3Guys1Hammer - A Question for the religious

[rjh4 is back]

Any way you slice it, there is no way to claim objective understanding of revealed truths so the best answer is to bin the whole idea of revealed truth and rely on experimentation to test an idea against reality.

I don't know...

The Bible says to love your neighbor as yourself. See Luke 10:27-28.
The Bible also says at Matthew 7:12 "Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets."

So this is the revealed standard of how we are to interact with those around us. I certainly do not see how testing any of my own actions against "reality" gives a better result than testing them against the revealed standard. In fact, doing the former might very well give entirely different results than the latter depending on how I might determine what is "best for society".

For example, I start thinking that I don't like someone and want to beat them up and I know the person is weak and will submit and not cause any problems because they are afraid. So I decide to test this against reality and go ahead and beat the person. I find that I was correct and the person is too afraid to say it was me or do anything about it. So I determine that such behavior is ok...after all society accepts the concept of "survival of the fitest" and so my behavior should ultimately be good for society.

On the other hand if I rely upon the revealed truth as set forth above, I can immediately see that such actions would not be appropriate because no matter which way I cut it, I know I do not want to be beat up so I shouldn't be doing it to others. In this way, I can even do the testing before I act. Furthermore, it is not that difficult in most instances to compare another person's behavior to this standard and see if their actions would correspond with it. Seems like a much better way to do things than experimenting and testing against reality and it seems to me that the standard of revealed truth in this area would apply just as well in any time of history.

After all, when was the last time you heard of a child being stoned to death due to insolence?

I thought we were talking about interpersonal relationships and the appropriateness of certain behavior not legal issues for a society and appropriateness of applying certain consequences in the society.