manner and so those souls function in different ways. This is not to say that an alien race cannot exist, or that they cannot have souls, or that they cannot as well be a combination of body and spirit; indeed, we may even hope that an alien race would be greater even than we in this capacity, unfallen and sublime. The Vatican's chief astronomer had comments on this subject recently, and C.S. Lewis' cosmic trilogy (Out of the Silent Planet, Perelandra, and That Hideous Strength) accepts the idea as foundational (if you felt like exploring the idea in fiction, that is; they're quite good).
We have some dim knowledge of what God has done in the past as we know it, but when it comes to what He's been up to since then, well... it's anyone's guess.
btw, why do you Christians always use Bible quotes as undeniable proof? That kinda bothers me.
He's not trying to prove anything beyond that Christians believe something more nuanced or particular than you describe them as believing.
I thought it was agreed that the Bible was a mere compilation and update of old jew fantasy tales.
It is not so agreed.
Not trying to be harsh here
If that were the case, you might have said "old Jewish fantasy tales" instead of what you did say, which has a certain anti-Semitic provenance.
but it's kind of a historical fact. There's no revelation whatsoever in the Bible, it's just a bunch of stories that too many people take too seriously.
Defend this proposition.
And a lot of them don't even understand the metaphorical parabola of each story.
And you think people can all just figure out morality and whatnot for themselves, yes? They can all just know it somehow, and understand what is true and what is false, completely unaided and by their own skills, candidly and honestly. You think this.
I think Jesus was a very good philosopher that turned nuts because everyone kept saying he was the son of god. So he ended up believing it.
Do you have any reason to think this?
Quote from chronoplasm »
If space aliens came to earth, having never heard of your judeo-christian god, how would you explain your religion to them?
Though I couldn't answer off the cuff (I'll give it some thought), this very problem is demonstrated and resolved, at least for a particular alien species, in Michael Flynn's excellent novel Eifelheim, in which some insectoid aliens crash in medieval Germany and gradually integrate themselves into that society. It's good stuff.
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Then loom'd his streaming majesty From out that wine-dark fog, And spake he unto all our crew: "Go forth, and read my blog."
Then it's unfair to judge nazism objectively by this criterium: nazism obviously does not subscribe to egalitarianism.
I disagree, since I consider the principle of a similar response to at least basic stimuli (e.g., pain) to be a basic fact about human nature. It's not a philosophy or a way of looking at the world, it's simple truth.
Quote from Mad Mat »
The problem is that humans differentiate among those who are deserving of moral consideration.
Just because we do differentiate and always have doesn't mean that it's moral. People have always harmed and killed others - does that make it right?
The reason that a basic acceptance of human similarity (I'm avoiding equality because it's a loaded word and goes into a lot of nonsense) is so important is that people always justify themselves when they harm another by claiming that the person isn't "like" them, or isn't "civilized", or, in extreme cases, that he or she isn't even human. The ideology of Nazism bases its desire to exterminate Jews (as well as gypsies, the disabled, and homosexuals) on the fact that they are not part of a specifically defined race of people who are assumed to be the benchmark of "humanity" (or civilization, if you prefer). Nationalism is such a dangerous force because it usually promotes unity by way of the rejection of whatever group of people is deemed to be the Other and therefore incapable of feeling as the united people do. Terrible wars, suffering, and misery result. If this is a moral outcome, then morality needs a new way of thinking.
I don't mean to get off-topic, but this issue is extremely important to me. I apologize for the digression.
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I hide myself within my flower
That, wearing on your breast,
You, unsuspecting, wear me too -
And angels know the rest.
Furor:
I'll check that book out some time.
I guess the specific details of the species and their psychology would be very important as it would cause the answer to my question to vary greatly.
Some things to consider:
What if the aliens don't die in the same way we do? Suppose for example their knowledge is encoded genetically and their consciousness is passed on to their offspring?
Suppose the aliens aren't aware of individuality?
Suppose the aliens are asexual?
Suppose the aliens have long enough lifespans to have personally witnessed evolution in action?
Lets say for example that you have a species with it's reproductive system integrated into it's digestive system. Gametes assist in breaking down food. Babies are born in a pile of stool. The mouths (these creatures have multiple) are used as genitalia. The jaws are used as legs and the tongues are used as arms. They practice cannibalism to absorb eachother's knowledge.
Just an example.
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Wait what is Jesus message again? I thought it was something like a simple line everyone could understand: "Treat strangers like they were bros and forgive the sins of your brotha and sista." or something like that. "Don't do stuff to people you wouldn't want others to do to you." Why should we need 500 hundred pages to remind us a line? In fact, why do we even need a line? Even 3000 years before Jesus people knew the difference between a moral action and an immoral action. And all that is relative anyway because some values change through time and culture. But Kant proved that any man had the ability to determine (through reflexion) what was more morally acceptable in any given moral dilemma. You always have an obligation towards others and towards yourself.
You don't need a book be a good person. You only need it because you're scared. Scare people and give false hope. That's what religion does best.
(1) Person X is not 'like me' (a vague criterium, it's just an abstract example).
(2) Harming those who are not like me is not immoral
-> Harming person X is not immoral.
This is logically sound.
You mean valid? (2) is not established (or even provable) fact.
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Though I couldn't answer off the cuff (I'll give it some thought), this very problem is demonstrated and resolved, at least for a particular alien species, in Michael Flynn's excellent novel Eifelheim, in which some insectoid aliens crash in medieval Germany and gradually integrate themselves into that society. It's good stuff.
Really? Damn. I had that idea. I guess I'm going to have to go read it now.
Furor:
I'll check that book out some time.
I guess the specific details of the species and their psychology would be very important as it would cause the answer to my question to vary greatly.
Some things to consider:
What if the aliens don't die in the same way we do? Suppose for example their knowledge is encoded genetically and their consciousness is passed on to their offspring?
Suppose the aliens aren't aware of individuality?
Suppose the aliens are asexual?
Suppose the aliens have long enough lifespans to have personally witnessed evolution in action?
Lets say for example that you have a species with it's reproductive system integrated into it's digestive system. Gametes assist in breaking down food. Babies are born in a pile of stool. The mouths (these creatures have multiple) are used as genitalia. The jaws are used as legs and the tongues are used as arms. They practice cannibalism to absorb eachother's knowledge.
Just an example.
I imagine that God's will for us has to be at least partially contingent on the facts of our biology. As the temporal church encounters other sentient species, it should be able to adapt. You're going to have the usual fundamentalist bigots, of course, and given that Christianity is naturally dualist, the possibility that aliens are soulless zombies does in fact exist. Of course, since the temporal church doesn't know whether they have souls or not, the safe assumption is that they do; it's far better to be nice to a zombie than nasty to a person. So rather than condemning them (and, possibly, itself) the church is going to have to figure out how to fit the aliens into its metaphysical picture, because they're probably somewhere in God's picture - no matter how "bizarre" their physiology.
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Vive, vale. Siquid novisti rectius istis,
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
Here's one. One of my close friends who used to play Magic quit the game last year on the grounds that the bible specifically disallows the game from being played. I forgot which verse in the bible mentions it, but it is the one touching on the subject of sorcery and witchcraft, ie Dungeons & Dragons. I'm not sure how to debate this and personally I don't really categorize Magic(the Gathering) as witchcraft, or else I wouldn't still be playing it, but what say the rest of you?
And why does this necessitate a moral law? Even if my neighbour experiences pain the same way as me, it's still a non sequitur to derive from that a moral law dictating I should not cause him pain. It only follows if he has the same moral consideration as me, and that is not a scientific given: it's an ethical question, and a relative one at that.
Oh, I see what you're getting at now. Let me state this, then: since I believe the ultimate purpose of morality (however imperfectly realized) is to maximize human happiness, it follows that if I would become unhappy as a result of a some action, it would be immoral for me to perform that action on another person, since it would most likely make them unhappy as well. That's my personal definition of morality, which someone could dispute. In my view, however, everyone wants to be happy, but it would be immoral to gain happiness at the expense of someone else's happiness; thus, we make moral laws to create a society where (hopefully) people can fulfill such desires as they have without harming others and become happy by doing so.
All this is extraordinarily idealistic and utterly impractical for the real world, but it does work fairly well as a rule of thumb for easier moral judgments.
Quote from Mad Mat »
That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying that people make moral differentiations: destroying iron ore is not immoral, destroying a paramecium is not immoral and destroying a cow is, for many, not immoral. Why would humans be so special? Why stop at cows and not go further to, say, those with severe mental handicaps? Any way you look at it, the line remains arbitrary.
This is the finicky point for almost any set of moral judgments, from abortion to vegetarianism to what-have-you. I'm probably not rational enough to make a fully informed decision on what constitutes a person for the purpose of morality, but I'd suggest this (highly general) rule: if we know that a species as a whole is sentient, then any member of that species should be treated as a thinking person even if they are less mentally capable than others because we know for certain that they have the possibility of being sentient. I'm less concerned with whether or not a person discerns sentience outside the human race, since we really have no way of knowing if a cow can think.
@Blinking Spirit: For a fictional example of how the Catholic Church might react to an alien species, try Speaker for the Dead, Xenocide, and Children of the Mind by Orson Scott Card. Xenocide most explicitly mentions what you're talking about, but it doesn't really make sense without the rest of the trilogy. Of course, someone of your intellectual caliber might be allergic to Orson Scott Card, but don't ask me - I'm not even out of high school yet.
Here's one. One of my close friends who used to play Magic quit the game last year on the grounds that the bible specifically disallows the game from being played. I forgot which verse in the bible mentions it, but it is the one touching on the subject of sorcery and witchcraft, ie Dungeons & Dragons. I'm not sure how to debate this and personally I don't really categorize Magic(the Gathering) as witchcraft, or else I wouldn't still be playing it, but what say the rest of you?
The presumably relevant passage is probably 1 Thessalonians 5:22, which tells Christians to, "Abstain from all appearance of evil." This has been taken as a catch-all by some denominations to mean that a Christian should not participate in any activity which, even if purely fantastical and obviously fictional, deals with sorcery, demons, etc. Personally I feel they are overzealous, and mistaken in a broader Scriptural context. Describing his evangelism, St. Paul reports that he "became all things to all men" in order to save some. So I could see a contemporary St. Paul getting dressed up in spiky black leather and attending a heavy metal concert in order to evangelize metalheads. (And who's to say that he might not even enjoy the music?)
In my own experience, as long as one is clear in one's heart and head about what is fictitious and what is real, fiction holds little spiritual danger. It should be telling that arguably the two most famous Christian authors of the last century, C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkein, are best known for their works of fantasy.
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Love. Forgive. Trust. Be willing to be broken that you may be remade.
So only humans go to heaven eh? That's something new and interesting I learned today... Okay, I have a new question for Christians but this is one based more on personal stance rather than one based on the Bible.
I find many of the answers Christians provide to skeptics to be quite dubious in nature. Say one day, these questions finally fell through. Say that we knew Christianity was WRONG or say that a prophetic revelation from another religion came TRUE.
How would Christians then justify their millenias of ignorance and oppression of other beliefs? How would one cope with the fact that a belief in his life he valued so greatly was a fraud? What verse in the Bible would comfort a believer in this circumstance?
I cannot conceive of any hypothetical scenario, short of the world ending without heaven and Christ, that could effect that knowledge.
or say that a prophetic revelation from another religion came TRUE.
"...for there shall arise false Christs and false prophets, and shall show signs and wonders, that they may lead astray, if possible, the elect." (Mark 13:22)
The bases. They are covered.
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Love. Forgive. Trust. Be willing to be broken that you may be remade.
I'll try to have more to say on this in a while; at the moment it still demands more thought. It's a great question, albeit one with many variables.
Quote from Vulcain666 »
Wait what is Jesus message again? I thought it was something like a simple line everyone could understand: "Treat strangers like they were bros and forgive the sins of your brotha and sista." or something like that. "Don't do stuff to people you wouldn't want others to do to you." Why should we need 500 hundred pages to remind us a line? In fact, why do we even need a line?
Jesus Christ's message, as it is popularly distilled, is as follows:
1. Love God.
2. Love your neighbour.
On these two sayings, it is said, hang all the laws and the prophets. This does not mean that you can just ignore the laws and the prophets, though; it means that an understanding of and appreciation for the laws and the prophets is essential to being able to carry out those two tasks. Christ came not to abolish the Law, but to fulfill it; He did not discard the Hebrew scriptures, but cited them and called them holy.
What's more, His message also includes a number of clauses concerning Hell and the difficulty of life. Hard sayings, they're sometimes called, and their truth and utility are not immediately or intuitively apparent. It's also a dicey proposition to love God without knowing who God is, or to love either God or your neighbour without knowing what "love" is meant to signify in this context.
This might be the reason for a collection of documents
- describing certain facets of His life
- providing accounts of His sayings
- including commentary thereupon by those who knew Him and lived at that time
- appending a collection of the documents that He Himself found essential.
Thus you get your bible.
Even 3000 years before Jesus people knew the difference between a moral action and an immoral action.
In some instances, certainly; in others, not so much.
And all that is relative anyway because some values change through time and culture. But Kant proved that any man had the ability to determine (through reflexion) what was more morally acceptable in any given moral dilemma. You always have an obligation towards others and towards yourself.
The appeal to relativism is not helping your case, as, of the two types of moral relativism most commonly propounded, the one undercuts your argument about the sameness of religious morality while the other undercuts your Kant.
If you're appealing to what is called descriptive moral relativism - that there are clear and irreconcilable differences between the moral outlooks of certain differing cultures and systems - it is not so very easy then to argue that all of the world's religions and moral codes are somehow the same thing with different window dressing. If you're appealing to what is called metaethical moral relativism - that the morality of a certain act is dependent upon the culture in which it is undertaken (pursuant to DMR but not elementally the same) - it is not so very easy to hold up the practical reason of the individual as a reliable source of moral information.
I tend to agree with Kant on the value of practical reason in such questions, but an important thing to remember about this is that practical reason doesn't come with all of the data pre-installed. You need information about things before you can come to a good moral judgement about them, and this might entail - alas - reading some books.
You don't need a book be a good person. You only need it because you're scared. Scare people and give false hope. That's what religion does best.
You might also need a book because you'd be poorly-informed without one.
Let's face facts: you had to read what Kant wrote before you knew what he said, didn't you?
Quote from Blinking Spirit »
Really? Damn. I had that idea. I guess I'm going to have to go read it now.
I had the same thing happen to me recently with a novel about an adventure involving the two sets of James brothers so important to American history (Frank and Jesse, murderous outlaws; Henry and William, novelist and philosopher). It chunnered away on the back burner for a while until all of a sudden, one day, there it was on the bookshelf, written by some guy I'd never heard of. It was like magic.
By the way, how's it been?
Pretty good, honestly. I have no classes this summer, having overloaded on them during the fall and winter, and as such am taking it easy, doing research at whatever pace I like, idling, etc. I'll be moving to the nation's capital in the fall to start the PhD, but for now I'm enjoying a fairly wet and relaxing summer. How about you?
Wait what is Jesus message again? I thought it was something like a simple line everyone could understand: "Treat strangers like they were bros and forgive the sins of your brotha and sista." or something like that. "Don't do stuff to people you wouldn't want others to do to you." Why should we need 500 hundred pages to remind us a line? In fact, why do we even need a line? Even 3000 years before Jesus people knew the difference between a moral action and an immoral action. And all that is relative anyway because some values change through time and culture. But Kant proved that any man had the ability to determine (through reflexion) what was more morally acceptable in any given moral dilemma. You always have an obligation towards others and towards yourself.
You don't need a book be a good person. You only need it because you're scared. Scare people and give false hope. That's what religion does best.
While we're speaking of taking 500 pages to say things, do you really want to call Kant off of the bench for the idea that morality is extremely simple and is known by common sense? I suppose one could infer from the second Critique's relative length (much smaller than its flankers) that morality is more simple than epistemology and judgment. Still, as with everything Kant did, the project of defining the good will took a lot of verbiage.
And hey, while we're on Kant, do you mean to reconcile Kantian ethics with relativism? On the one hand, you say, values change; on the other hand, Kant is awesome sauce. But according to Manny, what is valuable to humans is humanity itself; thus, when the domain of discourse of the question "What ought I to do?" is limited to actors who are humans, the value (humanity) is always the same. The question "What ought a god to do?" may have a different answer; so might the question "What would it be most pleasurable to do?" But Kant being Kant, these are not the questions whose answers he sought.
I don't want to misinterpret what you say, but "You always have an obligation towards others and towards yourself." sounds less than fully Kantian. Kant was neither an altruist nor an egoist.
The second paragraph needs a "j/k that's Nietzsche talking" unless you want to undertake the task of bringing Kant and Nietzsche to an amicable settlement.
I cannot conceive of any hypothetical scenario, short of the world ending without heaven and Christ, that could effect that knowledge.
"...for there shall arise false Christs and false prophets, and shall show signs and wonders, that they may lead astray, if possible, the elect." (Mark 13:22)
The bases. They are covered.
You are dodging my question. The purpose of the question wasn't whether Christ can ever be disproven but your reaction in the case that he was. I don't want to be assured that Christianity can't be disproven. I want to be assured that a followerer of Christ that comes to this realization has a way to reconcile himself with what was left to him from the Bible.
In this way, a person who questions Christ in the back of his head knows that believing is a win-win situation. He dies and doesn't go to heaven or hell but he realizes he still has lived a worthwhile life. This is the significance of my prior question.
You are dodging my question. The purpose of the question wasn't whether Christ can ever be disproven but your reaction in the case that he was.
The question of whether Christianity can be disproven is perfectly relevant to conjecture about what I would do if it were disproven. Let us assume a "worst-case" scenario: archaelogists discover a tomb in Jerusalem dated to the 1st century with the inscription, Yeshua bar Yehosef (Jesus son of Joseph); and there are bones inside that bear evidence of crucifixion. Now, this would certainly be an intriguing discovery. But bear in mind: Jesus and Joseph were both very common names in that era; the Romans crucified a lot of Jews on account of a lot of Jewish dissindence; and Christianity could not possibly have begun as it did in the face of an occupied tomb. So it would be quite reasonable to suppose that the archaeologists had discovered the bones of a different Jesus.
Bottom line: Christianity cannot be disproven. (This is, frankly, one of the vexing traits of religions generally.) So asking what I'd do if it were is like asking what I'd do if gravity were repealed. I have no idea what I'd do; but for that admission it's still not worth wasting much time thinking about.
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Love. Forgive. Trust. Be willing to be broken that you may be remade.
PandasRPeople2, I give you a for your admant, unequivocal faith. However, an explanation that bodes well with a devout Christian doe not always work for a questioning one (not to imply that I am such or identify myself as Christian at all). So if the question at hand is too unrealistic, I will rephrase the question to embody the true purpose of it:
A Christain is questioning his religious beliefs. How does this person know that his experiences with Christianity would be worthwhile regardless of its truthfulness?
A Christain is questioning his religious beliefs. How does this person know that his experiences with Christianity would be worthwhile regardless of its truthfulness?
It's called faith. You know, the whole purpose behind a religion...
I hate to break it to you, but chaos and selfishness already rules the world and all these "send me your money, for jeezus!" preachers have a hand in it.
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GENERATION 3.78: The first time you see this, add it into your sig and add 1 to the number after generation
Something I'm interested in: I know many Christians, but I only know a few who I intellectually respect enough to make me seriously question myself. Extremestan, you seem like this type of person, based on what I've read.
How do you reconcile yourself with faith? As you've said, god does not use "gross coercion" (that would invalidate the whole process, presumably) and instead relies on an individuals faith. Was Kierkegaard wrong when in saying there is a necessary leap of faith to be made?
The way I see it, true faith requires absolute dismissal of reason. I also see reason is the one faculty by which we can define our existence. Ergo, I cannot have faith. Or is the ability to have faith some divine quality of the soul, a fact that can never be reconciled with our rational mind?
I'm not trying to debunk faith. But that's just the thing: I feel that all forms of the spiritual are incompatible with argument and discourse. To say something is right, wrong, knowable, unknowable, provable, or unprovable says that it is essentially rational.
Is irrationality knowable?
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Which ones?? I looked back through and don't see them. I ignored your "Eh?" because someone else addressed it.
Maybe you meant it would be a waste of time to try to teach such complex philosophy to young children. That I would agree. But to say that Kant is not that that important is just irritating. I hope they at least teach it in college.
Well, if you want to go that deeply into the issue, I use the good old-fashioned Golden Rule: If I wouldn't want to undergo something, I'll assume that nobody else does either. This does assume that every person has the same emotional capacity as me and is "morally equal", but I consider that a fair assumption. Consider that any person, when hurt, will show similar signs of pain or when happy, shows similar signs of joy; also consider that all of the literature and collective creative output of humanity dwells on similar emotional themes. There are vast differences across cultures, obviously, but all of these differences are merely variations on a theme. Similarly, people vary greatly in their physical appearance, intelligence, and emotional makeup, but the similarities clearly outweigh the differences - no one would consider two humans less similar than a human and, say, a cat. Since all humans are fundamentally similar, it's perfectly logical to make the associative connection and assume that if an action would cause me pain, it would most likely hurt another person to a comparable degree. Since I prefer to not experience pain, I conclude that performing that action is immoral.
All of this reminds me of my question. Do you believe that the Christian moral system is fundamentally rooted in human happiness? Specifically, do you think that God gave humanity this moral system by whatever means for the purpose of making us happy (or at least happier)?
That, wearing on your breast,
You, unsuspecting, wear me too -
And angels know the rest.
Right, I was simplifying. It's a new covenant, but it is STILL the same God.
- Enslaught
There is an imposter among us...
Neuroscientists have observed that when people report having "spiritual experiences," the right temporal lobe is the area of the brain that's active. If some of these experiences are authentically from God, then God clearly is able to manipulate a physical medium (our "gray matter"). He's not identifiable as a discrete material entity, that's true. But that doesn't mean that He's utterly non-physical; perhaps He works upon us in a fashion analagous to a force, like gravity or magnetism.
I don't know whether humans are the only animals to have souls. The question is really irrelevant to Christian doctrine, which holds that we're capable of affecting the standing of our souls through free and deliberate acts of will. If other animals are also capable, then no doubt God is in communication with them too.
If God were a tree, and if He purposed to fall down and be heard, and if there were no one around to hear Him fall... then He would create an audience.
Again, I don't care whether Muslims are divided amongst themselves. It's probably healthy; quite possibly there should be more divisions. But it's a matter, not of religious doctrine, but of basic human goodness and fundamental morals, that divisions should not delineate lines of oppression and slaughter. I mean, it's good that there are both Shi'ites and Sunnis, because in their differences they are able to broaden and deepen the discussion of what Islam means. Differences of opinion can lead to progress and innovation, not just bloodshed.
As a brief addendum to Stan's previous answer, you should check out Romans 2:12-16 for Paul's words on a similar issue:
From the Christian perspective, the pursuit of "religious enlightenment," as you rightly call it, is of one substance with the pursuit of truth, beauty and virtue. Those who strive for such things with candor and humility are reckoned to be capable of arriving at an acceptably "Christian" position without ever having heard the gospel specifically. Pope Benedict XVI noted as much in an early lecture (Nov. of 2005) on Augustine's meditations on the Psalms, declaring:
Of course, as Stan would agree, it is dangerous to rest on the laurels of ignorance as though this could preserve one from judgement; to paraphrase Martin Luther King Jr., it is on the content of one's character that one shall be judged, and those who commit vile acts without knowledge of Christ have still committed vile acts.
Since the "they" in every instance you use it is highly variable, this does not seem especially likely.
One of the implications of omnipotence is that the question of God "not caring about something" becomes useless.
The other issue here is that "not believing in Him" isn't just one thing happening. That is, a lack of belief (or an active disbelief, if you prefer that distinction) is not separate and discrete when it comes to other matters involving the person in question. It has implications too; it affects behaviour and thought - perhaps even effects them - in some fairly profound ways.
If you mean a real and sustainted disbelief in God, then that's hardly going to be the only thing about you with which God might take issue when all is said and done, but if you only mean a mere lack of belief, there's similarly no reason at all that God should (or even would) find it prudent to validate your apathy.
Now, a few things in Vulcain666's post...
He is, in fact, mistaken; different religions are not united in essentials while different in superficials. Pause a moment and consider how absurd that idea is. If different religions are united in anything it will be precisely those things that are most superficial, as in ceremonies or vestments or manners of worship. The cities of Europe were not sacked by Saracens and Moors for a thousand years because they did not like our hymns. We did not burn their citadels over the singing of the Muezzin.
The nature of the God being worshipped is not a superficial quality of a religion. People who live outside of the religious sphere are very fond of announcing how silly it all is for X and Y to be fighting when an infant could see how very similar they really are, but to declare as much is to court great folly. The Xians know very well what it is they believe - certainly better than someone who neither knows nor cares anything about it - and are quite meticulously interested in what it is that those who follow Yslam believe as well. The reverse, naturally, is also true. That two groups who live with it and know a great deal about it seem to think it's worth arguing about should probably silence the candidly ignorant outside observer, but it seldom does.
This would come as news to most religious people and traditions. The purpose of many religions (not all) is to pay homage to their respective gods in the manner that religion prescribes, and, in so doing, live lives of virtue and honour. If this comes at the expense of "[the unity of] a bunch of hysterical, desperate and angry humans" - that is, if "brother will betray brother to death, and a father his child, and children will rise up against parents and have them put to death" - it's of little consequence.
You're actually quite close to the truth here, and I commend you for it. There is a drift of paradox at the heart of many such matters, as you say, but paradox properly understood is not the same as irreconcilability or falseness. What's more (and what I find most admirable about what you've said here), the clashing of differing systems aimed towards different goods does create great turmoil. We can see it even in non-religious matters, as in the current troubles resulting from the simultaneous pursuit of both liberty and security.
You've hit on something not commonly understood, or at least not commonly accepted, and that is the fact that real and dreadful conflict does not necessarily require a good and evil side. This is not to discount the existence of good and evil, by any means, but rather to reflect on how, in a world where things are so very different from one another, the coming together of two separate goods can create conditions as difficult as a war against the tyranny of Hell.
Goods move people to great passion when they are threatened or undermined, and it should not surprise us, then, that there are vigorous debates over what would seem in the abstract to be minor questions of interpretation. When things are delicately balanced, though, a few inches could be everything. How be if religious conflicts were the more terrible because the goods for which the participants fight are that much greater? As Chesterton noted in a reply to Robert Blatchford, dropping the principles of liberty, fraternity and equality into decadent France created a wave that splashed the heavens and drowned ten thousand men. What might a drop of God's own blood do?
There would be no reason at all to do this.
No, you don't "need a book" to tell you how to behave, but I think you're overselling your ability to just "know how to behave."
Also, I don't believe for a moment that you would actually "keep Christian moral values" (for example) having thrown away the book. Or, for that matter, that you keep them now; would I be wrong in suggesting that you keep the parts of that system that you like while ignoring the rest?
But not with the same candor and humility. It's a pretty poor system that has to deny the existence of idiots to work properly.
No offense at all; I hope I've offered none in return.
r3p3nt, your questions seem to be directed specifically at Stan, and flowing from your own discussion with him, so I'm going to leave them for him.
Most of what I do during the day is amoral, so it's not a question of feeling right or being told by anyone. The rest is a mixture of utility, self-congeniality and, yes, moral reckoning. A heavy component of the Christian life is the formation of conscience, which, like any faculty, can be fed or starved (figuratively speaking). As time passes, the distinction between "it feels right to you" and "a priest/the Bible says so" collapses.
More from Vulcain666:
This is riddled with non sequiturs. First, humans are reckoned to be alone in the world as we know it in having a soul that reflects the combination of body and spirit; plants and animals can be said to have "souls," broadly defined, but they are not imbued with the spirit in the same manner and so those souls function in different ways. This is not to say that an alien race cannot exist, or that they cannot have souls, or that they cannot as well be a combination of body and spirit; indeed, we may even hope that an alien race would be greater even than we in this capacity, unfallen and sublime. The Vatican's chief astronomer had comments on this subject recently, and C.S. Lewis' cosmic trilogy (Out of the Silent Planet, Perelandra, and That Hideous Strength) accepts the idea as foundational (if you felt like exploring the idea in fiction, that is; they're quite good).
We have some dim knowledge of what God has done in the past as we know it, but when it comes to what He's been up to since then, well... it's anyone's guess.
He's not trying to prove anything beyond that Christians believe something more nuanced or particular than you describe them as believing.
It is not so agreed.
If that were the case, you might have said "old Jewish fantasy tales" instead of what you did say, which has a certain anti-Semitic provenance.
Defend this proposition.
And you think people can all just figure out morality and whatnot for themselves, yes? They can all just know it somehow, and understand what is true and what is false, completely unaided and by their own skills, candidly and honestly. You think this.
Do you have any reason to think this?
Though I couldn't answer off the cuff (I'll give it some thought), this very problem is demonstrated and resolved, at least for a particular alien species, in Michael Flynn's excellent novel Eifelheim, in which some insectoid aliens crash in medieval Germany and gradually integrate themselves into that society. It's good stuff.
From out that wine-dark fog,
And spake he unto all our crew:
"Go forth, and read my blog."
I disagree, since I consider the principle of a similar response to at least basic stimuli (e.g., pain) to be a basic fact about human nature. It's not a philosophy or a way of looking at the world, it's simple truth.
Just because we do differentiate and always have doesn't mean that it's moral. People have always harmed and killed others - does that make it right?
The reason that a basic acceptance of human similarity (I'm avoiding equality because it's a loaded word and goes into a lot of nonsense) is so important is that people always justify themselves when they harm another by claiming that the person isn't "like" them, or isn't "civilized", or, in extreme cases, that he or she isn't even human. The ideology of Nazism bases its desire to exterminate Jews (as well as gypsies, the disabled, and homosexuals) on the fact that they are not part of a specifically defined race of people who are assumed to be the benchmark of "humanity" (or civilization, if you prefer). Nationalism is such a dangerous force because it usually promotes unity by way of the rejection of whatever group of people is deemed to be the Other and therefore incapable of feeling as the united people do. Terrible wars, suffering, and misery result. If this is a moral outcome, then morality needs a new way of thinking.
I don't mean to get off-topic, but this issue is extremely important to me. I apologize for the digression.
That, wearing on your breast,
You, unsuspecting, wear me too -
And angels know the rest.
I'll check that book out some time.
I guess the specific details of the species and their psychology would be very important as it would cause the answer to my question to vary greatly.
Some things to consider:
What if the aliens don't die in the same way we do? Suppose for example their knowledge is encoded genetically and their consciousness is passed on to their offspring?
Suppose the aliens aren't aware of individuality?
Suppose the aliens are asexual?
Suppose the aliens have long enough lifespans to have personally witnessed evolution in action?
Lets say for example that you have a species with it's reproductive system integrated into it's digestive system. Gametes assist in breaking down food. Babies are born in a pile of stool. The mouths (these creatures have multiple) are used as genitalia. The jaws are used as legs and the tongues are used as arms. They practice cannibalism to absorb eachother's knowledge.
Just an example.
There is an imposter among us...
You don't need a book be a good person. You only need it because you're scared. Scare people and give false hope. That's what religion does best.
You mean valid? (2) is not established (or even provable) fact.
Inventory:
Really? Damn. I had that idea. I guess I'm going to have to go read it now.
By the way, how's it been?
I imagine that God's will for us has to be at least partially contingent on the facts of our biology. As the temporal church encounters other sentient species, it should be able to adapt. You're going to have the usual fundamentalist bigots, of course, and given that Christianity is naturally dualist, the possibility that aliens are soulless zombies does in fact exist. Of course, since the temporal church doesn't know whether they have souls or not, the safe assumption is that they do; it's far better to be nice to a zombie than nasty to a person. So rather than condemning them (and, possibly, itself) the church is going to have to figure out how to fit the aliens into its metaphysical picture, because they're probably somewhere in God's picture - no matter how "bizarre" their physiology.
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
My Sales Post!
Oh, I see what you're getting at now. Let me state this, then: since I believe the ultimate purpose of morality (however imperfectly realized) is to maximize human happiness, it follows that if I would become unhappy as a result of a some action, it would be immoral for me to perform that action on another person, since it would most likely make them unhappy as well. That's my personal definition of morality, which someone could dispute. In my view, however, everyone wants to be happy, but it would be immoral to gain happiness at the expense of someone else's happiness; thus, we make moral laws to create a society where (hopefully) people can fulfill such desires as they have without harming others and become happy by doing so.
All this is extraordinarily idealistic and utterly impractical for the real world, but it does work fairly well as a rule of thumb for easier moral judgments.
This is the finicky point for almost any set of moral judgments, from abortion to vegetarianism to what-have-you. I'm probably not rational enough to make a fully informed decision on what constitutes a person for the purpose of morality, but I'd suggest this (highly general) rule: if we know that a species as a whole is sentient, then any member of that species should be treated as a thinking person even if they are less mentally capable than others because we know for certain that they have the possibility of being sentient. I'm less concerned with whether or not a person discerns sentience outside the human race, since we really have no way of knowing if a cow can think.
@Blinking Spirit: For a fictional example of how the Catholic Church might react to an alien species, try Speaker for the Dead, Xenocide, and Children of the Mind by Orson Scott Card. Xenocide most explicitly mentions what you're talking about, but it doesn't really make sense without the rest of the trilogy. Of course, someone of your intellectual caliber might be allergic to Orson Scott Card, but don't ask me - I'm not even out of high school yet.
That, wearing on your breast,
You, unsuspecting, wear me too -
And angels know the rest.
The presumably relevant passage is probably 1 Thessalonians 5:22, which tells Christians to, "Abstain from all appearance of evil." This has been taken as a catch-all by some denominations to mean that a Christian should not participate in any activity which, even if purely fantastical and obviously fictional, deals with sorcery, demons, etc. Personally I feel they are overzealous, and mistaken in a broader Scriptural context. Describing his evangelism, St. Paul reports that he "became all things to all men" in order to save some. So I could see a contemporary St. Paul getting dressed up in spiky black leather and attending a heavy metal concert in order to evangelize metalheads. (And who's to say that he might not even enjoy the music?)
In my own experience, as long as one is clear in one's heart and head about what is fictitious and what is real, fiction holds little spiritual danger. It should be telling that arguably the two most famous Christian authors of the last century, C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkein, are best known for their works of fantasy.
I find many of the answers Christians provide to skeptics to be quite dubious in nature. Say one day, these questions finally fell through. Say that we knew Christianity was WRONG or say that a prophetic revelation from another religion came TRUE.
How would Christians then justify their millenias of ignorance and oppression of other beliefs? How would one cope with the fact that a belief in his life he valued so greatly was a fraud? What verse in the Bible would comfort a believer in this circumstance?
I cannot conceive of any hypothetical scenario, short of the world ending without heaven and Christ, that could effect that knowledge.
"...for there shall arise false Christs and false prophets, and shall show signs and wonders, that they may lead astray, if possible, the elect." (Mark 13:22)
The bases. They are covered.
I'll try to have more to say on this in a while; at the moment it still demands more thought. It's a great question, albeit one with many variables.
Jesus Christ's message, as it is popularly distilled, is as follows:
1. Love God.
2. Love your neighbour.
On these two sayings, it is said, hang all the laws and the prophets. This does not mean that you can just ignore the laws and the prophets, though; it means that an understanding of and appreciation for the laws and the prophets is essential to being able to carry out those two tasks. Christ came not to abolish the Law, but to fulfill it; He did not discard the Hebrew scriptures, but cited them and called them holy.
What's more, His message also includes a number of clauses concerning Hell and the difficulty of life. Hard sayings, they're sometimes called, and their truth and utility are not immediately or intuitively apparent. It's also a dicey proposition to love God without knowing who God is, or to love either God or your neighbour without knowing what "love" is meant to signify in this context.
This might be the reason for a collection of documents
- describing certain facets of His life
- providing accounts of His sayings
- including commentary thereupon by those who knew Him and lived at that time
- appending a collection of the documents that He Himself found essential.
Thus you get your bible.
In some instances, certainly; in others, not so much.
The appeal to relativism is not helping your case, as, of the two types of moral relativism most commonly propounded, the one undercuts your argument about the sameness of religious morality while the other undercuts your Kant.
If you're appealing to what is called descriptive moral relativism - that there are clear and irreconcilable differences between the moral outlooks of certain differing cultures and systems - it is not so very easy then to argue that all of the world's religions and moral codes are somehow the same thing with different window dressing. If you're appealing to what is called metaethical moral relativism - that the morality of a certain act is dependent upon the culture in which it is undertaken (pursuant to DMR but not elementally the same) - it is not so very easy to hold up the practical reason of the individual as a reliable source of moral information.
I tend to agree with Kant on the value of practical reason in such questions, but an important thing to remember about this is that practical reason doesn't come with all of the data pre-installed. You need information about things before you can come to a good moral judgement about them, and this might entail - alas - reading some books.
You might also need a book because you'd be poorly-informed without one.
Let's face facts: you had to read what Kant wrote before you knew what he said, didn't you?
I had the same thing happen to me recently with a novel about an adventure involving the two sets of James brothers so important to American history (Frank and Jesse, murderous outlaws; Henry and William, novelist and philosopher). It chunnered away on the back burner for a while until all of a sudden, one day, there it was on the bookshelf, written by some guy I'd never heard of. It was like magic.
Pretty good, honestly. I have no classes this summer, having overloaded on them during the fall and winter, and as such am taking it easy, doing research at whatever pace I like, idling, etc. I'll be moving to the nation's capital in the fall to start the PhD, but for now I'm enjoying a fairly wet and relaxing summer. How about you?
From out that wine-dark fog,
And spake he unto all our crew:
"Go forth, and read my blog."
While we're speaking of taking 500 pages to say things, do you really want to call Kant off of the bench for the idea that morality is extremely simple and is known by common sense? I suppose one could infer from the second Critique's relative length (much smaller than its flankers) that morality is more simple than epistemology and judgment. Still, as with everything Kant did, the project of defining the good will took a lot of verbiage.
And hey, while we're on Kant, do you mean to reconcile Kantian ethics with relativism? On the one hand, you say, values change; on the other hand, Kant is awesome sauce. But according to Manny, what is valuable to humans is humanity itself; thus, when the domain of discourse of the question "What ought I to do?" is limited to actors who are humans, the value (humanity) is always the same. The question "What ought a god to do?" may have a different answer; so might the question "What would it be most pleasurable to do?" But Kant being Kant, these are not the questions whose answers he sought.
I don't want to misinterpret what you say, but "You always have an obligation towards others and towards yourself." sounds less than fully Kantian. Kant was neither an altruist nor an egoist.
The second paragraph needs a "j/k that's Nietzsche talking" unless you want to undertake the task of bringing Kant and Nietzsche to an amicable settlement.
You are dodging my question. The purpose of the question wasn't whether Christ can ever be disproven but your reaction in the case that he was. I don't want to be assured that Christianity can't be disproven. I want to be assured that a followerer of Christ that comes to this realization has a way to reconcile himself with what was left to him from the Bible.
In this way, a person who questions Christ in the back of his head knows that believing is a win-win situation. He dies and doesn't go to heaven or hell but he realizes he still has lived a worthwhile life. This is the significance of my prior question.
The question of whether Christianity can be disproven is perfectly relevant to conjecture about what I would do if it were disproven. Let us assume a "worst-case" scenario: archaelogists discover a tomb in Jerusalem dated to the 1st century with the inscription, Yeshua bar Yehosef (Jesus son of Joseph); and there are bones inside that bear evidence of crucifixion. Now, this would certainly be an intriguing discovery. But bear in mind: Jesus and Joseph were both very common names in that era; the Romans crucified a lot of Jews on account of a lot of Jewish dissindence; and Christianity could not possibly have begun as it did in the face of an occupied tomb. So it would be quite reasonable to suppose that the archaeologists had discovered the bones of a different Jesus.
Bottom line: Christianity cannot be disproven. (This is, frankly, one of the vexing traits of religions generally.) So asking what I'd do if it were is like asking what I'd do if gravity were repealed. I have no idea what I'd do; but for that admission it's still not worth wasting much time thinking about.
A Christain is questioning his religious beliefs. How does this person know that his experiences with Christianity would be worthwhile regardless of its truthfulness?
It's called faith. You know, the whole purpose behind a religion...
I hate to break it to you, but chaos and selfishness already rules the world and all these "send me your money, for jeezus!" preachers have a hand in it.
There is an imposter among us...
How do you reconcile yourself with faith? As you've said, god does not use "gross coercion" (that would invalidate the whole process, presumably) and instead relies on an individuals faith. Was Kierkegaard wrong when in saying there is a necessary leap of faith to be made?
The way I see it, true faith requires absolute dismissal of reason. I also see reason is the one faculty by which we can define our existence. Ergo, I cannot have faith. Or is the ability to have faith some divine quality of the soul, a fact that can never be reconciled with our rational mind?
I'm not trying to debunk faith. But that's just the thing: I feel that all forms of the spiritual are incompatible with argument and discourse. To say something is right, wrong, knowable, unknowable, provable, or unprovable says that it is essentially rational.
Is irrationality knowable?