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Elok
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Land of Ramen Dragons
Mar 2003
time: 00:28
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This is just something I've been thinking about lately:
Since I came to poly, I've seen the creation-evolution argument pop up, well, billions of times. All the arguments centered around science and faith as competing systems of the same general sort-I.E., explanations of natural phenomena. That's understood, in the context of those arguments, as the purpose of both. As probably everyone noticed, I disagreed with these on the grounds that I regard religion primarily as a guide for moral behavior, with all other aspects secondary. That got me thinking about ecumenism-the relatively modern idea, practiced by Gandhi I think, of treating all religions as partially and equally valid truths. I always thought of that idea as a load of PC trash concocted by people too lazy to face truth(which, of course, is what atheists say about people like me, but that's another story...). Obviously though, under such a system of belief, you do not practice any religion as I think of it. If you regard all faiths as equally valid, you have no choice but to regard god as an unknown quantity with unknown desires, or else have your beliefs constantly warring with each other. Hence ecumenism, naturally, cannot function as a moral guide. It's still called religion though, so obviously others don't think of religion the same way I do.
How do you define religion? What's the point? What do you guys think? Is it an alternative to science, a security blanket, a moral guide, none of the above, or some of each?
Yes, I realize this will probably turn into a flamewar...sigh.
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Rogan Josh
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Christianity at least has nothing to do with morality. Christians have morals not in order to love God and have salvation through Christ's crucifixtion, but because they love God have salvation through Christ's crucifixtion.
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Elok
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Land of Ramen Dragons
Mar 2003
time: 00:28
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Rogan, I hate to burst your bubble, but Christian theology is a ****load more complicated than that. Tammy Faye Bakker and other evangelists would like to have us believe it's just that, but any 2000-year-old intellectual tradition is bound to have more to it than "believe and be saved." What you hear on EWTN or what-have-you is watered down for easier comprehension, and even the people giving it to you know it. I hope. Maybe there are people out there dumb enough to think of right and wrong that way, but certainly I'm not one of them.
With that said, I didn't mean this to be a multiple-choice exam or anything...maybe my phrasing was misleading. If nothing I said sounds like what you think of as religion, tell me. The reason I view faith as a moral guide is kinda like what Sloww said: don't assume people have common sense. In the kind of situations where snap moral decisions have to be made, a religious creed strikes me as the ideal solid rock to stand on. Most people just don't have the fortitude, self-awareness or objectivity to determine right and wrong as the situation warrants, IMO. But if you are religious but don't use it in that sense-how do you use it? Or is it just a part of your vague awareness with no real significance: income tax April 15, brother's birthday August 17, church every sunday, all one routine?
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Rogan Josh
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quote:
Originally posted by Elok
Rogan, I hate to burst your bubble, but Christian theology is a ****load more complicated than that.
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Well, duh! 
quote:
Tammy Faye Bakker and other evangelists would like to have us believe it's just that, but any 2000-year-old intellectual tradition is bound to have more to it than "believe and be saved."
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I have no idea who she is. Obviously it isn't believing in the sense of 'knowing to be true' - there is a lot more to it than that, but the central point of Cristianity is Christ dieing to take the punishment for our wrongdoing. Without that, Christianity is nothing - just like some new age, crappy feel-good junk, like you seem to be spouting.
quote:
What you hear on EWTN or what-have-you is watered down for easier comprehension, and even the people giving it to you know it. I hope.
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I have no idea what EWTN is. Please remember - not everyone is American.
quote:
Maybe there are people out there dumb enough to think of right and wrong that way, but certainly I'm not one of them.
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Since I have no idea what 'that way' is, I wouldn't know...
quote:
With that said, I didn't mean this to be a multiple-choice exam or anything...maybe my phrasing was misleading. If nothing I said sounds like what you think of as religion, tell me.
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My view of what is right and wrong comes directly from God, so in that sense, I agree, it is religion - I was pointing out that the 'right and wrong' bit on its own is not enough. And if you are willing to use Islam or Budism or whatever in that was, you cannot be a Christian.
quote:
The reason I view faith as a moral guide is kinda like what Sloww said: don't assume people have common sense. In the kind of situations where snap moral decisions have to be made, a religious creed strikes me as the ideal solid rock to stand on. Most people just don't have the fortitude, self-awareness or objectivity to determine right and wrong as the situation warrants, IMO.
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Hmmm.... I know what you are getting at and I sort of agree, but you have an awfully low opinion of the average Joe. I think most people do know right from wrong in the gross sense, although they may need to be pointed in the right direction for the more subtle things. I think when people do bad things, they usually know they are bad (unless they are Republicans  )
quote:
But if you are religious but don't use it in that sense-how do you use it? Or is it just a part of your vague awareness with no real significance: income tax April 15, brother's birthday August 17, church every sunday, all one routine? |
It isn't about 'using it'. Being a Christian can be very difficult sometimes, but it is something you are - not something you 'use'. This is the point I was making earlier - you don't go around being nice to people so that you can get into the 'Christian club' or something. But if you are a Christian, you want to live your live differently, a la First Corinthians 13.
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Giant_Squid
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Fun Guy from Yuggoth
Jan 1970
time: 00:28
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I wouldn't say you have to not practice religion to be an ecumenicalist. A lot of them take one religion and then selectively interpret other religions to agree with it. This is pretty easy if you have a not-too-God-oriented religion like Buddhism or Taoism, and it's a well-known fact you can get the Gospels to "prove" Jesus said ANYTHING. Anyone with a moralistic approach to religion can find the same morals time after time pretty well - pretty much every religion says stuff like respect your family and don't kill (unless you ask Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita, who's kinda scary). Ba'hai is pretty much based off of this kind of approach.
I personally prefer a more spiritual sort of ecumenicalism - the one with the tacky "you can take many paths but they all arrive at the top of the mountain" metaphor. Basically, God isn't an easily understandable guy with a white beard (another tacky phrase) who you can just read about and BOOM, there He is and you understand what He's about. Different prophets/seers/mystics have tried to grasp Him and have come up with different results. The tacky metaphor here is the two blind men who try to find out what an elephant is like. One feels its trunk and decides it's long and thin, like a snake; another feels its leg and decides it's tall and hard like a tree. Then it's our job to try and "establish contact" with God in our own way, using what these previous seers have told us as guides. This doesn't work unless you're pretty serious about religion and willing to delve into mysticism.
I disagree with that religion should be a moral guide or an alternative to science or something. Religion should be an attempt to establish a connection with God; either inside an established tradition, outside an established tradition, or picking and choosing from such traditions - and then handling whatever spiritual wisdom you gain from such a connection. Born-again Christians understand this and do it right, although apparently God tells them to be supremely annoying...but at least they follow Him! Monks and such less annoying but also good.
Random thought: "Two blind elephants decide to find out what a human is like. One feels the human with his foot. 'Humans are flat' says he. The other elephant also feels the human with his foot. 'You're right,' he says, 'humans are flat'"
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Giant_Squid
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Fun Guy from Yuggoth
Jan 1970
time: 00:28
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quote:
I agree with your second statement but not with the first. Why do you feel religion should not have anything to do with morality? |
Well, I wouldn't say religion should have nothing to do with morality, but I don't think of it as a "guide" per se. One shouldn't, for example, if one has a problem open the Bible, find a verse that relates to it, and go and follow whatever that verse says; otherwise if you open it up to one of those Old Testament wars with Joshua and the like, you're in *deep* trouble.
The way I think religion should influence morality is more mystical - you establish a sense of connection with God, the Universe, Ultimate Reality, whatever...and then you let Him/It advise your actions.
Of course, since the vast majority of people aren't going to take the time to understand God, I suppose that threatening hellfire here and there for the worst offenses isn't necessarily a bad thing, but I don't know if someone really serious about religion should take that as a guide.
Did that make sense, or did it seem hopelessly contradictory?
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Ben Kenobi
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McGregornobi!
Oct 2002
time: 21:28
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Giant Squid:
Sorry to misunderstand your position.
quote:
otherwise if you open it up to one of those Old Testament wars with Joshua and the like, you're in *deep* trouble.
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Here's the short answer, what my church teaches (Mennonite), on this point.
The wars in Joshua were strictly limited by God. God directed the Israelites when and where to attack. Not only did he speak through Joshua, but also through his manifestations, did God confirm his desire to go to war.
The reasoning behind this is that God needed to establish a people faithful to him, which turned out to be Israel, thanks to the faith of the patriarchs.
Notice, God refused to help those who forsook him, even among the Israelites, even Moses could not enter the Promised Land because they had disobeyed God.
This is why we are not to apply the passages in Joshua to our own conduct, not because they are immoral behavior, but because these actions are no longer necessary to establish God's will.
Looking for the relevant passages:
Joshua 1:1-5
After the death of Moses the servant of the LORD , the LORD said to Joshua son of Nun, Moses' aide: "Moses my servant is dead. Now then, you and all these people, get ready to cross the Jordan River into the land I am about to give to them-to the Israelites. I will give you every place where you set your foot, as I promised Moses. Your territory will extend from the desert to Lebanon, and from the great river, the Euphrates-all the Hittite country-to the Great Sea [1] on the west. No one will be able to stand up against you all the days of your life. As I was with Moses, so I will be with you; I will never leave you nor forsake you.
Joshua 4:4-7
So Joshua called together the twelve men he had appointed from the Israelites, one from each tribe, and said to them, "Go over before the ark of the LORD your God into the middle of the Jordan. Each of you is to take up a stone on his shoulder, according to the number of the tribes of the Israelites, to serve as a sign among you. In the future, when your children ask you, 'What do these stones mean?' tell them that the flow of the Jordan was cut off before the ark of the covenant of the LORD . When it crossed the Jordan, the waters of the Jordan were cut off. These stones are to be a memorial to the people of Israel forever."
Joshua 4:23-4
"For the LORD your God dried up the Jordan before you until you had crossed over. The LORD your God did to the Jordan just what he had done to the Red Sea [2] when he dried it up before us until we had crossed over. He did this so that all the peoples of the earth might know that the hand of the LORD is powerful and so that you might always fear the LORD your God."
If you read further into Joshua, you see that the Israelites succeed only with God's intervention, and when they keep their faith in God. When they falter, they fail.
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Elok
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Land of Ramen Dragons
Mar 2003
time: 00:28
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quote:
Originally posted by St Leo
Copyright infringement isn't theft. The Bible never mandated anything resembling a copyright law. Singing a song after a performance is just as illegal as listening to an "unathorized" recording of it because copyrights are owned on both the lyrics and the peformance.
The speaker is mine, the computer is mine, the modem is mine. If I can use it to guide an echo through the hills to my place at will, it's not theft.
Coveting your neighbour's goods might apply, except that it's more like coveting your neighbour's charisma or luck. |
Sorry, St. Leo, but it must be said: this sort of half-assed rationalization is a perfect example of what I was saying re: the moral ineptitude of human beings. In situations, especially, where the absolute considerations of right and wrong are tainted by the promise of personal gain, anybody can find a way to say "[X] is right." In this case, using specialized equipment to gain for free what you would otherwise have to pay the creator for, essentially cheating an artist of his or her livelihood to some extent. The Bible obviously couldn't cover anything resembling this because the technology did not exist back then. And with no printing presses, the profit from copyright infringement would be moot. Technologically aided theft is still theft, but we are quite capable of rationalizing it here because of the electronic middleman. Similarly, many other improprieties can be altered by a little "logic" in the right direction. When a professor exchanges As for sex with a student, everybody wins, so what's the problem?, etc. When you desire a certain answer you WILL get it. The Judeo-Christian explanation for this is the Fall; I'm ignorant of others.
There's also the fact that certain religious codes are not in violation of civil law and therefore cannot be applied as rational truth. From a Christian perspective gluttony is a sin, though it harms only consenting human beings. Even more so there are things like fornication which cause no direct harm by secular standards but are considered immoral anyway for other reasons...which is where pat definitions blur. I personally wonder at the idea of the Fruit of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Adam can't have eaten very much of it. Maybe it wore off or something.
Rogan: Christ didn't necessarily die to literally "take the blame," according to some churches. I don't want to get into specifics and turn this into a Bible study thread(too late, I know!), but even that's a little generalized.
Zero: I do not believe in predestination. That's why you're going to hell. 
GS: Isn't "advising your actions" a moral guide of a different sort? I'm not saying you're wrong, I'm just wondering if we aren't saying the same thing. Good and evil can be very cosmic or depressingly mundane, IMO. You've read The Screwtape Letters, right? It's one of my favorite books.
For responses to the mystical morals thing, check out my long anti-Leo diatribe above. I think that covers my stance on most of what you addressed. And your random thought was awesome. 
Obiwan: I think the pope uses ecumenism in a WAY different sense from Gandhi. Gandhi thought more like Giant Squid, I think.
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Ben Kenobi
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McGregornobi!
Oct 2002
time: 21:28
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Lorizael:
Good questions, I'll try to answer as best as I can.
Do you think that ethics and morals cannot exist without God?
Short answer is yes, in that all ethics and morals eventually find their source in God, even if they claim to reject God. For example, how do we personally know what is right and wrong? For most of us, this will come from our conscience. Even if we were to base a system of ethics and morals based on our conscience, we are left with the question of where does our conscience come from?
I would say that our conscience comes from the Natural Law, written on our hearts by God. There can be times when our conscience does not work properly, due to our own ignorance or sin, but for the most part, our conscience should properly inform us of what is right and wrong. Many errors in ethical systems set apart from God come from these failures in our conscience.
Of course, it is possible to have an 'ethics' or a system of 'morals' apart from God if one takes the position of a moral relativist, so that anything we say can become an ethical position. However, such a position reduces the word 'ethics' to meaningless.
Is violence okay if it is ordained by God? If so, why?
Now I have to ask for clarification here. By 'violence ordained by God' do you refer to situations where God uses violence to punish people?
God, as a righteous judge, has the right to punish the wicked. There are many examples of his methods in the OT. Often God uses natural means, earthquake, fire, etc. to do so.
In Joshua, we see the nation of Israel, used as an instrument of justice to punish the wicked in Canaan, for their wickedness before God. So yes, God has used people as his instrument to punish the wicked.
Now, I come to my point, that God no longer needs to use this form of judgement. Christ has died to redeem man from his sins, and that all who believe in him will be saved. The ransom has been paid, and judgment delayed until Christ returns.
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16-05-2003 20:01
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