Moral conundrum

[SilverXeno]

While I can technically understand their reasoning based on specific verses...There still needs to be a sense of humanity to it...loving our neighbor MORE than ourselves. You can't take the bible apart verse by verse. It begins to lose context and meaning.

And if they will look a little further into the bible, they will see that many people who helped the children of Israel did so at the direct defiance of other authorities. Daniel defied authorities to continue to worship God, when his king said everyone should worship him.

Esther put her own life in danger to save her people when she went before her husband (a king) to ask that the Jews be allowed to live. At that time, it was illegal to go before the king without first asking permission.

[rewboss]

Originally Posted by kindnessfirst

Rarely are moral dilemnas as simplistic as CJ posited, are they?

Neither did Nazis habitually threaten to rape children if their parents didn't cooperate. Don't believe everything you see in the movies. For most people, the choice really was that simple, which is precisely why so many people did successfully shelter Jews from the Nazis. People who did denounce them were those who belived Nazi propaganda, and/or had something to gain.

The point is, though, that it's a hypothetical scenario, a thought experiment, no matter how simplistic or unrealistic. It's designed to test your moral principles, not to teach you about history. By changing the scenario to the extent you did, you are effectively dodging the question.

Thankfully, Answers in Genesis don't speak for more than an insigificant minority of Christians, and I do wish people would stop obsessing about them. It's giving them a lot of undeserved publicity, and they are in any case a ridiculously easy target. Not many Christians would, for example, take Luke 22:31 as meaning that Satan can't touch Peter without Jesus's say-so -- still less use that passage to argue that good Christians should denounce Jews.

[Minnie]

Rew is right...a person can make anything significant with the right spin. It's the total weight of a document that holds the meaning.

[Tiger Belle]

this is ridiculous...following Christian principles, there is no way it would be morally just to tell the Nazis where the family was hiding...absolutely no doubt in my mind that Jesus would not tell them...and *that* is the true moral test for a Christian--WWJD? is totally appropriate here

Christianity aside, though...from a truly moral standpoint, there can be no justification for doing something that most likely will result in harm to another when the alternative is simply saying nothing or saying "I don't know"

[CJSTora]

...following what YOU were taught were Christian principles, maybe, although I suspect deep down inside you're actually trusting your OWN moral compass for that answer without even knowing it. For the person who wrote this, it's perfectly the Christian principle, and they consider themselves to be an authority of sorts on the subject, and more disturbingly, others consider this person an authority as well.

It's "ridiculous" in the sense that it's worth ridicule, but it's not "ridiculous" because it's not what you personally were conditioned into, if that's what you meant.

[Tiger Belle]

I understand what you are saying about my post being based on what I personally was taught as a Christian...I didn't explicitly say so, but anytime I say anything like that, I am by nature basing it on my own beliefs of Christianity...of course, there are those who profess Christianity but have an entirely different view of the WWJD principle

and I think I did mean "ridiculous" in the sense more of the ridicule variety, in that I think any other answer is worthy of ridicule, whether it's a Christian, Muslim, Jew, agnostic, atheist, or whomever espousing it

[rewboss]

Originally Posted by CJSTora

...following what YOU were taught were Christian principles, maybe, although I suspect deep down inside you're actually trusting your OWN moral compass for that answer without even knowing it.

No, that's a version of the No True Scotsman fallacy. Whatever you have been told about Christians in general, the vast majority would agree with TB and find the attitude of AiG to be abhorrant and stupid.

----

For those who don't know what the "No True Scotsman" fallacy is:

Sue and George are talking about porridge. Sue says, "Scotsmen don't put milk and sugar in porridge; they all eat it with a pinch of salt. That's the definition of a Scotsman." George says, "But Hamish McDougal is a Scotsman -- born in Scotland to Scottish parents -- and he always has his porridge with milk and sugar." To which Sue replies: "Ah, but no true Scotsman does that, therefore Hamish isn't really Scottish and my statement still stands."

[CJSTora]

Well, at least TB got the point.

The person who wrote this considers themself a Christian - a "true Christian", following the Christ's teachings as they understand it.

TB probably equally considers herself a "true Christian" as well.

And yet, they have two extremely different views of the "right" answer, subject to their own morals. Each view theirs to be the correct "Christian" answer, and each view each other's position to be incorrect given what they were taught about Christianity. The difference between the two is that TB is going with what she "feels" to be the correct answer, while the AiG answer relies on specific writings to tell them what is correct.

TB is subconsciously applying her own morality to the situation and seeing that it complies with what she feels a compassionate figure would do, affirming for herself the correctness of her moral judgement. The author of the AiG answer has conversely surrendered their own moral judgement in deference to ancient writings.


rew, If you're making an argument that majority rules or "might makes right" in regard to religion, then your statement of "the vast majority would agree with TB and find the attitude of AiG to be abhorrant and stupid." would support that argument and that argument alone.

I think you recognize, however, the problem with that argument. The fact that that more might disagree with it, or that a different answer might be more popular doesn't make it incorrect. It's all a matter of interpretation of what's written. When something is open to interpretation, you will have different interpretations, each claiming correctness. That correctness sometimes cannot be legitimized without the author's commentary on the context.

Since the author's not around, and the time machine has not yet been invented, all we're left with is centuries of interpretation of generations of hand-me-down accounts strained through translations from multiple languages, and filtered through the ambitions and knowledge of various times of mankind's middle-eastern development.

Christians like TB aren't the only ones revolted by the AiG answer. Morality is not the exclusive domain of the Christian. The roots of morality are the subject of much research these days. Certain levels of social morality almost seem to be innate, or at least learned very quickly in our early development. Higher levels of morality seem to be based more on cultural conditioning (which includes religious teachings), but deep morality, the kind you call on in life-or-death scenarios, the kind of "gut check" morality TB exercised in her answer, is a more personal kind of morality, made by personal judgements and based on life experiences and empathy.


(TB, I don't mean to talk about you like you're not here. Your input has provided valuable reflection on the discussion, and I'm glad you are approaching this with critical thought instead of emotionally.)

[Strangely Brown]

If I was in the situation, I would used the patented Marty McFly maneuver.

Which means that I would point excitedly to something behind the Nazis, scream "What's that!?!" and as they turned to look I'd give the closest one to me a shove, which would in turn knock them all down like dominos . . . then I'd run for it.

If that didn't work, I'd lie my ass off.

[rewboss]

Originally Posted by CJSTora

The person who wrote this considers themself a Christian - a "true Christian", following the Christ's teachings as they understand it.

TB probably equally considers herself a "true Christian" as well.

Yes, but the point is not what they think, but what you think; and I've noticed very often with you that you always assume the most extremist position and argue as if all Christians believe essentially the same thing. It's a common thread through most of your anti-religious rants, which you're posting with increasing frequency these days. "Look at these loons who believe XYZ, this proves that religion is stupid," is your usual line. Not "extremism is stupid" or "people who argue like this are stupid", but "religion is stupid". You've more or less said so on more than one occasion, at one point telling me quite directly that any and all religious belief is inherently dangerous and ultimately responsible for most, if not all, war.

The difference between the two is that TB is going with what she "feels" to be the correct answer, while the AiG answer relies on specific writings to tell them what is correct.

I take the point that TB admitted she was going more by gut feeling than anything else, but many others have suggested that their interpretation of the same Scriptures leads them to a different conclusion -- yet you chose to challenge TB. I have to wonder why that would be.

TB is subconsciously applying her own morality to the situation and seeing that it complies with what she feels a compassionate figure would do, affirming for herself the correctness of her moral judgement.

That's an assumption: neither you nor I know TB in person and neither of us know her well enough to know what her subconscious is doing. You could be right, but you may not be. However, since TB is a deeply religious person, I would submit that her sense of morality is likely heavily influenced by Sunday School, Church and other organisations and people ultimately deriving their authority from the Bible and able to quote chapter and verse in support of their views... which they have transmitted to TB.

rew, If you're making an argument that majority rules or "might makes right" in regard to religion,

No, and if you understood what the No True Scotsman fallacy is, you wouldn't be making that connection. I said that just because TB is at odds with AiG doesn't mean she's not a true Christian, which is what you seemed to be implying (although, on reflection, perhaps you weren't). That does not imply that I think TB is a true Christian and the AiG aren't: that would make me guilty of the same fallacy, obviously.

Christians like TB aren't the only ones revolted by the AiG answer. Morality is not the exclusive domain of the Christian.

Why are you even making this point? Did I suggest otherwise? Is it somehow relevant to the discussion?

[Opie]

Yeah, I'm going to have to go with SB's answer.

[CJSTora]

Originally Posted by rewboss

"Look at these loons who believe XYZ, this proves that religion is stupid,"

I beg your pardon... That entire second half of what you claim I say is of your own devising, and always is every time you try to attribute it to me.

I point out the loons on the fringe, yes. I am almost always certain to point out that they ARE the loons on the fringe as well. I have never equated loons with all believers. YOU do that for me, and you put words in my mouth when you do.

There are plenty of other reasons why religion is dangerous. The loons are not the one reason, and I've never represented the lunatics as representative of all religion. To accuse me of such is to insult my intelligence.

Maybe I have at some point, but if I did, I misspoke or didn't communicate clearly enough. Please indicate where I have done so and I will happily address it.

Where I do post such things, it's to clearly illustrate a problem where we can all come from the same position that these people are clearly insane.

Originally Posted by rewboss

I take the point that TB admitted she was going more by gut feeling than anything else, but many others have suggested that their interpretation of the same Scriptures leads them to a different conclusion -- yet you chose to challenge TB. I have to wonder why that would be.

I didn't "challenge" TB. She has a history of being able to put forth strong and lucid arguments on her faith. I enjoy discussions with her on this subject.

I was engaging her in discussion, and I don't feel that she felt threatened by it. I know you feel you have to defend everyone's faith here from me, but not every discussion is an attack. The fact that you see it as challenging her is telling. Is your own faith that shaky? Why is it that all I have to do is speak and you think I'm attacking?

Or maybe I'm reading the situation incorrectly. Maybe TB really did feel shaken by it. If she did, and continued the discussion anyway, I applaud her convictions and I don't think she needs you to put words in her mouth, either, because she handled herself quite well.

Originally Posted by rewboss

I said that just because TB is at odds with AiG doesn't mean she's not a true Christian, which is what you seemed to be implying (although, on reflection, perhaps you weren't).

Do me a favour and reflect a little bit more. You're on the right track. Didn't state it, didn't imply it. I'm smart enough to know that AiG isn't "true" Christian. They're a dangerously deluded organization of unusal pseudo-fundamentalists that are adept at interpreting the Bible in unique ways to support any action, opinion or position. But this only begs the question of what IS "true Christian"? Is it Catholic? Fundamentalist? Protestant? If you ask any group, I'm certain they will tell you that they are, and if you ask any group, I'm certain they will tell you the others aren't.

In posting this, I am, however, asking a few questions; What IS a "true Christian" - how do you know for absolute certain that one group has it right, and which group? and; What about those whose morality originates outside of Christianity (although that implies that morality originates from Christianity) that makes the AiG answer equally repugnant to those people? Could it be that a fundamental and common social morality resides within oneself that is instead being misattributed to Baby Jebus? ...or Buddha? ...or Mohammed? etc.


And to address your last point, Christians automatically point to the Ten Commandments as their moral guide. (Somewhat ironic as the Ten Commandments existed without the Christ being around) Some Christians even assert that these moral guideposts only exist in Christianity. Expand that assertion to include the group of people who believe that without a belief in a higher authority, one simply cannot have a moral guide, and you suddenly include a very large majority of Christians. This thinking is consistently being shown by our newest and best behavioural researchers to be false.

In short, our common morality shows that we largely find the AiG answer to be morally reprehensible. This common morality is surprisingly consistent. It is, however, the dogmatic skew of religious belief that creates a religious justification of an otherwise morally reprehensible act. The fact that it's being done by a bunch of raving crazies only serves to clearly illustrate the point for discussion. The same skew shows itself in even "mainstream" institutions. (Think Pope, Africa and condoms for the easiest example)

And next time you're going to shove words in my mouth, at least use some ketchup.

[Strangely Brown]

Originally Posted by CJSTora

What IS a "true Christian"?

That's easy.

It's me.










Yep.








Me.





Yep.




OH MY GOODNESS! WHAT'S THAT?

*Points just behind CJ. As CJ turns to look, SB pushes him and runs for it*

[SilverXeno]

CJ...I posed this question to my mom...b/c she often teaches biblical history, including how language changed the original writings into the Bible that we know today.

She says that "sin" meant 'to be off the path'. The PATH is the path to eternity. In this situation, the path that SAVES the lives of God's chosen people would be the option to choose.

[rewboss]

Originally Posted by CJSTora

I point out the loons on the fringe, yes. I am almost always certain to point out that they ARE the loons on the fringe as well. I have never equated loons with all believers. YOU do that for me, and you put words in my mouth when you do.

One of the most interesting discussions we had was the one when you quoted something loony from the far religious right, and when I mentioned that, you moved the boundary of the lunatic fringe to include only such magnificently crazy people as Fred Phelps. In doing so, you effectively ascribed some very odious views to what you must therefore consider to be the mainstream. It was, I must say, an interesting debating technique. I'm not sure whether now you're moving the boundary back a little to include AiG after all, whom I've always regarded as beyond the pale although clearly not remotely on the same level of sheer certifiable madness.

OK, so perhaps, looking back on things, I was technically incorrect in stating that you equate loons with all believers. Rather, you attribute loony views to the mainstream, and throw in a "but religions are dangerous for other reasons as well" for good measure. Yeah, well, lots of non-religious things are also dangerous, so what's the point of mentioning it? Religion is also the cause of much good in the w-- Oh dang, we had that one as well, and you rejected that on the grounds that religion is the cause of much harm.

Where I do post such things, it's to clearly illustrate a problem where we can all come from the same position that these people are clearly insane.

Except that it tends to feature a religious person doing insane things. Very often, you highlight the bits that refer to religion. Like that one about young girls being forced into marriage in Yemen. You said how you loved how the article talked about lack of education but hardly mentioned the REAL reason, which was a religion. Of course, the reason the article barely mentioned that was because it was only one of a vast range of social and economic problems, but no: for you, if religion is involved anywhere, that's the real reason, and the root of all evil.

I didn't "challenge" TB. She has a history of being able to put forth strong and lucid arguments on her faith. I enjoy discussions with her on this subject.

Fair enough, then. My impression is that she doesn't post very often these days, but if that's how it is, then OK.

I know you feel you have to defend everyone's faith here from me, but not every discussion is an attack. The fact that you see it as challenging her is telling. Is your own faith that shaky? Why is it that all I have to do is speak and you think I'm attacking?

Maybe "challenge" wasn't the right word, but my own faith is doing quite nicely, thank you. But you remind me of a remark made by Jeremy Hardy, probably the nearest thing Britain has to George Carlin. Referring to Richard Dawkins, he -- as one who wears his atheism on his sleeve -- called him a "Jehovah's Didn't-See-Anything". It's not so much that you challenge everything, but that you never seem to miss an opportunity to preach atheism. I don't have anything against people who criticize religion or challenge me -- there's that word again, but religious types tend to use it in a positive sense -- on aspects of my faith, but it gets irksome when CJ posts an article and you know, you just know, that it's about a religious person doing despicable or stupid things. I think you'd be similarly irked if I kept posting articles about atheists doing or saying questionable things always with a cutting remark along the lines of, "Of course, if he was a Methodist, this would never have happened", or, "Just goes to show, you disobey the Lord's commands at your peril".

What IS a "true Christian"

Well, what is a "true Scotsman"? Ask a geneticist, and they'll probably tell you that it's not easy to define -- there's all sorts of DNA mixed up in all of us. That's the reason the fallacy is a fallacy: there isn't a true Scotsman, so any argument that relies on a true Scotsman is fallacious. Same with Christians, for the reason you point out.

how do you know for absolute certain that one group has it right, and which group?

You don't, or at least I don't, and for me one of the first signs of bad theology -- and bad philosophy -- is when somebody tells me that they're definitely right and anyone who thinks differently is wrong. I do not believe any one person or group has the monopoly on truth. There are groups whose views I can live with, groups whose views I feel uncomfortable with but can understand, groups whose views I cannot square with my own experience or instinct. It's easier to ask which groups have it clearly wrong, which would be those groups who fly so brazenly in the face of evidence they're not worth spending time on. I view Kent Hovind, for example, with about the same level of respect as I do flat-earthers.

What about those whose morality originates outside of Christianity (although that implies that morality originates from Christianity) that makes the AiG answer equally repugnant to those people? Could it be that a fundamental and common social morality resides within oneself that is instead being misattributed to Baby Jebus? ...or Buddha? ...or Mohammed? etc.

If you're speaking to me personally, I'd say that I've answered this question a couple of times before. I was brought up in the belief that any truth, wherever it comes from -- whatever religion, or none -- is the truth, and, if you're the sort to believe in God, may legitimately be part of God's self revelation (which I realise begs the question, but that's another discussion).

I was brought up a Methodist, and Methodists, as they say, are not Hindus -- at least, not all of them.

Christians automatically point to the Ten Commandments as their moral guide.

When you say "Christians", do you mean "many Christians" or "all Christians"?

The fact that it's being done by a bunch of raving crazies only serves to clearly illustrate the point for discussion. The same skew shows itself in even "mainstream" institutions. (Think Pope, Africa and condoms for the easiest example)

So... what are you saying? That the Pope is a raving crazy? That all Catholics are raving crazies? That even non-raving-crazy people say stupid things and hold stupid beliefs? That there's something inherently crazy about religion? Or about Christianity? That only people who believe in a higher moral authority are prone to misjudgement? Spell it out to me, I'm lost.

[Tiger Belle]

Originally Posted by CJSTora

In posting this, I am, however, asking a few questions; What IS a "true Christian" - how do you know for absolute certain that one group has it right, and which group?

This is an interesting group of questions and perhaps worthy of its own thread...I am not sure anyone here on earth can answer as to what a "true Christian" is...my brother and I are one year apart and were both raised in the same household and given the same religious education...we are both practicing Catholics, but we often have disagreements on what the "Christian" course of action is in a given situation

here is my take on it...a Christian is a person who professes to follow the ways and teachings of Jesus Christ...in other words, you are a Christian if you say you are...does that mean that you follow mainstream Christian beliefs? not necessarily Does it mean you even know a lot about what is written of Christ's life? no Does it even mean you believe what most other Christians--even those of your own denomination--purport to believe? no

there is no way for me to know how much of my moral character is derived from my upbringing as a Catholic Christian...I would like to think--and I actually do believe--that I would have the same moral fiber and the same strength of character even if I had been raised in an agnostic or atheist home...I also believe that if my internal moral compass, as CJ terms it, was in contradiction to what I interpret as Christian principles, that I would turn away from Christianity and towards Buddhism, Judaism, Islam or no formal "religion" whatsoever

by the way--as a personal aside--first and foremost I consider myself a Christian...even if I never attended another Catholic service or rejected the teachings of the Catholic Church, I would still consider myself a Christian...I am positive that I will not reject what I consider to be his basic teachings

[rewboss]

Okay, I've slept on this, and, CJ, I take the point that perhaps I'm being overly, ah, zealous about "defending religion". I'll make an effort not to be so belligerant.

I do, though, want to return to this point, which I left because I couldn't quite put my finger on why I found it unsatisfactory:

Originally Posted by CJSTora

And to address your last point, Christians automatically point to the Ten Commandments as their moral guide. (Somewhat ironic as the Ten Commandments existed without the Christ being around) Some Christians even assert that these moral guideposts only exist in Christianity. Expand that assertion to include the group of people who believe that without a belief in a higher authority, one simply cannot have a moral guide, and you suddenly include a very large majority of Christians. This thinking is consistently being shown by our newest and best behavioural researchers to be false.

I find it unsatisfactory because it simply doesn't square with my experience of religious people of all sorts of colours and denominations. All Christians I have ever dealt with, even the raving loonies, have always acknowledged that humans, including non-Christians, have a sort of built-in moral compass which we call "conscience". This isn't something new, although it may only now be being studied scientifically.

The classic fundamentalist line isn't that non-Christians have no moral compass, but that no matter how "good" or "moral" you are, unless you are "saved" (a loaded word which means "join our church and become like us"), you will go to hell.

What Christianity does, they argue, is to accurately codify this instinctive sense of morality into a set of god-given rules, because one's moral compass inevitably becomes corrupted by evil influences (they might refer to "Satan" or simply "the world"), and we need to refer back to our instruction manual to kep it pointed in the right direction.

I wouldn't ever suggest that the Bible is the only uncorrupted source of these guidelines or that other religious or non-religious writings are invalid. But I do think there's something in the idea that your moral compass is heavily influenced by the environment (opening up the old nature/nurture debate again) -- indeed, the fact that there are people who fall for extremist religious and political ideologies pretty much confirms that. I believe that religious systems grew up out of a need to keep a society together; these days, we use laws. Religion says, "If you steal somebody's cow, you must answer to the priest, who represents God." The law says, "If you steal somebody's cow, you must answer to the magistrate, who represents the head of state."

But basically, the idea of an innate moral compass is not news to religion, whis has been very happy with the idea all along. In fact, some Christians have even argued that the presence of an innate moral compass is evidence that humans were created by an essentially moral deity (not an argument I find convincing, incidentally).

[SilverXeno]

Originally Posted by Tiger Belle

here is my take on it...a Christian is a person who professes to follow the ways and teachings of Jesus Christ...in other words, you are a Christian if you say you are...does that mean that you follow mainstream Christian beliefs? not necessarily Does it mean you even know a lot about what is written of Christ's life? no Does it even mean you believe what most other Christians--even those of your own denomination--purport to believe? no

I dunno if you would add this TB, but I would say that in addition to the "follow the ways" bit, you believe that Jesus is the son of God. Not just "some guy" that was overly nice to everyone.

[Minnie]

If you only follow the Old Testament, doesn't that make you Jewish?

[SilverXeno]

Originally Posted by Minnie

If you only follow the Old Testament, doesn't that make you Jewish?

Not necessarily. But the OT is the basis & history of Judaism, if that makes sense. I dunno if this is a very good explanation, but being Jewish is a people group you're born into...and most of those people practice Judaism in some form. Some very strictly, other's not as much. For example...in all the pics I've seen of Loki & Puck...Loki is showing her hair, and Puck has shaved the sides of his beard (in fact, he doesn't even have a beard). The OT has lists upon lists of things that they should and should not do (like covering your head or not shaving)...but some of the rules are considered archaic or just plain old-fashioned/not applicable today.

[rewboss]

Originally Posted by SilverXeno

I dunno if this is a very good explanation, but being Jewish is a people group you're born into...

That's pretty much a good explanation. It is possible to convert to Judaism, but the Jewish identity is generally more based on heredity. Generally speaking, Jews don't see it as their mission to go out and convert everyone.

The OT has lists upon lists of things that they should and should not do (like covering your head or not shaving)...but some of the rules are considered archaic or just plain old-fashioned/not applicable today.

There have always been people who interpret the laws in different ways. In Jesus's time, for example, the Pharisees came out with the idea that purity laws should be adhered to strictly outside the temple as well as within, and also believed (very conveniently) that there were two Torahs: the written one, and the spoken one transmitted by word of mouth. The Sadducees, on the other hand, believed only the written Torah existed, but that it should be interpreted literally.

Modern Judaism is descended from the Pharisaical tradition, which is why, if you poke a modern Jew's eye out, he won't necessarily poke yours out. The Pharisees interpreted that commandment to mean that the injured party should receive the value of an eye -- that is, monetary compensation.

[Racenut]

Are the Nazis still married?

[CJSTora]

Sorry I took so long to respond. Things kinda got crazy around here and I wanted to make sure this was written clearly.


rew:

Okay, I think we're striking a different note here. I think there's a difference between where you're arguing from, the Methodist flavour of Christianity, and where the arguments come from in North America. The Methodist voice is virtually silent in these matters, and that probably comes as no surprise to you. When you speak for "Christianity" I think you're really speaking for Methodism.

Personally, if there is one type of Christianity I'd most identify with, it's probably Methodism. I like the basis of two of Wesley's three precepts on which the religion is built (The obvious exception, of course, being to abide by the edicts of God the Almighty Father.) But beyond the basic precepts and into the Doctrines, it really breaks down quickly for me. I mean, you run into the whole omniscience/omnipotence problem, for starters, and then trying to bring it back into involving logic and reason in matters of faith? How hairy does THAt get? You must LEAVE logic and reason behind at some point to MAKE it a matter of faith, just by definition. But I'm sure I don't need to point this out to you.

The "typical" (we'll leave the word "true" out of this one) North American Christian feels that their moral code comes from their religion. When asked for the evidence of this, more often than not the knee-jerk reaction is to point to the Ten Commandments. It's almost a conditioned response. It's why we see battles being waged about the erection of statues and monuments in courthouses and government buildings, paying tribute to the Ten Commandments. There's also a certain kind of "surrender to a higher authority" that comes with some North American brands of Christianity.

While I prefer to not use other people's words, and instead put arguments in my own words, a great example of this can be seen in a cable access television show called The Atheist Experience. They're a bunch of wacky atheists who host a call-in show to increase awareness of atheism and to promote the separation of church and state, etc. Given their location (Texas) they're a pretty courageous bunch of people.

The usual host, Matt Dillahunty, (bio: http://www.atheist-experience.com/pe...tt_dillahunty/ ) is very, very familiar with some of the more fundamentalist parts of Christianity. Uncomfortably so, for many of the believing callers.

Callers to the show tend to be atheists, but they get a fair share of believers calling in. A common question from believers deals with morality, and the believers have difficulty wrapping their head around the concept that you can be an atheist and have a high ethical and moral standard at the same time. As far as they're concerned, atheism = moral bankruptcy.

Here's a recent example of such a caller, "David" (excuse the audio quality, they're working out the kinks in a new studio):



Here's another one, split into two parts (November 9, 2008) in which Matt walks a caller ("John") through moral dilemmas in an attempt to show him that his personal morality is not set out by his religion:

Part the first:


Part the second:


There's another series where "John" calls in on the next show, November 16 2008, surrenders his own moral judgement to God's authority and tries to convince Matt that God is the ultimate moral judge (three parts):

Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_WVlVQMHU6k
Part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v9UIQ8XWxCE
Part 3: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zAx-QTbmtjo

They definitely give these folks lots of time to explain their points and show tremendous patience in their conversations. There are many more examples of this kind of caller on youtube, and in the show's extensive online archive. (www.atheist-experience.org)



(continued)

[CJSTora]

(had to split the post, as I was over the allowable character limit)

for Tiger:

We are empathic and sympathetic creatures by nature, and our morality is built out of that.

When someone in our social group experiences a catastrophic loss, what's our first reaction? Both sympathy and empathy. Something akin to "I can't imagine the pain you must be feeling" (empathy), followed by a sympathetic offer. That reaction crosses cultural and religious barriers. It's coming from within yourself, and it's something you developed as a way of dealing with the world and its cohabitants.

We see very basic empathic responses very early on. I think we've all experienced one crying newborn trigger a wave of similar responses from their neighbours in the maternity ward. "If you're uncomfortable, then I'm uncomfortable, too." almost seems to be the situation. Evolutionarily speaking, there's an advantage to two voices crying for attention instead of just one. It's not a fully developed empathic response, of course, but the trigger to the response is practically innate.

Children develop empathy as a valuable tool that helps them predict the outcome of their social actions and choose an appropriate course of action to produce a desired result. Of course, they don't think of it with that kind of complexity.

As a toddler, children have an appreciation for states of emotion and can sympathize with those emotional states, and especially states of discomfort. How many of us have witnessed a scene of one child or a family member crying, and the toddler might offer him/her their own favourite comfort item, be it a teddy bear, comfort blanket, soother, what have you. That's not an insignificant event.

At around age 5, when a child enters school and is introduced to a large peer group, the process accelerates as the child begins to better appreciate how their actions impact themself and others, and how those actions affect how people treat them in return. Parents, guardians and teachers guide this process early on, but this quickly becomes a self-learning process to increase the value of empathy in predicting outcomes and choosing actions. In short order the empathic process begins to become almost automatic for some situations. You quickly learn the value of the "golden rule".

Adjustments to this process occur throughout the full length of a person's life as new experiences provide new learning opportunities. You never stop fine-tuning this.

It's something that, when applied on a societal scale, becomes the basis of a concept called the "social contract", in the sense of large groups establishing ways to maintain order, and establishing a rule of law.

But I digress. The very beginning of this very personal process results in the instillation within ourselves of a sense of right and wrong. This is our moral compass, in its rudimentary form. Thinking is still polar at a young age, and the situations presented are rather simple. As we develop and the lessons learned become more complex, "right and wrong" greys into a scale from "best option" to "worst option". It's a morality scale. Our "moral compass" develops a lot more points of direction on it over time.

This process happens with or without religion, and it is used in the same way by people of all religious backgrounds, and all states of belief. It's independent of religious conviction. It is, however, a very good personal, moral guide, and there's a reason why so many religions have a variation of the "golden rule" (or what we would find in Matthew 7:12 or Luke 6:31) as part of their core tenets. It's something about us that's worth maintaining as we advance as a civilization. It is not decreed by God. It is determined by us.

So, asking yourself what Jesus might do is only putting a different face on the moral decisions you make yourself. So long as the moral example is a good one, the figure of Jesus is interchangeable with many other characters. You could easily ask yourself "What would Superman do?" or "What would Gandhi do?" or "What would Buddha do?" or Abraham Lincoln, or Bob Geldof or the Dalai Lama or Martin Luther King or a host of other replacements and come up with the same answers. It's your religion that narrows that list down to one person, Jesus. Religion's role in this is to convince you that you do not have that moral authority, that you are morally inferior to their ideals, be they God, Jesus, Mohammed, Moses, John Smith, Rael, Doe, Xenu, L. Ron Hubbard, etc.

Attributing your modern sense of morality to an iron-age jewish carpenter who preached of a bronze-age God is not giving yourself the credit to come to a moral judgement on your own merit, and are substituting a sock puppet for that credit. You're going to select a figure whose morality - or perceived moral example - mirrors your own for affirmation. You'd probably never look for moral affirmation from, say, Tomas de Torquemada, Idi Amin, Vlad Tepes or, yes, Adolph Hitler.

It's certainly good to have ideals of moral goodness, but do not make the mistake of thinking that the morality of the ideal trumps your own. There are things those moral ideals would have said or done that you would not agree with.

For example, Jesus taught that anyone (meaning any man) who simply looks at a woman lustfully has just committed adultery and thus has sinned.
Not just a little sin, one of the big ones. He tells us that the sinner must gouge out their own eye, lest the eye prevent them from entering the gates of Heaven and send them to Hell instead. He then continues on to say that those whose hand causes them to sin must chop their own hand off and throw it away for the same reason. (Matthew 5:28-30) Does that strike you as something that's morally reasonable? Is that something you might say yourself? Might you disagree with that? I suspect a lot of people disagree with that one, or we'd be seeing a lot more blind men walking around.

I suspect that before I even asked those questions, your own morality was already causing you to wrestle with the message of that passage, or you may be doing as rew will almost undoubtedly do and search for some kind of apologetic for the passage, such as "he was speaking in metaphor" to soften the moral implication. Or, you may choose to dismiss it as a lesson you don't understand, but you still recognized that there was something unsettling about the words. It is the lessons you learned yourself growing up that shaped this moral judgement. It's the same moral judgement you exercised yourself when you decided that most of the silliness and dogmatism that you see in fundamentalists, or the excesses and rituals of the Catholic Church (just for examples) do not jive with what you feel are the core of the popular compassionate and pacifist teachings of Jesus, and that the core of the message is more important to observe than the dogma. It's the same moral judgement that caused you to try to map that passage of scripture I just paraphrased from Matthew onto the image you have of Jesus as your moral guidepost, didn't find a good fit, and probably relegated it to the pile of things you don't quite understand.

It's you who did that. That was your very own personal morality waking up and saying "Hey, hang on a sec..."

Asking yourself "What Would Jesus Do" is really a kind of mental puppet show. You're not really casting yourself back into the sandals and dusty robes of a 2000-year old Jewish carpenter/teacher to find your moral compass. You're really asking yourself, "Is this something a good person would do?"

A really interesting study was recently done on this kind of "cerebral slight of hand" and a very good summary of the test and findings can be found here: http://scienceblogs.com/notrocketsci..._own_image.php It takes it from a slightly different angle, in that it deals with people who make some level of claim to know what God thinks, but the correlation is the same. There's a mental surrender there and the sock-puppetry applies.

But getting back to this original conundrum, I think we've demonstrated here that when we go outside our own personal moral convictions and rely on things like twisted interpretations of obscure scripture passages written by ancient people whose average intellectual capacity would probably rival any fourth grader today, you can come up with some pretty bizarre things. When you surrender your personal moral conviction to the authority of said interpretations and scriptures, and accept them as your own convictions, you can do some pretty bizarre things, as well. As I believe Matt quotes from Voltaire in one of those videos above, "Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities."



And finally, on the No True Scotsman...

The point I was trying to make earlier is that a definition of a "true Christian" is a fluid thing. Your definition of a "true Christian" is different from, say Paul the Apostle, the loudest voice in the New Testament, who pretty much viewed belief in the resurrection to be the only qualifier, claimed salvation was not dependent on deeds, only this belief in the resurrection, and rejected the Torah as obsolete. The comparison to the Scotsman fallacy is not quite complete. In the Scotsman fallacy, it's outside people making a judgement on what is a Scot. In this scenario, it's the clans themselves making the claim. It may sound like a small difference, but it's not.

When you have that kind of fracturing, who speaks for/with/to God? As was pointed out in the "Not Rocket Science" blog link above, you'd think there'd be a little more consistency if they all did.



I really think the three of us are very similar in the fact that we check our morality against ourselves and act on what we feel is the right thing to do, without getting all bent out of shape about dogma. We'd probably come to a lot of the same moral decisions, if not fully identical decisions.

[rewboss]

Originally Posted by CJSTora

When you speak for "Christianity" I think you're really speaking for Methodism.

No, I'm not speaking for "Christianity". You asked me about my personal beliefs, and I very carefully used words like "personally" to underline that I was talking about my personal beliefs. In fact, my point is precisely that there are many different types of Christian with wildly different beliefs about just about everything, hence my reference to the No True Scotsman. In other words, objectively speaking, you cannot simply pin down what "Christianity" says, although many Christians -- probably most -- are likely to insist that their beliefs are the only correct ones.

I mean, you run into the whole omniscience/omnipotence problem, for starters, and then trying to bring it back into involving logic and reason in matters of faith? How hairy does THAt get? You must LEAVE logic and reason behind at some point to MAKE it a matter of faith, just by definition. But I'm sure I don't need to point this out to you.

I think that where we differ most is your insistance that everything can be described and explained through logic and reason alone, and my belief that logic and reason can only take you so far. I think, basically, I just have a more philosophical outlook on life.

On its least religious level, humans have the ability to use abstractions and metaphor and allegory which have nothing to do with logic and reason in order to explain or model reality. Douglas Adams, in one of his more serious speeches, uses the example of Feng Shui: it's not logical or reasonable to think that there really are invisible dragons walking through your house, but if you're arranging your furniture in an egonomic and aesthetically pleasing manner, it helps to visualise the whole thing from the point of view of something we instinctively understand, an organic creature with feelings and emotions. To the Chinese mind, dragons are just an obvious choice.

I'm not sure I'd want to try to argue the case for God's omnipotence and omniscience particularly. And logically, the notion of a deity is not required to explain the universe. But I find that somehow unsatisfactory, and I'm not entirely convinced that being able to explain the universe without regard to a deity automatically means there is none... even if that deity turns out to be some kind of abstract hive consciousness, or Spinoza's God, or something along those lines. I can't use logic or reason to explain that belief, but nevertheless: I have nagging thoughts, hard to describe, on the nature of consciousness and what I mean when I talk about "me"; although intellectually I understand the scientific concept of emergence, I am troubled by the concept of "me". I think, therefore I am. That's a big stumbling block for me in my struggle to understand "me" in purely materialistic terms. Perhaps it's an illusion, but even then there's a "me" experiencing that illusion.

Maybe you don't have any problems with that, but I do. But the mere fact that I have problems with it doesn't prove that it isn't so, any more than the fact that you have problems with the idea of an omnipotent deity proves there cannot possibly be one. It just proves that if there is one, it doesn't behave in the way you personally expect an omnipotent being to behave.

So yes, I have problems with the idea of an omnipotent god. I also have problems with the idea of a completely material universe and that I am a mere collection of cells, and that the core of my being is nothing more than chemical reactions in the brain.

The "typical" (we'll leave the word "true" out of this one) North American Christian feels that their moral code comes from their religion.

From my experience of Christians in various internet forums over the years, I've most often encountered the situation that while North American (and most other) Christians will recite the Ten Commandments as the basis of their moral code, they don't normally believe nobody else has a moral code. More typically, they believe that everybody else's moral codes are OK as far as they go, but are inferior. Far more common in my experience is the other knee-jerk mantra that even if you obey the Ten Commandments to the letter all your life, unless you are "saved", you're not going to heaven.

A common question from believers deals with morality, and the believers have difficulty wrapping their head around the concept that you can be an atheist and have a high ethical and moral standard at the same time. As far as they're concerned, atheism = moral bankruptcy.

I think you have to consider the sample space they have here. We're talking about people who will bother to phone in to a show "promoting" atheism. Among believers, those are most likely to be the ones with the most extreme views. You'd need to visit a range of different churches and canvass opinions from a much wider selection of people.

Your definition of a "true Christian" is different from, say Paul the Apostle, the loudest voice in the New Testament, who pretty much viewed belief in the resurrection to be the only qualifier, claimed salvation was not dependent on deeds, only this belief in the resurrection, and rejected the Torah as obsolete. The comparison to the Scotsman fallacy is not quite complete. In the Scotsman fallacy, it's outside people making a judgement on what is a Scot. In this scenario, it's the clans themselves making the claim. It may sound like a small difference, but it's not.

I don't think Paul is the loudest voice in the New Testament, actually. I think he's just the one quoted most by those with the loudest voices, i.e. the extremists and the fundamentalists, precisely because Paul's argument that works alone are not enough, you have to "believe", can very easily be used to justify some of the more extreme views -- as I said, a common belief is that even if you follow the Ten Commandments, if you're not "saved", you're going to hell. Conveniently, they omit the passage were Paul asks the rhetorical question, "Does this mean I can do whatever I like and get away with it?" and answers, "Definitely not."

I'm not sure what your point is about the No True Scotsman fallacy. I was accusing you, an outsider, of using it.