Anduin

That is indeed a much more useful ethical teaching, although one could argue about what is understood as a "living being".

Amedeo

Thank you for the quotes. I don't have the Greek text, but a literal translation from the Greek [" The Unvarnished New Testament"] has the same respective words, "breath" [spirit] and "finger." Actually both words make sense, as a human exoricist would blow against the face of the possessed person, or would use his finger in a waving gesture to expel the devil. The blowing away and the finger-expelling are bodily (not voice) COMMANDS.

So, it seems that while the Father is the provident creator, "Spirit" (or some other word) is used to refer to intervening actions of the father (or God). I still do not understand why blaspheming against the Father or Son is forgivable, but blaspheming against the Spirit is unforgivable.

At any rate, if there are unforgivable sins, and if the salvation preached by Paul, is possible because of Christ's atonment on the Cross, then he did not make salvation universally possible. So, Paul's theory that Christ, the messiah, came to be the Savior falls to the ground.

Cege

In the 'sermon on the mount' renditions in the gospels Jesus is recorded as saying 'you've heard it said "hate your enemy" '. Who, previous to Jesus' time, said "hate your enemy"? The OT doesn't, although much of the behavior toward enemies appears quite hateful in my estimation.

Moses instructed the Israelites not to hate the Egyptians who had held them in slavery or the Edomites.

I don't know who Jesus was quoting about hating your enemy, but he seems to be quoting Moses in regards to 'love your enemy'.

I'm curious as to whether your discussion with a theist includes who actually does what rather than just who just says what.

dlawbailey

Allahu Akbar! Ash-hadu allā ilāha illallāh!

Vishnu trying to persuade the Prince that he should do his duty and to impress him takes on his multi-armed form and says, "Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds."

'Cause you know I'm a very busy fellow,
and they call me the hoodoo man

dlawbailey

I'm familiar with it of course, but I'm not sure whether one can characterize it as a positive obligation. The above passage is very persuasuve, but then Buddhist ethics are confusing in that regard. They are all based on a principle act of surrender/acceptance. Moreover the eightfold path describes positive obligations (right speech, etc), but these are positive obligations to the world or, in a sense, to oneself.

The whole distinction is based on the difference between negative obligations (what one must not do) and positive obligations (what one must do). It's generally understood that negative obligations are senior to positive obligations, but Jesus creates the idea of a positive obligation so strong that it is almost senior to negative obligations.

And this is a very important idea.

The Jainist ethics you quote would be an example of negative obligations.

The Ayn Randean cynicism expressed by Solo and Anduin do not, shall we say, represent the best traditions of atheism. Both arguments come up in Anarcho-Capitalism, for example, but they are not humanist ethics. Solo's assertion that "love your enemies" is some sort of psychological pathology deinies that Homo sapiens is a social animal that lives through reciprocal altruism. Solo makes his mistake with these statement: "polar attitudinal opposites" and "that to which one declares himself (morally) opposed". Combined, they create a moral absolutism that is not compatible with atheism. Anduin's suggestion that some people are "evil" is worse than absolutism, it's pure theism - to be dismissed out of hand.

Again, I say that the obligation to "love your enemies" is a declaration of the ultimate triumph of human bonding and compassion over selfishness and absolutist thinking. For atheists to have a positive, rather than just a reactive, view of the future of mankind, it is an essential and informative ideal, gracefully expressed.

Of the texts cited by the helpful, uncynical people here, the Buddhist texts seem closest to the mark. But, again, Buddhist ethics are sort of strange to analyze in that they are, in a way, an obligation to others, the Universe and self - all simultaneously.

I think Jesus was expressing a generally accepted idea of compassion, but I am coming to the conclusion that his personal belief in a transcendental soul (which I do not share) allowed him to declare this positive obligation starkly.

Christianity, unfortunately, is not fully informed by this ethic, in that it puts an imaginary God in place of fellow human beings. Jesus' humanism was very graceful and very beautifully expressed, but still motivated by belief in God, rather his fellow human. But he gets close.

Amedeo

P.S. to # 22

I think I have the solution to the "unforgivable sin." I am considering some cases of exorcism which I have heard about. When a priest tries to expel the devil from a possessed person, often the possesses one starts blaspheming -- cursing and vituperating -- God (or Jesus, or saints or whomever the priest invoked). Of course, Jesus would be exorcizing in the name of God. His commands --the blowing or the waving of the index finger to tell the devil to get outs -- are virtually or the surrogates of God's spirit [breath or finger]. The possessed person would resist having the devil expelled and would start lashing out against the divine commands -- the spirit of God.

Today we think of a possessed person as one who was invaded and subdued by an evil spirit; apparently, in the ancient times, the devil that was in one's heart had been sought and welcome by the so-called possessed person. So, he isn't anyone who blamsphes against God; it is a depraved person who pays "allegiance" to the devil rather than God that lashes out, REACTS, against the spirit of God that is trying to free him. There is no forgiving of the blasphemer against the spirit of God precisely because he is blaspheming insofar as he wants the devil in him, rather than God. (He who is possessed and remains unexoricized has chosen the road of perdition, does not want to be saved.)

The evil spirit that possesses one is evil for a holy onlooker; the spirit is good for the welcomer. But the moment he is called evil, we listeners think that the devil did something bad to the possessed person, such as overcoming him. The words, "evil spirit," "possessed man," and the like, obscure our understanding as to what being possessed means, even in the cases where God does the possessing. Indeed, all the prophets are God-possessed men, who praise the Lord and would blaspheme against anyone or any devil that tries to exorcize God out of them. Paul himself, who accepted Jesus in his heart, came to the point of saying: It is not I that speak, but the Lord in me. [In some other posts, I dealt with what I called "simulacra," that is, one's interiorly formed persons that sometimes assume a life of their own, talk, make demands, appear in dreams, and so forth.]

I have seen the scaring off of evil spirits in a documentary of eastern Europe, where farmers still practice certain dances and scream against the invisible spirit -- a rite of purification of the soil to guarantee a good growth and harvest for the next year. This is a kind of exorcism, but since the soil does not speak, we hear no blasphemies or thanksgivings.

Cheerful Charlie

There was an episode where a possessed woman was presented by the inquisition to be burnt at the stake for blasphemy and magic.The local bishop was skeptical. The inquisition's priest showed how the woman, sprinkled with holy water howled and cursed God. The bishop arranged a meeting with the woman in her cell and talked to her. Later he told the inquisitioners that he had laced her food with holy water and the "demon" did not notice, no howls, no hystrionics. She was obvioulsy mad, deluded, and not possessed nor a mentally capable heretic.

She was not burnt and such things all but ended in that part of France.

A similar thing happened in Spain where a bishop noticed that these things went in cycles. One mad woman was found doing these things and all the mad people in the area copycatted her antics. The inquistion there at that point all but died out as a result.

Such things killed ideas of demons and witches in Europe.

How do you tell a demon possessed person from a mad woman anyway?
Something that will stand up in a peer recieved scientific journal.

Holy water in her dinner? If she does not howl curses on God she's a fake?


CC

dlawbailey

And that really has nothing at all to do with the original concept.

I myself have addressed the theist who has joined the discussion - but briefly.

I don't think this is the space for two atheists to be shredding ideas of "original sin" to each other when that's completely OT.

The question is a legitimate one, however uncomfortable it may make you.

Was the author (or authors) of the Sermon On The Mount the originator of the idea of the super-strong, positive obligation contained in "Love Your Enemies"?

It is a humanist statement in my view. But it is very interesting in that it asserts a positive obligation so strong that it would over-ride negative obligations.

As a practical matter, humans see and even live by such super-strong obligations all the time. The bond a mother has for her child will cause her to over-ride negative obligations. The "obligation" of self-defense will cause people to over-ride negative obligations.

What the Sermon On The Mount asserts, in that phrase, is that the choice of long-term "self-defense" of the bonds of community should over-ride the instinct for immediate self-defense.

It's a really, really, important humanist idea. It may have come from a religious conviction. That would be interesting, but in no way would it validate religion in terms of any given belief.

Anduin

This is an extremely funny statement considering I am a socialist

Hand-waving without anything to back up the argument is bad form in a debate. Are you implying that only theists can recognise that there is evil in the world? What a ridiculous concept! Failing to understand that there are inherently evil acts performed in this world is to fall into a form of relativism that gives atheist ethics a bad name. Auschwitz was an act of pure evil. Ruwanda was an act of pure evil, however you look at it and however you define it. Killing one million people, including women and children, in cold blood, with machetes, is an evil act. There's no need to invoke a deity to recognise the evil of such an act.

You keep stating this, but I urge you to offer one single historical event in which "love your enemies" had a positive effect. Just one.

dlawbailey

So were a lot of people. And yet even with the horrible acts of those "socialists" in mind, I still say that your suggestion that some people are "evil" is worse than absolutism, it's pure theism - to be dismissed out of hand

No humanist would claim that people have intrinsic qualities. You did. And you keep trying to back it up with phrases like "pure evil". It's drivel. The stunning thing about Rwanda and the Nazi genocide is that thousands of regular people participated. And the idea of "pure evil" blinds us to the way in which regular people can be taken in to commit violence. And of course it's by believing in absolutes. Absolutes shelter people from thinking.

Truth and Reconciliation in South Africa. The orderly surrender and reintegration of Confederate soldiers after the Civil War. The Marshall Plan. Little things like that. And of course innumerable battles NOT fought, which invariably require not only accepting offense without reaction but reaching out to the enemies who offend.

At some level, you have to forgive and even seek common cause with your enemies to re-integrate societies. If you judge and remain with that judgment, your "morality" disallows you from bringing societies back together.