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Author Topic: Middle School Theology  (Read 28265 times)

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Ocksi

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Re: Middle School Theology
« Reply #80 on: June 02, 2009, 04:15:00 PM »

I really don't like how "leading people away from faith" is considered a good thing by default.  Yes, the church has problems, but mostly in its fringes, which are not the kind of people being swayed.  The kind of people who are willing to leave the church are typically the folks who use it for some sort of hope or compass, and for those things, being a person of faith can be very good.
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Rico

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Re: Middle School Theology
« Reply #81 on: June 02, 2009, 04:31:51 PM »

But anyway, what is an unlawful killing? No, seriously, answer the question. How is Abel's murder different from Abraham's son's ordered murder?  Hint: God told one of them to do it, using a special Hebrew code word that makes it totally different from murder.
I may not be able to answer as specifically as you'd like because I don't have all that many resources available to me on ancient Hebrew culture, but here is the gist of what I have been saying this whole time: Laws in the U.S. have a few terms which categorize homicide, namely: Manslaughter and murder.  Both of these have fairly precise definitions and also fairly precise defenses.  While there are other types of homicide, for now I will focus on these two.  Ancient Hebrew has a few terms which categorize homicide.  The two we'll focus on right now are their word which translates fairly well as murder, and one other which is frequently translated as destroy but has an additional connotation of as a religious sacrifice.

Hebrew law forbid the first—Murder—but did not forbid the second.  This is very similar to our own system, which allows us to lawfully kill people under specific circumstances.  These circumstances are what differentiates Cain's murder of his brother from Abraham's attempted sacrifice of his son.

Quote
It doesn't magically stop being murder if you say it's not. I mean, I can't get away with that.
Sure, you can't get away with it, but... if the law says murder is only if you kill a 13 year-old boy on Thursday, you can kill him on Tuesday and it won't be murder.  It might be something else, but it won't be murder.  And all I am saying is that God laid down rules about killing and not killing and has not altered them.  You may not agree with the morality of the rules.  That's certainly your right.  But it doesn't magically mean the Bible is saying God is breaking His own laws.

I'll get to some of the later points tonight sometime.
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Mongrel

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Re: Middle School Theology
« Reply #82 on: June 03, 2009, 03:19:43 AM »

Pointless theological debate has been with us for longer than Christianity or even the written word.

Nothing will be solved in some fool thread on a messageboard and not the least meaningful thing can come of this. 

Maybe Thad'll see this and throw all my posts in Jail, but for my money, I can't see why this whole thread wasn't put there in the first place.

I hear this a lot when this sort of debate crops up and while it's true that no random conversation between dudes will change the world, individual people can indeed be convinced of the error of their mode of thought in this way. I have personally been told that my reasoned arguments have lead someone away from faith. changing how one person thinks is not a whole lot but it's definitely something meaningful.

I can assure you that if their belief is strong enough they will relapse later on. And if it was weak enough they would have changed in response to some stimuli sooner or later.

But that's not what I was taking about. I was referring to any argument that cites religious scripture or other religious sources to justify or explain ANYTHING. MIxing your personal opinions in with those citations just makes the whole process even dumber. Someone wants to argue opinions on murder? Fine. Nothing wrong with that. Just so long as they don't quote the bible, torah, or whatever in some cockamamie attempt to give their personal opinions a veneer of legitimacy it does not deserve.
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François

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Re: Middle School Theology
« Reply #83 on: June 03, 2009, 03:49:48 AM »

I think you're missing the key point that if the ultimate authority of morality, God, let's you break his laws when it's "convenient" (which has a nebulous definition) he is both A: contradicting himself and thus leaving it all up to mortals to make the judgment call; rendering his codified system pointless.

Alright, so here's how I see your reasoning. Correct me if I'm wrong.
-If a code of laws is flexible, it can occasionally be ignored at one's discretion.
-Nothing prevents one from ignoring a flexible code of laws all of the time.
-A code of laws that can be ignored all the time might as well not be there at all.

I can see how you get to think that way, but it's an incomplete picture. The thing is, even if there are exceptions to a law, it might still be there for a good reason.

I mean, at the time of the passage I quoted, Jewish society operated on a covenant that once every seven days, everyone has to rest for 24 hours. From the leaders and priests to the lowliest peons, everybody takes a break to recuperate and spend some time with their friends and families. And if a landlord wants to force a laborer to pick grapes on the Sabbath, the latter could tell the former to take a hike, and society would support him.

That said, if you got three cows, and one of them breaks your fence and runs away into the wilderness, suddenly the benefits of keeping Sabbath don't outweigh the benefits of running out and getting your cow back. It's one third of your herd, you need that cow to live. So you can make an exception, and society should accept that exception and support you.

Now does that mean that the law of the Sabbath is meaningless? Of course not. It's a good law, with some flexibility in it so you don't basically get punished for obeying it. You seem to think that flexibility makes a code of laws meaningless, but I'm of the opinion that it's actually an essential quality for a sane, viable code.

Of course, you can cite Exodus 31:15, "For six days, work is to be done, but the seventh day is a Sabbath of rest, holy to the LORD. Whoever does any work on the Sabbath day must be put to death.", but my answer to that is that I'm Christian instead of Jewish for a reason.
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Pacobird

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Re: Middle School Theology
« Reply #84 on: June 03, 2009, 05:26:29 AM »

Words

Perhaps you didn't read my post thoroughly.

I'm not saying murder can't be legally/rationally justified

Drethelin, I'm not changing any definitions.
Quote from: Dictionary.com
to kill or slaughter inhumanly or barbarously

I'm just saying that the act of killing someone on purpose is in itself inherently barbaric and inhumane!

You said, after the "justifiable" qualification, that it "weighs on you equally".

It may weigh on YOU equally, because you are a weepy pussy, but it doesn't and it shouldn't.  Humanity as a whole agrees it should not; you are an abberation and are in no position to be speaking in moral absolutes (because you are objectively wrong).

Human history is bloody, and that is of course unfortunate, but standing around condemning everyone for their TOTALLY UNSEEMLY behavior is a good way to consign yourself to nonexistence.  People have a right to defend themselves, and morally castigating them for taking life when taking life is in fact necessary for their own survival is childish.


Quote
And as far as abortion goes, the reasoning is simple:  A fetus is not a human being.  Rather it is nothing more that a parasitic life form with human DNA that will possibly one day become a human the moment it stops being a parasite and can at least breath on it's own.

Ok, so breathing is the cutoff, thus meaning you can't kill an infant.  Okay.  What about people on life support?  Are we allowed to kill them against their wishes?
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Mongrel

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Re: Middle School Theology
« Reply #85 on: June 03, 2009, 05:56:22 AM »

Isn't it funny how the universe refuses to conform to the nice organized little divisions we keep trying to apply to it?
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Büge

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Re: Middle School Theology
« Reply #86 on: June 03, 2009, 06:13:33 AM »


SCIENCE!
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Pacobird

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Re: Middle School Theology
« Reply #87 on: June 03, 2009, 07:39:32 AM »

Isn't it funny how the universe refuses to conform to the nice organized little divisions we keep trying to apply to it?

It's almost like we have to impose our own logic to develop consistent ethics in the face of a random, uncaring world!
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Transportation

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Re: Middle School Theology
« Reply #88 on: June 03, 2009, 08:15:06 AM »

Oh, good, the debate seems to be getting at the core of the disagreement and thus winding down.

Note this isn't an 'I win' post, just the point where it's obviously getting repetitive. It feels like that to me, at least.

I may not be able to answer as specifically as you'd like because I don't have all that many resources available to me on ancient Hebrew culture, but here is the gist of what I have been saying this whole time: Laws in the U.S. have a few terms which categorize homicide, namely: Manslaughter and murder.  Both of these have fairly precise definitions and also fairly precise defenses.  While there are other types of homicide, for now I will focus on these two.  Ancient Hebrew has a few terms which categorize homicide.  The two we'll focus on right now are their word which translates fairly well as murder, and one other which is frequently translated as destroy but has an additional connotation of as a religious sacrifice.

Hebrew law forbid the first—Murder—but did not forbid the second.  This is very similar to our own system, which allows us to lawfully kill people under specific circumstances.  These circumstances are what differentiates Cain's murder of his brother from Abraham's attempted sacrifice of his son.

Quote
It doesn't magically stop being murder if you say it's not. I mean, I can't get away with that.
Sure, you can't get away with it, but... if the law says murder is only if you kill a 13 year-old boy on Thursday, you can kill him on Tuesday and it won't be murder.  It might be something else, but it won't be murder.  And all I am saying is that God laid down rules about killing and not killing and has not altered them.  You may not agree with the morality of the rules.  That's certainly your right.  But it doesn't magically mean the Bible is saying God is breaking His own laws.

I'll get to some of the later points tonight sometime.
This goes back to my whole 'God redefines things to suit him' argument. You keep arguing from within God's laws that he can't be contradicting himself because he made the rules. However, that is irrelevant to my argument because murder is not defined by God. That's why I kept hammering on past genocidal dictators. They would surely say 'murder is wrong' and then add 'except in this arbitrary circumstances where it benefits me'. And we, the enlightened outsiders, could surely deem them as murderous (or genocidal, not there's much of a difference beyond scale), no? That's why I'm saying he's breaking his own laws. There isn't even an internally consistent "deeper" framework to determine when to violate them beyond when they benefit God (see: Rahab).

Anyway, this leads into Zedpower's argument.

I think you're missing the key point that if the ultimate authority of morality, God, let's you break his laws when it's "convenient" (which has a nebulous definition) he is both A: contradicting himself and thus leaving it all up to mortals to make the judgment call; rendering his codified system pointless.

Alright, so here's how I see your reasoning. Correct me if I'm wrong.
-If a code of laws is flexible, it can occasionally be ignored at one's discretion.
-Nothing prevents one from ignoring a flexible code of laws all of the time.
-A code of laws that can be ignored all the time might as well not be there at all.

This is essentially correct. There is no point to a moral code that relies on people's own internal compass. What insights into morality do people gain when they have to make their own judgment on what parts are wrong or right in any given situation?

The answer is none. You are still relying on the fundamental 'goodness' of mankind to make this decision, without actually defining what goodness is.

Quote
I can see how you get to think that way, but it's an incomplete picture. The thing is, even if there are exceptions to a law, it might still be there for a good reason.

I mean, at the time of the passage I quoted, Jewish society operated on a covenant that once every seven days, everyone has to rest for 24 hours. From the leaders and priests to the lowliest peons, everybody takes a break to recuperate and spend some time with their friends and families. And if a landlord wants to force a laborer to pick grapes on the Sabbath, the latter could tell the former to take a hike, and society would support him.

Why shouldn't the laborer work on the Sabbath? It's obviously harming the landlord. Why does the Sabbath take precedent over the landlord's well-being?

Quote
That said, if you got three cows, and one of them breaks your fence and runs away into the wilderness, suddenly the benefits of keeping Sabbath don't outweigh the benefits of running out and getting your cow back. It's one third of your herd, you need that cow to live. So you can make an exception, and society should accept that exception and support you.

And the well-being of that person takes precedence over the Sabbath, God's holy day, but the landlord's "suffering" doesn't because...?

Quote
Now does that mean that the law of the Sabbath is meaningless? Of course not. It's a good law, with some flexibility in it so you don't basically get punished for obeying it. You seem to think that flexibility makes a code of laws meaningless, but I'm of the opinion that it's actually an essential quality for a sane, viable code.

No, it's a condemnation that codes are a foolish way to determine morality. Nowhere in your post did you explain the underlying mechanism of why you could ignore the laws. You're leaving it up to the moral agents to determine what constitutes bending or breaking and when someone's suffering is more important than keeping the Sabbath. How is this determined?

Is it a general principle to reduce suffering? Then why have the laws at all? They have unnecessary, dangerous (see: religious conflict) baggage. I can see how a general, non-obligatory for the laborer, holiday benefits people to some extent. Although every Sunday might be excessive, I'd have to look into it a bit. In other cases, in order to reduce suffering, it should be abolished. Say, during a war of national survival, for example.

Religious morality is pointless if it relies on some, unstated, inner goodness.

If we use utilitarianism* (Goodness is greatest (happiness/reduced suffering) for the greatest number), for example, we can solve the conundrum of "Do you kill 1 person or 100, assuming equal social value?" The answer is obviously 'kill 1'. How is this answer derived from the Bible, Torah, etc? In a non-convoluted obviously-God's-intent manner, please.

Quote
Of course, you can cite Exodus 31:15, "For six days, work is to be done, but the seventh day is a Sabbath of rest, holy to the LORD. Whoever does any work on the Sabbath day must be put to death.", but my answer to that is that I'm Christian instead of Jewish for a reason.

Well, Jesus also says he hasn't come to "abolish the law", either. Not to mention Christians frequently cite the Ten Commandments and some other parts (see: homosexuality) as an important part of their religion. Without stating the process for determining which parts of the OT to keep or kick out, might I add. Which relates to my previously stated points.

*This works except for bizarre scenarios that only occur in abstract philosophical dilemmas. The scenarios talked about in this discussion occur often enough, so I'm not contradictory for stating this caveat.
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Pacobird

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Re: Middle School Theology
« Reply #89 on: June 03, 2009, 08:29:02 AM »

Is it a general principle to reduce suffering? Then why have the laws at all? They have unnecessary, dangerous (see: religious conflict) baggage. I can see how a general, non-obligatory for the laborer, holiday benefits people to some extent. Although every Sunday might be excessive, I'd have to look into it a bit. In other cases, in order to reduce suffering, it should be abolished. Say, during a war of national survival, for example.

I've always understood the point of rules to be not to eliminate human suffering, but rather to establish continuity and stability, for better or worse.

Change is a constant in the world, and it is usually unfair and terrifying for the powerless.  We came up with rules so that we could mitigate (or at least direct) change.








(imo)
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Rico

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Re: Middle School Theology
« Reply #90 on: June 03, 2009, 10:23:59 AM »

This goes back to my whole 'God redefines things to suit him' argument. You keep arguing from within God's laws that he can't be contradicting himself because he made the rules. However, that is irrelevant to my argument because murder is not defined by God. That's why I kept hammering on past genocidal dictators. They would surely say 'murder is wrong' and then add 'except in this arbitrary circumstances where it benefits me'. And we, the enlightened outsiders, could surely deem them as murderous (or genocidal, not there's much of a difference beyond scale), no? That's why I'm saying he's breaking his own laws.
So, question for you: Who the fuck can define murder, then?  It's certainly not some sort of universal constant.  Because as far as I can tell your argument is "God's definition of murder isn't mine, therefore God is redefining murder to suit His needs."
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Mongrel

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Re: Middle School Theology
« Reply #91 on: June 03, 2009, 11:14:28 AM »

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Pacobird

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Re: Middle School Theology
« Reply #92 on: June 03, 2009, 11:54:27 AM »

consistent ethics

lol

Yes, not wanting to be self-contradictory in one's view of the world and their place in it is truly a lolworthy undertaking.
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Mongrel

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Re: Middle School Theology
« Reply #93 on: June 03, 2009, 12:05:56 PM »

consistent ethics

lol

Yes, not wanting to be self-contradictory in one's view of the world and their place in it is truly a lolworthy undertaking.

Consistent does not necessarily mean non-self-contradictory. See, "consistent" with regards to morals is nowhere near to being the same thing as "consistent" with regards to say, peanut butter, or the current mean temperature of the universe.

Or has this thread not demonstrated that enough yet?
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Misha

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Re: Middle School Theology
« Reply #94 on: June 03, 2009, 12:26:10 PM »

I really don't like how "leading people away from faith" is considered a good thing by default.  Yes, the church has problems, but mostly in its fringes, which are not the kind of people being swayed.  The kind of people who are willing to leave the church are typically the folks who use it for some sort of hope or compass, and for those things, being a person of faith can be very good.
First off, even if you don't agree that leading someone away from faith is good, you can probably atleast agree that it's meaningful.

secondly, what the hell do you mean by fringes? ALL catholics are forbidden to use contraceptives. This leads to huge amounts of over-crowding and worldwide campaigns against condom use, despite known benefits against STDs and of waiting to have children. This is not some crazy fringe group ruining the lives of a few people (which would still be horrible), this is a massive world organization bent on imposing the will of an old man in italy on people all over.
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Transportation

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Re: Middle School Theology
« Reply #95 on: June 03, 2009, 03:00:03 PM »

So, question for you: Who the fuck can define murder, then?  It's certainly not some sort of universal constant.  Because as far as I can tell your argument is "God's definition of murder isn't mine, therefore God is redefining murder to suit His needs."

I am using the common definition (or concept, I suppose) used in human societies. Words are defined by how humans use them, after all. What is wrong with the definition of "killing with intent"? There's some side notes to that to differentiate a self-defense or capital punishment (and when those two help others enough to justify it) and some other qualifications, to be sure. But it's accurate enough.

But none of those apply to what the Israelites or God were doing!

As a small concession, law is certainly a part of it, but people can still things murder or other people murderers with or without a conviction. It's a part, but not all of it.

That's the best definition you're going to get when you reject divine fiat. So, there you go.

Is it a general principle to reduce suffering? Then why have the laws at all? They have unnecessary, dangerous (see: religious conflict) baggage. I can see how a general, non-obligatory for the laborer, holiday benefits people to some extent. Although every Sunday might be excessive, I'd have to look into it a bit. In other cases, in order to reduce suffering, it should be abolished. Say, during a war of national survival, for example.

I've always understood the point of rules to be not to eliminate human suffering, but rather to establish continuity and stability, for better or worse.

Change is a constant in the world, and it is usually unfair and terrifying for the powerless.  We came up with rules so that we could mitigate (or at least direct) change.








(imo)

That's true.Although your description doesn't really contradict mine on how human society should generally run. There are just rules for making rules. After a certain point you're just making assumptions and seeing how many people agree with you, anyway. :shrug:
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Rico

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Re: Middle School Theology
« Reply #96 on: June 03, 2009, 03:15:41 PM »

So, we're defining murder as how some human societies do, but with some exceptions, but not the exceptions that some dictators make.  Gotcha.

See, here is one of my main problems with this whole thing.  In this argument about whether God is commanding people to break the law, we kind of have to presuppose that God exists.  If God exists, He has the authority to define things like what kinds of killing are allowable, just by definition of being God.  Doesn't matter what the fuck U.S. law or human majority thinks murder is.
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Pacobird

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Re: Middle School Theology
« Reply #97 on: June 03, 2009, 03:55:26 PM »

So, we're defining murder as how some human societies do, but with some exceptions, but not the exceptions that some dictators make.  Gotcha.

DoT may correct me, but we are simply saying that the definition of murder is what social norms determine it to be.  Not because the voice of the people grants some insight into what the Platonic Form of Murder is or whatever, but because there is significant social utility in defining murder and punishing it.


Quote
See, here is one of my main problems with this whole thing.  In this argument about whether God is commanding people to break the law, we kind of have to presuppose that God exists.  If God exists, He has the authority to define things like what kinds of killing are allowable, just by definition of being God.  Doesn't matter what the fuck U.S. law or human majority thinks murder is.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodicy
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Rico

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Re: Middle School Theology
« Reply #98 on: June 03, 2009, 03:57:18 PM »

But if unlawful killing is defined by social norms, then we still don't have a problem with the Biblical text unless we try to apply our current social norms to the state of a region of the world 2000 years ago.
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Pacobird

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Re: Middle School Theology
« Reply #99 on: June 03, 2009, 04:05:41 PM »

If the bible said "don't eat pork because seriously guys have you seen what pigs eat that shit will fucking kill you" rather than "God says don't eat pork", we wouldn't be having this discussion.
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