HappyFunBall

well, looks like my thread has really taken off

wow, great way to start off there

some parents are, and that's no assumption. what should be done about those kids, whose parents just don't give a shit about them?

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Can't speak for thumpers, cause I ain't one...but parental mistakes will inevitably manifest themselves outside the family boundaries. I don't have a big problem with having a safety net, since we can't just let wayward orphans starve - though I think we need to reroute such resources through private agencies and churches.:

yes, churches. uh huh. there's a great resource for sex education

yguy

Yes.

You are evidently equating fundamentalism with Christianity, which is a mistake since that particular "sect", if you will, is only a hundred or so years old. A Christian is one who follows Christ. I'm guessing there might be a thousand professing Christians (which I am not) on the planet who can honestly make that claim. Whatever the number is, such people aren't likely to be lionized in the media, so you'd probably never hear of them - although Jesse Peterson comes to mind. As for my interpretation of the Bible, I read it like I read anything else - and certain things just jump out at me. I consider it true for the most part, but I don't take what I would consider a doctrinaire approach.

Yes and no. One one hand, many other religions have profound truths to offer, and many of their adherents are good people. OTOH, enlightenment is a tricky concept in that evil can imitate good. I believe many in all religions are prone to accepting phony enlightenment.

Exactly. Christ said that all the law and the prophets were built on the two great commandments which, had the Israelites understood and followed them as Moses did, they wouldn't have needed all the ceremonial stuff.

Thanks for listening. I knew I'd connect with somebody here eventually.

yguy

Let us first realize that the PS system ENABLES such parents not to care by acting in loco parentis at the expense of good parents. There is no real solution for the problem of uncaring parents. The best that can be done, I believe, is to enable good parents to keep their kids away from children of bad parents.

Nowhere357

This is basically true.

In my experience, many people who claim xianity as their religion, do so out of conveinence, to "go with the flow". They consider "God" to represent good, and "Hell" to represent bad, and of course they try to be good. They don't read the bible, celebrate religious holidays in a mostly secular fashion, attend church rarely - and then mostly for social reasons. With these people I have no beef.

Of course, we don't run into them on this board!

I have no problem with any of this. What a person believes is of no concern to me, except insofar as their beliefs affect their behavior. If a path provides wisdom and heart, then I support it.

Fundy and near-fundy xianity, IMO, promotes bigotry and intolerance, and so I oppose it.

Xian hypocrisy on abortion is an example. (That was a blatant attempt to avoid a thread split.)

You just made my day, yguy.

I admire your ability to irritate both ends of the spectrum, and that's a fact.

BTW please provide an example or two of what you mean by "evil can imitate good".

yguy

On a mundane level, the con artist is not seen by the gullible old lady as a thief, but as a caring person.

A more chilling example would be demon posession which, if the late Malachi Martin is to be believed, often starts out as "enlightenment" from the POV of the victim. I recommend his "Hostage to the Devil", a detailed recounting of several cases of posession, to be read on an empty stomach.

Peter Kirby

I will try to present three arguments that are persuasive to me, although I recognize that they probably won't be persuasive to you. I welcome comment also from other people here, so I can get a broader idea of what people think.

1. The Non-Contingency of Objective Moral Truth

If "rape is wrong" is an objective moral truth, it is objectively true in all possible worlds. There are possible worlds in which a creator of the universe condones rape, or in which there is no law-giving creator of the universe. Therefore, a thing that is objectively wrong cannot have its truth be contingent on the mandates of the creator of the universe.

Perhaps the strongest objection to this argument is the ontological proof of God, or that God exists by definition and is the same in all possible worlds. However, I have a strong intuition that (1) things cannot be made to exist by definition and (2) there are possible universes without Bible God.

2. The Arbitrary Selection of the Perfect Moralist

One might claim that the best moral system is that taught by Confucius, Buddha, Jesus, Epicurus, Aristotle, Karl Marx, Ayn Rand, or Bertrand Russell. Or one might claim that the best moral system is that taught by Jehovah. What allows us to make the decision as to which moralist is The Standard?

If you say that these moralists are obviously flawed, aren't you assuming that Jehovah is the standard already, and thus have failed to take account of the problem of choosing what The Stanadard actually is? An obvious answer, of course, is that objective morality is not contingent upon any particular Moralist.

3. The Irrelevance of an External Dictator

God makes the rules, but he is not bound by them? Then why should we be bound by them?

Imagine that there were a race of aliens that were extremely smart, strong, and wise. Would we be obligated to obey their dictates on account of their superiority? And if these aliens ceased to exist, then would all obligation between people also cease to exist? I don't think so. And I don't think that morality would cease to exist if Jehovah did.

So, if there is an objective reality to moral truths, what's gods got to do with it?

best,
Peter Kirby

yguy

You'd never get me to believe such worlds would be anything but constructs more hypothetical than atoms turned inside out. Unless, of course, the worlds you're talking about are Hell.

If the choice is between Confucius and Mao, do I really need to ASSUME Mao's ideas are evil? Can't I just SEE that they are?

Nope. Neither are you bound to do it God's way. OTOH, it is His universe, after all, and He is not obligated to suffer the presence of creatures who can't stand Him - which is why He gives such creatures the opportunity to make their own universe. A daunting task, to be sure...but they'll have all eternity to figure it out.

This scenario appears to presuppose that humans have some intrinsic morality that God is only overriding for the sake of a power grab. Why the hell anyone would WANT power over the moronic globs of protoplasm commonly referred to as Homo Sapiens I don't know.

mnkbdky

I am suprised no one has challanged this interp. If this passage where about what this person claims then it would clearly be a damaging argument against anti-abortionists in the Judeao-Christian-Islamic traditions. What the person here has presented is normally referred to as the miscarriage interpretation. But this interp is faulty on two levels. First, even if it were the correct interpretation it would not condone abortion. This is because the death that occurs in verse 22 is an accident, not intentional. This distinction is to be expected with the exception in the Mosiac death penalty in cases of accidental death (See, Exodus 21:13-14, 20-21; Numbers 35:10-34; Deuteronomy 19:1-13)). Abortion, on the other hand, is intentional. Secondly, the fact that the death of the unborn child shows that it was an evil. If the unborn child did not matter then why require a fine? Therefore, this text does not suggest that the unborn child is any less valuable than the woman.

Another interp of this passage is referred to as pre-mature live childbirth. According to this view what is translated as "so that her fruit depart from her" in the King James and "so that there is a miscarriage" are incorrect translations, with the KJV being closer to the mark. Rather, this interp suggests, the Hebrew word yeled is used for the child that comes out of the womb. This word is never used in the Old Testament for a child that cannot exist outside of the womb. If the author intended to signify a fetus he would have used the Hebrew word Golem, which means fetus. Furthermore, the commonly used Hebrew word for the death of an infant is nephel. So, as you can see there were two clear terms the author could have used to indicate miscarriage or death. However, neither were chosen. Therefore, the best interp is pre-mature birth.

One last thing can be said for this interp. The Hebrew verb yatza used here when the mother is struck is ordinarily used of normal births, not for the death of a new born. There is one case--Numbers 12:12--where it is used of a stillborn, but never is it used for miscarriage. The Old Testament term for miscarriage is shakol. This term is found in Genesis 31:38; Exodus 23:26; Job 2:10; among others.

Therefore, this passage cannot be used to condone abortion. Try again.

Peter Kirby

It is clear that we can imagine a universe whose creator condoned rape, but that objective morality is the same in all possible worlds, so objective morality is not contingent upon any particular being such as a creator.

If the "Perfect Morality Dictator" theory is true, then there is no independent truth preventing Mao from being THE STANDARD as Jehovah allegedly is. Only an objective morality that is independent of the opinions of moralists would allow you to see in what respects certain beings do and do not deviate from what is right in itself.

What I say is that morality, duty, and justice is a human affair and would not cease to be if an external entity no longer existed, such as these aliens or a god.

best,
Peter Kirby

yguy

I fail to see how the conclusion folows from the premises.

Sure there is. It's a living Truth, which is WHY it has the ability to expose the pretenders.

If such a morality is necessarily independent of any particular moralist or groupt thereof, then it is also necessarily independent of every person, since we all have opinions about what is moral. Why should Confucius hold any more sway than the guy who picks up your trash?

Therefore, it appears that, according to your premise, no living being(s) can be vested with any moral authority whatsoever, which means your "objective standard" must be non-living. An example of this, in theory, would be our Constitution. In practice, it needs people to interpret how its principles should be applied to specific situations, making them in effect the objective standard within the framework of constitutional law. The point being that to be meaningful, any objective standard MUST have life, so as to be able to say, "no, you idiots, that's NOT what I meant".