Christian morality delusions

[Belacqua]

There is subjective morality- what I feel internally to be right and wrong as according to my experience and beliefs

Since I'm not Christian, of course I feel comfortable telling everybody what Christians believe.    And since I'm all academic and ivory-towerish, I can ignore whatever they teach in the local Sunday School, to focus on the good stuff. What I want to type out here is a good old theological view, that stretches from Augustine (at least) through Dante and Simone Weil. It may not be known in the rank and file, but it certainly is a part of Christian tradition. 

First, I'm going to avoid the terms "subjective" and "objective" as misleading. But I do agree with your view that there is a personal set of morals, and (for Christians) the belief in an over-arching Good. 

The personal is just what we feel we ought to do, in order to be good people. Christian history says (unfairly to the Jews) that the 613 commandments of the OT were for beginners who didn't know enough. It's as if you have a kindergarten kid and you tell him details instead of general rules: "don't ride in any cars," "come straight home," "don't talk to strangers." This is the kind of detail that a kid needs. If you just say "be good" to a 6-year-old he doesn't understand. Jesus, though, changed things from a set of detailed rules to one big rule: be good. This is what is meant by "fulfilling" the law. It is no longer in a book; it is supposed to be in our hearts. So we have a general sense of what we should aim for. 

There is societal morality- what is commonly accepted to be right or wrong for a people within a particular society

I think that Christians reject this. This is Babylon, this is the symbolic Rome of the Apocalypse, this is the God of This World, which is Satan. Christians are called to do better. 

There is universal morality (possibly)- things that rational people of any time and any place find right or wrong
There is objective morality- A being I call God exists outside the universe that influences us through the Holy Spirit to inform of objective morality.

These, I think, are the same. Or they would be if we understood them well enough. 

In the view of traditional classical theology, God is not a person-like rule-giver. God is just the Good. It doesn't make sense to ask where God got his morals from. He himself is the Good. Morality means aiming toward him. Sin is what distracts us from that direction. 

This sort of dismisses most questions about rules. It is too simple to ask "is lying always wrong?" or detailed questions like that. There are an infinite number of decisions to make in order to be good, no set of rules can cover them all in any detail. We are called upon to think and worry about if what we are doing aims to the Good. 

The important thing about this, for me, is that it demands extreme humility. No living person can know what the full ramifications of his actions will be. We do our very best, but because none of us is God, none of us can see the Good (or, more properly be the Good). And I think this is not a bad lesson for non-Christians as well. But of course I get annoyed when I hear non-humble people -- Christian or otherwise -- who think they know anything for sure.

[ignoramus]

Bel ...That's all very noble but still based on nothing solid. As atheists can and do strive for the "good", is God needed?
If God "is" the good, then he may as well be anything and everything and dilute to nothing. More semantics.

Since when does good give spare lives out if you follow the rules?

Khem, (let me know if you don't want me calling you that), give me another example of something intangible (not physical) that can objectively exist other than morals.
I'm trying to get my head around it like wyzas.

[Belacqua]

Bel ...That's all very noble but still based on nothing solid.

Granted, the very short version I've typed out here seems arbitrary. People have been working on it for well over 2000 years, though, so we can be pretty confident that whatever objections occur to us have been addressed. 

This doesn't mean you should believe it -- just that there may be more solidity to it than my summary implies.

As atheists can and do strive for the "good", is God needed?

According to this view, insofar as anyone is striving for the Good, he is striving in the direction of God. Knowledge of the concept of God would not be needed. 

If God "is" the good, then he may as well be anything and everything and dilute to nothing.

It is not a thing -- if by "thing" we mean something tangible, sensible, having a separate and physical existence. It is closer to an ideal or an idea. This is why both Plato and Weil insist that the best introduction to God is mathematics. The intangibility and purity of math, and its existence despite that, points us in the right direction.

Since when does good give spare lives out if you follow the rules?

Aren't you thinking of video games?

I've already addressed the issue of rules.

Life after death, in this view, is of a completely different type than life in the material world. We have to get past the view of heaven we get from New Yorker cartoons, with people on clouds lined up at the Pearly Gates. Dante's description is most clearly imagined, though since he is writing for people who can't imagine eternity without time or space, he makes it clear that he is writing symbolically.

[ignoramus]

B, I like you already...very sensible.

Would I be accurate to say that most theists are of the NY cartoon type?

By that I mean the bomber who killed 50 in Afghanistan yesterday wasn't thinking of the purity of maths whilst pressing the button....

[Belacqua]

B, I like you already...very sensible.

[/quote]

Thank you!

I reiterate my hug from yesterday!

Would I be accurate to say that most theists are of the NY cartoon type?

Sad to say, you would. 

But let it be known: I am a snob. I ignore them.

[ignoramus]

B, you'll understand my biggest gripe is when I'm told God (whatever it is, I'm ignostic) lives outside our universe.

Firstly, is that even possible? I understand the need for that position (god of the gaps), secondly, why do most cartoon theists even need to justify the existence of their God using empirical evidence? Are they trying to convince themselves or us? My take is their still struggling with their own mental gymnastics.

[Belacqua]

B, you'll understand my biggest gripe is when I'm told God (whatever it is, I'm ignostic) lives outside our universe.

[/quote]

Yeah, that's frustrating. 

Like a lot of the wimpier arguments, I think this is a trickle-down version of something they've heard and imperfectly understood. For one, "lives" would be tricky -- God doesn't live as an animal lives. Also "outside" gives the impression that God has a house somewhere out past the city limits, where the city is the universe. They would do better to say that because it is immaterial, God is not a part or portion of the universe, but at the same time is not separate from it. Since to say "God and the universe are One" is misleading, probably better to say "God and the universe do not make two," or, even better, to use the Buddhist term 不二 -- "not two." 

why do most cartoon theists even need to justify the existence of their God using empirical evidence? Are they trying to convince themselves or us? My take is their still struggling with their own mental gymnastics.

I think it's the unwitting compliment they pay to science. They realize, quite rightly, that empirical evidence is how we understand and prove things in this day and age. So they foolishly try to use it where it isn't applicable. There is something to be said for "natural theology," working to discuss God without knowledge given through revelation, but it works through logical extrapolation from obvious truths, not through empirical evidence of the type they want.

[brewer]

Ain't the same thing and I think you're just holding a position. 

Can you explain why it's not?  That was sort of the point of the entire exercise.  Not to convince you that there are moral facts..only that, if there were, they would be like other facts.

A fact(s) of morals are not the same as a fact(s) of doors.

-and shoe facts are not the same as door facts.

You need to put on the horns when playing advocate.

[The Grand Nudger]

Khem, (let me know if you don't want me calling you that), give me another example of something intangible (not physical) that can objectively exist other than morals.
I'm trying to get my head around it like wyzas.

I don't think that morality -is- "not physical"...but....if people's confusion about objective morality is the sort of intangible/not physical that you're looking for..it objectively exists.

Honestly, it's not a difficult idea. I think that folks overthink moral facts and underthink shoe facts. We take the latter for granted, and act like we take the former for granted, but express confusion at the notion of the former over the latter. If there are true things about something that make that thing good or bad, then that is an objective description of morality. It;s useful to point out that we might get those true things wrong, or have the wrong set of true things in mind, but even this is an -attempt- at an objective morality. The faithful, for example, think it has something to do with gods, lol.

---

You need to put on the horns when playing advocate.

Big curly black ones! 

I'm only advocating for people to have a clearer understanding of what it is they're affirming or rejecting when they talk about objective moral statements.  As the OP comment laid out,  people often affirm or reject moral realism for reasons wholly unrelated to what moral realism is about. The confusion on both sides feeds into each other and creates a false impression of the subject that conforms to other beliefs each set has about each other....and is formed largely -by- those things, rather than anything about the item in question.

So, for example...you'll have folks trying to disagree with something some atheist says by saying "but since I believe in an objective moral authority": - by which they are referring to god but not objective morality....and then, a gaggle of the godless pipe in to say "yeah, but that's bullshit"...referring..themselves..to a god, and not an objective morality.

[Brian37]

There is subjective morality- what I feel internally to be right and wrong as according to my experience and beliefs

Since I'm not Christian, of course I feel comfortable telling everybody what Christians believe.    And since I'm all academic and ivory-towerish, I can ignore whatever they teach in the local Sunday School, to focus on the good stuff. What I want to type out here is a good old theological view, that stretches from Augustine (at least) through Dante and Simone Weil. It may not be known in the rank and file, but it certainly is a part of Christian tradition. 

First, I'm going to avoid the terms "subjective" and "objective" as misleading. But I do agree with your view that there is a personal set of morals, and (for Christians) the belief in an over-arching Good. 

The personal is just what we feel we ought to do, in order to be good people. Christian history says (unfairly to the Jews) that the 613 commandments of the OT were for beginners who didn't know enough. It's as if you have a kindergarten kid and you tell him details instead of general rules: "don't ride in any cars," "come straight home," "don't talk to strangers." This is the kind of detail that a kid needs. If you just say "be good" to a 6-year-old he doesn't understand. Jesus, though, changed things from a set of detailed rules to one big rule: be good. This is what is meant by "fulfilling" the law. It is no longer in a book; it is supposed to be in our hearts. So we have a general sense of what we should aim for. 

There is societal morality- what is commonly accepted to be right or wrong for a people within a particular society

I think that Christians reject this. This is Babylon, this is the symbolic Rome of the Apocalypse, this is the God of This World, which is Satan. Christians are called to do better. 

There is universal morality (possibly)- things that rational people of any time and any place find right or wrong
There is objective morality- A being I call God exists outside the universe that influences us through the Holy Spirit to inform of objective morality.

These, I think, are the same. Or they would be if we understood them well enough. 

In the view of traditional classical theology, God is not a person-like rule-giver. God is just the Good. It doesn't make sense to ask where God got his morals from. He himself is the Good. Morality means aiming toward him. Sin is what distracts us from that direction. 

This sort of dismisses most questions about rules. It is too simple to ask "is lying always wrong?" or detailed questions like that. There are an infinite number of decisions to make in order to be good, no set of rules can cover them all in any detail. We are called upon to think and worry about if what we are doing aims to the Good. 

The important thing about this, for me, is that it demands extreme humility. No living person can know what the full ramifications of his actions will be. We do our very best, but because none of us is God, none of us can see the Good (or, more properly be the Good). And I think this is not a bad lesson for non-Christians as well. But of course I get annoyed when I hear non-humble people -- Christian or otherwise -- who think they know anything for sure.

Um no,

The further back in time you go, the more literal more people took religions. Your watering down your interpretation way after the fact. Back in antiquity society lived under dictators, that is what kings are. Now you can argue that some kings were more tolerant than others sure, but they were still the absolute authority back then. That is why you see words like "Kingdom" or "lord" in that book. It has no reflection one bit on modern society. It was written by the people who lived back then, for the people who lived back then. You have to water it down to make it work now.

That book justifies treating females like property. It justifies infanticide, genocide and slavery. Now before you respond, please do not accuse me of hating you personally, or being a bigot. I am merely pointing out the times of antiquity and how humans thought back then. Back then the mortality rate was far higher, so if you were not in the ruling class, it was extremely important to obey your local ruler. And humans were far more isolated back then compared to today, so those local rulers when they fought each other, were less compassionate and when you defeated your enemy back then, EVEN IN POLYTHEISM, it was very likely you'd be expected to take their women as prizes, enslave the boys and men, and or kill their young. I am not saying only Christians did that, I am saying that was the norm back then.

The west became more civil in spite of religion, not because of it.