wildernesse

K:

Let’s see if I can explain myself! I think that morality and sin are separate issues altogether.

Sin is what separates us from God. God = holy, so sin is what makes us unholy. God gets to decide what is sin and what is not, I can’t really answer any questions about why is sin—for this conversation, we’ll assume it’s arbitrary and absolute because I don’t want to argue the nature of God.

Morals are rules/guidelines of conduct that perpetuate the group’s survival. Technically, as the group reacts to different environments/pressures, the morals change. Of course, the larger the group the more general the moral is. It is in the day-to-day of individual lives that the nuances of the general morals come into play. This is really the simplest way I can put this. I do think that we as individuals judge the correct behavior on a case by case basis, using the rules that we have been taught by our group. Human nature and interaction being what they are, the cases aren’t usually unique and there is a precedent or two (hundred thousand). I think this is what literature and art teach us about more than anything else. This isn’t fully fleshed out in my head yet, so I hope that I’m not too confusing.

In other words, something can be amoral or moral in society and sinful in God’s eyes. Worshipping false gods isn’t immoral in American society, but God says this is sinful. Can something be immoral in society and not sinful in God’s eyes? I don’t have an example for this right now, probably because I’m in a Christian culture.

I could get around this totally by saying that I think that God created us as biological creatures and so he created our morality in addition to having a sin standard. And I do think that God is the Creator. But I think our “morality” and its close cousin “propriety” are interesting little quirks to look into without needing divine explanation.

--tibac

Amos

Not lymphatic but limbic system. This is the part of the brain wherein we are divided in two hemispheres.

Purgatory is when these two hemispheres have jarred together.

K

wildernesse:

I don't think your view of morality is confusing at all. My view is very similar to yours. Mine is more biologically based and yours sounds a little more culturally based. Still, they're pretty similar.

I guess the real difference is that you believe in sin against God that is separate from morality. I think that human morality is enough to explain right and wrong without God.

Amos

I think it is impossible to sin against God from our fallen nature. Our fallen nature has removed us from God and so we cannot sin against him. The Tree of Knowledge is our conscious mind and because we are rational people we are removed from God.

To redeem this fallen nature Moses came uo with the idea to instill the concept sin into our mind and for this the Laws were needed to serve as an anvil against which sin became known.

So therefore, sin is man made as a tool to catch the conscious mind and sin is therefore good.

This is most unlike human morality which is just doing good for goodness sake while sin is consciously doing bad for badness sake. The goodness that comes out of sin is salvation for sinners.

Wyz_sub10

The problem I have with this is that it makes the Ten Commandments toothless. If the laws are not absolute and are superceded by other law, then what purpose do they serve?

Also, it's a semantics game. When is "killing" distinguished from "murder"? Does an "eye for an eye" constitute murder or killing or does it depend on the circumstances?

The thrust of my point applies, though. You cannot say that killing is never condoned in the bible, except when it is...which is often. Killing is endorsed much more often than it is condemned.

Bree

If God is not moral (only holy) then why is God's Word full of morality tales and laws? Are we supposed to follow these examples as set forth in the Bible, or are we supposed to follow God's Will, which is not moral (just holy)?

wildernesse

Killing is usually meant to mean something like during war or manslaughter or on accident. Murder means you had intent to kill that one person and you carried out your desire.

Also, I don’t think that changing one word in one of the commandments would make all the rest of the commandments worthless or without power. What does the difference between killing and murder have to do with honoring your parents?

Bree:

What do you mean when you say that the Bible is full of moral tales? I would think that moral tales are more like Aesop’s fables, not like the myth, history, poetry, etc. of an ancient people. The laws of the OT aren’t any more or less moral than our laws today, since I don’t consider morality to be something rigid and always true for everyone.

I think that most Christians would say that they are supposed to follow God’s will (and most people don’t follow it in a way that is immoral for them and their society). Then you have to say, how do you know God’s will? Well, you have the Bible. The fun part is deciding if the Bible is a direct connection from God to the paper to you, or if pesky little man meddled with some or all of it. Also, I didn’t say that God’s will would be immoral all the time (in fact I didn’t even give an example of this) just that it could be or it could be amoral or moral.

--tibac

Amos

The Bible as Gods word is written with a purpose in mind and this purpose is perpetuated by the religion(s) of the mythology (even if this remains unknown to most all of them).

That it is Gods word just means that the authors were inspired to write and spell out a method of salvation for the survival and prosperity of the tribe (clan), which is obvious from the wars that are caused by religion.

They, the mythmakers, were very clever characters and sometimes surprised themselves such as when Moses went up to the mountain. The mountian signifies a spiritual journey and the "burning bush" was just a metaphor for the brilliance of his inspiration--and hence his hair turned white.

The laws and moral obligations are there only to create a stream of consciousness against which liberation (salvation) must be found. The liberation I refer to here is from our own human nature wherein we are separated from our own true self and because we are only separated from our own true self 9it can be said that we "hot wired" to a surpreme identity which is the idea that the mythmakers presented to us as God.

Remember here that they were having orgies before the laws were given to Moses and Moses sought to benefit from that because it was not too likely that people would quit having orgies (so he figured). If he could make a law that was written upon the hearts of the people "as if in stone" it would serve as an anvil for the the inner man to convict the outer man of his/her sin and this would lead to the redemption of the inner man (true identity). The liberation of this inner man is equal to the first coming of Christ for the Jews and the second coming of Christ for Catholics (protestants have their own idea about this).

Do you want to know more or should I quit?

Gods will is identical to natural law.