Buffman

wildernesse

Buffman: I'm not trying to imply that, as human beings, we are very different from the people in the Bible, but that our culture and values are different than the people in the Bible.

Culture? Yes! Values? I don't think so. I grant you that we would have to really get down to the nitty-gritty in defining values before we could hope to make much progress with that discussion. However, way back in the days of the dinosaurs when I was but a youngster, I wondered what caused humans to have different faith beliefs. If, as I had been told, there was only one god, why wasn't there just one faith belief? It wasn't long before I arrived at my next confusing question. From whence did this one god come? Oh! Oh! Big trouble. Youngsters aren't supposed to ask oldsters those kinds of questions. "Why not?" That is about the time I discovered the one, the only, the true god of the universe....the god "WHY." Talk about an all-powerful, all-knowing, all-loving super god. You just can't top "W-H-Y." Even the early Jews worshipped "YHVH." Today we have expanded it into "Yahveh." (With tongue in cheek, I can tell you that most folks have it wrong. It is correctly pronounced "Yah-WHY.") Ok! enough silliness and back to human values.

Just take a few minutes and see if you can list, and justify, the values you think you have. Then place them in the best priority order you can, with the most important value at number "uno." Now ask yourself how your list differs from the list drawn in the ancient sand of Bible history by a local goat herder. When you have identified those basic, not cultural, values that you believe are so different, please list them here and we can discuss them in greater depth.

As humans, we do have emotions and constant human dilemmas. This is what makes literature of any age speak to us. Our culture does change--and we need to explore how and if that affects the way the we perceive the Bible.

Hmmmmm? Emotions and "dilemmas." Do you mean genetic drives and environmental impacts? I will readily admit that today we have a greater chance of being road kill by an 18 wheeler on its way to market than by a chariot on its monthly journey to Tyre with news of the Roman landings in Eygpt. However, in either case, the ones who loved us are going to internally mourn our passing in the identical fashion...IMHO. We "value" the lives of those we love. We extend and apply that "value" to our blood relatives, and then to our friends, our tribe/community, state, country, nation. But along comes religion and says, "Don't you love me more than your family?" (Matt 10:36-37) It would seem that those 19 men who slammed themselves (and so many others) into buildings/the ground on 9/11 had placed religious values before human ones. So when you make your list of values, be careful how you justify them. Values are non-existent. They are whatever humans agree that they are. Are there universal codes of ethical values? Perhaps, if all humans were able to communicate knowledgeably in peace and harmony. But that vision terrifies those who wish to control humans with their definitions of moral values. If humans were ever able to agree on a universal set of ethical values (like the Golden Rule), that would mean that a bunch of religious moral values would get tubed/junk piled....and place a bunch of freeloaders out of work. The God Business is a very lucrative business. The WHY Business offers no such comfort or false hopes. However, it does offer humanity an opportunity to keep from annihilating itself due to a seemingly endless series of internecine, bloody, religious squabbles.

I hope that I have provided you a broader context for you to better understand why I view the world as I do.

wildernesse

Buffman:

First of all, I don’t think you owe me any sort of apology and I’m sorry if it seemed as if I was asking for one. Your discussion with Brian63 is fine with me!

Secondly, I want to clarify my understanding before I go any further. To begin, you say that we all have the same values and you wish me to list them in order of their importance. In this case, do you mean values as in morals? The rules by which I live my life or aspire to live by?

However, it does offer humanity an opportunity to keep from annihilating itself due to a seemingly endless series of internecine, bloody, religious squabbles.

The it referring to the “why” questioners out there, not religious people. I disagree most this statement. If there are ultimate, universal morals, the only one I can think of is this: keep your group safe and multiply. Everything else is superfluous. The only way that humans will ever stop squabbling is if we all become homogenized to the extent that we’re all the same group. Not just religiously or areligiously, but ethnically, socially, politically, etc. I don’t know if I want that, even though I want peace. Maybe there should be more recognition that we are all of the same group anyway—humans.

--tiba

Buffman

wildernesse

I understand that you weren't fishing for an apology. However, I know how I would feel if someone were to take-over a discussion on a string I had established and simply ignore me.

Secondly, I want to clarify my understanding before I go any further. To begin, you say that we all have the same values and you wish me to list them in order of their importance. In this case, do you mean values as in morals? The rules by which I live my life or aspire to live by?

I certainly didn't explain myself very well. Curses! I guess I was a little afraid that I might have to do so. In order to do that with any degree of meaningful conciseness will be difficult for me. Maybe not for others, but it will be for me. Hmmmmm? Where to begin? Where to begin?

It was a bright and sunny day on top of the knoll. Whatever I was appeared to be without any outer coating that might protect me from the elements...if that is what they were called.---What I attempted to do was place my naked body into the environment without a single item of awareness in my brain. (A brand new, completely unprogrammed, hard drive in a PC tower, plunked down on the earth.) My senses all worked as they had evolved to work. They instantly began to input information into the HD. Sights, sounds, smells, tastes and tactile feelings. I began to learn through experience and observation. However, biology was the master controller/regulator at this point. It determined that I needed food, air and water in order to survive. I picked up a handful of dirt and smelled it. No clue there. I rolled it around between my fingers. No tactile sensory refusal there. My eyes did not set any alarm bells ringing. I placed it next to my ear and heard nothing. Well, if four out of five say it's safe I guess those are good odds. I stuck the dirt in my mouth. Chew! Chew! UGH! Patooey! My sense of taste said, "No! No! No! Pain! Bad! Not good! Wrong!" First moral(lesson): Eating dirt is dumb because it causes pain when you attempt to chew or swallow it.--- So how do I determine what is safe to eat...that produces no-pain but that satisfies the slowly growing pangs of hunger? I can observe what other living things consume; or I can embark on a simple trial and error campaign...hoping that I don't kill myself first. Second moral(lesson): watch what others eat, and if they survive, there is a good chance that I will also if I eat what they do. (I quickly discover that grass isn't very fulfilling.)

So in one sense, our morals evolved though two paths. Trial and error, and observation. If it gave no-pain, it was right/good/moral. If it gave pain, it was wrong/bad/immoral.---Yes, I realize that I am being simplistic. However, unless we can grasp where moral values actually arose, how can we possibly hope to understand them or communicate about them? We are evolutionary, biological, organisms with a unique gift of constructive, and destructive, reason. As biological organisms, we have established many identical moral values because our senses programmed our HD in the identical manner. However, as reasoning animals, we each develop additional moral imperatives that work for us whether they work for anyone else or not. Now comes socialization and the harmonization of these various, individually, reasoned moral values. The Golden Rule was probably the earliest social moral value that proved to be extremely successful for the individual as well as the group.

It's about this point that I would normally digress into a discussion about Maslow's Paradigm.

<a href="http://www.normemma.com/armaslow.htm" target="_blank">http://www.normemma.com/armaslow.htm</a>

My purpose would be to demonstrate how individual biology and socialization became integrated into ethical/moral values. Thus, when I say that there is no such thing as a moral value, I am referring to those established by the various human cultures that allow the best possible adaptation to the Maslowian Hierarchy. On the other hand, there are certain set moral values(lessons) based exclusively on our biological genetics that we all have. (Hello! Hello! Are you still there?)

Now we come to the differences between lessons, rules, customs, values and morals. Just take a look at a dictionary's definition(s) for "moral." Religions tend to claim some sort of priority in the establishment and control of human sexual morality. Why? Upon what licensing do they claim governance of human sexuality? The divinely revealed word of a supernatural God as expressed through the human writings over time? Are the sexual morals of a Christian better/worse than those of a Muslim? What a totally absurd argument that is! Do you really think that Nature gives a damn about human sexual morals? Nature could care less what humans do with their reproductive organs. Only other humans care. Do any of the other living things on this planet care? Nope. So why has it evolved into such a major thing for humans. My first guess, and unexamined one, would be the "Economics of Survival."

I only requested that you make lists in order to help you to see just how complicated it can become to establish a moral value that fits every possible survival situation. Is it moral to kill? Is it moral to kill in order to survive? Was it moral to own slaves? if so, why isn't it moral to own slaves today? Was it moral for Lot's daughters to get daddy drunk and then commit incest? (I have to wonder just how drunk he really was...he certainly seemed to function normally. Maybe he had good reason to offer his daughters to the mob rather than his guests.) What is the moral of that story? Why even include it if no penalty or genetically malformed offspring was reported to scare the uninformed from such a union?

Please forgive me for being all over the place with this response, but every time I attempt to track down moral, or moral values, to some sort of "original sin concept," I tend to be overcome with fits of laughter. I have absolutely no need, or desire, for you to list anything here. It was just one exercise that I had hoped might cause you to look a little deeper into how we use these words/phrases/concepts to control one another.

keep your group safe and multiply.

That's what lemmings do...until they run out of food.

Maybe there should be more recognition that we are all of the same group anyway—humans.

That's the strongest reason why evolution should be taught to everyone. It was also the promise of what this nation was all about until religious zealots got frightened about losing some of their historical power, profit and control. It is why I seek verifiable evidence for blind faith claims. I don't go forth and multiply because some supernatural god told me to. I multiply because my genes survive if I do. Do you think other living things multiply because some god designed them to do that? Why not simply design them to live forever? Of course Nature doesn't care one whit who lives or dies. Nature is simply Nature. Everything that is born will eventually die, including the Sun...and perhaps even this current universe. Human reason is the only thing that cares one way or the other...and it has a vested interest in survival.

Thanks for listening to me rant...for that's really all I am doing. I just get so frustrated when folks don't work at getting the most accurate information they can to help guide them, and the rest of us, into an unknown future.

[ July 24, 2002: Message edited by: Buffman ]</p>

Buffman

Brian63

(Huff! Puff! Boy will this teach me to stick to my own forum and not go wandering around sticking my nose into other folk's discussions.)

(Just a quickie ASIDE: I enjoyed your answers to ManM (The ones right after yours to me). However, you might wish to consider viewing the Mel Gibson characterization from more than one perspective/snapshot. Perhaps there are bigger/broader pictures that should viewed and understood before affixing the labels of "Hero" or "Villian." In one sense, that is what the Gibson character did. He looked beyond the simple cause and effect and found a deeper, broader, one. ---This was a U.S. Steel TV show many decades ago...but I can still remember much of it. Why? Why make a movie out of it? What is the message that struck such a cord with so many folks?)

I confess to being no expert on the philosophy of science, even describing myself as a "layman" may be a bit too generous. Anyhow, I only subscribe to the maxim "absence of evidence equates to evidence of absence" in cases where it is possible for us to obtain evidence in the first place.

Must stop you right there. Why would anyone waste their very precious life searching for/seeking evidence where they already know that none exists? (Now I can move on.)

I think as humans we simply do not have the tools we would need to make a strong statement on the existence/non-existence of a supernatural realm.

Same problem. Science simply does not waste time attempting to prove or disprove the existence of something that can never be verified through the scientific method of separating fact from fiction. (Read the definitions at this URL. They could prove useful in your future discussions.)

<a href="http://books.nap.edu/html/creationism/introduction.html" target="_blank">http://books.nap.edu/html/creationism/introduction.html</a>

Our experiences our limited to this natural realm (a disputable statement, of course). So in principle we are not able to obtain positive evidence for a supernatural realm, even if it does exist.

Yes they are. Our experiences/knowledge/understanding/grasp on reality are also limited by many other factors. I have no problem with your "in principle" statement. I just find it a waste of time, energy and resources to concern myself with it....especially since those that claim that a God does, or could, exist offer exactly zero verifiable evidence for making their statements. Perhaps there is a colony of earthlings living in the middle of our sun. They use a fusion heat rejection force field around their city to keep it from being crisped. Can anyone prove otherwise? Actually, I am convinced that the middle of our sun is where God lives. Of course He is just a little "Ra" god. You should see the size of the one that lives inside Antares. Now that is a full blown Jesus type god. Every sun in the universe has a God living inside. Prove me wrong.---Don't you think that you might demand that I present some verifiable evidence for such a "seemingly" outrageous claim? Here's my evidence. While looking through a telescope, I observed a supernova and saw the "hind quarters" of its god escaping off into the universe just before the explosion. Just look at the picture I took and tell me that that is not the image of a god's hind quarters. What more proof do you need?

Well, I consider myself a truth-seeker,...

I consider myself a verifiable fact seeker.

... and if Christian theism is true, I would like to know it. If it is not true, I would like to know it.

But didn't you just admit that there is no way of knowing? So exactly what is it that you are hoping to accomplish?

Either way, I am concerned with it, both for its relevance to the human condition...

What you do with your life is your business.

...and because I find it interesting.

That has merit and will always be a winner. (It can't be much less of a waste of time than reading the same things being posted to these forums over and over again. Poor "wildernesse" just got stuck with reading one of my attempts at originality of approach to the same old saws/claims. I rather think that I tripped all over my lower lip. I think I better get back over into the Church-State forum where I have a modicum of expertise. Thanks for bearing up so well...and the not worthy icon. Cheers!)

ManM

Brian63,
You know, I will remain persistent in my convictions until I am convinced they are obviously and hideously wrong. Anyway, I looked over that article and something just didn't sit right. But that discussion can be saved for another day. Until then, take care!