Are religious folks ethically challenged?

reply to post by 547000


Thanks for not playing. Cop out!

Why do so many people rely on books (mostly the Bible, the Quran or the Torah) to guide them in ethical matters?

The same reason people...this site is notorious...use the Constitution, the Declaration, and the Bill of Rights to brow beat a nonsensical opinion based on relatively little fact and far too much emotion; it is a shelter to shield them from accountability and free them from responsibility.

For example..

You are wrong and I am right because…(insert name of piece of paper with ink on it that some person that you have never met wrote over one hundred years ago but you totally get every nuance they intended)… says… (insert self righteous interpretation of extremely ambiguous document in order to enforce your own personal agenda).

Wow, that was kind of depressing.

Squirrel



[edit on 27-8-2010 by TheWrongStuff]

Absolutely, their ethics are defined for them by books and other people. They don't trust themselves therefore they don't discover their ethics on their own.

Some people need crutches some don't, there are people who know morality through expierence and some who need guidance or are put in situations where they can't use morals anymore..... It's a deep discussion I'm agnostic myself and I don't like religious/atheist people bickering with each other I just choose to admit that I don't have all the answers...... Everyone has their opinion and morals are subjective to circumstance

Originally posted by AllIsOne
So all was good. Agreed?

Agreed.

God finished his work, he completed it and there is no mention of anything bad or evil. He explicitly mentions heavens and earth. This encapsulates the spiritual and physical realm. Right?

Yes. So far so good.

To me, that is the stunner: god introduced the knowledge of good and evil. But how can he know about evil when all he ever created to this point was good and he himself is good?

If God is understood to be omniscient, then He knows all. What you know does not determine your character or who you are. I may know a dozen ways to murder somebody, but that does not make me a killer. Knowing evil and being evil are two different things. God knows what evil is, but has done nothing evil and created nothing that was evil. All other creations that had free will don't have nearly the willpower or discipline to not act out on selfish or evil desires.

Either way, at this point I think we could agree that knowing something does not make you that thing. Knowing what wisdom is does not make a person wise, and knowing what stupidity is does not make one stupid.

Here is another logic-stunner: god, who is omniscient, talks to Adam knowing full well that his rap is BS because Adam & Eve will eat from the tree. When he planted that tree he knew that said action will doom Adam & Eve.

If there is never a choice there isn't free will. I guess another way of saying it is that we would never be able to truly love God if we didn't have the option of rejecting Him. He wanted us to Genuinely love Him, not just be bound servants. Obedience is how one shows love to God, as found numerous times in the book of John as taught by Christ right before he was taken away to be crucified.

John 14:15
15"If you love me, you will obey what I command.

John 14:21
21Whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves me. He who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love him and show myself to him."

But anyway, He could still do this because it also gives God the opportunity to show how much He did care for us by taking the punishment that we rightly deserve and taking it on himself through the death of Jesus. You know somebody really loves you when something has to be sacrificed (used in the sense of given up, not some ritualistic sacrifice). Like giving up a promotion because it would mean being away from the wife and kids more is a sacrifice for the relationship, or a military man diving on a grenade to show his love for those he is serving alongside. The greatest acts of love are shown in what we are willing to sacrifice to keep that love.

Why do you keep referring to a book that is in its core morally ambigous, unclear and confusing? God, as depicted in the Bible, is good?

Yes, I believe so. I'm not about to endorse the whole-sale slaughter of entire cities, because I do not have the authority or right to do so. The slaughter (and that is what it was, I wont deny that) of entire cities in the OT at God's direction is, as best as I understand it, punishment on those cities for things done that are simply inexcusable. Sacrificing of children by placing them in the red-hot hooves of a statue of a bull for instance (ritualistic sacrificing to the pagan god Molech). I dont know the answers top that though, as I wasn't there and I don't see the big picture like God does, as hard as I may try.

When the man of Jesus Christ, God in the flesh, says that the rule to living is loving God and loving people, it's kind of hard to go wrong with that. Christians (for the most part anyway, cant speak for everyone and some "christians" are far from following Christ's commands) aren't trying to see how closely they can replicate the actions of the Jews in the OT. They are, or at least should be, concerned only with helping the helpless and praising God for the good he has done.

Part of the reason I stick to it, since you asked, is that the Bible is a collection of 66 books written by over 40 authors over the span of 1600 years and most of those authors in the OT made some sort of prophesy about the Messiah/Christ and all of those things were fulfilled by Jesus. The scriptures (all books included) support one another without contradiction and line up perfectly with historical records. I understand that each of those points are often debated, but I really dont care to do so here and know as I probably have elsewhere on this site already. But between the reliability of the scriptures and the very nature of Christ, whom I try to follow, are what make me choose to believe in what is found in such an archaic book.

Oh, and the serpent thing...
the serpent is generally understood to be Satan. while I dont hold the apocrypha to be authoritative, it has some interesting ideas about the nature of Satan and his fall from grace, as the angels also had free will and some choose to go against God. Satan was not happy with being considered inferior to man, as men were created in God's image and so he became jealous and decided to set himself up as a god. It is believed by some that Satan's deception of Adam and Eve was simply to ruin God's greatest creation out of envy and pride. But he didn't count on how far God would go in order to show His love for us.

Long post, I know. Sorry. I'm not trying to convert anyone here or anything, it's just that I would like to show that there is logical and explainable reasons for why people believe as I do. It's not just a bunch of hypocrites who know nothing about what their faith is supposed to be. It's not just cause we read it in a book and some guy in a suit told us to believe what he said without question.

reply to post by jheated5


Let's be fair now, I'm a firm believer in Christ but I will still admit that I don't have all the answers. I generally have a respect for agnostics as they are unsure and open to discussion at least, but often times the title is used to show a false humility.

What I mean by that is many "agnostics" claim they dont know all of the answers to show that they are better than those who do claim to know the answers because they (the agnostics) are more humble.

My response to that statement is that there are simply some questions that I have found reasonable answers for and have accepted those answers as being truthful. There are plenty of things that I don't have answers for that I am sure you, or any other person, could very quickly answer for me. Just because we will never know the full extent of the cosmos or what your appendix is supposed to do doesn't mean we shouldnt look into the matter. Though honestly, I think NASA is a waste of taxpayer dollars but thats a different conversation

reply to post by Mykahel


Thanks for taking the time to reply. I appreciate it.

The way the OP presented himself as being "agnostic" kind of gave that impression to me so I can see where your coming from.... Like I said though I don't have all the answer and I do hold beliefs may be different for yours and I'm glad to agree and be open to what you believe in.... For example I believe in reincarnation, but I won't respond to people who say my belief is from the devil blah blah..... I believe in something but still unsure of it's validity but none of us will know till the end or maybe not even then right??

Fair enough. I may not know the answers for sure, but I suppose I am confident enough in them that I am willing to live my life according to that faith and hope. After all, as the author of Hebrews put in chapter 11:

"Faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see."

I'm not going to waste my life living according to something that I am unsure about. I guess my thing with agnostics, and I don't mean this in a derogatory way, is that if you are unsure and do not know, wouldn't you want to devote that much more time trying to understand God and the universe? I can't imagine going through life and simply having no idea what would happen or being undecided on the issue. Maybe that's just me though, as I can't stand being in a state of ignorance concerning a subject so important... unless it's chemistry, never going to bother with chemistry lol.

reply to post by Mykahel


You have to understand everyone is in a state of ignorance, speaking for myself being agnostic doesn't mean well I don't know and lets just leave it at that... I look for answers and understanding and its a fun part of the journey, it must be nice to have all the answers but I like to look for them myself.... My truth is different than yours and so forth everyone walks a different path, are you sure you're not agnostic? You seem to think you have the answer but yet you are still unsure?

Good and evil is simple.

If you don't like it done to you then it's evil. If you like it then it's good. Plain and simple.

There are some exceptions to the rules like the masochists and such. Then again, there's always a nut in every crowd.

reply to post by Mykahel

I'm not going to waste my life living according to something that I am unsure about. I guess my thing with agnostics, and I don't mean this in a derogatory way, is that if you are unsure and do not know, wouldn't you want to devote that much more time trying to understand God and the universe?

Brother Mykahel, I let you ponder the fallacy of that logic ...

reply to post by AllIsOne


I would suspect that you are implying that any faith in God cannot be certain and therefor one's life should not revolve around trying to live according to said beliefs?

reply to post by jheated5


I should have specified when I said I did not have the answer for sure. I meant that I do not have the answers for exactly why God has done things the way He has, and I cannot explain how he has done what He has any more than the scriptures already do. I can try and explain things like how God can both be wrathful and loving, but I cannot be certain that my logic for reaching those conclusions is perfect and that my answer is right. I'm still learning things all the time.

I like to think I have a better understanding of the Bible than most Christians, having studied it both as part of my faith but also objectively in college for 4 years.

By all means, I'm not saying that all agnostics are happy being ignorant, I know many are trying to find all the answers. I just wonder about those who are content to say they dont know the answers and never give it a second thought.

[edit on 28-8-2010 by Mykahel]

[edit on 28-8-2010 by Mykahel]

reply to post by Unregistered


Pain and Pleasure have absolutely nothing to do with the reality of good and evil. That is a very hedonistic worldview similar to that of Epicureanism and even then what you posted is a horrible simplification and misrepresentation of it.

I'm hoping you were being sarcastic.

reply to post by Mykahel


After your comment on the other thread I'm done with you. You are a Christian fundamentalist and therefore insane.

Originally posted by AllIsOne

Originally posted by WolfofWar

Originally posted by AllIsOne
reply to post by sdcigarpig

 

Thanks for your post. You brought up an interesting point.

I'm just a lowly human and obviously not a god, but I have a question ...

If I was god and in a position to write/transmit a Bible, Quran, or Thora you can bet your bottom dollar that I would be as precise as godly possible. There would not be a quark of a doubt about any single comma or punctuation mark. The meaning of every sentence would be crystal clear to everybody. There would be zero and I mean 0.0 ambiguity. Unfortunately, those texts are shrouded in mystery and went through countless revisions and edits.

I always found that a little suspect

But how do you write something that is understood by everybody? We can't even do this in our own time period. Different languages, cultures, identities. These inhibit the ability to provide clear and concise messages, they are road blocks of communication. Now compound that issue with 4,000+ years of different cultures, ways of speaking, imbued understanding and general culture clash.

Even a god would be unable to write for everybody, in one book, for all of eternity.

1+1=2

It can be done.

I disagree OP. If I am writing a book and include idiums such as 'break a leg' everyone who reads in our time and in our language knows what that means. Then, two thousand years from now someone translates it into aramaic word for word and it is read by their culture, and guess what? They think I'm telling someone to break someone's leg. The Bible is full of idioms from the aramaic, greek, and hebrew cultures and was translated originally from those languages.

reply to post by nlouise


Hence my reply in mathematical terms: 1+1=2. Will that meaning ever change? I don't think so. It is possible to write in a universal style. If I can do it, god can surely do much better ...

So you think the paragraph below was wrongly translated?

(Deuteronomy 20:10-14)

As you approach a town to attack it, first offer its people terms for peace. If they accept your terms and open the gates to you, then all the people inside will serve you in forced labor. But if they refuse to make peace and prepare to fight, you must attack the town. When the LORD your God hands it over to you, kill every man in the town. But you may keep for yourselves all the women, children, livestock, and other plunder. You may enjoy the spoils of your enemies that the LORD your God has given you.

[edit on 29-8-2010 by AllIsOne]

reply to post by AllIsOne


Man, went from having thought out posts to being insane. Oh well. And here I thought I was being helpful.

Edit: Yes, I suppose you could call me a Christian Fundamentalist. I wasn't even aware of the term until you brought it up, as I simply considered myself to be a Christian. Those claiming to be Christian yet refuse to acknowledge Christ as the only means to salvation are not Christian at all. I oppose the modern and postmodern views that truth is relative and that both you and I can be right if we believe it to be. The pagan filth that fills our entertainment industry and the abortion clinics making the lives of innocent children nothing more than garbage to be disposed of sickens me. I believe there is right and wrong, good and evil. I suppose that does make me a fundamentalist, and I'm proud of it.

Since I've already made my opinion on this issue clear in this thread, I suppose I don't need to post anymore here unless somebody has a question, rebuke or simple response to an earlier post of mine.

Farewell everyone.

[edit on 29-8-2010 by Mykahel]

reply to post by AllIsOne


Actually, you could also say that 6+6 always equals 12 right? Wrong. If you say that, you are assuming that you are using a base of 10, which is not always the case. If you have a base 5 for instance, your counting would look more like:
1 2 3 4 5 11 12 13 14 15 21 22 23 24 25 31 32 33 34 35 41 42 43 44 45 5`1 52 53 54 55 101...

so using base 8, 6+6= 14.
in base 4, 6+6=24
in base 3, 6+6= 33

No a math major, but I think I've got that right. Somebody please correct me if I am wrong, as I'm not sure about numbers like 20, 30, 100, etc in something other than base 10. Anyway, your perfect and universal language assumes base 10. If you can assume base 10, I say I can assume the existence of God based on the complexity of creation and the existence of self awareness. Besides, numbers do not carry with them meaning or purpose. Language must have meaning or else it is meaningless (haha) or useless anyway. Had to post again... I wont expect a reply from you though since I'm insane.