pop morality

[Jenny A]

@ Dritch

Just assuming for the sake of argument, that there is a god (and that is a rather big assumption), at what point in time have people ever agreed about what god's righteousness is?

Man does not have to agree on righteousness. Righteousness is God, for us righteousness can be found in his law, and the understanding that we can never obtain righteousness through following the law. that righteousness for us can only come through atonement.

Yes I understand that you think no one can be moral by your god's standards, and so we must seek atonement.  That is the point of the whole Christian myth isn't it?  Well that settles heaven versus hell.  But it doesn't help with morality in the real world where we must still get along with one another. And it's no great consolation to me if your god forgives you for theft, rape, murder, or as is more likely, general unkindness. That's where relative current mores come in.  You dismiss man's morality as pop morality.  Call it what you want.  We need it.  It's what makes society run.

 Man's conception of god's will appears as variable over time as man's morals.

completely agree. which is what I told true christian.

In other words, in practice, it is not an objective standard anymore than pop morality is an objective standard.

 You may argue that you know, but I fail to see how your view is superior to that of other Christians here and now, elsewhere, or past.  If the standard is unknowable, than it is of no practical use.

No the standard is knowable in the Law of moses as well as the extention of the Law though Christ.
The problem is that 'morality' seeks to justify sin and make allowances in the law that were never supposed to be there.
Morality even on a high 'christian' level is nothing more than man's perversion of God's righteousness. it is the allowance of sin in God's law baring some circumstance or minimalization of sin in general.

I think you greatly exaggerate the clarity of the law of Moses even as further explained by Jesus and Paul.  Parts of it may be clear, but much of it is not.  Some of it is just plain contradictory (in the OT men are required to marry their brother's widows and also prohibited from marrying their brother's widow). Other parts are so morally repugnant that it's hard to believe anyone could consider them in anyway associated with a righteous pig, let alone a god.

For God all sin is the same. a white lie is deserves the same sentence as murder.

That is a very dangerous idea.   Every society of men has always maintained a sense of proportion about varying degrees of turpitude for the simple reason that some crimes injure society more than others.  Treating all crimes alike is tantamount to asking for murder to be as common as white lies.

For us because we lie alot and can not seperate ourselves from this sin/slave to sin, and because 'we' hold to the idea that we are 'Good' people. we put lying on the low end of our scale of sin/evil. Now because murder is something that most of us can live a life without doing, and because we are all 'good people' those who murder must be wicked. So then we must augment God's law/righteousness to fit our sliding scale. This augmentation is morality.

And a damned good thing we do too.  As you keep saying, people are not capable of being morally correct at all times.  Better we should lie than murder, and better we should tell white lies than commit fraud. Morality is useful.  As you explain it, your god's law is dangerous because it treats all moral infractions equally.

Morality says it is ok to lie so as to not hurt someone's feelings, to steal food to keep your family from dying of starvation..

Righteousness says It is never ok to lie or to steal no matter what.

Actually, current morality in the western world says it's okay to lie so as not to hurt someone's feelings or to steal food to keep your family from starving. That isn't the case in all societies. It is, as you point out, relative.

Righteousness on the other hand seems pretty variable too, as it is as variable as god's will.  Sometimes it's okay to steal land from the Canaanites or sacrifice your virgin daughter, and sometimes it's not.  No wonder people can't agree on exactly what it is that god wants. More importantly, we can't agree on what god wants.  So in practice, following god's will turns out to be relative too.

Now because God knows we can not live by His righteousness he provides atonement. Atonement says I forgive you when you lie not to hurt someone's feelings. I (God) Forgive you for stealing to feed your family, but we must own our sin, not justify it with circumstance as morality allows for.. Why? Because Morality begets/spawns Selfrighteousness. Self righteousness if a word that describes a morality that can be bent or twisted to do anything even marching jews to a death camp, and everyone still feel like they are 'good people.' When in fact the very core of selfrighteousness is Evil and evil that loves the sin that we want to be apart of and yet still see ourselves as 'good people.'

Oh, I see, you want to solve our real world moral problems by saying we must own our sin.  I agree, we must own our own immorality.  Why else would we even try to be moral?  But, I don't see that looking at all sin as equal is going to get us there. Nor is thinking that it will all be forgiven later.  

We can use morality to justify things we should not.  But more often it is people's view of god's morality that is used to justify evil.  Many people terrorizing Jews, killing Aztecs, burning heretics, executing Muslims, or whipping servant women for wearing ribbons, felt they were doing god's will.  Man's attempt to see god's will is as slippery as the modern notion of relative morality.  

My question demonstrates that 'we' are never in a position to see our own self righteousness without the benefit of an unchanging absolute like God's righteousness.

Once again, if we cannot define the absolute law to the letter, it is not useful as an absolute for determining our behavior now. Christians are incapable of agreeing on what god's law is, so it is not a useful absolute standard.  

That aside, from what I see in the Bible, god's law is a crude, barbaric standard that shows at every crack and seam that it was created in a harsher time, where there was more casual cruelty, and less equality.  It's a damned good thing, your god seems incapable of enforcing it because it is by today's standards gross and evil.  And I do mean evil.

You see, the extreme variability of man's understanding of god's will suggests that god's will is an idea created by man to bolster particular men's views of morality and nothing more.  It's better to leave god out of it, as then we can discuss what morality is best in a rational manner.

That's the thing God's will hasn't ever changed since it was made know to moses and extended by Christ. The change you are talking about is 'christian morality' which is nothing more than self righteousness itself.

I am suggesting that a god unable to either make his will clear to all men or enforce it here on earth, and a nonexistent god look the same.  That suggests to me that there is no such law making god.

God has a very simple plan. show us via the law that we can never abide by it.
provide atonement so we don't have to to be found righteous.
allow us the freedom to worship to the best of our ability.
Eternally separate those who want to retain their own righteousness.

Again, a very dangerous idea for the real world.  Real world consequences affect real world behavior and it's real world behavior that matters.

Your god and the afterlife he promises, are no concern of mine until there is some credible evidence he exists.  And he is a dangerous fantasy because it is dangerous to suppose you will be forgiven equally for all moral infractions or that anyone other than the person you injure can forgive you. It is also dangerous to suppose that lying and murder are equally bad.

I suggest this standard:  on any given moral question the rule should be that which a person who is not yet born and does not yet know what his race, gender, sexual orientation, or place in society will be would consider to be the best rule.  Applying this standard requires dispassion and reason, and would result in fairness. I will not hold my breath for the standard to be applied though because our morality is not entirely born of reason.  It is a product of empathy, which is why our moral standards are higher with regard to those we know or can otherwise identify with, than it is with regard for those we don't know or can't identify with.  The "other" is always given less rights be it because they differ in income, race, religion, sex, sexual orientation, nationality, language, profession, or dress. Biblical morality demonstrates this clearly.  Hebrews are expected to treat those they identify with (other Hebrews) better than those they don't (everyone else).  The adult male Hebrews writing the OT naturally give more rights to adult male Hebrews.  The adult Christian men writing the NT naturally give more rights to adult Christian men.  Naturally, they denigrated the rights of Jewish men who rejected Christianity.  

Far from behaving better when applying god's standard, people use god's standard to justify their lack of empathy for others.  Thus, the differing standards for: the chosen people versus all other people; my gender versus other genders; people of my faith versus people of other faiths; people of different incomes versus people of my income and so on.  Selfish people have used god's standard to justify everything from socialism (easily justified by Jesus's teachings) to capitalism (easily justified based on god's obvious preference).

This is still performance based morality.. which means no matter how well intentioned it is still subject to self righteousness, and will eventually degrade and fail.

As is your attempt to follow god's law.  I am interested in doing the best we can with what we have. You appear interested in being forgiven.