pop morality

[Jenny A]

@ Dritch

Just to be clear, what I'm hearing from you is this:

1.  All morallity is popular (relative) morality.

Yes

2.  God's law as defined by Jesus, is purposely designed to be unfollowable by mortal man.  

yes

3. Those portions of god's laws that appear immoral (like slavery, rape, aborting the babies of unfaithful wives, discriminating against bastards, gneocide, etc.) are good because they have helped humanity in some way.

Not good or bad they are neutral, and were or are necessary.

4.  The punishment for all violations of god's law is enternal damnation.

All meaning Any yes, Damnation meaning Hell/eternal seperation/2nd death yes

5. All violations of god's laws are equally bad.

Yes

6. Violations of god's laws are debts to god.

More or less, they are also describe as being a debt you accumilate that is yet to be paid.
(as in the wages of sin is Death.)

7. Whether other human beings are hurt by your actions is not relevent to whether the action is a sin.

All pain we identify is not sinful, no. On the other hand God identifies other 'pain' we cause one another and identifies it as sin. like divorce.

8. To be rightious is to seek atonement from god.

Only God is righteous. We seek atonement to cloth ourselves in the righteousness of Christ.

9. God's law is objective.

God's law is based on His will, and therefore does not change.

10. Morality is bad because it changes with time and place.

No, All I am saying is morality is a non stable standard and to judge yourself by it or anything else is foolish, because it can be literally made to say anything is right to wrong.

11. Atheists prefer morality because it's less strict than god's law.

No because they can justify anything they want with it.

12. Jews are an exception in that they can follow OT God's law to the letter instead of the impossible NT standard and that's OK with god.

No I refer to OT jews following the law. Their are no more OT jews, that means non are exempt. Even modern day Jews do not follow the practices of OT jews, even the most devout.

Is that correct?  If not, which of the above is wrong?  I'm not asking for the whys.  Just trying to see if I understand your position.

:thumbsup:

Okay, I think I understand you now.  My position is this:

1. All morality is relative.  However, it is based upon human instincts, human empathy, and rationality.  It is enforced by society as a whole both socially and legally.  Thus although societal morals change, individuals are by no means free to do what they want morally. 

I don't argue that this is ideal so much as that it is all there is.  There is no god.  People have never been able to agree on what god's laws are.  Even members of the same sect and religion have different ideas about what those laws are.  And where the religion has a book of law, that law is continuously reinterpreted to reflect societal morals.  In fact human morality is the driving force behind what is considered to be god's laws.  It is better to recognize this as discuss morality on the basis of the here and now.

2. If god's law is, as you say, designed to be unfollowable, than the god you believe in is a tyrannical bastard and not worthy of worship.

3. It is immoral and dangerous to society to use god's laws to justify things like slavery, rape, or genocide.  I'm applying today's standards.  And by them, god is immoral. 

4. The natural result of being alive is eventual death.  That death is oblivion.  That makes life more, not less valuable.  Human laws should be designed to further then lives of humans.

5. Not all immoral behavior is equally bad.  All civilized criminal systems implicitly recognize this and so does the OT law. 

6. Violations of god's law, are irrelevant to what human law should be.  Human laws should be worked out rationally.  No human should act on the assumption that bad behavior can be excused by a god.  The debt accumulated by bad behavior is to the person injured, or the state if the state is injured.

7. Not all injuries to others are immoral.  But injury to others is one of the standards by which we judge morality.

8. Righteous is not really a useful term.

9.  If god's will is unchanging than god is not the god presented in the Bible.

10.  Morality is indeed malleable.  But it is the only standard of behavior we have.  Nor is it so malleable that anything goes.  See number one above.

11. Stricter is not the word I'd use for what much of what the Bible proclaims as god's law so much as it is more barbaric.  Slavery, genocide, etc. is not justifiable by "the good of humanity."  The law includes many nonsensical proscriptions such as not wearing mixed fabrics, not eating pork, etc. The law favors men over women.  The law provides little if any protection for children.  It also wastes much time on how to worship god in ways that have been done away with in the New Testament such as animal sacrifice.

Not only does it allow light punishment of things like rape and allow slavery, but it also allows mistreatment of foreigners, women, servants, and slaves.  It also requires discrimination against bastards (not just in inheritance either). And it allows discrimination against racial minorities and homosexuals (actually it often requires discrimination) and in that way it is actually more lax, not stricter than current morals.

I prefer morality to god's laws because morality reflects the current needs and understanding of my society.  And I think society has greatly improved since 100 CE or so.


Frankly, after taking the time to understand you position, I reject it utterly as immoral.  I could not in conscience follow it.  Certainly I would not ask to know at a god who would propose such a thing.  But it does explain a certain amount of religious barbarousness.