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Consistency in Christian Morality

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  • #16
    Originally posted by Volt View Post
    There's a number of divinely commanded events in the Bible that throw generally accepted, contemporary morality out the window. (Genocide and incest come to mind.) How do you Christians out there account for this in an explanation of objective moral law? One explanation in particular that I've heard is, "God has the right to judge." True enough. My concern is day-to-day life; what rules can you justifiably apply to others and yourself? To my knowledge, God didn't make the Bible a rulebook for every possible situation. Yet, He demonstrated that any rules explicitly given are situational; none apply across all cases without becoming subject to our interpretation. For example, you can cite "love others" and leave it at that, yet an extreme interpretation leaves you without violence of any sort, such as self-defense. Let alone war.

    I'm curious to see how other Christians deal with this apparent issue. If you're a non-Christian reading this, what your take on it is. Ever heard an interesting defense of the OT's "atrocities"? Think this problem is fatal to Christianity? Etc. Perhaps it's just an apparent issue for an ignorant youngling like myself. I'm sure my own tentative position will come out sooner or later.
    Sorry to zombify this thread, but no one mentioned the way that I personally came to deal with these issues.

    For me it comes down to a matter of literature.
    Each and every book which was chosen to be included in the Bible was written by a human being, in some cases more than one.
    Each of these human writers lived in a particular culture, at a particular time in a particular place, and each had a different view of God (to what degree of difference is debatable).

    That the chroniclers of the conquest of Canaan gave God the credit for their already-established practice of butchering noncombatants after conquering a city does in no way reflect upon Christ.

    That too many people treat the Genesis story of the first man and the first woman (which reads very similarly to the creation myths and folktales of other countries) as literal history, and by that assumption of literality conclude that incest must have been involved in the birth of the human race, neither means it factually happened that way nor that God caused it to happen NOR that God approves of such a practice now.
    Nor that the originators of the Genesis 1 poem (which was passed down for generations before being written down) ever meant it to be treated as literal history.

    Even the written words of Jesus, which are FAR more applicable to us than ancient Hebrew history, must be scrutinized via the cultural context of those writing them in order to gain a more full understanding of the writing and avoid eisegesis.

    Thus by acknowledging and studying these cultural differences, instead of treating the writings as timeless in the sense that they all automatically apply to us in the 21st Century, we avoid the moral quandary of our faith being tied to ancient barbaric practices.
    Last edited by Buzzword; 01-08-2015, 03:17 PM.
    “In many ways the evidence of our faith is found in our ability to control our tongue (or our keyboard)."
    -Adam Hamilton, Seeing Gray in a World of Black and White

    Comment


    • #17
      Originally posted by Volt View Post

      It seems to follow that the values of "Revelation" (as you call it) also evolve. Or in other words, the rulebook constantly alters itself to fit the time?
      No time passes and humanity evolves spiritually and physically to fit the 'rulebook,' Revelation. If people are open to be aware of the progressive change of knowledge it will happen as it has happened for millennia,

      How do you remain aware of the current changes? [tongue in cheek] Just hope you are alert enough to read the latest religious text? [/tongue in cheek]
      It won't help you, keeping your tongue in your cheek, to realize that the world is evolving and changing physically and spiritually.

      There are definite problems with ancient scripture and world views as the walls and violence between religions in the world. It is most likely in the Torah and scripture that God never ordered the slaughter of anyone. It was justified by those who did it, and claimed Divine commands or guidance as people have been doing for millennia.
      Glendower: I can call spirits from the vasty deep.
      Hotspur: Why, so can I, or so can any man;
      But will they come when you do call for them? Shakespeare’s Henry IV, Part 1, Act III:

      go with the flow the river knows . . .

      Frank

      I do not know, therefore everything is in pencil.

      Comment


      • #18
        Much as it pains me to sort of agree with Shuny, I actually do a bit here.

        My personal position would be that humans culture generally DOES evolve 'spiritually' or at least morally. I think the way we would articulate the 'rule' book has changed over time.

        Comment


        • #19
          Buzz, you implied that because the creation myth of Israel is similar to other people's that it likely is borrowed or otherwise false. But if it is true, you would in fact expect different cultures to to share that myth. I acknowledge your position as otherwise valid but it seems a bit fallacious to make that jump. Stronger evidence if that myth is found in say for example, the Americas than nearby Sumer. I am not trying to make the slippery slope argument, but that position of "borrowed myths" is too close to the Jesus-myth claims for my liking.
          Does he who supplies the Spirit to you and works miracles among you do so by works of the law, or by hearing with faith? -Galatians 3:5

          Comment


          • #20
            Originally posted by Pentecost View Post
            Buzz, you implied that because the creation myth of Israel is similar to other people's that it likely is borrowed or otherwise false. But if it is true, you would in fact expect different cultures to to share that myth. I acknowledge your position as otherwise valid but it seems a bit fallacious to make that jump. Stronger evidence if that myth is found in say for example, the Americas than nearby Sumer. I am not trying to make the slippery slope argument, but that position of "borrowed myths" is too close to the Jesus-myth claims for my liking.
            I don't treat a myth as factual or unfactual.

            The purpose of a myth is to explain something in terms that people of the culture which originated the myth can understand.

            That many cultures use the same terminology to attempt to explain why the world is, and why people are the way they are, reveals more about the human psyche than it does the world or the "truth" of the explanation.

            Ancient cultures understood this.
            If I hold a rock in my hand and say, "There is a rock in my hand," you can verify the factuality of my statement.

            If I as a storyteller use the imagery of a hardworking ant vs a lazy grasshopper to motivate my audience to work hard and not assume that someone else will do the work, no one asks where I learned to speak ant-language, or why ants and grasshoppers use the same language, or where and when I witnessed such a conversation between tiny insects.

            It is understood via genre that the point of my story is to convey a concept, not give a factual historical account.
            In the same way, ancient cultures passed along stories to explain why there is a world, and why people are the way they are, because these are questions central to the human psyche.

            The eisegesis of treating ancient myths as factual history is a recent one, and makes zero sense in the 21st century.
            Especially since doing so is entirely arbitrary, with ancient Hebrew poetry being given precedent, while Native American or Norse or Greek or Roman myths being treated as "culture," at best, the quaint beliefs of ancient savages at worst.

            To ignore the genre of a story (in this case, creation myth) is to ignore its purpose, especially combined with ignoring its cultural and historical context.
            Which leads to the greater ignorance of inflicting one's own meaning upon it, especially if one enforces that ignorance upon one's children.

            We now understand more about the workings of life on this planet and the workings of the universe than our ancestors even six generations back could have dreamed, and have redefined our view of the universe accordingly.

            This means that we do not need to cling to "A long time ago, before any of us was around..." stories to explain the world or the universe or the human condition.

            Ancient audiences, especially before the advent of writing, accepted the above opening as a legitimate timeframe, because they by and large did not have the ability to make records which would outlast a single person's lifetime.

            We now not only create records which outlast many lifetimes, but have also discovered evidence of species which predate our own by more than its lifetime.
            And we have the ability to calculate that number of years, and trace the development of life on this planet.

            So there is no need to cling to the belief that God magicked every currently-existing species into being so that a single extant homo sapien could assign nominal designations to them before mating with the only other extant homo sapien in order to birth a species which would have died out within three generations from genetic anomalies due to constant interbreeding.
            Last edited by Buzzword; 01-12-2015, 06:55 AM.
            “In many ways the evidence of our faith is found in our ability to control our tongue (or our keyboard)."
            -Adam Hamilton, Seeing Gray in a World of Black and White

            Comment


            • #21
              Originally posted by Buzzword View Post
              I don't treat a myth as factual or unfactual.

              The purpose of a myth is to explain something in terms that people of the culture which originated the myth can understand.

              That many cultures use the same terminology to attempt to explain why the world is, and why people are the way they are, reveals more about the human psyche than it does the world or the "truth" of the explanation.

              Ancient cultures understood this.
              If I hold a rock in my hand and say, "There is a rock in my hand," you can verify the factuality of my statement.

              If I as a storyteller use the imagery of a hardworking ant vs a lazy grasshopper to motivate my audience to work hard and not assume that someone else will do the work, no one asks where I learned to speak ant-language, or why ants and grasshoppers use the same language, or where and when I witnessed such a conversation between tiny insects.

              It is understood via genre that the point of my story is to convey a concept, not give a factual historical account.
              In the same way, ancient cultures passed along stories to explain why there is a world, and why people are the way they are, because these are questions central to the human psyche.

              The eisegesis of treating ancient myths as factual history is a recent one, and makes zero sense in the 21st century.
              Especially since doing so is entirely arbitrary, with ancient Hebrew poetry being given precedent, while Native American or Norse or Greek or Roman myths being treated as "culture," at best, the quaint beliefs of ancient savages at worst.

              To ignore the genre of a story (in this case, creation myth) is to ignore its purpose, especially combined with ignoring its cultural and historical context.
              Which leads to the greater ignorance of inflicting one's own meaning upon it, especially if one enforces that ignorance upon one's children.

              We now understand more about the workings of life on this planet and the workings of the universe than our ancestors even six generations back could have dreamed, and have redefined our view of the universe accordingly.

              This means that we do not need to cling to "A long time ago, before any of us was around..." stories to explain the world or the universe or the human condition.

              Ancient audiences, especially before the advent of writing, accepted the above opening as a legitimate timeframe, because they by and large did not have the ability to make records which would outlast a single person's lifetime.

              We now not only create records which outlast many lifetimes, but have also discovered evidence of species which predate our own by more than its lifetime.
              And we have the ability to calculate that number of years, and trace the development of life on this planet.

              So there is no need to cling to the belief that God magicked every currently-existing species into being so that a single extant homo sapien could assign nominal designations to them before mating with the only other extant homo sapien in order to birth a species which would have died out within three generations from genetic anomalies due to constant interbreeding.
              That did not address my point. I already knew you didn't believe in the Genesis account as literal, and consider it poetry and at best it has some sort of religious significance owing to your weak view of Scripture, but when you referenced its similarities to other cultures creation myths I assumed there was a point. I think I see what you were trying to say, was it that Israelite myth is similar to other myths so Christians are not uniquely hypocritical on the concept of incest?
              Does he who supplies the Spirit to you and works miracles among you do so by works of the law, or by hearing with faith? -Galatians 3:5

              Comment


              • #22
                Originally posted by Pentecost View Post
                Buzz, you implied that because the creation myth of Israel is similar to other people's that it likely is borrowed or otherwise false. But if it is true, you would in fact expect different cultures to to share that myth. I acknowledge your position as otherwise valid but it seems a bit fallacious to make that jump. Stronger evidence if that myth is found in say for example, the Americas than nearby Sumer. I am not trying to make the slippery slope argument, but that position of "borrowed myths" is too close to the Jesus-myth claims for my liking.
                The obvious reason for flood myths world wide is the fact that local catastrophic floods are common where ever the myths are found.
                Glendower: I can call spirits from the vasty deep.
                Hotspur: Why, so can I, or so can any man;
                But will they come when you do call for them? Shakespeare’s Henry IV, Part 1, Act III:

                go with the flow the river knows . . .

                Frank

                I do not know, therefore everything is in pencil.

                Comment


                • #23
                  Originally posted by shunyadragon View Post
                  The obvious reason for flood myths world wide is the fact that local catastrophic floods are common where ever the myths are found.
                  I admit that that is a perfectly viable explanation, yes. My issue was that he implied that because it is a common myth, it cannot be true, which is just false. There are of course other reasons to disbelieve the Biblical literalist interpretation, but he did not seem to be doing so.
                  Does he who supplies the Spirit to you and works miracles among you do so by works of the law, or by hearing with faith? -Galatians 3:5

                  Comment


                  • #24
                    Originally posted by Pentecost View Post
                    That did not address my point. I already knew you didn't believe in the Genesis account as literal, and consider it poetry and at best it has some sort of religious significance owing to your weak view of Scripture, but when you referenced its similarities to other cultures creation myths I assumed there was a point. I think I see what you were trying to say, was it that Israelite myth is similar to other myths so Christians are not uniquely hypocritical on the concept of incest?
                    The point is that church people demonstrate a ludicrous double standard regarding THEIR myths versus the myths of others.

                    The Genesis creation myths are defended vehemently as historical fact, while Native American folktales of the Great Spirit or Norse stories of Yggdrasil's branches holding up the worlds are treated as quaint (at best) or satanic (at worst).

                    It is not a "weak" view of Scripture to analyze it in a literary fashion; quite the contrary, doing so requires a deeper incision into it than literalists are willing to make for fear their easy platitudes will be overthrown by what they find.

                    Recognizing that the Genesis myths were originally poems means the problem of the human race being born of incest disappears.
                    Anyone who has ever read Shakespeare or Poe or Thoreau or any other poet who wrote in English knows intuitively that poetry is not history.

                    Of course, that is only one reason not to treat the Genesis creation myths as unfactual.
                    Notice I do not call them "untrue," because "truth" is a much more vague existential concept than "factual".
                    Millions of people have been ministered to by the Spirit through the Genesis stories across the centuries, so it is not a fair assessment to call them "untrue," since one potential meaning of "true" is "having distinct emotional or spiritual meaning for a group of people".
                    Which these stories obviously do, as do the myths of many peoples across many cultures.

                    They are not factual based on our current scientific understanding of the universe.
                    And that should be obvious to anyone, but far too many church people have become convinced that there is a great scientific conspiracy to disprove the existence of God, even though it is plain to rational people of any or no faith that science does not deal with that kind of question.

                    But the sciences are not my area of expertise, and literature is.
                    I find that it is better to make one's arguments from one's area of expertise than to try and copy/paste others' arguments from around Internet-land.

                    Thus my perhaps long-winded posts.
                    “In many ways the evidence of our faith is found in our ability to control our tongue (or our keyboard)."
                    -Adam Hamilton, Seeing Gray in a World of Black and White

                    Comment


                    • #25
                      Originally posted by Buzzword View Post
                      Snip
                      I was not attacking you, I hope you understand that Buzz, I disagree with you, but I have more reasons to accept you as a brother in Christ than I don't, and so I do. I took issue with a very very narrow phrasing that you used and I have explained what it was and why multiple times, I was not seeking to denigrate you or or your position on Scripture by calling it a "weak view" but that is common parlance for a reading of Scripture that views it as useful, but not inerrant, which as far as I can tell is your position. However, because you are not addressing the point (the only point mind you) that I'm trying to make then I feel my time is better spent recusing myself from this thread. God bless.
                      Does he who supplies the Spirit to you and works miracles among you do so by works of the law, or by hearing with faith? -Galatians 3:5

                      Comment


                      • #26
                        Originally posted by Pentecost View Post
                        I was not attacking you, I hope you understand that Buzz, I disagree with you, but I have more reasons to accept you as a brother in Christ than I don't, and so I do. I took issue with a very very narrow phrasing that you used and I have explained what it was and why multiple times, I was not seeking to denigrate you or or your position on Scripture by calling it a "weak view" but that is common parlance for a reading of Scripture that views it as useful, but not inerrant, which as far as I can tell is your position. However, because you are not addressing the point (the only point mind you) that I'm trying to make then I feel my time is better spent recusing myself from this thread. God bless.
                        Rereading your original post:
                        Originally posted by Pentecost View Post
                        Buzz, you implied that because the creation myth of Israel is similar to other people's that it likely is borrowed or otherwise false. But if it is true, you would in fact expect different cultures to to share that myth. I acknowledge your position as otherwise valid but it seems a bit fallacious to make that jump. Stronger evidence if that myth is found in say for example, the Americas than nearby Sumer. I am not trying to make the slippery slope argument, but that position of "borrowed myths" is too close to the Jesus-myth claims for my liking.
                        Your point seems to be that similarities in myths across different cultures means a greater possibility of that myth being historically factual.

                        However, it is also possible (and in my opinion more likely) that similarities in myths indicate a similarity of the human mind, reaching for similar explanations for what was at the time unexplainable.
                        Which was my whole point which you seem to have missed.

                        The accounts of Jesus read more like modern biography than ancient myth.
                        They do not follow the "long, long ago" pattern, and they aren't designed around explaining some natural phenomenon like the existence of the Sun or planets or what have you.

                        So I have no issues treating them as historical fact, from a literary standpoint, even without corroborating contemporary records.

                        But this thread is about consistency in Christian morality, and in my own life I have found consistency by focusing on the words attributed to Jesus, which match my own life experience (and its enhancement by attempting to follow Christ's example), and leaving ancient Hebrew law and biased historical accounts to the archaeologists, at least for daily living.
                        Last edited by Buzzword; 01-16-2015, 10:05 PM.
                        “In many ways the evidence of our faith is found in our ability to control our tongue (or our keyboard)."
                        -Adam Hamilton, Seeing Gray in a World of Black and White

                        Comment


                        • #27
                          Originally posted by Volt View Post
                          There's a number of divinely commanded events in the Bible that throw generally accepted, contemporary morality out the window. (Genocide and incest come to mind.) How do you Christians out there account for this in an explanation of objective moral law?
                          Short answer: sin
                          I could explains this principle but The Scriptures do so far more effectively:

                          3 For what if some did not believe? shall their unbelief make the faith of God without effect?

                          4 God forbid: yea, let God be true, but every man a liar; as it is written, That thou mightest be justified in thy sayings, and mightest overcome when thou art judged.

                          5 But if our unrighteousness commend the righteousness of God, what shall we say? Is God unrighteous who taketh vengeance? (I speak as a man)

                          6 God forbid: for then how shall God judge the world?

                          7 For if the truth of God hath more abounded through my lie unto his glory; why yet am I also judged as a sinner?

                          8 And not rather, (as we be slanderously reported, and as some affirm that we say,) Let us do evil, that good may come? whose damnation is just.

                          9 What then? are we better than they? No, in no wise: for we have before proved both Jews and Gentiles, that they are all under sin;

                          10 As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one: Romans 3:3-10

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                          • #28
                            I agree that sometimes there are difficult situations, so a community of Christians would need to look to the Bible and pray to God for guidance etc. One might think that that is no better than a secular group getting together to decide a few rules, but there is a difference in that the Christian will take any clear Biblical info into account and by praying and asking God's guidance will hopefully be shown any dishonest or personal motives they have for wanting a decision to go a certain way when in fact that might not be what God wants. Christians then move forward in faith that they are doing the right thing.

                            In 1 Corinthians 5 Paul seems to differentiate between those in the church and those outside. We do not judge those outside. God will judge them. We preach Gospel to them. In other words I believe this to mean we can not force Christian morality on them. Those inside the church we do judge(in love) (v.12), since we are accountable for and to our brethren and are supposed to be of one purpose in wanting to do the will of God.

                            Where conflict arises between the Christian and the state then the Christian would hopefully follow God.
                            Last edited by Abigail; 02-14-2015, 04:50 AM.

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