Aedan

Yes, the ethical teachings ARE simple. They were simple when Buddha taught them 500 years BEFORE Jesus.
The Bible added nothing new that wasn't said first, and better, by prior religious teachers.

bacht

Well, I don't think Jesus added anything that wasn't already in the Jewish tradition. Paul gave us gentile Christianity, meaning freedom from the Torah, but otherwise the ethics aren't original.

I think anthropologists would argue that rules of social behaviour had been worked out thousands of years before cities and writing. Urban life accentuated social hierarchy and de-emphasized family ties, so basic tribal ethics had to expand to include co-habitation with strangers and foreigners. Writing gave us a new tool to express our imaginations, but human nature doesn't really change much does it?

spamandham

The ethical teachings in the Bible are barbaric and harsh. Yes, the Bible does say "love they neighbor...", but it also says to stone rebellious teens.

Even if you throw out the OT (which is a good idea in it's own right), the morals of the NT are not terribly enlightening. Paul tells women to shut the fuck up in church, and tells slaves to obey their masters, condemns homosexuality (and pretty much all sex for that matter). Jesus says to love god more than your neighbors - good night what a recipe for disaster!

If we actually applied the morals of the Bible - even just the NT - it would be a society few westerners would want to live in.

bacht

Maybe so, but would we have been better off following pagan practices? There were already options at the turn of the era: one could follow the Torah, one could follow Greek or Roman traditional rites, one could enter a mystery cult, one could study the Hellenistic philosophers, one could seek out Indian materials (might have been hard to come by), there was Mithraism, still some old Zoroastrianism, Egyptian mysticism, Celtic Druidism... Would European history would have been happier if we'd followed the Norse sagas instead?

The OT is a mixed bag, but rabbis and priests were supposed to sort it out for the people. What happened after Buddha? Didn't he become elevated to divinity against his wishes by later followers? Didn't Taoism degenerate into superstitition?

All these teachings are only as good as the people who practice them.

spamandham

There is no distinction between Christian morals and certain period pagan morals. Christianity reflects some of the subculture of the time. It was not some new enlightenment. ...just as modern liberal Christian morals reflect the zeitgeist more than defining it.

There's no way of knowing, but my guess is, probably.

...in other words they are useless, and simply reflect the zeitgeist?

bacht

Well, rules are for bad people aren't they? Good people usually do the right thing, if not constrained by ignorance. Whether you profess to be a Buddhist or Shiite or an atheist, your behaviour is the important thing.

Have you ever tried to run a city or a country? Do people co-operate or cause trouble? These issues never go away, even in post-modern secular society.

spamandham

In the post-modern world, legislation takes the place of ancient books of archaic moral systems.

bacht

That's true, but we follow secular mythology: the Enlightenment concept of the tabula rasa, and the faith in rational systems to attain the most perfect human condition. Replacing "original sin" with "original innocence" is still an act of faith. Believing that perfect government will lead to happiness for all is an act of faith. Believing that knowledge improves character is an article of faith in the information age.

The desire to prevent people from hurting themselves, each other or the community is not archaic, it is always relevant.

Doug Shaver

Some of us, while wishing that the Enlightenment could be revived in general, think that the tabula rasa concept was one of its big mistakes.