|
|
Post by Feologild Oakes on Oct 15, 2023 16:15:36 GMT
If there is no God, does what is right or wrong change?
|
|
The Lost One
Junior Member
@lostkiera
Posts: 2,672
Likes: 1,297
|
Post by The Lost One on Oct 15, 2023 16:59:25 GMT
In my opinion, no - we could still consider what might be considered moral if moral realism were true though it would be a fiction without God - unless you want to posit some sort of Platonic form of the good.
|
|
|
|
Post by captainbryce on Oct 16, 2023 5:19:45 GMT
The answer to that question ultimately depends on which theory of morality you subscribe to and what your values are based on. My answer would be “no” because the judgement of right and wrong is based on intent and consequences with respect to a chosen goal, irrespective of legality or authority. Right and wrong have no meaning without a goal.
If your goal is human well-being and prosperity, then we can use objective metrics to determine right actions from wrong actions. If your goal is to be a god sycophant to get some sort of prize in heaven or avoid some sort of punishment by a tyrant, then that’s just a “might makes right” argument and morality becomes purely subjective to that god and essentially means nothing intrinsic anyway.
|
|
|
|
Post by Arlon10 on Nov 4, 2023 15:08:00 GMT
If there is no God, does what is right or wrong change?
In ancient Rome in the Colosseum they watched people kill each other for entertainment. What religion with scriptures told them to do that?
I believe you are forgetting that before the advanced civilization of the Greeks slowly began changing things, religion and science were all one thing, "civilization." Civilization has always been less violent than the wild peoples on the fringes of civilization.
The course of history repeats
The people of Sumer became civilized.
The Akkadians on the fringes took their lands by violence.
In time the Akkadians became civilized.
At some point (omitting some details for brevity) the Babylonians on the fringes took their lands by violence.
In time they became civilized.
The Assyrians on the fringes took their lands by violence.
Then they too became civilized.
Then the Persians took their lands by violence.
Then the Greeks took them and in time the Romans took the Greeks and then there was the Colosseum.
See the pattern?
So if you believe people are somehow "naturally" inclined to civil behavior, then you missed a lot of history classes.
People often misread the Bible and believe the "god" in that promoted violence. What actually happened is that the concept of a god took the violence upon itself (in time). Wouldn't it be great if the people in Israel could just say, "Let God take care of it"?
|
|
|
|
Post by FilmFlaneur on Nov 4, 2023 20:10:52 GMT
People often misread the Bible and believe the "god" in that promoted violence. What actually happened is that the concept of a god took the violence upon itself (in time). Several times in the OT God directly commands violent action against His enemies or those of His peoples. On other occasions God himself apparently works the trick, starting, supposedly, with the drowning of mankind. It is hard to 'misread' such passages, In fact the standard defences are rather that any cruelties demanded by God are automatically justified as necessarily good or that, finally, faced with the unpalatable, all one can say is that He 'works in mysterious ways'. And didn't Jesus, er, one third of God, say "Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and one’s foes will be members of one’s own household" ? (Matthew 10:34-36) |
|
|
|
Post by Arlon10 on Nov 5, 2023 2:24:36 GMT
People often misread the Bible and believe the "god" in that promoted violence. What actually happened is that the concept of a god took the violence upon itself (in time). Several times in the OT God directly commands violent action against His enemies or those of His peoples. On other occasions God himself apparently works the trick, starting, supposedly, with the drowning of mankind. It is hard to 'misread' such passages, In fact the standard defences are rather that any cruelties demanded by God are automatically justified as necessarily good or that, finally, faced with the unpalatable, all one can say is that He 'works in mysterious ways'. And didn't Jesus, er, one third of God, say "Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and one’s foes will be members of one’s own household" ? (Matthew 10:34-36) Again you tell your opponents in debate what they must believe about religion. You demand an interpretation that has unusual and absurd "fundamentalist" qualities. You are the fundamentalist in the room. It is your mistake. Not all the authors of the books of the Bible were prophets. Ecclesiastes was a king who did not hear the word of God. His book is included only because any event can have lessons, even if directed by the ungodly. It is possible to learn from mistakes for example. Mark and Luke were not Apostles. The book of Paul "to the Ephesians" is just that -- to the Ephesians. Of course other people can learn lessons from the problems the Ephesians had, but it requires skill to interpret those lessons. It is not something an obvious buffoon on the internet should attempt.
Can you see what the problem is yet? You have the mentality of a child five years old. The Bible was not written for children. There are however special "Children's" Bibles that avoid content unsuitable for children, especially sexual content.
We discussed this before and you appeared to hold the opinion that evil in the world today is comparable to evil in the world in the earliest days of the Bible. I admitted that while it is true today that extremely small groups of people (Satanists perhaps) sacrifice live children, most established government do not. That was the problem before, whole societies were wanton murderers.
|
|
|
|
Post by FilmFlaneur on Nov 6, 2023 21:18:12 GMT
Again you tell your opponents in debate what they must believe about religion. Please quote where I tell you (or anyone) what they 'must not believe' I would have thought, given your great reading intelligence you would have spotted that I was merely replying to your striking claim (on another thread entirely, incidentally) that " Religion cannot be taken literally" when fundamentalism - that would be those religious groups that look for the literal interpretations - is a widespread manifestation of today and in fact always been. It is not me 'demanding interpretations', I just report the existence those many others who do so. Your disproval of this form of belief would be better off directed towards them. You are the one who will need to explain this. (On the right spread might be helpful..) When I make claims about the purported prophecies or not in the Bible feel free to raise this again. But you know how much I enjoy your diversions, how kind. An ad hominem is not an argument. As I have told you before. Just as back then, I can still quite easily make out a case for modern evil being widespread and entirely comparable to ancient times. Can you for instance point to any of the 1O commandments are not being broken world-wide? (Starting perhaps with "Thou shalt have no other gods before me" when a large number of the world's population do exactly that.) Fundamentalists still think their depredations are justified by God or scripture. There are still plenty of people who believe the god in scripture promotes violence and act accordingly. Also, unless the rules have changed, original sin, in Christian doctrine, remains the condition or state of sin into which each human being is born. As for there being no longer societies existing which practice widespread evil in recent times we have the Nazis and Stalin's Russia; of late we have North Korea, joined by some of the religious theocracies around the world. A case could also be made out for Russian and China at least in part, if one accepts that one's notion of evil can be subjective. Also unless free will has been abolished, then the cause of any sort of age-old moral evil remains just as active. But don't take my word for it . I have tried hard to find a site which distinguishes between evil today and as it was. For historical reasons there may be differences (killings by sword and worship of Baal no longer being so popular, but apart from that, it appears the religious think that the degree and broad types of evil remain just the same. Presumably Christians ought to know. And you did say elsewhere to listen to what they say, or in this case do not, did you not? |
|
|
|
Post by OpiateOfTheMasses on Nov 12, 2023 22:50:34 GMT
With or without religion, what is right or wrong continually changes throughout history.
From a religious perspective (and I'll take Christianity for the sake of simplicity) it used to be acceptable (for example) to keep slaves and beat you wife. Now most flavours of Christianity say that's wrong.
Arguably morality in wider society changes over time too - although the line as to where religiously imposed morality comes in historically will be a source of debate. However in more recent years, where religion had a much smaller impact, you can take the example of homosexuality - at the beginning of the 20th century it was illegal in most western countries. Now, not only is it legal, many have legalised same sex marriage.
|
|
The Lost One
Junior Member
@lostkiera
Posts: 2,672
Likes: 1,297
|
Post by The Lost One on Nov 13, 2023 12:35:41 GMT
With or without religion, what is right or wrong continually changes throughout history. From a religious perspective (and I'll take Christianity for the sake of simplicity) it used to be acceptable (for example) to keep slaves and beat you wife. Now most flavours of Christianity say that's wrong. Arguably morality in wider society changes over time too - although the line as to where religiously imposed morality comes in historically will be a source of debate. However in more recent years, where religion had a much smaller impact, you can take the example of homosexuality - at the beginning of the 20th century it was illegal in most western countries. Now, not only is it legal, many have legalised same sex marriage. I dunno about this. Was slavery right in the past or was it merely accepted by an immoral society? |
|
|
|
Post by clusium on Nov 13, 2023 21:20:46 GMT
With or without religion, what is right or wrong continually changes throughout history. From a religious perspective (and I'll take Christianity for the sake of simplicity) it used to be acceptable (for example) to keep slaves and beat you wife. Now most flavours of Christianity say that's wrong. Arguably morality in wider society changes over time too - although the line as to where religiously imposed morality comes in historically will be a source of debate. However in more recent years, where religion had a much smaller impact, you can take the example of homosexuality - at the beginning of the 20th century it was illegal in most western countries. Now, not only is it legal, many have legalised same sex marriage. I would say that Christianity always condemned slavery as being wrong. Really it was mainly in the American south & the Caribbean, where Christians justified slavery citing one obscure passage in Sacred Scripture (Noah's son Ham) to justify it. Back in Christianity's early days during the Roman Empire, it was mainly the lower classes of people, such as slaves, disabled, the poor, etc., that were drawn to Christianity, because Christianity was always about lifting up the lowly. |
|
|
|
Post by OpiateOfTheMasses on Nov 13, 2023 22:21:35 GMT
With or without religion, what is right or wrong continually changes throughout history. From a religious perspective (and I'll take Christianity for the sake of simplicity) it used to be acceptable (for example) to keep slaves and beat you wife. Now most flavours of Christianity say that's wrong. Arguably morality in wider society changes over time too - although the line as to where religiously imposed morality comes in historically will be a source of debate. However in more recent years, where religion had a much smaller impact, you can take the example of homosexuality - at the beginning of the 20th century it was illegal in most western countries. Now, not only is it legal, many have legalised same sex marriage. I would say that Christianity always condemned slavery as being wrong. Really it was mainly in the American south & the Caribbean, where Christians justified slavery citing one obscure passage in Sacred Scripture (Noah's son Ham) to justify it. Back in Christianity's early days during the Roman Empire, it was mainly the lower classes of people, such as slaves, disabled, the poor, etc., that were drawn to Christianity, because Christianity was always about lifting up the lowly. Slavery wasn't just the Americas in the 17th and 18th century. Medieval Christian Popes (and other leaders) allowed slavery in Europe as long as the slaves weren't other Christians (so Muslims and Pagans were fair game to enslave). Christianity has a long history of openly condoning slavery. |
|
|
|
Post by clusium on Nov 14, 2023 0:44:46 GMT
I would say that Christianity always condemned slavery as being wrong. Really it was mainly in the American south & the Caribbean, where Christians justified slavery citing one obscure passage in Sacred Scripture (Noah's son Ham) to justify it. Back in Christianity's early days during the Roman Empire, it was mainly the lower classes of people, such as slaves, disabled, the poor, etc., that were drawn to Christianity, because Christianity was always about lifting up the lowly. Slavery wasn't just the Americas in the 17th and 18th century. Medieval Christian Popes (and other leaders) allowed slavery in Europe as long as the slaves weren't other Christians (so Muslims and Pagans were fair game to enslave). Christianity has a long history of openly condoning slavery. Many more Christians were enslaved by Muslims than Muslims by Christians. Massive Extent Of Slavery Between Muslims & Christians For 3 Centuries
|
|
The Lost One
Junior Member
@lostkiera
Posts: 2,672
Likes: 1,297
|
Post by The Lost One on Nov 14, 2023 9:53:25 GMT
Medieval Christian Popes (and other leaders) allowed slavery in Europe as long as the slaves weren't other Christians (so Muslims and Pagans were fair game to enslave). I think this is the key thing here. The Golden Rule pretty much rules out slavery so those who benefitted from slavery came up with ad-hoc reasons why the Golden Rule shouldn't apply in certain cases - in this case suggesting The Golden Rule shouldn't apply to non-Christians even though there is nothing in the Gospels to suggest this. Another example that pops up at least as far back as Aristotle and still pretty widespread in recent history is the idea that some people are natural slaves - with a lot of bogus 'science' formulated to back that up. It's all bullshit - people have considered slavery wrong for thousands of years and the mental gymnastics they had to employ to justify it makes that clear I think. |
|
The Lost One
Junior Member
@lostkiera
Posts: 2,672
Likes: 1,297
|
Post by The Lost One on Nov 14, 2023 9:54:45 GMT
Many more Christians were enslaved by Muslims than Muslims by Christians. That wouldn't make Christian enslaving Muslims (or anyone else for that matter) ok though! |
|
|
|
Post by clusium on Nov 14, 2023 12:58:09 GMT
Many more Christians were enslaved by Muslims than Muslims by Christians. That wouldn't make Christian enslaving Muslims (or anyone else for that matter) ok though! I know it wouldn't. |
|
|
|
Post by OpiateOfTheMasses on Nov 14, 2023 22:28:27 GMT
But the point is, that at those times it was considered right by pretty much everyone involved. Otherwise they wouldn't have all done it.
|
|
|
|
Post by Arlon10 on Nov 14, 2023 23:49:06 GMT
Again you tell your opponents in debate what they must believe about religion. Please quote where I tell you (or anyone) what they 'must not believe' I would have thought, given your great reading intelligence you would have spotted that I was merely replying to your striking claim (on another thread entirely, incidentally) that " Religion cannot be taken literally" when fundamentalism - that would be those religious groups that look for the literal interpretations - is a widespread manifestation of today and in fact always been. {1} It is not me 'demanding interpretations', I just report the existence those many others who do so. Your disproval of this form of belief would be better off directed towards them. You are the one who will need to explain this. (On the right spread might be helpful..) When I make claims about the purported prophecies or not in the Bible feel free to raise this again. But you know how much I enjoy your diversions, how kind. An ad hominem is not an argument. As I have told you before. Just as back then, I can still quite easily make out a case for modern evil being widespread and entirely comparable to ancient times. Can you for instance point to any of the 1O commandments are not being broken world-wide? (Starting perhaps with "Thou shalt have no other gods before me" when a large number of the world's population do exactly that.) Fundamentalists still think their depredations are justified by God or scripture. There are still plenty of people who believe the god in scripture promotes violence and act accordingly. Also, unless the rules have changed, original sin, in Christian doctrine, remains the condition or state of sin into which each human being is born. As for there being no longer societies existing which practice widespread evil in recent times we have the Nazis and Stalin's Russia; of late we have North Korea, joined by some of the religious theocracies around the world. A case could also be made out for Russian and China at least in part, if one accepts that one's notion of evil can be subjective. Also unless free will has been abolished, then the cause of any sort of age-old moral evil remains just as active. But don't take my word for it . I have tried hard to find a site which distinguishes between evil today and as it was. For historical reasons there may be differences (killings by sword and worship of Baal no longer being so popular, but apart from that, {2} it appears the religious think that the degree and broad types of evil remain just the same. Presumably Christians ought to know. And you did say elsewhere to listen to what they say, or in this case do not, did you not? {1} In my long life and wide travels, including numerous visits to a variety of very religious people, I never met even one person in real life who believed the Bible should be taken literally. That is especially on the "six days" of creation. In II Peter 3:8 it says, “But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.” I did see one person on TV lately (crazy times) who said he believed the world could be created in six twenty-four time periods, but he did not and still does not represent any congregation, much less denomination . All the religious people I ever knew used that quote among several others in the Bible to dismiss the notion it "literally" claims a six day creation.
I therefore stand by undaunted to my very skilled observation that ...
"Not all the authors of the books of the Bible were prophets. Ecclesiastes was a king who did not hear the word of God. His book is included only because any event can have lessons, even if directed by the ungodly. It is possible to learn from mistakes for example. Mark and Luke were not Apostles. The book of Paul "to the Ephesians" is just that -- to the Ephesians. Of course other people can learn lessons from the problems the Ephesians had, but it requires skill to interpret those lessons. It is not something an obvious buffoon on the internet should attempt."
{2} You have utterly failed to demonstrate that evil today compares to evil before the flood. Evil as the Nazis were, they did not murder each other. Nor did they rape each other. And of course no one else comes even close to being as evil as they apparently were. I find your obvious misreading of everything most annoying especially since you have such an attitude that you are some kind of authority or have any competence to represent any authority. I have absolutely no respect for your opinions or the "sources" you seem to respect.
Please do not "ask" me anything. If there is something you still do not get, it is your problem. It is evident you cannot follow my messages on this board and I wish you would please quit trying.
|
|
|
|
Post by novastar6 on Nov 14, 2023 23:53:35 GMT
But the point is, that at those times it was considered right by pretty much everyone involved. Otherwise they wouldn't have all done it.
Answer seems to be in the question then. If we leave it up to mankind to be the sole voice of what's right and wrong, we're in trouble, as we've already seen in recent years with pedos trying to get themselves as normalized and socially accepted as gay people, or people trying to legalize killing babies even after birth and calling it 'abortion'.
|
|
The Lost One
Junior Member
@lostkiera
Posts: 2,672
Likes: 1,297
|
Post by The Lost One on Nov 16, 2023 11:40:39 GMT
But the point is, that at those times it was considered right by pretty much everyone involved. Otherwise they wouldn't have all done it. I suspect it was mostly a case of cognitive dissonance. They knew it was wrong, but it was profitable. So they employed a lot of ad-hoc nonsense to justify it to themselves and others. |
|
|
|
Post by FilmFlaneur on Nov 16, 2023 23:09:01 GMT
In my long life and wide travels, including numerous visits to a variety of very religious people, I never met even one person in real life who believed the Bible should be taken literally. As already mentioned, in 2022, 49% of Americans view the Bible as inspired by God, but not everything in it is to be taken literally. 29% say the Bible is a collection of fables, history and moral precepts recorded by man. And 20% of Americans say it is the actual word of God to be taken literally. news.gallup.com/poll/394262/fewer-bible-literal-word-god.aspx#:~:text=In%202022%2C%2049%25%20of%20Americans,God%20to%20be%20taken%20literally. You ignoring such a respected and easily found survey which directly contradicts your characteristically sweeping and ill informed claims will not make it go away. I guess you need to travel more widely then? " ... passages taken together strongly imply that Jesus took Genesis 1 as literal history describing creation in six 24-hour days. Jesus said clearly that He created in six days. And He even did something He didn’t do with most of Scripture—He wrote it down Himself. How clearer and more authoritative can you get than that?" answersingenesis.org/days-of-creation/did-jesus-say-he-created-in-six-literal-days/ In Islam (for fundamentalists at least) there is some debate - at least as to whether Allah created the world in 6 or 8 days: islamqa.info/en/answers/31865/were-the-heavens-and-the-earth-created-in-six-days-or-eight Guess you need to make the acquaintance of more religious people? But perhaps you would care to tell us how long you think it took your deity to create the earth then - given that you, presumably, think this what happened? Evasion as always - just as when I last asked you this - will be noted. Once again, when I make any comment about the authors of the Bible being prophets or otherwise, please feel free to raise this. "The Röhm Purge was the murder of the leadership of the SA (Storm Troopers), the Nazi paramilitary formation led by Ernst Röhm. The murders took place between June 30 and July 2, 1934. The ruling elites and ultimately Hitler saw the SA as a threat to their hold on power. " encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/roehm-purge en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_of_the_Long_Knives Guess you need to mug up on the bloody struggles within the Nazis too? lol And let's not forget that one of my other examples, Stalin's Russia there the purges and disappearances witness communists killing communists (just ask Trotsky)... As for failing to demonstrate, please check back on all of that which I wrote last time, you appear to have overlooked it. I love the smell of irony in the morning. I have long discovered that that is not a very fruitful exercise, but it can be entertaining. But where's the fun in that? |
|
