#40851: — 09/21  at  10:21 AM
Virge-

That was a demonstration, not an argument, and I didn't regard it as a personal (unless you did). You stated that I believed that the Bible had a moral basis simply because of my empathy toward it (as opposed to the words contained therein). My response was intended to point out that your empathy lead you to automatically believe a scientific statement and ridicule my lack of understanding ("Learn first. Talk later."), rather than simply supplying an answer to my question (I now understand why you didn't know the answer).

In fact, I spent some time last night looking for further explanations related to the finding I was questioning, including additional quotes from Bruce Lahn and science-related blog sites. Guess what, there is no further explanation and further, it is NOT complicated. The researchers are simply speculating (by way of explaining this unusual explosion in man's brain development) that exceptional skills in man's complex social structure lead to a greater birth rate among the "smart" humans. One site I found (of scientists) questioned this in a very similar way that I did -- namely that in today's world, the "smarter" people have less babies, not more. Others speculated that man's complex social structure was a result of man's large brain; not the cause.

Gee, I guess I can understand evolution after all.

#41067: Virge — 09/21  at  06:12 PM
John Lyon wrote:

Guess what, there is no further explanation and further, it is NOT complicated.

Since you see no need to look any further, and think you have completely understood the subject, there's no value in further discussion on this point.

Back to morals.
Let me apologise for the confusion I introduced in post #40692 in which I used the second person singular. Clearly expressing the argument in a personal form distracted you from the crux of the argument. Let me rephrase the same argument, but instead of using the word you I'll substitute a hypothetical person, Bruce, who happens to be searching for a basis for his moral actions, and has read all of the Bible.

Since Bruce had to choose which texts from the Bible to use and which parts to discard when he looked for morals, then the "basis for moral action" has come from Bruce, himself. His own empathy has informed him that to stone a child to death because of rebellious behaviour is a profoundly immoral act. Bruce's own empathy leads him to accept Jesus' teachings about love and forgiveness. Bruce can claim that parts of the Bible have helped shape his morals; he can claim that Bible-believing people have been instrumental in helping him to establish his morals; Bruce can even claim that his empathy was initially designed by God (and that would start a completely different argument); but the Bible by itself (which teaches both love and horrific intolerance) provides no basis for moral action.


To bring the nature of this argument home, John, I'd like you to answer a question about yourself:
Do you believe that Deuteronomy 21:18-21 should be a working part of your own moral foundation?

Feel free to provide as much additional description as you'd like, but I'd really appreciate a definitive answer.

#41267: — 09/22  at  10:46 AM
Since you see no need to look any further, and think you have completely understood the subject, there's no value in further discussion on this point.

I'll take that as an apology.

His own empathy has informed him that to stone a child to death because of rebellious behaviour is a profoundly immoral act.

Your empathy toward the Bible has caused you to read the word "son" as "child." A child would hardly have a problem with "drunkenness."

Virge- This is a common quotation by people like you looking to "automatically" discredit the Bible, or at least the Old Testament. There are many Christian reponses as well - Google it.

For me, since I like to answer direct questions, I don't have such issues to begin with and if I did, would never consider taking such actions. OK?

Please don't bother responding with "well then, the Bible provides no basis for moral action," because its predictable, unproductive and unpersuasive. Christians, as you know, believe that the New Testament is the "good news" that describes the way to salvation. I have previously conceded that moral behavior can be intellectually arrived at, and does not require religion, but the New Testament concept of love, including the willingness to turn the other cheek or die for another's sins, is certainly "a" basis for moral action.

#41361: Virge — 09/22  at  06:19 PM
John Lyon wrote

Your empathy toward the Bible has caused you to read the word "son" as "child." A child would hardly have a problem with "drunkenness."

I'll ignore the side issue of "legal drinking age" in that society and concede that referring to a son as a "child" overly emotionalized the discussion.

However, I can't ignore the barbaric nature of the law when applied to a person of any age. These were (supposedly) laws for moral behaviour given by God to his chosen people so that they could be a "Light to the Nations."

John Lyon wrote:

Virge- This is a common quotation by people like you looking to "automatically" discredit the Bible, or at least the Old Testament. There are many Christian reponses as well - Google it.

Perhaps you'd like to think I haven't looked? Sorry, John. You can't just pretend that other believers have dealt with the issues. Point me to a website that you feel provides a morally satisfying answer.

John Lyon wrote:

For me, since I like to answer direct questions, I don't have such issues to begin with and if I did, would never consider taking such actions. OK?

You refuse to admit that God's OT rules were immoral, so you say instead that:
(a) you don't have issues with a direct command for disproportionate intolerance!
and
(b) you would never even consider obeying that command from your God!

I guess that provides as direct an answer as I could have hoped for. I predicted you wouldn't be prepared to answer "yes" or "no." Part (b) says the answer, expressed directly, is "no."

John claims: "predictable, unproductive and unpersuasive"
What is really unproductive is hearing how you can select the good from the bad bits in a book, and then attribute what is clearly your own moral decision-making to that book. Within one post you admit that you would disobey God's Old Testament moral code, and yet conclude that the moral teachings of that same unchanging god's human incarnation are "a" basis for moral action.

I shall be grateful that you'll at least concede that it's only selected concepts from the NT that qualify as "a" basis for moral action, which is certainly a major back-down from your original exaggerated claim.

Given your reluctance to face the implications of your own words, and your inability to recognise the source of your moral foundations, I'd have to conclude that there is no value in further discussion (except I expect you'll try to spin that to be an apology, too).

I'll conclude with a quote from the Book of Virge:

The FSM created all things. The FSM didn't create all things. This book is true and edifying in every part.

I guess you (using your own mind) can reject one sentence from the Book of Virge and claim that the Book of Virge has provided you with "a" basis for all knowledge of creation.

#41447: — 09/23  at  10:30 AM
Virge said:

(supposedly) laws for moral behaviour given by God to his chosen people...

...God's Old Testament moral code

Again, your empathy toward the Bible has caused an erroneous conclusion. The "law for moral behaviour" is not the verse you are interested in, but is explicitly stated (in the Old Testament)to be the Ten Commandments. Similarly, Christians don't regard the OT instructions on how to prepare food as laws for moral behaviour, although the Jews of Jesus' day did. I am a Christian, not a Jew.

and yet conclude that the moral teachings of that same unchanging god's human incarnation are "a" basis for moral action.

As I already explained in the prior post, Christians regard the New Testament as the good news for mankind. The "unchanging God" you refer to made a New Covenant with the human race -- did you miss Sunday School that day?

which is certainly a major back-down from your original exaggerated claim.

Your empathy has caused you to exaggerate my original claim. I did not say the Bible was THE basis for moral action, and I was responding to a (false) statement that the Bible provided NO basis for moral action, and I gave ONE example of "a" basis for moral action. If you want to look at the Bible as a whole, you must separate New and Old Testament, as well as the period of the New Covenant.

(except I expect you'll try to spin that to be an apology, too).

I must "spin" since you didn't offer one. Don't you think I deserved one after your condescending entrance into this conversation with a "Learn first. Then talk." when YOU YOURSELF did not understand the basis for the scientific claim and further, MY analysis turned out to be correct (although I apologized anyway, since I know I'm not a scientist and am certainly prone to error).

The Book of Virge has no historical basis, no fulfilled prophecies, no miracles, no personal witnesses or testimonies. It can't possibly be compared to the Bible.

#41449: ekzept — 09/23  at  10:42 AM

Again, your empathy toward the Bible has caused an erroneous conclusion. The "law for moral behaviour" is not the verse you are interested in, but is explicitly stated (in the Old Testament)to be the Ten Commandments. Similarly, Christians don't regard the OT instructions on how to prepare food as laws for moral behaviour, although the Jews of Jesus' day did. I am a Christian, not a Jew.

from a Jewish perspective, Christian ecleticism regarding laws is pretty amusing. the Decalogue, for instance, really isn't as highlighted as often portrayed and its status among what tradition says are 600+ other "commandments" isn't that special. Lev Torah surely is up there, and despite being a separate "commandment" in the text, it is often folded into the Christian representation of the Decalogue. Christians continue to claim, of course, that the Decalogue was given to Moses.

there's also a lot of social legislation in the Torah which the Christian tradition skips, some of which backs up the Sermon on the Mount.

from my perspective, Christianity is a lot like many other sects: they picked and choose which rules they thought important, now claiming theirs is the One True Way, and appealing to Divine Revelation as the source for Law, even if they didn't accept the entire thing.

after all, the record of Jesus' teachings are not very legal and specific. that presents both a problem in practice and a question: if he were in fact a Jewish teacher of the traditional sort, hermeneutics ought to have be Event Major for him, as it was for his Jewish contemporaries. to me this suggests again that the record of Jesus and his teachings in the Gospel is not faithful.

#41466: — 09/23  at  12:17 PM
Ekzept said:

from my perspective, Christianity is a lot like many other sects: they picked and choose which rules they thought important, now claiming theirs is the One True Way, and appealing to Divine Revelation as the source for Law, even if they didn't accept the entire thing.

I found an essay that puts it better than I could:

The Pharisees not only deceived people in their own day, people in our day, too, ironically misunderstand them to have been zealous followers of Moses. Quite the contrary, the essence of Christ's charge against them was that they had forsaken the law of Moses and gone after the traditions of men. To expose their unBiblical hypocrisy, Jesus repeatedly asks them, "Have ye not read?" (Mt. 12:3, 5; 19:4; 21:16, 42; 22:31; Mk. 12:10, 26). The traditions of their Jewish ancestors were, no doubt, originally intended as an aid in the interpretation of the word of God, but these traditions had come to replace the authority of the God's word. That was the essence of Jesus' charge against them: "For laying aside the commandment of God, ye hold the tradition of men . . . Full well ye reject the commandment of God, that ye may keep your own tradition. . . . Making the word of God of none effect through your tradition, which ye have delivered . . ." (Mk. 7:8, 9, 13).

#41483: ekzept — 09/23  at  03:49 PM

The Pharisees not only deceived people in their own day, people in our day, too, ironically misunderstand them to have been zealous followers of Moses. Quite the contrary, the essence of Christ's charge against them was that they had forsaken the law of Moses and gone after the traditions of men. To expose their unBiblical hypocrisy, Jesus repeatedly asks them, "Have ye not read?" (Mt. 12:3, 5; 19:4; 21:16, 42; 22:31; Mk. 12:10, 26). The traditions of their Jewish ancestors were, no doubt, originally intended as an aid in the interpretation of the word of God, but these traditions had come to replace the authority of the God's word.

first of all, on the use of the terms "Pharisee" and "Saduccee", the Gospels show themselves to be badly out of sync with what history and archaeology tells us of Jesus' time, assuming that time was in the first few years of the Common Era ("CE"; we tend not to use "AD", for obvious reasons). they are anachronisms which went out of use 150 years earlier. they do represent competing interests in the Great Assembly, with the Saduccees being Torah literalists and the Pharisees admitting, e.g., the writings of the Prophets like Isaiah, but that was resolved in favor of the Pharasaic tradition. by Jesus time he was a Pharisee; had to be. that tradition resulted ultimately in the books of the Talmud.

this intellectual contest didn't evaporate entirely. like many traditions, it had a resurgence in the practices of the Karaites, but the separation was finally yet compassionately made by no less renowned a figure than Moses ben Maimon.

and regarding the "word of God" Jesus supposedly complains about, those 613 mitzvot are as wedded to the Pharasaic tradition as they can possibly be. indeed, if Jesus is quoted correctly, which i doubt, he is arguing against himself. for, on the one hand, he condemns someone for failing to follow the literal word of God and then, in other places, he condemns people for following it too literally, as in failing to rescue a living animal or people on Shabbat.

if there is anything blasphemous about the Gospels, it is the idea that life and living things are somehow subservient to following mitzvot. it has always been true that preservation of life trumps anything. contrary to popular conception and while Jews have bravely chosen to adhere to their principles and monotheism in face of death, there is no religious requirement that they do so. same goes with eating pork, etc. Christianity can't claim that today.

finally, your implication by quote that Jews today are no different than the "Pharisees" of old, is ignorance at its most arrogant. yeah, it's okay that Christians have changed in many ways since the first few centuries CE, in theology, outlook, practice, modification of rules, "studying" a version of the bible in the local language which is a poor and biased reflection of the original text, and so on, but such change on the part of Judaism isn't recognized, ignored, and Jews are relegated to "they got their chance and missed it". Jews are, by the Gospels and in the mind of many Christians, e.g., many Baptists, still stuck and identified with the imaginary "Pharisees" the Gospels claim were contemporaries of Jesus.

well, if Jews then and now are so bad, how come Christians, especially Catholics and high church Anglicans, flatter them so by imitating their rituals and theology, and why do so-called Protestants claim to make bible study the core of their tradition? the only damn Protestants who have half a claim to do real bible study were the Pilgrims (yeah, the Mayflower cats). they felt you couldn't properly understand the bible unless you understood the language it was written in, and so made mastery of Hebrew part of their religious education. and they studied it in the original.

here's a question for you: in terms of repetition, what's the most frequent commandment given in the bible? how about the second most frequent?

#41491: — 09/23  at  05:12 PM
Ekzept-

Please, I responded to your complaint that the Christianity "sect" (nice touch) didn't follow the "entire thing." I gave the reason why, by going to the source (Jesus). You, in turn, apparently think that the "entire thing," including the rules for preparation of food, how to dress, etc. is 100% the word of God, and further, must be read in Hebrew. I prefer a personal relationship that is focused on determining what God's plan is for me, and I tend not to blindly follow man-made rules or leaders of any sort ("Pharisees" or others).

However, the OT rules are a tradition, are pretty harmless (unless given a priority over more essential concepts) and I don't begrudge anyone for thinking they're very important and following them. I just simply disagree, but not in terms of being right or wrong. I just think they're not essential and can be a distraction from the core truths.

#41497: Virge — 09/23  at  06:47 PM
John,
regarding you comments in #41447:

1. Please take the time to learn what empathy means before you misuse it yet again.

2. I didn't miss Sunday School. I learned all the lessons. The problem was that I decided I wanted to learn more. Your mileage may vary.

3. I've now given up expecting you to understand that by actively selecting which parts of a book are to be regarded as true and which parts false or irrelevant, you yourself are the moral agent and the source of moral decision-making, not the book. Your failure to grasp the point made in the hypothetical Book of Virge shows that you are not prepared to engage your intellect.

4. An apology wasn't called for when you raised a science subject (exposing your lack of knowledge by your contempt), begged for more information, and then dismissed that which was provided with the textual equivalent of placing your hands over your ears and shouting "I'M NOT LISTENING!"
It's your decision, John. You can learn about the things you're interested in, or you can assert that you already understand them and that they're simple. I make no apologies for refusing to waste my time.

5. I'm just a person with limited knowledge and understanding. However, the claims you make about my lack of understanding on any particular subject sound hollow if you support them only by blind assertion. The irony should be apparent to those who go back and read the conclusions you draw from your brief foray into the world of science.

I like to learn.

#41535: — 09/24  at  02:42 PM
Virge-

I know what empathy means. I purposely over-used the word to annoy you.

I also understand your point about the Bible, and simply reject it. I explained that the moral code of the OT was the Ten Commandments, not the verse you quoted. The OT has to be read in the context of the time and place it was written. I am not holding my hands over my ears; I am disagreeing with you.

Again, my original statement about love was made in the context of a discussion about whether the Bible "scares" people into doing good only because they're afraid of what God might do to them or not do for them (in other words, for a reward). I responded to a assertion that the Bible provides "no basis for moral action" (other than fear or reward), by offering the example of "love." This was the context. You, in turn, say, even if love is "a" basis for moral action, the Bible overall is useless because of this quote from the OT. I respectfully think that's a wrong conclusion.

I think the proof is in the outcome. Christians do many "moral" acts around the world (World Vision, etc.), and there are very few stonings that I'm aware of. This is not to say that only Christians do good things (far from it), but in terms of a formal organization, they are a big force in the world for good. Please don't bother to list examples of bad things Christians have done -- I'm aware of them. All I can say is this whole "moral" thing and "God" thing is not neat and tidy. Its messy and hard. What seems like a really good thing during one age, quite often seems like a really stupid thing to the next generation.

I am also a person with limited knowledge and understanding, and want to learn more. I therefore believe in answering questions and/or responding to statements (agreeing or disagreeing, with reasons), rather than simply ridiculing the questioner. That is my whole point on that.

#41549: Raven — 09/24  at  08:51 PM

I really like that "until tomorrow", ekzept; may I quote you in an article on the scientific method aimed at non-scientists?

most definitely, Raven. thanks very much. it's quite a compliment!

done and delivered, ekzept--you were a big hit!