Why do some christians think that morals come from god?

[workmx]

This question has always puzzled me:

Why do some christians think that morals come from god?

 

[dcalling]

This question has always puzzled me:

Why do some christians think that morals come from god?

I remember you are also an engineer like me, so an easier explanation is, when something is programed by you, you set the rules

 

[workmx]

I remember you are also an engineer like me, so an easier explanation is, when something is programed by you, you set the rules

So, it is in our DNA?

What we call morality is a product of evolution?

 

[Targaryen]

So, it is in our DNA?

What we call morality is a product of evolution?

Yes, you could call it that. In borne ideas of right and wrong, you can see that in small case studies with small indigneous tribes as well as modern society.

In fact, the DNA idea reminds me of an idea put forward by Frank herbert in the novel Dune, when referring to a master geneticist race called the Bene Tlailax, who were also closest religious fanatics.

They saw no issue between sciene and their faith, going so far as to call DNA, "The language of God."

Maybe a bit more simplistic in the scheme of total evoultion but it does have a kernal of truth in there.

 

[dcalling]

Yes, you could call it that. In borne ideas of right and wrong, you can see that in small case studies with small indigneous tribes as well as modern society.

In fact, the DNA idea reminds me of an idea put forward by Frank herbert in the novel Dune, when referring to a master geneticist race called the Bene Tlailax, who were also closest religious fanatics.

They saw no issue between sciene and their faith, going so far as to call DNA, "The language of God."

Maybe a bit more simplistic in the scheme of total evoultion but it does have a kernal of truth in there.

LiberalAnglicanCatholic said very well. It is my believe that once the fruit of tree of knowledge is eaten, we got the moral DNA (just my thought, nothing to back it up).

And I don't believe we evolve moral. I believe that our genes are initially perfect, and are gradually degrading. The reason I thought so is Y chromosome are getting shorter, and incest does not produce retards in ancient times (i.e. long time ago when human population was small, we don't have such problems because our genes are prefect).

 

[Angelquill]

Have you looked at the world around you? If morality were natural to us, how is it that there is so much violence in the world? Child abuse, promiscuity, abortion, rape, murder...not to mention wars and rumors of wars, just to touch the tip of the iceberg...
Left to our own devices, we'd all be doing things like taking candy from babies and conning old ladies out of their saving...

 

[workmx]

Have you looked at the world around you? If morality were natural to us, how is it that there is so much violence in the world? Child abuse, promiscuity, abortion, rape, murder...not to mention wars and rumors of wars, just to touch the tip of the iceberg...
Left to our own devices, we'd all be doing things like taking candy from babies and conning old ladies out of their saving...

Actually, if you look at the evidence (in the work of Norbert Elias and Steven Pinker), the world less violent than ever before.

We are a social species and it is in all our interests to be more moral and the work of Franz De Waal tellls us that other social species share the tendencies that lead to morality.

Of course, there are exceptions like sociopaths (who lack empathy - one of those tendencies).

So, you are simply wrong.

Besides a person who thinks that they themselves cannot be trusted to be moral without eternal surirvellence is a not someone that I believe anyone should trust.

So, you may want to take candy from babies and con old ladies out of their saving. But I would not because I am ethically much more evolved.

 

[Targaryen]

Actually, if you look at the evidence (in the work of Norbert Elias and Steven Pinker), the world less violent than ever before.

We are a social species and it is in all our interests to be more moral and the work of Franz De Waal tellls us that other social species share the tendencies that lead to morality.

Of course, there are exceptions like sociopaths (who lack empathy - one of those tendencies).

So, you are simply wrong.

Besides a person who thinks that they themselves cannot be trusted to be moral without eternal surirvellence is a not someone that I believe anyone should trust.

So, you may want to take candy from babies and con old ladies out of their saving. But I would not because I am ethically much more evolved.

I dispute the reasoning Elias and Pinker use only cause our ideas of what constituted crime have changed over the millenia. Not all crime either was recorded or studied in the same way as it is now, so you can't say that society is less violent nowadays when the fact is we really don't know one way or another. Faith based crime is down sure, our changing view of what makes up crime has led to more awareness of those abuses but that only says it's cause we are aware of those crimes now.

 

[workmx]

I dispute the reasoning Elias and Pinker use only cause our ideas of what constituted crime have changed over the millenia. Not all crime either was recorded or studied in the same way as it is now, so you can't say that society is less violent nowadays when the fact is we really don't know one way or another. Faith based crime is down sure, our changing view of what makes up crime has led to more awareness of those abuses but that only says it's cause we are aware of those crimes now.

Am I impressed that you have read The Better Angels of Our Nature and both volumes of The Civilising Process.

I have not met many who have.

Even when I worked in academia not many others in the Sociology department had heard of Elias. Pinker's work had not been published at that time.

I am aware of Epstein's commernts and do not find them to be valid.

Actually faith based crime is the only type that is increasing.

According to the Pew Research Center, a third (33%) of the 198 countries and territories included in the study had high religious hostilities in 2012, up from 29% in 2011 and 20% as of mid-2007. Notably, religious hostilities increased in every major region of the world except the Americas, with the most dramatic increases felt in areas still reeling from the effects of the 2010-11 political uprisings known as the Arab Spring.

http://www.pewforum.org/2014/01/14/religious-hostilities-reach-six-year-high/

It seems the hypothesis often cited by Hitchens was correct:

...for good people to do evil things, that takes religion

 

[workmx]

It is quite clear that religion is central part of the equation when discussing violence. and crime

Rather than being a source of morality, the evidence seems to show that most criminals are theists - very few are atheists (both as a proportion of the prison poulation and relative to the population wide percentage of atheists).

 

[Targaryen]

Am I impressed that you have read The Better Angels of Our Nature and both volumes of The Civilising Process.

I have not met many who have.

Even when I worked in academia not many others in the Sociology department had heard of Elias. Pinker's work had not been published at that time.

I am aware of Epstein's commernts and do not find them to be valid.

Actually faith based crime is the only type that is increasing.

I try to keep on top of things so I can approach questions based on fact and knowledge rather reacting like the typical fundamentalist

Religious Hostilities Reach Six-Year High | Pew Research Center's Religion & Public Life Project

It seems the hypothesis often cited by Hitchens was correct:

Hitchens is also what I'd call a fundamental atheist who brushes all people of faith with the same brush. Which is just as faulty as others that deny scientific realities, social change, and other factors that have led into modren understanding.

And yes, that pewforum article is distressing, but the major rises is in Africa and the Middle East. sadly, those cultures are for more pressured or taught a rather fundamentalist view of thier faith more so then in other countries, not that it doesn't exist in North America either (Westboro is a good example of that).

Context and social climate can't be discounted in the judging of those facts. Which means either atheist or not, changing those statistics to lower and lower numbers should be the goal. And unlike Hitchens, I don't believe it requires casting of what he would describe as myth either to do so, but to educate and let other be critical in what they read and what they profess.

 

[aiki]

Why do some christians think that morals come from god?

This question has always puzzled me:

Why do some christians think that morals come from god?

Because the amoral natural processes of evolution have no mechanism by which to supply us with morals. God, then, makes the most sense as the origin of the objective moral values and duties we all possess. A Moral Law requires a Moral Law Giver.

Selah.

 

[workmx]

I try to keep on top of things so I can approach questions based on fact and knowledge rather reacting like the typical fundamentalist

Good to hear. Are you an atypical fudamentalist?

I am atypical myself. But not a fundamentalist (see below).

Hitchens is also what I'd call a fundamental atheist who brushes all people of faith with the same brush. Which is just as faulty as others that deny scientific realities, social change, and other factors that have led into modren understanding.

And yes, that pewforum article is distressing, but the major rises is in Africa and the Middle East. sadly, those cultures are for more pressured or taught a rather fundamentalist view of thier faith more so then in other countries, not that it doesn't exist in North America either (Westboro is a good example of that).

Context and social climate can't be discounted in the judging of those facts. Which means either atheist or not, changing those statistics to lower and lower numbers should be the goal. And unlike Hitchens, I don't believe it requires casting of what he would describe as myth either to do so, but to educate and let other be critical in what they read and what they profess.

Do you mean that Hitchens was a fundamentalist atheist?

A fundamentalist is someone who adheres to orthodox theological
doctrines.

This confuses me for a number of reasons because atheism is not:
1. a theology (it is simply disbelief in the claim that gods exist); or
2. a doctrine (it is the rejection of a doctrine).

Nor can it be progressive or othodox: it is a simple binary position on belief in gods.

IMO, I see him as an anti-theist.

 

[Targaryen]

Good to hear. Are you an atypical fudamentalist?

I am atypical myself. But not a fundamentalist (see below).

I don't classify myself as a fundamentalist. To me, that wording in modren thinking brings up images of Al-Qaida, and the bombings of abortion clincs and Westboro protests of soldier's funerals.

I'm a liberal orthodox if I had to qualify myself, which could lead to a huge sidetrack of the thread lol.

Do you mean that Hitchens was a fundamentalist atheist?

A fundamentalist is someone who adheres to orthodox theological
doctrines.

This confuses me for a number of reasons because atheism is not:
1. a theology (it is simply disbelief in the claim that gods exist); or
2. a doctrine (it is the rejection of a doctrine).

Nor can it be progressive or othodox: it is a simple binary position on belief in gods.

IMO, I see him as an anti-theist.

Using my position I stated earlier I would call him a fundamentalist in an atheistic sense. He is not interested in positions in faith that are more accepting of not only scientific and social understandings but a reevaluation of their own faith and reimagining of those prinicples in that faith using those criteria. He would rather outright reject the whole "myth" and base things solely based on modern understanding, which sounds great but could prove just as faulty say 100 years from now, as did Darwin's early work on evolution.

Theology, IMO cannot be a static thing. It has to move with the times as much as any other science. Doctrine while shaping faith has to be flexible enough to support new arguments and accept them. That's where we fail a lot as Christians IMO but that's only my opinion.

 

[workmx]

Using my position I stated earlier I would call him a fundamentalist in an atheistic sense. He is not interested in positions in faith that are more accepting of not only scientific and social understandings but a reevaluation of their own faith and reimagining of those prinicples in that faith using those criteria. He would rather outright reject the whole "myth" and base things solely based on modern understanding, which sounds great but could prove just as faulty say 100 years from now, as did Darwin's early work on evolution.

Theology, IMO cannot be a static thing. It has to move with the times as much as any other science. Doctrine while shaping faith has to be flexible enough to support new arguments and accept them. That's where we fail a lot as Christians IMO but that's only my opinion.

Only problem is atheism is neither a theology nor a doctrine nor othodox.

As I said it is just the disbelief in the claim that gods exist.

Technically most atheists are agnostic too (lacking in knowledge of the existence of gods).

An anti-theist (one who claims that no gods exist) can be fundamentalist, I guess.

But trying to smear atheism by associating it with the negative aspects of fundamentalist religion is simply not possible on careful examination.

 

[Targaryen]

Only problem is atheism is neither a theology nor a doctrine nor othodox.

As I said it is just the disbelief in the claim that gods exist.

Technically most atheists are agnostic too (lacking in knowledge of the existence of gods).

An anti-theist (one who claims that no gods exist) can be fundamentalist, I guess.

But trying to smear atheism by associating it with the negative aspects of fundamentalist religion is simply not possible on careful examination.

How? Faith-based Fundamentalists reject anything but their own interpretation of metaphysical and natural realities. Non-faith based fundamentalists reject anything of the metaphysical.

And both share a strong need to evangelize their positions for lack of a better word. both are rather hostile to other interpretations of events and both close the door to serious study of the opposing position.

Hitchens and Dawkins are no doubt intelligent and rather engaging individuals but you have to admit, when it comes to dealing with matters of a slightly opposing position then theirs, they tend to get aggressive and rather cynical.

 

[workmx]

How? Faith-based Fundamentalists reject anything but their own interpretation of metaphysical and natural realities. Non-faith based fundamentalists reject anything of the metaphysical.

And both share a strong need to evangelize their positions for lack of a better word. both are rather hostile to other interpretations of events and both close the door to serious study of the opposing position.

Hitchens and Dawkins are no doubt intelligent and rather engaging individuals but you have to admit, when it comes to dealing with matters of a slightly opposing position then theirs, they tend to get aggressive and rather cynical.

As I said, only the religious can be fundemenatlist.

If stheists get angry with the religious, it might be that they are frustrated by what they consider to be irrationality.

 

[ebia]

It is quite clear that religion is central part of the equation when discussing violence. and crime Rather than being a source of morality, the evidence seems to show that most criminals are theists - very few are atheists (both as a proportion of the prison poulation and relative to the population wide percentage of atheists).

As any critical thinker knows well, correlation is not causation.

 

[ebia]

A fundamentalist is someone who adheres to orthodox theological doctrines.

That's not what the word means in normal contemporary discourse.

 

[Angelquill]

Sure...loads of criminals "find Jesus" in jail.
It helps when they go for parole...