Original Sin?

Quote: Nareed

Thank you.

But you missed it completely.

The point is religious morality is no more objective than subjective morality, because it's based on arbitrary, subjective rules, formulated by people over the course of many years.

You missed mine as well. I grant you that Christian morality from the perspective of God is subjective, but it is not arbitrary nor is it formulated by people. Who would have ever come up with the challenging moral system that Christ gives us? We would all much more easily slide into the relativistic crap that EvenBob likes to peddle and do what I think is right. Yet we have sadly discovered in our modern world that the subjective relativistic type of morality is a dismal failure leading to the most bloodshed, violence, lack of respect, and breakdown of families and society we see all around us. The Christian morality works to strengthen society, culture, families, respect among individuals, equality, etc. This is because it focuses on the dignity of every human life, not just our own.

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Mine is neither.

Here my friend you are fooling yourself.

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How do I reply to this without being mean and sarcastic?

well done.

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And yet the central moral purpose in Christianity is to sacrifice one's self.

The key to Christian morality is to recognize that we are all God's children and how we treat each other, especially those most in need or the least among us, is important to our Heavenly Father. As I've mentioned before if we are willing to help our brothers and sisters in need it requires of us sacrifice and thinking selflessly. This doesn't diminish your dignity only raises another's.

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What would you have me recognize in monsters like Hitler, Stalin Mao, Pol Pot, and for good measure Nero?

Good question. Their choices and decisions have literally and figuratively dehumanized them and made them more into monsters than anything remotely resembling a child of God. It is hard to see that at one point they were not this way.

Quote: aceofspades

Bob is right - everyone in life is looking out for #1.

Every living thing is out for themselves
first and always. Even the most generous
giving nun who ever lived is doing it because
she wants to. Jesus died on the cross because
he wanted to, it was a selfish act. Men throw
themselves on grenades because they want
to.

Quote: Evenbob

Every living thing is out for themselves
first and always. Even the most generous
giving nun who ever lived is doing it because
she wants to. Jesus died on the cross because
he wanted to, it was a selfish act. Men throw
themselves on grenades because they want
to.

I will predict the padre's response:

How can a fetus look out for #1 when a mother can abort it?!?

Quote: aceofspades

I will predict the padre's response:

How can a fetus look out for #1 when a mother can abort it?!?

How do you stop somebody from murdering
you? You can't sometimes, their selfish will
is stronger than yours sometimes.

Quote: FrGamble

You missed mine as well.

I disagreed with yours. I didn't miss it.

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I grant you that Christian morality from the perspective of God is subjective, but it is not arbitrary nor is it formulated by people.

It's formulated by people, more or less arbitrarily, because there is no such thing as "God." Nor can all of it be attributed to one man, such as Jesus of Nazareth, because he didn't write anything down. We get four divergent histories about Jesus, plus whatever else the early Christians chose as canon, plus whatever remained from the Old testament, plus the myriad additions, substractions, modifications and distortions accreted over the years.

I don't approach it with awe at receiving, through it, the uncircumscribable wisdom of some superior being, but rather as the work of largely anonymous men and women, as distorted through time and usage.

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Who would have ever come up with the challenging moral system that Christ gives us?

See above. We'll just never know exactly. But some of the blame can be attributed to the early church fathers and the better known Christian theologists and philosophers like Augustine of Hippo and Thomas Aquinas.

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Good question. Their choices and decisions have literally and figuratively dehumanized them and made them more into monsters than anything remotely
resembling a child of God. It is hard to see that at one point they were not this way.

On the one hand you have to live with a deity who gave these people, and many others, the capacity to do awful things. On the other hand you have to ignore the first fact, because taking it seriously would lead to grave doubts, wouldn't it?

This is where an impersonal deity would come in handy. Since none exists, though, we have to fall back on the random, or rather unstructured and unplanned, nature of the universe and all it contains, including most emphatically human beings.

Quote: Nareed

It's formulated by people, more or less arbitrarily, because there is no such thing as "God."

Therin lies the rub. I'm afraid then that you are doomed to the failures of a subjective, modern, relativistic secular morality that only continues to disintegrate culture, families, individuals, and society the further and further it moves away from the Judeo-Christian morality given to us by the God you don't believe in.

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I don't approach it with awe at receiving, through it, the uncircumscribable wisdom of some superior being, but rather as the work of largely anonymous men and women, as distorted through time and usage.

See above. We'll just never know exactly. But some of the blame can be attributed to the early church fathers and the better known Christian theologists and philosophers like Augustine of Hippo and Thomas Aquinas.

There should be some sense of awe in recognizing that the chaotic process you describe gives rise to a moral system that has brought the recognition of the dignity of every human person and all the blessings this provides to society such as the push for economic and personal equality, the compassionate care of the elderly, foreigners, and sick, and the rights of the unborn and voiceless. Remember Augustine and Aquinas were simply reflecting on and developing the moral teachings that were handed down to them.

Your alternative non-divine morality is summed up by Evenbob:

Quote: Evenbob

How do you stop somebody from murdering
you? You can't sometimes, their selfish will
is stronger than yours sometimes.

Quote: Nareed

On the one hand you have to live with a deity who gave these people, and many others, the capacity to do awful things. On the other hand you have to ignore the first fact, because taking it seriously would lead to grave doubts, wouldn't it?

The two points are not mutually exclusive when you reflect upon a God who loves us enough to give us free will. A freedom to be used to do great and glorious things and a freedom to do awful things, including turn on our creator and kill Him. It goes back to our discussion on morality. God gave us what we should do and the freedom to do it. When people chose to ignore this objective morality (from our perspective) if cause things like Nero, when we chose to follow God's morality it creates Mother Teresa. You chose.

Quote: FrGamble

reflect upon a God who loves us enough to give us free will.

We were born with free will, god had
nothing to do with it. You can do what
you like, and people mostly do.

Quote: FrGamble

reflect upon a God who loves us enough to give us free will.

Is it really free will if some entity (God) must bestow it upon us?

Quote: aceofspades

Is it really free will if some entity (God) must bestow it upon us?

Good point. If it's from god, it's like
a gift with strings attached. He gave
us free will but if we abuse it, we get
punished. That's not free will at all,
it's like telling a kid he can roam your
house freely, and then you give him a
list of rooms he can't enter. That's
restricted roaming, not free roaming.

Bob sometimes you stumble upon something quite profound. God gives us a house to roam in but tells us what rooms we shouldn't enter. We are free to go in those rooms, but there are consequences. Our free will isn't impinged or restricted, we are free to go against the rules but we may quickly find our there were reasons why we shouldn't go into those rooms.

What I think you and Ace are struggling with is the scary fact that you are exactly right. God gives you this gift of free will, but it is not yours by right. You didn't earn it or deserve it, you didn't create yourself and yet here you are a thinking living human being with amazing freedom and a set of rules to follow. You can abuse your freedom, break those rules all you want or you can use your freedom as God intends. Ultimately though we all know the gift of our freedom really turns out to be a loan. It will be returned and their is nothing you or I can do about it. What will we say when asked to give an account to how we used our freedom is an important question to think about?