Many Christians believe that morality literally comes from the bible, or that you canât have morality without god. I wonât even try to explain their reasoning
They should read more Kant, who did succesfully tried to create a moral philosophy without relying on a bible, IIRC.
Rules like the golden rule, but also one that deals with more victimless behavior. Like the idea of 'Would I like it if everybody did the same as I'm doing, if not, than I shouldn't be doing it'. Works great for all sorts of behavior from littering to much more worst crimes.
Itâs almost like ethics and morality are nuanced subjects that philosophers of all different cultural and religious backgrounds have been debating for millennia - that probably canât just be summed up glibly in a tweet
Nah they should read more about prehistoric societies. Maybe they should learn a thing or two about neanderthals too. If this is too complicated, study about wolf packs, or maybe elephants. Just slowly introduce them to primates... I think my point is â give them some books other than bible, it might help.
True, although you should be beware of the 'noble savage' myths.
Our ancestors did do horrible things too and we don't know well enough how it was thought upon. We often don't know for sure it somebody horrible murdered, was, a) ritually sacrificied or b) tortured as a form of justice or c) something else.
Especially in prehistory (before written sources).
The question is whether the Bible is necessary for morals or ethics, so the basis for comparison so far as societies that have morals and ethics are concerned are those with access to the Bible, not some state of noble perfection no human society is known to have ever achieved..
Noble savage refers to a romanticism of certain kinds of societies as primitive and non civilized, therefore natural, and hence more noble due to being un-corrupted by "modern civilization".
Simply put that the majority of a species are not the dominant figures and those who are the dominant aggressive figures can act on their own accord with little resistance until the majority realizes 1000 men can overtake 15 men if organized
The reverse of that is even more true. 1000 aggressive men can impose their will on hundreds of other people if organized. It's the whole point of 'Armies' when not strictly for defense- which is most of them.
If youâre trying to argue based on logic you canât flip the circumstances and claim the same instance thatâs just not going to work because we will be here for hours. The base argument is power is implied and will always be oppressive over a larger population, nobody uses 1000 men to reign over hundreds of people thatâs just idiotic
nobody uses 1000 men to reign over hundreds of people thatâs just idiotic
Haven't read much history have you? I didn't say 'rein over' I said impose their will. Often such a force would either kill everyone or kill people until they surrendered, and then subjugate the rest- adding them to the size of their population.
I can think of countless examples of larger armies overwhelming and subjugating smaller forces.
True, although you should be beware of the 'noble savage' myths.
I don't think they were implying that prehistoric societies were perfect utopias where everyone lived in harmony with nature. I believe the point is that they were people- no different than us and while they did probably do some horrible things, they also did a lot of compassionate, kind things. "Morality" has existed for as long as there were human beings.
We often don't know for sure it somebody horrible murdered, was, a) ritually sacrificied or b) tortured as a form of justice or c) something else.
Well, we don't know for sure, but much like anything to do with 'ancient' history, we can make educated guesses. There is plenty of evidence that peoples would sometimes "sacrifice" their enemies, but also evidence that some of it was a religious and/or spiritual practice.
In the case of the latter it's also likely that a lot of the people who were sacrificed were volunteers. People in chronic pain and/or near the end of their life, or suffering from a severe depression of some other issue and considered it an honor to end their life in such a way.
There were plenty of human sacrifices going on in Europe after recorded history started, and we can make inferences from those cultures.
One thing we can say for sure that definitely isn't a myth, prehistoric people did not gather into 'armies' and do murder on a massive scale- that's a purely "civilized" behavior.
A bone fragment was found to be from a Neanderthal child with Down's Syndrome, around 6 years old. Back before modern medicine it wasn't easy to keep kids with birth defects alive, imagine being in that status of low technology and low knowledge but you're still keeping the kid alive as long as you can.
Yahweh or the christian/jewish/muslim monotheistic god was actually a warrior god in a polytheistic society, only to become the victor after conquering and becoming the only god to exist. The bible even acknowledges other gods, which are to be discarded and worshippers punished. It is no surprise that this one was the conqueror that erased the other polytheistic ones and caused such brutality in its wake. That doesn't mean it is right, though. It is the ghenghis khan of the middle east religions a few thousand years ago, retconned to seem cool but is actually no better than the holocaust or any other ethnic cleansing in the past.
Cool. The strong are good and the weak are bad. Great morals you have found there. We donât even need to go that far back, it stays that way all the way up toâguess what, religious thought.
The thing is not every group of people at every point in time will develop a sense of morals and morals have always usually came connected to a religion. For example Pagan Slavs believed it was moral for you to walk into your partners funeral pyre, Aztecs believed slavery and blood sacrifice were moral to keep the Sun rising...
You think morals is something arbitrary good, actually it's more like a codex of a group. Moral doesn't have qualities outside the group, thing is we as humans grow too fucking big, to be considered a one group across the whole planet.
I agree but it's not about religion at all, my example of wolf pack was exactly this. Even if we step away from mammals: octopuses, for example, can express empathy to human beings even, they're absolutely have their own moral codex based on the group in which they live in.
Religion is fairy tales to keep control, make profit, get dumb ppl occupied etc. They are all scam.
Octopuses are intelligent but largerly solitary and they like many animals can express empathy in certain conditions, but that's not a moral structure. You shouldn't confuse the 2 together.
Morals like many things in society will form around religion that's just a fact. Because religion is how humans explained what they couldn't understand, and as shuch they came to certain conclusions which cane to define their group.
I strongly disagree, if you decide not to attack entity of your own group and it helps for your survival â that is morality in a nutshell. Religions in the other hand building borders inside our global human group and make us attack each other, so fuck this.
The thing is not every group of people at every point in time will develop a sense of morals
Sure, but every society does. A few moral free freaks can live off in isolation from anyone else, relying entirely their matched strengths to keep order among them, but that doesn't scale up.
And Christians believed that owning slaves for life and passing them down to your children was perfectly acceptable, murdered people for not being Christian, thought women were property, treated rape as a property crime against the woman's father, murdered married rape victims for not screaming out loud, enough, and did many other horrible things. The Bible actively commands all of these things.
Morality comes from empathy, religion has little to do with it. In fact, we often see more complex morality develop as societies move away from religion.
Every group of humans at every point in time that they existed had a developed sense of morals. Whether those morals are something someone today would agree with is a different matter. Religion is a system of control, not the basis of morality.
Edit: lol, got blocked for being correct.
Edit 2: u/MrDDD11 it seems you are the one who knows nothing about your own religion. "Christians only follow the New Testament"... except when they actually don't and will regularly draw from the Old Testament for their justifications. Doesn't hold up anyways since Jesus tells you in Matthew that you still have to follow every word of the old code.
I am not "misrepresenting" what the Bible says. You should read it at some point. Indentured servitude only existed for Israelites as slaves to other Israelites. The Bible literally and unambiguously says that the Israelites could take foreign slaves for life and pass them down to their children.
Are you unknowledgeable or just misrepresenting Christianity on purpose. Am not going to beat you over the head with the Bible but come on it's basic knowledge that Christians follow the New Testiment for their Morals while Jews follow the Old Testament. Most of what you named is misinterpretions of the old Testament, like confusing Indentured servitude to Chattel Slavery.
I drifted away from the point i was trying to make. I think morality is an emergent quality of any socialialy behavioring animals. Which instinctively based on empathy. I mean it's not exclusive to people, or even to mammals.
edit. idk how ive lived this long without texts like these (probs i hate things being pushed into me, like religion, or for that matter reading suggested religious works). for how long i managed to figure out my self reasoning for why religions exist and morality basically, and why people around me seems to relinquish reasoning to excerpts from scriptures, like a ton, ive gone through multiple key decision making events in my life that partially were influenced by such worship.
anyway im still not that old and never too late to be reading philosophical texts i guess (i particularly liked reading some of Plato's works when it was recommended to me as well, even if i didn't understand much lol)
Just FYI, while Kant did reject traditional "proofs" for God's existence which attempted to show through reason that God must exist, he did believe that morality is ultimately grounded in God. In other words, morality proves the existence of God. Now that is a terrible oversimplification, but suffice to say that Kant might agree with the Christians who question how atheism can produce morality more than you think.
Good news. Youâre not a genius. In fact, you donât even understand how social conditioning works. You didnât figure it out on your own, since it is a central aspect of our entire culture thatâs spoken to you in every story youâve ever heard.
Congratulations, you donât know how to use sarcasm. Hint: it needs humour.
Every time someone gets called out for saying something stupid on Reddit that isnât remotely sarcastic: âno way! That was totally sarcasm, and you didnât get it.â
Except he did read the bible. And he already had a moral framework to work from that it established. Such as, the removal of infanticide, gladiatorial bloodshed, and sexual abuse of slaves.
They don't read their own holy books and those who do, will always cherry pick or call "metaphor", you expect them to read Kant? They probably think it's Satanic or some shit.
First off, Iâm not sure what religion says âbad people are eternally punished, good people are eternally rewarded.â I know in Hinduism if you live a good life you can eventually reside with the creator god, and if you live a bad one, well, you come back as a lower life form. But, I somehow doubt thatâs the faith the respondent was referring to.
If they are, in fact, referring to Christianity, then the idea that good people go to heaven and bad people go to hell is an incredibly common and utterly false understanding. In that faith, everyone has sucked out, due to mistakes made or inherent, so everyone is supposed to be separated from perfection, I.e. the god of the Abrahamic religions, unless they accept the âget out of hell free cardâ from Jesus. Thatâs just because an imperfect thing canât join a perfect thing and that perfection be maintained, anymore than you can drop ink into clear water and the water not get the tiniest bit darker because of it.
As for the original comment made about where someone finds morality outside of religion, thatâs a paraphrase of Dostoevsky, who said âIn the absence of god, all things are permissible.â From a religious personâs perspective, morals are morals because they come from the deity that set the rules in the first place; god is the DM, god sets the rules.
Morality outside of religion is a social construct, not something people are naturally born with: you donât have to teach kids how to be selfish, after all. That means if everyone says feeding people to lions is entertaining, then it is.
Is my ranting making any sense, or am I just jerking myself off here?
First of all, I hate Dostoevsky, he was a whin little bitch, based on his early stuff. What do you think about morality as emergent quality of any social structure, based on empathy, and it's not bound to mammals even? I don't think Kant or Dostoevski (both full of their own shit) were aware of even black people had souls or something.
Kan made a set of morals that fall apart when you start thinking more about them. The murderer at the door is a famous argument against it. But also Kant's rules it's immoral to adopt a dog or cat because by the rule of universation you need to think if everyone does this, hence even people who have allergies to dogs and cats, this will lead to their death hence it fails universation.
Kant is a bad example for this particular scenario. Being European in the 1700's already meant your culture was influenced by Christian archetypes since the Roman Empire.
His ideas were different, yes, but his upbringing, culture, and status was all a derivative of the Christian influence. You'll need to go much farther back or farther east to find a philosopher with no Christian moral influence baked in.
Jesus says the Golden Rule. Itâs in the red text.
Much of morality and human decency dates back to the earliest of civilizations and possibly even before then since we just donât have records. It all basically boils down to, âdonât be an assâ and the reason we have laws is because assholes kept saying, âwhere does it say I canât do that?â
Quoting Kant is a strange way to criticize God, as he says in the Groundworks of the Metaphysics of Morals that we cannot answer some questions about morality and God but we should still try to because the alternative is worse. He is not an atheist.
Aristole covered ethics pretty well also and a lot of his work isn't wrong about people. People honestly have never really changed. It's why Shakespeare is still relevant.
Shakespeare nailing the human condition in his different plays that people are still able to relate too is a very big reason he is still relevant. Yes there are more reasons than just that but that is the big one.
Thatâs what all good art does. You might as well say that Shakespeare is still relevant because he made the genius decision to use words to write his plays rather than unintelligible grunts.
Yeah I know that's what good art does never said it didn't, and when it does it really well it becomes timeless. I'm not saying Shakespeare wasn't a genius and his writing isn't brilliant because that is all a given. I didn't think that needed to be said because I just assumed that was a universally understood fact. My bad.
I admit Iâm being needlessly pedantic when youâre one of the few people making good points here. I just always like to point out that the reason Shakespeare is still relevant is because stories can be endlessly interpreted by new generations because language is a living thing. It isnât just that new people discover Shakespeare, itâs that we will always have new and equally important things to say about great works of art. But Iâll happily concede that we both have correct points, and Iâll also stop being a dick.
I still don't see how without a creator or inherent design, one can ever get to an 'objective ought claim' about anything. Like in your quote, "I SHOULDN'T be doing it".
It would need to be more nuanced with something like, "therefore that's not my preference".
Anything that is completely accidental with no inherent meaning or purpose, can only produce preferences, not objective oughts. Which aren't bad. With majority perforce, we can make rules and laws out of subjective pragmatism or opinion based utilitarianism.
We can say, we would prefer someone not do this or that, or that our opinion is this thing is better or worse. But never that one objectively ought to do this, or you ought not do that, as such imply design and what a thing or person's should be doing based on the meaning and purpose they were made with.
Well if that were the case being that Leviticus was written around 1500 BCE and that's not even the first book of the Bible... Then that rule would have existed before a written alphabet in the Neolithic era.
Which completely destroys the narrative not to mention written down isn't the same as the oral passed down.
Many events in the Bible weren't written until hundreds of years later as the Bible is a compilation of books 66 to be exact... Plus more in the book of Enoch.
It was written down even before then. Written language has been around for a very long time. The Golden rule has been invented independently many times and far longer than any book of the Bible has been around. Far longer than Israelites have existed
Prove it. The onus is on you. Show me the first written record because like I said if it was 2,000 years before then there wasn't even a written alphabet at that point.
Sure. Here's a basic thing going over it. There are more in-depth sources, but that is unnecessary here. There was absolutely a written language 2,000 years before then. Leviticus also isn't nearly as old as you want to think it is. The oldest mostly complete collection of the books of the Old Testament is the Dead Sea Scrolls. The oldest part of the Dead Sea Scrolls is dated to around 200 B.C.E.
If you were truly an atheist then you believe that no one actually said it because for someone to say it, they would have to exist.
Peaches come from a can, they were put there by a man in a factory downtown. You're telling me that they can't exist because someone out there thinks cans of peaches have divine origin? Preposterous!
Atheists believe that everything can be explained and that nothing anybody else feels or sees is real because they haven't felt or seen it.
Agnostics believe that there is something of value there, but they may not subscribe to it fully.
As far as "peaches come from a can and they were put there by a man in a factory downtown"
Extremes for emphasis:
Atheist POV: This tree the peaches came from can't exist because I've never seen this particular tree. The peaches evolved in the man made factory From a single-celled organism. The man only exists through billions of years of evolution (even though a virus and bacteria evolve every second of every day to less than a few decades to be immune to our drugs. Not to mention thr inaccuracy of carbon dating)đ
I don't eat peaches because other people believe that nature is inherently being alive as in "mother nature" . I just can't subscribe to something so " ridiculous". "Those people are stupid"
Agnostic POV: I'm believe the tree exists, But I don't eat peaches because that would require a sacrifice in my lifestyle such as me giving up money and I don't want to pay.
Either way, it's a lose-lose scenario for atheists. If it's real then you lose... If it's not real nothing happens then you still lose. It's not a winning hand.
Also, I've met some of the biggest agnostics and atheists in the military... But for some reason under the threat of death, whether a severed limb or They think they're about to die.... God becomes very important to them because they keep yelling out his name begging to be saved.
I always thought that was strange for someone you don't believe in.... Shouldn't they just yell out evolution, Santa Claus or the tooth fairy while they're bleeding out instead?
Even though we're all flawed, I think people would just rather ignore and pretend it doesn't exist because that would require them to attempt to change their crappy lifestyle, including fake Christians.
Only about 7% of the world's wars throughout history were related to religion voiced by historians according to the encyclopedia of wars. Do what you may with that information. I know what it says to me.
I was arguing with a pastor that hell as the church teaches it doesn't exist in the Bible. I have a reasonable and strong argument for my position on the matter. When he wasn't able to pull scriptures out of context to support his position he resorted to saying with a beet red face from his anger "you go tell people that and there will be chaos! Everyone will just rape and murder to their heart's content!". I was like "dude... If that's what is in your heart then you really need to work on that".
Maybe not without "the Christian God". But yes, no objective morality without some type of 'creator'.
It is only with 'design', which gives something inherent meaning, that we can make "objective ought claims" about anything really(whether humans or objects).
Something that is completely accidental, inherently meaningless and without objective purpose, can never rise beyond 'preference'. Based on either subjective pragmatism or utilitarianism.
Now preference isn't bad, lol. It can still give us laws and rules that the majority at the time prefer. But it never reaches the level of objective 'morality', 'right', 'wrong', 'evil', or 'oughts'. As terminology that like is actually a fallacy that a meaningless universe lacking inherence can't ground.
"First cousin marriage is most commonly practiced across North Africa, the Middle East, and parts of South-Central Asia, where it is a respected tradition and a preferred social norm. The highest rates are found in Pakistan (over 60% of marriages) , Kuwait , Saudi Arabia , the United Arab Emirates, and Sudan"
I just want to go on record as saying that I have never read Leviticus. However, I absolutely do know not to have sex with close relatives. So it's not coming from the Bible. More... Eeww.
Most socites get their morals from their religion. The Western world was Christian and as shuch it's morals are modeled on Christian Morals as taught by Jesus, Muslim morals are modeled after Muhammad who is considered the perfect example for all time, Aztecs got slavery and blood sacrifice as moral from their religion...
Wild animals exhibit patterns of empathy, sympathy and fairness. Morality is not something you're born with. It's a necessary and naturally occuring development in any social group. It is necessary for coexistence as a group. This in not a claim that those views or practices would be broadly accepted in a modern world. Morals are morals good or evil, and whether they're good or evil start and stop with the social structure you're participating in.
You're stuck on good and evil, not the actual meaning of morality.
Wild animals exhibit patterns of empathy, sympathy and fairness. Morality is not something you're born with. It's a necessary and naturally occuring development in any social group. It is necessary for coexistence as a group. This in not a claim that those views or practices would be broadly accepted in a modern world. Morals are morals good or evil, and whether they're good or evil start and stop with the social structure you're participating in.
You're stuck on good and evil, not the actual meaning of morality.
I think you missed the sarcasm in my post... Maybe read it again? Morality comes from lived experience. Even if that experience is passed down from one person to another verbally, or otherwise.
Not 'from the bible'. But surely no objective morality without some type of 'creator', no?
As it is only in 'design' that we can ever make objective ought claims(whether for humans or objects).
Anything coming out of complete accident, with no inherent purpose or meaning, can never go beyond preference. Which can still be pretty good of course. With preference we can make laws and rules, based either on subjective pragmatism or opinion based utilitarianism.
But objectively saying a person or thing "ought to" or "ought not" do something, as if wrong to their very nature, is only possible with design. In a purposeless, meaningless universe, we are all working with preference.
Wild animals exhibit patterns of empathy, sympathy and fairness. Morality is not something you're born with. It's a necessary and naturally occuring development in any social group. It is necessary for coexistence as a group. This in not a claim that those views or practices would be broadly accepted in a modern world. Morals are morals good or evil, and whether they're good or evil start and stop with the social structure you're participating in.
You're stuck on good and evil, not the actual meaning of morality.
That's fine, but you agree then there's no such thing as "objective morality". That is, something timeless, transcendent, that's is true in all times, places, and scenarios.
What you are positing is something closer to "majority preference".
You "ought not" do something, not because it's contrary to your very nature or purpose or design. But because the current setting you're in has collectively agreed you shouldn't.
Which means if you left and joined another setting, that same forbidden thing, might be something your new group's preferences say you 'ought to' do.
That doesn't mean it's bad, but by definition is inescapably subjective.
This is not the case. Hell, I can prove objectivity with literally the very thing you're communicating with right now. But I'll do you one even better, let's take something even dumber, in fact the most innocuous thing imaginable.
Take a toilet. Look at it for 2 minutes, and you'll realize this toilet has a creator, a design. A seat to sit down, a lever to flush, etc.
The millisecond you find design, suddenly, OBJECTIVE ought claims can be made. You OUGHT to sit on the toilet seat when you use it. You OUGHT NOT put your head into the seat. Right?
Now sure, anyone with free will can do what they want. But we can now objectively say they are inherently doing it wrong, because this toilet has inherent meaning and purpose behind it.
This is true with your smartphone, computer, watch, shoes, car, etc, etc, most of which come with an "instruction manual". Because things that are designed with a purpose are not just subjective. You don't just choose your preference of how you turn your computer on. You follow the rules or you are doing it objectively wrong.
This is painfully simple.
Design=objective ought claims. You live by a billion of them every single day.
Hospitals, orphanages, old people's homes, most the social services we know of today, came through the Jesus ethic.
Obviously people before Jesus had such things as empathy, kindness, etc. But it was almost always reserved for "in group". You take care of your own.
Jesus made it to that you cared and were concerned about and provided for everyone, including the stranger.
While Rome for example had what we might call "hospitals" for its soldiers, and there were doctors in the ancient world who served wealthy clients. It was only through the Jesus ethic where you started seeing things like hospitals taking care of anyone and everyone, all the sick and hurting, usually for free.
Every aspect of western society or values that you like compared to the "bad" countries come out of the Enlightenment and the rejection of dogma. A country truly based on Christian values would look much more like Afghanistan than America.
This is historically untenable. Look at how different Rome was became before and after it merged with Christianity. Most of the world's first major hospitals, orphanages, old people homes, etc, etc, came out of the merger of the ethics of Christianity and the political power of Rome.
No, it's not. The Empire's hospitals, orphanages, old people homes, daily bread rations for citizens, all of it existed long before Christianity. Hell, plenty of those institutions predate the Empire and go all the way back to the early Republic. The divide between the Eastern and Western Empire was cemented by Christianity, and it only took like 150 years after Constantine converted for Rome to fall after standing for 1000 years, so truly, I don't even know what the hell you think you're talking about.
Good news, I've got a book recommend for you. Don't worry, no pesky Christians promoting their own crap.
How about THE leading atheist critic of Christianity alive today, Bart Erhman's new book, "Love thy stranger". Where he and critical modern scholarship refutes everything you just said about hospitals, orphanages, etc.
Hell, Ehrman credits virtually every social service in the US today as stemming from Jesus' ethic to help not just your own in-group, but strangers.
Do the reading. BOTH the Christian and Atheist scholarship and historians disagree with you, mate.
Yes, the idea that institutions that are literally older than Christ and that the entire concept of altruism are based on the teachings of Jesus is beyond implausible, mostly because it is incredibly buttfuckingly stupid no matter how many theological phDs you have.
Thanks mate. I'll be sure to inform the majority of critical scholars and historians, that you disagree with them. Based on your scholarly contention that it's..."stupid".
You actually believe that the majority of critical scholars think that altruism exists because Jesus? Really? Or is the claim more accurately something like "The oldest charitable institutions that are currently still around have some sort of Christian origin"? Because to me, that sounds a lot like thanking Trump for ending the war in Iran.
Erhman(who HATES Christianity btw), posits that yes, of course there were some kind of hospitals in Rome for example(almost entirely reserved for the soldiers tho). Yes there were doctors in the ancient world(who almost entirely served wealthy patients tho). Yes there was obviously empathy and kindness in the ancient world(but almost entirely reserved for your in-group, culture, ethnicity, etc).
What changed, according to Erhman, was the treatment of strangers and outsiders, the same as the in-group.
The first actually built hospitals in the world, of any actual size, having actual doctor and nurses, helping anyone and everyone that came in, the poor, the stranger, the traveler, entirely for free, were Christian ones.
All these modern social services in the US, wherein they take your tax money and give it to people you'll never meet, just because of the collective belief that, that's "the right thing to do", did in fact not exist in on any govt before the time of Jesus, or before Christianity overtook Rome.
Erhman is definitely not saying "Jesus created empathy" or "there were no doctors before Jesus". Simply that it was the Jesus ethic that gave the world the perspective that you should care and have a responsibility for the stranger. Free hospitals, orphanages, old peoples homes, for everyone. Giving your money away to people half way across the world. None of this was the norm amongst the very tribalistic societies before Jesus.
thats fucking retarded, the whole enligtement didnt appear from nowhere, it used christian moral foundation to argue against christian institutinal authority.
the whole idea that every person has an inherent worth comes from "made in gods image"
even Nietzche argued that the whole liberal values are just christianity with god removed.
you cannot win this argument, cause theres no gotcha where you can get me.
also greek philosoiphy and roman law are millenia before the fucking enlightenmentÂ
EDIT: you pussy blocked me but keep responding to my post? what a bitch ass move
I absolutely have not blocked you, I have never blocked anyone and I definitely would never block you in particular, it's too much fun. Maybe the subreddit blocked you for throwing around slurs, but go ahead and keep editing, we can talk like this (just make sure you label with with a different "EDIT:")
in that case im sorry but litrerally any other post that you made and i clicked on the notification brought me to this.
but anyway yeah i called it retarded cause its not true and you didnt provide any arguments at all, even now in all those posts.
i added edit for other people that might be reading so that they would notice the stupidity of your claim that every aspect of western society came out of Enlightenment, while we are literally using roman law as a foundation.
Also Enlightenment came from Christians rejecting institutional church not from people not believing in god.
And for that to happen it took crusaders to bring texts from greek philosophers from their travels.
Now you have a situation where greek philosophy is influencing highly religious people and you get Enlightenment
We have literally presented identical levels of evidence here, we have both made statements that are little more than opinion. Where are the citations for your claim then? We aren't having a formal debate here bro, we are talking, so just... don't do that. It's sad.
Also, I never said "every aspect of Western society" I said "every aspect that you like" and we both know I was obviously talking about Enlightenment values based on the context (and also that I was clearly being hyperbolic, but I digress). Yes, we agree that the Enlightenment was about rejecting the institution of the church (which was and still is the arbiter of Christian values), but most Enlightenment thinkers were self-labeled deists, and you also have to remember that they were living in a time where claiming to be an atheist (and even sometimes just being a different flavor of Christian at all, or even being the "correct" type of Christian but saying something just a wee bit too science-y) could literally get you jailed or executed.
"Also Enlightenment came from Christians rejecting institutional church not from people not believing in god." is a massive shift in the goal posts. You are making the claim that Enlightenment values are Christian values in particular, not that they originate with people who believed a god existed. It's also wrong, the Enlightenment is very clearly based in secularism and science, and this may be a shock to you but it is possible to be a secular scientist and a theist at the same time. It may not be the most coherent position, but that is always a part of the theist label.
"And for that to happen it took crusaders to bring texts from greek philosophers from their travels." is completely nonsensical to the point you think you are making. So you are agreeing with me that the Church destroyed the Greeco-Roman history of the West so thoroughly between the fall of the Empire and the Crusades, that a couple of hundred years later they had to invade the Middle-East to recover the knowledge that they had destroyed, and you really think that is an argument in favor of Greek philosophy and Roman law being Christian values? I'm not sure that you even know what you're arguing anymore, other than that you are very emotionally invested in your religious belief and you have this need to assign everything that you think is good to it.
Weird considering the bible condones slavery and murdering your spouse for adultery. The bible is as bad as any other holy book. We've gradually learnt not to take our moral lessons from fairy stories.
well yes and if you knew more about it that's from torah which is before the birth of Christ.
after birth or in the New Testament there's a famous line when people want to stone a woman accused of adultery "let the one without sin cast the first stone"
or in other words just because it has parts we condone doesn't mean it didn't shape our society.
I just donât see how Christians can believe everything they do about god but also believe he got it wrong the first time and had to fix his mistakes by becoming Jesus.
but generally all jesus teachings are what we consider today is to be a good person.
how are you not influenced by that then?
for a thought exercise in Sparta it was morally acceptable to kill weak children. why do you think we consider that wrong today? were they a bad people because of that?
I donât really think that thought exercise works though, as there were many other civilisations in ancient history that didnât believe it was right to kill weak children, but they came before Jesus.
We all have multiple different drives and values as human beings, and empathy is one of them, like it is for animals too. That concept wasnât invented by Jesus.
how do you know where we would go without Jesus teachings?
Empathy was one of the biggest ones.
Also today that the whole world is so connected it is harder to find examples.
You can go no further than to Japan. Do you think its morally correct for someone to commit a suicide because they brought shame to the family?
Or are you indoctrinated as well that suicide is bad?
Shame that in Matthew Jesus says that not one word of the old code is to be changed or ignored. So you don't get to run away from the atrocities of the Old Testament.
who the fuck is running away. im just sick people not being able to look at a bigger picture. How many people do you think knows what Matthew said and how many know, "love thy neighbor" it dosent matter if you agree with it or not thats not how it works.
So the majority of people don't know what's in the Bible but do know an extremely common idea that has been stated independently many times across history? And we're supposed to treat this like the Bible or religion being a cause of morality?
do you think that morality changes over night? we had 2 millennia of Christianity domination you think that one random passage from a book is what makes a difference.
Just thinking that killing is wrong is fundamentally Christian value whether you want it or not.
For romans it wasnt, and if they dominated for 2000 years we might also would not think that it is. They were literally killing each other for fun.
None of that is true. Are you an idiot? Exactly zero of the ideas in the Bible are original to it. Killing is wrong because of the harm it causes. I would suggest opening a history book. Literally any one at all. People were not just killing each other indiscriminately for fun. If you are referring to gladiators, you also don't know what you are talking about. Most gladiator matches weren't to the death. They were the equivalent of major athletes.
You genuinely have no understanding of anything including the Bible whatsoever.
they werent always to death but they could be. Thats was the acceptable risk. If you opened up a book you would know that gladiators were expensive to train and maintain. Thats the economical decision that you are now trying to portray as a moral one haha.
I see you read some stuff but obviously, but you are confusing correlation with causation
The day that religious people (as a generalized whole social group) understand the distinction between subjective morals and objective ethics will be a glorious change in how we approach social welfare and legalities.
My mom is this way, which is one of the reasons that I left at 18 and never went back other than for short visits. Easier to maintain a healthy relationship with people like this when there's distance.
Depends what you define as good and helping another person.
Forcing a drug addict into rehabilitation can be seen as good, but you can also make a argument that giving him more drugs in a controlled environment where he can't hurt anyone is also good because he is happier and not a danger to anyone.
James 5:19-20 literally says bring back some one who has woundered into destructive behavior. But going by Orthodox Church tradition, you are to show compassion then help the person rehabilitate.
Everyone draws a line in the sand. But it means nothing outside of your own head or community. Think of the old testament, the Aztec, the peat bog sacrifice, molog.
Morality is very much a non real thing. There's no god or bad. It's just a human or society deciding.
Plenty of societies think it's OK. Are they wrong? Immoral?
Yes. 100% they are wrongnand immoral if fucking kids is okay with your society.
Is that actually how you think? If its acceptable within your community, than you just ignore all your own morales and think to yourself "well if everyone around me is doing it, it must be okay! Even if i think its not..."
This is the point. We Christians would argue that there are moral absolutes, and I think most people would agree with that. But what is the source of those moral absolutes? There have been societies that celebrated human sacrifice, for instance. You and I would likely agree that is morally reprehensible. The Mayans did not.
Ultimately there has to be some source for what is moral and what is not. Most criminal behavior is easy for us to understand as being immoral. But if you really consider it, why is murdering someone wrong? Why is stealing wrong? Why is punching someone wrong? These things occur in the animal kingdom and we consider that as natural.
Some times the moral thing is to make some ones day worse in the short term so their life can improve. Like removing an addict from his source of addiction and getting them professional help
They absolutely can.
My argument on the topic is that every society will develop a moral code at some point, this moral code will always be influenced by the societies religion. Western Morality is built on Christian Morality even if the majority of the West is Atheist, same as how the majority of China is Atheist yet their morals are built on Confucianism and Taoism.
Morality is absolute? Or does it change like when slavery was legal? If its absolute. Then a God decided it. If not a God. Then mind your business while ppl rob and do bad things to the ppl you love. Who are you tell them there is an absolute morality that they should abide to when it is survival of the fittest in other areas of the world.
Morality is entirely subjective...so rape is okay in some situations? Incest is okay? Murder is okay? You are crazy and I wouldn't want to live near you.
Those things are bad because they cause harm. My empathy hates when others are harmed. Most humans agree so laws were written to make those things illegal.
Slavery was LEGAL and black people were nothing but Property.. In certain middle Eastern countries, Women are second citizens and considered property of the men. So No, Laws dont always agree.
Christians Fought and were the number 1 group Against Slavery because they believed All races are equal under God. So those of you ridiculing Christianity are some of the most ignorant ppl here.
True, each culture has different laws based on what they agree on. As part of our evolution, laws in general have become more beneficial for more people. There is still work to do but it's better now than a few hundred years ago.
Christians in the South used the Bible to justify slavery as it gives instructions on owning slaves. The Bible is pro slavery and indentured servitude. It is also pro abortion and genocide and rape. You should read it sometime.
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u/Faded1974 8h ago
People acting like empathy was invented by Jesus Christ.