The queen, Mr. Cynic and I got into this little discussion stemming from the Moderate Christians need to restore image post that at this point has lead to the questions of: What is Religion? What is Morality.
Since it is after midnight, and I am still working on some nebulous coding, I leave the questions to everyone here. Of course, I will add more than my two cents worth as time allows, but I am sure everyone has a take on these not so simple queries.
The Red Queen never promised any of this would be easy!
22 comments:
Religion is a set of beliefs about the universe that have a direct affect on individual moral and ethical decisions. If you believe, like the conquistadors, that Indians are heathens and do not have souls then you can do some pretty horribal things to them and not feel bad about it. If you believe that dying in jihad is looked on favorably by god, and will secure for you and your family a spot in the velvet rope section of heaven, then you can behave in a way that is immoral and feel justified.
immoral behavior is justified by many religions as a righteous act, but there are some universal truths about what things are bad. Murder for personal gain is one. Thievery is another. I would like to think that rape is one as well, but that may be wishfull thinking.
The other universal truth is that all societies have people who will act immorally. Though I don't think this means there are good or bad people, but that people are inherently selfish. It is our mission, one that is unique to humans, to see past our selfishness for the greater good. The problems occur when people justify selfish acts as moral acts. A suicide bomber is as selfish as Bush, one is looking for personal gain in the afterlife, while the other is justifying selfish acts under the guise of "spreading democracy".
You also see this in everyday life- especially in the american idea of individualism. We think the poor are poor because they are lazy or stupid and act like we have what we because we earned it ourselves. But no one comes into the world alone. We all are given what we have by our parents- some parents have more to give than others.
Oh I could go on and on. But I think you cathc my drift.
to me religions should be something you can turn to at all times, a neutral marker that helps humans maintain perspective. obviously, by your comments and other events we have come to a place where religion is more subjective than objective.
the example of the conquistadors is a good one. priests knew of atrocities that the Spanish committed against the natives and some even tried to end them. But Spain had become the vanguard of Catholicism in Europe and needed all the money it could muster. Indian labor became more important than morals and if your faith got in the way, other priests were found who went the way of the crown. Sort of reminds you of the corporate world these days: if you can't handle screwing the public for profit, we'll find someone who can.
I would love the hear from little flower and wonder on this since they both find religion more important than we do.
interesting.
Deek - you seem to apply a very humanistic definition of religion, making religion a system created by some people for some people. If that's the case, religion is nothing more than a behavior-modification system, purely for the point of creating social order.
Red - your belief in "universal truths" is interesting, because it seems to suggest that there is an underlying thread that could (and perhaps should) tie all religions together. I suppose it doesn't indicate a belief in a god... you could conclude universal truths simply be adding "connected by universal truths" to the definition of mankind. So... your definition is sort of a modified humanism; it's humanism with a hint of metaphysics. Kinda new-agey. heh
I've got a strange take on religion and morality, I think. It's kind of a objective relativism, if that's possible. I believe in a type of predestination, in that I believe that God has, thoughout the history of man, give particular attention to particular people groups. Biblically speaking, God chose Israel from among the peoples of mesopotamia, but made no indication that He desired to "convert" the other nations to Israel's moral code. He separated Israel out for himself, and Israel had a particular relationship with God that no other nation had. Likewise, God chose particular nations to destroy - Egypt (in Exodus), the Canaanites, the Amalakites, the Babylonians, the Assyrians, and for those nations, the God of Israel was a force of opposition and wrath. And then you have other surrounding nations that simply got along with Israel, and they were able to be blessed by Israel's prosperity in times of favor, but otherwise were not particularly involved.
So, if we carry that as a metaphor into Christianity, you have people who are called out and separated by God (those who believe, not by choice but by undeniable revelation), and there is a particular relationship there. You also have your wicked "brood of vipers" and "sons of Satan" whom are reserved for God's judgement. And then you have everybody else... and I have no clue how to classify those people, because scripture isn't entirely clear.
So... we have three groups - christian/wicked/other. For each group, the definition of God is different, but within each group, the definition of God is consistent. For the chosen, God is friend, comforter, councelor, etc., and punishment from God is a matter of correction, like the loving correction of a parent. For them, God cannot be viewed in any other way. For the wicked, God is wrath, vengence, and destruction... and again, for them, God cannot be viewed in any other way. For the others, I'm not sure. God is simply undefined, and humanism becomes the default backdrop for religion, because the answers to these eternal-type questions can only be found within the human condition.
... hope that wasn't too confusing.
Jovial- it's not metaphysical at all. There are certain rules that are required for a community to exist. It's hard to hunt and gather if you are always worrying that the person next to you is going to kill you. No one will work to get food or shelter if they can get what they need by taking it from others. So communities needed toplace some restrictions on behavior in order for there to incentive to work together.
But let me add to the univeral truth thing that these rules only apply to people who are part of your own community. Stealing from and murdering other tribes is acceptable- and still is. You (the grand you - not you specifically)turn people who are outside your community into "other" (and it was telling that you chose that word) in order to make behavior that is immoral within your own community into something moral when practiced on those outside your community.
I have to agree with RQ on this one. But the next question becomes, in this globalized world, where does your community "end" and the other "begin"? Certainly, we universally deem it immoral for someone in Cleveland to kill someone from Philadelphia, or even someone from Flofida to kill someone from Frnakfurt. But is it immoral for the Chinese to gain an advantage over the US because the former holds debt from that latter? I would rather see a religion wrestle with these questions than see it attempt to retain its membership through abortion scare tactics.
Something else comes to mind that ties directly to the science and religion issue. What should religions do about test-tube conceptions, couples choosing to have children in the 50s (now possible) and cloning? These are real issues that all religions seem mute on.
Red - I see. I assumed your "universal" covered all of mankind, which would have been a bit more metaphysical... but I see what you're saying now.
And I wouldn't say that it's too telling that I used "other." I mean... if I had only created two groups, I would fall into the traditional "us vs. them" mentality, but that's really not what I've done. However, I think that I should make it clear that I while I do see a "wicked" group, I don't view my own group as "good" in opposition... which brings up some definitions of morality.
Using the Bible, Israel is clearly God's chosen people, yet the bible never defines them as being a particularly righteous or holy people. In fact, God often accuses Israel of greater evil than the surrounding nations. So the scriptures don't refer to Israel as "the good guys." Neither does the bible trumpet up the righteousness of the followers of Christ. That's never the case, although Christians often immediately fall into a mindset of believing that they are somehow "better" than others.
Deek - regarding some of the scientific questions, I think issues of test-tube babies and cloning are very difficult for most sects of christianity to deal with, because they often consider themselves to be the final authority on the definitions of life, which is also why they are generally anti-abortion as well.
The definition of life seems to be particularly important to christians, because the definition seems to be something that God has established for mankind, and an affront to the assumed definition of life comes off as an affront to humanity and to God. So they take it personally.
Jovial- I said it was telling because it is the exact word use in continental philosophy to describe the phenomenon
See Other.
Using the bible- Isrealites are clearly God's chosen people because it was writen by.....Isrealites.Accusing themselves of great evil that is against God's will is a pretty good way to get the poeple to behave, especially a small sect of monotheists in a fairly secular and pluralist area.
But it's not just Jews or Christians or Muslims or Buddists or Hindus that think they are better than other's - it's all of them. That's part of the point of organized religions- is that as a member you get a much larger group of people to consider as "other". They don't just have to be of the same place or culture or language or even family- they have to share your god. The more people that you can exclude as other- the less you have to be concerned about acting morally towards them.
I think I instinctively dismiss the idea of "other" as an interesting phenomenon because I think that the requirement for identifying a thing is to distinguish it from other things. Root identity is generally found in contrast. That's not to say that I'm dismissing your opinion on the matter - so no offense intended.
I think the problem to be had with the concept of "other" is when one creates a hierarchy based on identity and places oneself at the peak of that hierarchy. Christ, in fact, stated that his followers should be servants to all; they were to serve one another and to serve the community around them, both in physical says (helping orphans and widows) and in spiritual ways (praying for folks and spreading the gospel). In that way, Christianity truly looks unappealing to anyone with a glorification of self in mind. The only way to make it work selfishly is to teach people half-truths and discourage people from reading all of the text...
Regarding Israel being God's chosen people, your statement of Israel's authorship only works if Israel is the bible's only audience. The new testament audience, primarily being gentiles (non jews) acknowledged that Israel was (and still is) God's chosen people, even though Israel at the time of the new testmant writings was at the forefront of Christian persecution. So you have the enemies of Christianity still being identified as the people of God. I'm not sure that authorship plays a significant role in that.
I think the problem to be had with the concept of "other" is when one creates a hierarchy based on identity and places oneself at the peak of that hierarchy
I totaly agree and that doesn't disprove my point. I think I made a comment in another post that organized religions choose to ignore those parts of theology that would reduce their power. An egalitarian, all accepting, non-othering philosophy eliminates the need for a heirachial power structure (and therefore eliminates the need for an elite class).
Regarding Israel being God's chosen people, your statement of Israel's authorship only works if Israel is the bible's only audience.
But you gotta remember the history on this. Paul is running around trying to turn Christianity into a universal religion while also trying not to alientate the Jews who had believed in Jesus- who was a Jew and therefore one of the chosen people.
So you keep Jews as the chosen people, but the only way to get to heaven is through Jesus (a Jew) as a Christian. It still works.
Here's an interesting passage from a book that is knocking my socks off, The End of Faith-Sam Harris:
"Many people appear to believe that ethical truths are culturally contingent in a way that scientific truths are not. Indeed this loss of purchase upon ethical "truth" seems to be one of the principal shortcommings of secularism. The problem is that once we abandon our belief in a rule-making God, the question of why a given action is good or bad becomes a matter of debate. And a statement like "murder is wrong" while being uncontroversial in most circles, has never seemed anchored to the facts of this world in the way that statements about planets or molecules appear to be. The problem, in philosophical terms has been one of characterizing just what sort of "facts" our moral intuitions can be said to track--if, indeed, they track anything of the kind.
A rational approach to ethics becomes possible once we realize that questions of right and wrong are really questions about the happiness and suffering of sentient creatures."
I think this speaks to what RQ was saying about "universal truths". When a rule-making God is out of the picture, right and wrong can be as universally applicable as mathmatics.
Instead of "erring on the side of life" because the bible says so, we could have had a rational discussion about Terry Schiavo. We could have a rational discussion about stem-cell research, drug laws, birth control...etc., all with the "happiness and suffering of sentient creatures" as our compass.
Peter - I think you're correct. Removing God from the picture does force us to question the right-ness and wrong-ness of any action, because we're still forced to say that something is right or wrong according to some system. The problem with coming to a universal system within a group, whether one assumes a rule-making God or not, is that if you have more than one person in the group, you likely have more than one philosophy for creating rules. It will always be the case that wrong-for-one is not necessarily wrong-for-another. There's no way to align the values of everybody involved, so the problem never really ends. Ultimately, the law makers end up being the ones who can enforce the laws, which tends to lead to a might-makes-right system.
Sucks.
Red - we're gonna end up spinning wheels on this, because I think we disagree on some key core principles. If we disagree on Paul's objective, everything Paul says gets skewed through our particular lens. We're not gonna make much progress unless we backtrack and come to some agreements on what Paul is doing. And that's probably best left to another thread.
As a side note, I wasn't saying I disproved your point on "other." I was just saying that on a whole, the notion of "other" isn't an issue, so specifying "other + hierarchy" was necessary for the conversation. And since my worldview doesn't include "other + hierarchy," my use of the term isn't what you seem to think I meant.
Negotiating your ideal egalitarian society with my version of Christianity isn't a problem - I believe that a Christian can live just fine in the midst of such a structure -- nothing about biblical christianity excludes such a system. I think that today's churches certainly wouldn't agree with us, since we agree that christian churches have historically taken the elite road.
peter: I could subscribe to this faily easily. just because something is scientific doesn't mean it's "right" (see the Bell Curve). and just because a discovery or experiment is not necessarily abhorent, like the Bell Curve, doesn't mean that it is morally correct.
RQ: I like your statement: But it's not just Jews or Christians or Muslims or Buddists or Hindus that think they are better than other's - it's all of them. That's part of the point of organized religions- is that as a member you get a much larger group of people to consider as "other". Of course, these religions would vomit all over themselves if you suggested a substitute along your line of thinking would work. It seems that ego is still part of religious "membership", though I do have some hope for the Buddhists.
No matter what though it seems we are stuck with what we have.
Jovial- Maybe we are completely misunderstanding each other, but if the idea of other wasn't an issue then we wouldn't be seeing repeatedly glorified images of dead Mousawi all of the tv(I can't spell Arabic names - forgive me)while we hide the coffins of our own dead soldiers.
If other isn't an issue then neither is racism or sexism or classism or any other sort of discrimination- because we don't discriminate against those that are like us.
Other + hierarchy may not be part of your world view- but it is the basis for all of the biggotry that exists in the world. So see it or not- it exists and needs to be dealt with.
DeeK- don't go romanticising the eastern religions- it's only with the current Dali Lama that they have decided being born a woman is a punishment for transgressions in a past life, and they don't generally allow female priests either.
Peter- Now I really have to read that book. It sounds like Harris is taking John Rawls to a personal level- which is really good in my opinion.
Fuck- I meant Al-Zarqawi, my brains a little fried today
Red - yeah, we are misunderstanding each other.
Here: Racism, sexism, classism, glorified images of Zarqawi, and discrimination are all examples of "other + hierarchy." We absolutely agree. Generally speaking, we do find a strong sense of "other + hierarchy" in religions.
My initial usage of "other" way back in previous comments when I was describing my worldview was not an example of "other + hierarchy."
There's a quote I picked up from a friend's email a while back - it kind of describes my version of Christianity:
"In Christ we have the status of kings and the duties of slaves."
So again - it's hard to make true christianity appealing solely on the basis of status. Christians are meant to be servants to all. "Other + hierarchy" doesn't fit biblical Christianity.
Jovial-"we're still forced to say that something is right or wrong according to some system." Right--and it wont be perfect but it's the best possible system. Right? It's democratic, it allows for laws to be changed over time, and, most importantly it does away with victimless crimes. Crimes without victims are like debts without creditors.
What happens now is that might makes right and men manipulate and the rules of God to serve their own gains, be they good or evil. Take God, or, more specifically faith, out of the equation and right and wrong are forever open to discussion.
Deek-"just because something is scientific doesn't mean it's 'right'" Yeah, but just because something is written in a holy book doesn't mean it's right, applicable to modern times, or not in danger of being seriously misused. I'm looking now at the Bell Curve and it does show how dangerously off the rails science can go. But that book and it's theories, because they were not written by God, has been examined and discredited in a relatively short amount of time. The difference is that religious beliefs are generally beyond reproach and can have profound affects on behavior.
According to the bell curve- I don't even exist statistically. Huhm. Does this mean I get powers of invisibility?
Whatever.
Peter- not questioning is part of religion- it's where the fuzzy little idea of faith comes in.
The science question is hard, because useful things come out of practices that others ay find repelent (abortion and stem cell research being a good example). Then you have to weigh potential benefits to potential harm caused and figure out what the best ratio of benefit to harm is and figuring out what societies responsibility is to those who are harmed.
Yeah, ther are a lot of invisible people walking around.
"Then you have to weigh potential benefits to potential harm caused and figure out what the best ratio of benefit to harm is and figuring out what societies responsibility is to those who are harmed."
Are we agreeing? I can't tell.
yes we are agreeing
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