What is Morality?

[Johnny Big Horse]

Uh oh, we have another contender. Very good point, and the thing is, you are making the same point the captain made before, but using it against him.

This is a great thread.

Difference is, my point is that Atheism gives no standard to tell who is right. I'm claiming that reading the Bible is the standard to resolve any conflicts of moral opinion. That's why Atheism fails and Christianity does not. Christianity gives a solution for differing morals, but Atheism leaves it to each to discern their own morality, and gives no guidance where there is conflict.

This continues to be an irrelevant comparison.

No, not at all, Capn. The Rastafarians base their belief in smoking weed on the Bible. But midwestern fundamentalists think that is wrong. So, how can you say the Bible is an authority when people pick and choose what they want to believe. We are back to the whole idea of might makes right, or whatever the majority thinks, except now they have a book to point to, which they think makes their opinions valid.

I was speaking the other day with a friend who starts his arguments with "The Bible says...." There are two problems here. Assuming the bible is an authoritative document, then who gets to interpret it. Assuming it is man made and imperfect, then it is NOT an authoritative document. Which leaves no room to use it as the authority to base a morality on.

Still, Christianity is great for hundreds of millions or billions of people, so I am all for it. Any approach to God is good to me.

[mOctave]

You claim Atheism is not a worldview - unlike ideology, I have made sure with this word that the definition matched my meaning beforehand, so I can pull the dictionary here.
Merriam-Webster - "Worldview"
"a comprehensive conception or apprehension of the world especially from a specific standpoint"

Oh dear... so close and yet so far. The operative word is comprehensive, and atheism alone isn't generally comprehensive. Atheists generally tend to believe in something, and this is part of their worldview too, not just their disbelief in a theistic God.

The standpoint from which Atheism operates is that there is no God. That's all there is to it. What that implies for the rest of the worldview is rather interesting.

Sort of? Atheism is a lack of belief in a God who created the world and is still hanging around ruling things and interacting with people. That doesn't necessarily mean that an atheist doesn't believe that some power created the universe, just that that power no longer exists in a human-accessible form (if it ever did), and is not worthy of worship. This is the classic definition of a god, but it isn't exactly what your next arguments are based on.

No explanation of origin - if a Big Bang, there is no explanation of what came before it, and if infinite universes then you run into the circular and special pleading fallacies, as with God, but unlike God with no basis of it, just pure conjecture.

You could argue that accepting a millennia-old text that was never really designed to be perfectly factually accurate is also pure conjecture. Not that there isn't truth in Genesis, but that truth probably isn't literal in the way we read things now.

Besides, what created God? From a logical standpoint, that's just as hard to explain as a Big Bang.

No explanation of purpose - as you said yourself, it implies that there is no purpose, and thus doesn't try to explain at all why we exist.

Of course there isn't an explanation of purpose. It's not a complete worldview.

No explanation of morality - we've gone over that enough, it doesn't claim to be a moral standard.

This is true, atheists have to adopt other moral standards.

Now then, this runs into a problem. Science is only science because of what we as humans observe. So, then, we have a worldview based on empirical data. But what makes data empirical? Well, if you can see, hear, taste, smell, or touch it, then it's empirical. If it can be observed with the senses. Science is science because it follows the laws of nature and can be observed. How do we know the laws of nature and what our observations are? Science. It is as circular as an idea of God, ...

This is a fair point, actually. We have no proof of God or science, but we can believe either way that the world we interact with actually exists. If there's a God, then presumably God wouldn't lie to us in such a way. If there's science, then it stands up. If there's neither, we might as well commit suicide to save the world from the control of the evil brain farmers who are tricking us into believing in our world.

I would agree that too many people take science for granted. But at the same time, we can observe the things we do and draw conclusions that might be wrong but stand up if we accept either science or God.

... but it explains less, and is less consistent because it is made by humanity.

Well, it explains different things. After all, does God ever tell us how he/she/it made humanity? Science does, just not why we were made.

Also, if God doesn't exist, then science is no more of a human construction than God! Your argument only stands up here if God does actually exist.

[DarthPorg36]

Although this drifts off the post's topic, I do think I should clarify an interesting point here so this conversation doesn't devolve into a Science v Religion argument. To quote mOctave, "If there's a God, then presumably God wouldn't lie to us in such a way." Coming from a Christian perspective here, I do agree with this, but have a caveat to add. God doesn't lie to humanity in my worldview, rather, human interpretations of science or scripture are wrong. Both science and the Bible are tricky things to decode.

I fully believe Science and Religion can and should work together, with religion generally explaining the whys and science generally explaining the hows. You've mentioned the Big Bang a lot in recent posts, and although neither religion nor science really can prove it undoubtedly one way or another, in my beliefs I just assume that the Big Bang was real, because science seems to show it, but what started it was God speaking life into the universe out of his great love. Of course, I acknowledge the fact that my more liberal christian interpretation of the world and scripture and science may be wrong, and maybe my poetic interpretation of the opening chapter or two of Genesis is incorrect, and the Big Bang wasn't a thing and Earth was created in six days. Still, I think people too often make Science and Religion enemies when that argument is irrelevant from not only a Christian perspective (Scripture and Science work together), but also from an atheist perspective as well (because atheism doesn't have scripture or God to go off of, therefore Science is all there is).

Anyway, debate on, dear friends, but thought I'd just step in to clarify this point, too often have I seen arguments devolve into petty arguments about Creation, and I don't want the esteemed members of this forum falling into the same trap.

[Esquire Bertissimmo]

I came across something interesting while reading more about morality.

In lab experiments, we've already successfully changed peoples' moral intuitions via transcranial magnetic stimulation of the brain (i.e., disrupting particular brain areas remotely). In one key experiment, scientists targeted a brain area known for understanding what people intend to do. After this area was stimulated, people in the study started to judge actions based more on the results of those actions, rather than what the person doing them intended. In a separate experiment focusing on a different part of the brain, the stimulation led to changes in how people thought about moral issues, especially in situations where actions might lead to someone getting hurt. In both cases, participants justified their newfound beliefs with moral arguments, even though their answers were clearly inconsistent with the answers they gave without the brain stimulation.

To me, this suggests that our moral beliefs might be more influenced by our brain's instinctive responses than we realize, and much of our moral reasoning could actually be merely justifying these instinctive feelings after the fact. A lifetime of moral reasoning, being in a good moral community, having specific experience (e.g., suffering a major injury) etc., almost certainly helps shape the brain's instinctive response to moral stimulus, but there would also be 1000 temporary factors at play (e.g., is moral reasoner very hungry? were they anxious in the lead up to their moral decision), and there are probably genetic components totally out of our control.

The mechanistic aspect of moral decision making is a real challenge in a conversation like this. Probably, Captain Fritz can't help but feel that morality must follow a strict code laid down by an objective creator, whereas I can't help but feel that morality must be a looser set of rules that aim to balance competing values. If we each got the right transcranial magnetic stimulation, we might come to the opposite conclusion and even justify our new conclusions with moral arguments. I don't think that makes the field of moral inquiry pointless, but in a lot of cases it really might be beside the point.

And what is morality then, if it's largely unchosen (at least moment-to-moment)? If we could transcranially stimulate the whole world into following Jesus' moral code then there would be a lot more love and kindness, but would there be any morality at all?

[Jamiet99uk]

That's fascinating, Esquire Bert. Indeed this whole thread has been fascinating and I am glad to have taken part in this discussion.

[Johnny Big Horse]

The standpoint from which Atheism operates is that there is no God. That's all there is to it. What that implies for the rest of the worldview is rather interesting.

Sort of? Atheism is a lack of belief in a God who created the world and is still hanging around ruling things and interacting with people. That doesn't necessarily mean that an atheist doesn't believe that some power created the universe, just that that power no longer exists in a human-accessible form (if it ever did), and is not worthy of worship. This is the classic definition of a god, but it isn't exactly what your next arguments are based on.

MOctave, I think atheists often get confused about what to call what they believe. You don't believe in a a God that created the world and hangs around and helps the Catholic colleges win basketball games. That's fine. But that is not necessarily atheism. I think all it means is that you are not a Christian, Jew or Moslem. You can still believe in God. Just a different God that the monotheists talk about.

Deists, like Thomas Paine, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Ben Franklin, didn't believe in the Bible one bit. They believed that God created the world, and then left, but God perhaps was not an entity like us, but something we cannot comprehend. Not someone who reads our thoughts and judges us, but some Thing that did the Big Bang (if you believe in that) and that is it. The universe is an expression of God, and I think Deists believe we are too.

You can be a pantheist who believes that God is in all things. Kinda like consciousness is in all cells of your body, not just the brain. God is the spirit that animates us.

[Johnny Big Horse]

Here is more:

Espinosa's beliefs as a pantheist:

-Pantheism: Espinosa believed that God and the universe are one and the same.
-Nature as Divine: He saw divinity in the natural world, considering it sacred.
-Rejecting Traditional Religion: Espinosa rejected traditional notions of a personal God or organized religion.
-Unity of Everything: He asserted that everything in the universe is interconnected and part of the divine essence.

[CaptainFritz28]

Difference is, my point is that Atheism gives no standard to tell who is right. I'm claiming that reading the Bible is the standard to resolve any conflicts of moral opinion. That's why Atheism fails and Christianity does not. Christianity gives a solution for differing morals, but Atheism leaves it to each to discern their own morality, and gives no guidance where there is conflict.

This continues to be an irrelevant comparison.

No, not at all, Capn. The Rastafarians base their belief in smoking weed on the Bible. But midwestern fundamentalists think that is wrong. So, how can you say the Bible is an authority when people pick and choose what they want to believe. We are back to the whole idea of might makes right, or whatever the majority thinks, except now they have a book to point to, which they think makes their opinions valid.

I was speaking the other day with a friend who starts his arguments with "The Bible says...." There are two problems here. Assuming the bible is an authoritative document, then who gets to interpret it. Assuming it is man made and imperfect, then it is NOT an authoritative document. Which leaves no room to use it as the authority to base a morality on.

Still, Christianity is great for hundreds of millions or billions of people, so I am all for it. Any approach to God is good to me.

When people pick and choose what they want to believe out of the Bible, it ceases to be their ultimate standard, because now they are more authoritative than the Bible. Only when the Bible is treated as truth, entirely and literally, does it become an objective standard.

[CaptainFritz28]

I came across something interesting while reading more about morality.

In lab experiments, we've already successfully changed peoples' moral intuitions via transcranial magnetic stimulation of the brain (i.e., disrupting particular brain areas remotely). In one key experiment, scientists targeted a brain area known for understanding what people intend to do. After this area was stimulated, people in the study started to judge actions based more on the results of those actions, rather than what the person doing them intended. In a separate experiment focusing on a different part of the brain, the stimulation led to changes in how people thought about moral issues, especially in situations where actions might lead to someone getting hurt. In both cases, participants justified their newfound beliefs with moral arguments, even though their answers were clearly inconsistent with the answers they gave without the brain stimulation.

To me, this suggests that our moral beliefs might be more influenced by our brain's instinctive responses than we realize, and much of our moral reasoning could actually be merely justifying these instinctive feelings after the fact. A lifetime of moral reasoning, being in a good moral community, having specific experience (e.g., suffering a major injury) etc., almost certainly helps shape the brain's instinctive response to moral stimulus, but there would also be 1000 temporary factors at play (e.g., is moral reasoner very hungry? were they anxious in the lead up to their moral decision), and there are probably genetic components totally out of our control.

The mechanistic aspect of moral decision making is a real challenge in a conversation like this. Probably, Captain Fritz can't help but feel that morality must follow a strict code laid down by an objective creator, whereas I can't help but feel that morality must be a looser set of rules that aim to balance competing values. If we each got the right transcranial magnetic stimulation, we might come to the opposite conclusion and even justify our new conclusions with moral arguments. I don't think that makes the field of moral inquiry pointless, but in a lot of cases it really might be beside the point.

And what is morality then, if it's largely unchosen (at least moment-to-moment)? If we could transcranially stimulate the whole world into following Jesus' moral code then there would be a lot more love and kindness, but would there be any morality at all?

Ironically, this last paragraph is the very thing I'm trying to get across. Without a moral standard, there is no morality. This is because without a moral standard, morality comes down to what each of us determines is moral, which, as you noted, can be influenced or changed even just through manipulation of the brain. Without a moral standard, "morals" are determined by instinct, subjective want, and past experience. They cease to be moral, and instead become simply what the individual wants to do.

To have morality, there must be an objective ultimate moral standard. Otherwise, as you say, debating morality is pointless.

[CaptainFritz28]

That's fascinating, Esquire Bert. Indeed this whole thread has been fascinating and I am glad to have taken part in this discussion.

On this we can agree.

[Esquire Bertissimmo]

Ah Fritz, I thought we were getting somewhere.

1.) You are picking things from the Bible too. It's literally impossible not to do some amount of pick and choose. You haven't given any of us the secret insight into how your interpretation is somehow not an interpretation.

2.) You missed the point re: the brain entirely. What that suggests is that even your moral absolutism is probably the result of genes and environment, just like the rest of us. That doesn't mean all moral reasoning is subjective or faulty, but it should induce some amount of humility about how we are coming to moral conclusion (which is hard for you when you think you speak for God itself).

[Esquire Bertissimmo]

I encountered some interesting moral dilemmas this holiday season, which these various threads have encouraged me to think about more deeply.

I spent a little too much for a checked bag on a flight to the in laws and felt a little disgusted by the waste. Shouldn't I have given the money to the food bank instead?

Maybe I shouldn't have traveled at all given all the hardship in the world that could have been solved with the price of the airfare (even sans check bag). But I felt some good was done for others by my trip. We stayed with a widowed family member, hung out with a socially awkward uncle who lived alone, and helped treat new-ish immigrant friends to their first Canadian Christmas dinner. These things seem good, but are certainly less good than the bed nets and diarrhea medicine we could have provided instead.

And then today I encountered a homeless woman who had a seizure on the crosswalk of a busy street. Me and several other passers-by lifted her to the curb and I called 911. It felt imperative to ensure she was medically well, but her boyfriend (and later she herself, when she came too) were extremely averse to being seen by the ambulance. Despite mine and others' protests they went on their way before being seen by the EMT. Me and one other guy followed them for a block or two to keep a watchful eye before deciding that, at some point, this was someone else's problem. How forcefully should I have insisted they stay? She said she had to pee when she came to — what if i obliged her to stay for care and she suffered the humiliation of wetting herself? What was their right to refuse treatment? How many blocks should I have followed them, if any? At what point is it really a problem for yet another passerby somewhere down the road if she suffers another episode?

I made each of these decisions without a ton of forethought. Go on the trip, talk to the weird uncle, turn back to check on the siezing person. I have a story about how each action was moral, but I have very low certainty that the decision I took was *the* moral decision.

There's no real point to this story other than to highlight the weirdness and subtlety of real-time moral decision making. I don't have the strong impression that I'd find good answers to my questions in any particular religious or philosophical tradition. I feel grateful to have been raised and/or to be of a temperament to have made choices that seem mostly okay and that I don't regret deeply.

[Crazy Anglican]

1.) You are picking things from the Bible too. It's literally impossible not to do some amount of pick and choose. You haven't given any of us the secret insight into how your interpretation is somehow not an interpretation.

I have been more or less quietly reading along here. One point though, I think is important. This is a claim, what is your evidence to back it up? Do you have evidence that Capt. Fritz is picking and choosing?

For me the entire exercise of reaching a better interpretation of the Bible is the whole point. It's Bible Study; it's a good thing. I start with Jesus's two major commandments. "Love one another as I have loved you." and "Love Thy neighbor as Thyself". That is the lens through which I am viewing the scriptures, but I believe it to be the correct lens. It comes from Jesus Himself.

2.) You missed the point re: the brain entirely. What that suggests is that even your moral absolutism is probably the result of genes and environment, just like the rest of us. That doesn't mean all moral reasoning is subjective or faulty, but it should induce some amount of humility about how we are coming to moral conclusion (which is hard for you when you think you speak for God itself).

I'm finding myself a bit confused as to what your point about the brain was as well? Are you referencing the study about stimulating various centers of the brain and it's effects on the moral choices of the subjects?

[Crazy Anglican]

I encountered some interesting moral dilemmas this holiday season, which these various threads have encouraged me to think about more deeply.

I spent a little too much for a checked bag on a flight to the in laws and felt a little disgusted by the waste. Shouldn't I have given the money to the food bank instead?

Maybe I shouldn't have traveled at all given all the hardship in the world that could have been solved with the price of the airfare (even sans check bag). But I felt some good was done for others by my trip. We stayed with a widowed family member, hung out with a socially awkward uncle who lived alone, and helped treat new-ish immigrant friends to their first Canadian Christmas dinner. These things seem good, but are certainly less good than the bed nets and diarrhea medicine we could have provided instead.

And then today I encountered a homeless woman who had a seizure on the crosswalk of a busy street. Me and several other passers-by lifted her to the curb and I called 911. It felt imperative to ensure she was medically well, but her boyfriend (and later she herself, when she came too) were extremely averse to being seen by the ambulance. Despite mine and others' protests they went on their way before being seen by the EMT. Me and one other guy followed them for a block or two to keep a watchful eye before deciding that, at some point, this was someone else's problem. How forcefully should I have insisted they stay? She said she had to pee when she came to — what if i obliged her to stay for care and she suffered the humiliation of wetting herself? What was their right to refuse treatment? How many blocks should I have followed them, if any? At what point is it really a problem for yet another passerby somewhere down the road if she suffers another episode?

I made each of these decisions without a ton of forethought. Go on the trip, talk to the weird uncle, turn back to check on the siezing person. I have a story about how each action was moral, but I have very low certainty that the decision I took was *the* moral decision.

There's no real point to this story other than to highlight the weirdness and subtlety of real-time moral decision making. I don't have the strong impression that I'd find good answers to my questions in any particular religious or philosophical tradition. I feel grateful to have been raised and/or to be of a temperament to have made choices that seem mostly okay and that I don't regret deeply.

You seem to have been operating in a loving manner. So whether Christian theology was behind your choices (directly or indirectly) or not; you seem to be in line with it. Again "Love one another as I have loved you" and "Love Thy neighbor as Thyself". It's a pretty good rule of thumb.

[Crazy Anglican]

Also on the D&D alignment table you seem to be largely Chaotic Good. So, kudos for that too

[Johnny Big Horse]

I think many of us are in agreement that we need an objective outside moral standard because we each otherwise will come up with our own morality, and then what becomes the difference between Joan of Arc and Adolf Hitler, each following their morality to do what they thought was best, both promoting murder.

The problem that has not been addressed by those in agreeance is that the Bible can and has been interpreted differently throughout the ages and regions of the planet. Are the Rastafarians wrong in understanding that ganja is the tree of life? They are biblical people. Were the crusaders wrong? They based their murder and pillage on the bible. What about the purges of the heretics during the early and middle church periods? How many Christians were murdered by other Christians in order to get all to agree on what the bible is saying?

And then there is the problem that the accepted Bible was written by men around the year 180 AD, when Christ died in around the year 30 AD, and his apostles may have made it to year 90 AD. The earlier versions of the bible, some of which were probably written by eye witnesses, were destroyed by the Church during its purges of people, thoughts, and books.

Yes, we need a common standard that is outside of our own minds. One we can agree on. But the standard used in the Christian world is imperfect. But perhaps the answer should be, yes, it is imperfect, but what has man ever created that was perfect? This is the best we can do, and it is very good.

Christ's message as it is understood today is a great standard.

And then what about the other cultures that have the Koran, the Upanishads, etc. Should we judge then based on our Christian morality?

[Esquire Bertissimmo]

I agree completely with Johny here.

I was responding to CaptainFritz28's general assertion throughout these threads that the Bible has an objective reading that provides perfect morality. My strong belief is that the Bible is ALWAYS interpreted by man, since we have no living God to clarify what parts to take literally, what parts to skip over, how to adjudicate what are clearly contradictions in its moral advice, etc. My other point is that, even with these clarifications, the Bible would provide only a very partial moral guide for many modern practical ethical problems — we clearly need some moral reasoning beyond strict scriptural interpretation to be moral people, so thr Bible cannot be the wellspring of ALL morality (again, these are pushbacks to the fairly extreme claims made by Fritz here and elsewhere).

That my irl moral decision reflected some interpretation of "love" seems somewhat beside the point. The flip side of my stories is that my travel was decadent, my acts of kindness were not directed towards the most in-need, and I left a vulnerable homeless woman with a fairly high chance of falling on the pavement again without medical treatment. I have no way of knowing what Christian "love" really requires of me. Should I have stayed home, picked up extra shifts, and given the money to the poor? Should I have not only made the woman stay for the ambulance, but also taken her and her boyfriend into my home until such time as they were no longer homeless? Moreover, in the moment I did not feel motivated at all by Christian love, but rather by some other moral or social impulse. "Love" seems like an okay direction to aim in, but it's ultimately pretty weak moral guidance and its certainly not the only source of moral guidance (another of Fritz' claims).

[Crazy Anglican]

I think many of us are in agreement that we need an objective outside moral standard because we each otherwise will come up with our own morality, and then what becomes the difference between Joan of Arc and Adolf Hitler, each following their morality to do what they thought was best, both promoting murder.

I'm in agreement here as well. I am not a moral relativist inasmuch as I understand the term.

The problem that has not been addressed by those in agreeance is that the Bible can and has been interpreted differently throughout the ages and regions of the planet. Are the Rastafarians wrong in understanding that ganja is the tree of life? They are biblical people. Were the crusaders wrong? They based their murder and pillage on the bible. What about the purges of the heretics during the early and middle church periods? How many Christians were murdered by other Christians in order to get all to agree on what the bible is saying?

There is a lot going on in this one paragraph:
I'd respond by saying:
1) The Bible serves as a groundwork for the discussions and disagreements among believers. Yes, it is interpreted differently in different times. It might be my own bias here, but I have been of the impression when a literary work of any kind transcends the years and is found to be relevant well beyond it's own original time frame, that's a testament to it's power and continued relevance. I don't see it as a weakness.

2) As far as I understand of the Rasatafarians (which isn't much) I'd say not necessarily, but if they are basing their belief on Holy Scripture; it gives us common ground to discuss the merits of the idea.

3) As to Crusaders, it seems like they were operating more on papal authority than on any particular biblical study.

4) As to purges of heretics, that's a whole debate unto itself. From what I have seen it can be blown out of proportion. For instance, the Arian Controversy resulted in Arias and his followers being exiled (many of the Germanic Tribes ended up being Arian Christians). They were also invited back in after a time. The basis of Islam is Arian in that it denies the whole divinity of Christ. Thus the Arians weren't purged out of existence by any means. Admittedly this is a huge span of time with many different controversies and outcomes. I'm not sure it is within the scope of this thread.

And then there is the problem that the accepted Bible was written by men around the year 180 AD, when Christ died in around the year 30 AD, and his apostles may have made it to year 90 AD. The earlier versions of the bible, some of which were probably written by eye witnesses, were destroyed by the Church during its purges of people, thoughts, and books.

Again the process of canonization can be sensationalized (ala Dan Brown), but from what I have been able to discern it isn't a shadowy affair. For instance the Arian controversy mentioned above was pretty well documented and it wasn't even about establishing canon. In contrast to the idea that books were burned in mass to keep anyone from reading them, there is still a Gospel of Nicodemus. It wasn't hard to decide it wasn't canon since it talks entirely about the trial of Jesus and there is no reason to believe the writer was present at the time. There is nothing scandalous about it, it just isn't canon.

Yes, we need a common standard that is outside of our own minds. One we can agree on. But the standard used in the Christian world is imperfect. But perhaps the answer should be, yes, it is imperfect, but what has man ever created that was perfect? This is the best we can do, and it is very good.

On this point we differ in a predictable way, I believe. You may see an imperfect process of humans deciding what is to be believed and what is to be purged. I don't dispute the fallibility of the people who were involved in the process of canonization. Still though, I see the work of the Holy Spirit in that process resulting in a product that has resulted in some truly ancient texts being relevant and useful in the moral choices of people who live in a world that those fallible men could never have imagined.

Christ's message as it is understood today is a great standard.

Agreed

And then what about the other cultures that have the Koran, the Upanishads, etc. Should we judge then based on our Christian morality?

Being one of those fallible humans myself, I go back to "Judge not lest Ye be judged". I have read and gotten useful instruction from lots of different texts, from "The Odyssey" to "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Repair". I am not a proponent of reading less, only valuing what I know to be valuable.

[Crazy Anglican]

I was responding to CaptainFritz28's general assertion throughout these threads that the Bible has an objective reading that provides perfect morality. My strong belief is that the Bible is ALWAYS interpreted by man, since we have no living God to clarify what parts to take literally, what parts to skip over, how to adjudicate what are clearly contradictions in its moral advice, etc. My other point is that, even with these clarifications, the Bible would provide only a very partial moral guide for many modern practical ethical problems — we clearly need some moral reasoning beyond strict scriptural interpretation to be moral people, so the Bible cannot be the wellspring of ALL morality (again, these are pushbacks to the fairly extreme claims made by Fritz here and elsewhere).

Again, yes. The fact that the Bible is (like any other written work) subject to interpretation is a strength not a weakness. It is a common language through which believers can discuss and decide right actions.

As to it being incomplete in any way (much less a very partial moral guide) I disagree. I have usually found it to be a good solid source of information on a very wide range of dilemmas. Could you be more specific about why you think it is incomplete in this regard? I would add the caveat of the old three legged stool metaphor which is that in decision making Scripture, Prayer, and Fellowship (debate or Church Tradition depending on who you're talking to) should all be considered. That doesn't diminish the importance of Scripture though. The Bible stands up very well as a source of moral instruction especially when you consider how truly ancient parts of it are.

I think we can agree to disagree on the "no living God" claim, right?

That my irl moral decision reflected some interpretation of "love" seems somewhat beside the point. The flip side of my stories is that my travel was decadent, my acts of kindness were not directed towards the most in-need, and I left a vulnerable homeless woman with a fairly high chance of falling on the pavement again without medical treatment. I have no way of knowing what Christian "love" really requires of me. Should I have stayed home, picked up extra shifts, and given the money to the poor? Should I have not only made the woman stay for the ambulance, but also taken her and her boyfriend into my home until such time as they were no longer homeless? Moreover, in the moment I did not feel motivated at all by Christian love, but rather by some other moral or social impulse. "Love" seems like an okay direction to aim in, but it's ultimately pretty weak moral guidance and its certainly not the only source of moral guidance (another of Fritz' claims).

I never think that love toward others is beside the point.

Your travel brought joy to others by traveling to see them.

You looked after the immediate needs of the woman and respected her dignity. Forcing upon her an examination that she expressly denied needing would have been a violation.

That is one of the good things about Christianity. There is always more that we can do, so there is redemption. I mean yeah, my brother did sell everything he owned and donated it to the poor. That's him; that's what he felt called to do. I felt called to raise a family and devote my life to furthering education in my community. They're both acts of love. As a result, I don't think the Bible is in any way deficient as a source of morality.

[Esquire Bertissimmo]

I was responding to CaptainFritz28's general assertion throughout these threads that the Bible has an objective reading that provides perfect morality. My strong belief is that the Bible is ALWAYS interpreted by man, since we have no living God to clarify what parts to take literally, what parts to skip over, how to adjudicate what are clearly contradictions in its moral advice, etc. My other point is that, even with these clarifications, the Bible would provide only a very partial moral guide for many modern practical ethical problems — we clearly need some moral reasoning beyond strict scriptural interpretation to be moral people, so the Bible cannot be the wellspring of ALL morality (again, these are pushbacks to the fairly extreme claims made by Fritz here and elsewhere).

Again, yes. The fact that the Bible is (like any other written work) subject to interpretation is a strength not a weakness. It is a common language through which believers can discuss and decide right actions.

As to it being incomplete in any way (much less a very partial moral guide) I disagree. I have usually found it to be a good solid source of information on a very wide range of dilemmas. Could you be more specific about why you think it is incomplete in this regard? I would add the caveat of the old three legged stool metaphor which is that in decision making Scripture, Prayer, and Fellowship (debate or Church Tradition depending on who you're talking to) should all be considered. That doesn't diminish the importance of Scripture though. The Bible stands up very well as a source of moral instruction especially when you consider how truly ancient parts of it are.

I think we can agree to disagree on the "no living God" claim, right?

That my irl moral decision reflected some interpretation of "love" seems somewhat beside the point. The flip side of my stories is that my travel was decadent, my acts of kindness were not directed towards the most in-need, and I left a vulnerable homeless woman with a fairly high chance of falling on the pavement again without medical treatment. I have no way of knowing what Christian "love" really requires of me. Should I have stayed home, picked up extra shifts, and given the money to the poor? Should I have not only made the woman stay for the ambulance, but also taken her and her boyfriend into my home until such time as they were no longer homeless? Moreover, in the moment I did not feel motivated at all by Christian love, but rather by some other moral or social impulse. "Love" seems like an okay direction to aim in, but it's ultimately pretty weak moral guidance and its certainly not the only source of moral guidance (another of Fritz' claims).

I never think that love toward others is beside the point.

Your travel brought joy to others by traveling to see them.

You looked after the immediate needs of the woman and respected her dignity. Forcing upon her an examination that she expressly denied needing would have been a violation.

That is one of the good things about Christianity. There is always more that we can do, so there is redemption. I mean yeah, my brother did sell everything he owned and donated it to the poor. That's him; that's what he felt called to do. I felt called to raise a family and devote my life to furthering education in my community. They're both acts of love. As a result, I don't think the Bible is in any way deficient as a source of morality.

Thanks CA. Much of this comes in response to CF's views, which I would characterize as more extreme, bordering on Christian chauvinist.

I like your characterization of how the Bible provides moral advice. Whereas CF seems to believe that a more-or-less literalist read of the Bible is all you need, I agree with you that any usable Christian morality will come from a debate among humans about the moral principles contained in the text. This will be a debate which no single participant will be able to claim that their reading is *the* correct reading of the Bible.

The moral guidance of the Bible is clearly incomplete. I suspect we'd agree that the Bible guides us to give charitably, but how much and to which charities requires an awful lot of moral reasoning that won't come straight from the book itself. It still isn't clear to me at all whether the Bible says emancipate slaves, or ensure they submit to their masters. It's likewise unclear whether to resist a totalitarian state, or to give Ceasars his due. That contemporary and historical Christians come to wildly different conclusions on these and other moral questions suggests to me that, even if the Bible has some perfect morality within it, it's functional unknowable for humans. I live in a country where "love your neighbor" was a justification for taking Indigenous children from their parents to be raised (and abused) in boarding schools — that a modern Christian can condemn this easily doesn't negate the fact that well-intentioned Christians reasoning from the same Bible justified an outrageous atrocity.

I agree that you're allowed to think there's a living God, but no one Christian or non-believer will accept the authority of a claim like "God spoke to me and said commandments 3-6 trump commandments 8 and 9 any time they come into conflict", and these are the sorts of clarifications that would be necessary to genuinely apply God's law on earth.

And we may have to disagree about the inherent goodness of the actions in my personal examples. What you're describing sounds an awful lot like moral relativism — do we all just follow whatever loving action we feel "called" to do? I suspect my actions were good, but were certainly not the most good. I remain confused about how the Bible would direct me to the greatest good if, in practice, I'm left to reason about what maximizes "love" in a way that seems similar to how a utilitarian seeks to maximize "human flourishing" or "utility". I'm not saying that either approach is better than the other, I think Christian morality is often an excellent place to start, but I'm responding negatively to CF's claims that Christian morality is perfectly knowable, fully objective, and strictly better than other methods of moral reasoning.