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Is it wrong to obey simply to avoid hell? And if it is wrong, why did God create hell if he did not want us to fear?
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is it wrong
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DogmaHunter
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Obedience to a perceived authority has nothing to do with morality. That's mere obedience.
Morality as it relates to this is to contemplate whatever the "authority" commands you to do and, through your own moral understanding, decide wheter or not the command is a good one or a bad one.
Blindly following whatever a perceived authority demands you to do is pretty much removed as far as it can be from moral contemplation of your actions and decisions.
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If you do what is right then you are righteous. If you don't do what is right then its not righteous. Very simple concept people shoot angles with to justify doing what they feel like doing.
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selfinflikted
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Obedience for the sake of escaping hell is something I would probably do if I believed there were such a place. Is it wrong? Not necessarily. But unquestioning obedience isn't particularly virtuous in my opinion.
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Inkachu
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Jesus had a few words for those who thought they could curry favor with God simply by following all the laws even though their hearts were a whole different story.
Matthew 23:27 "Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of the bones of the dead and everything unclean."
Obedience can be a good thing, but what determines whether it's empty or genuine is your motive. Are you obeying out of love and contrite, repentant spirit? If you're just trying to get a "ticket out of hell", that's not what God wants from you.
God created hell for Satan and his demons. When man decided to sin and rebel, it became the destination for those who reject God. Hell was not created for mankind, but that is where those who reject God will end up.
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Got ya.
That is a place I don't want to go. I want to obey God, but my reason is not always right. I Fear Hell.
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I guess I don't really have morals then. I obey the Bible, or I try to anyways, for fear of punishment. Not because I love the commandments that are in the Bible.
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It is hard. But it is also not right. I am always thinking about life after death. And everything I do is going to affect me in the afterlife. It's hard to enjoy life.
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DogmaHunter
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If you can't realise by yourself how wrong that is, then there's not much I can tell you.
It's sad really. You should be able to realise that not doing X because you fear punishment is not a good moral basis for not doing X.
If X is immoral, you shouldn't be doing X purely on the basis that X is immoral.
Likewise, if Y is moral, you should be doing Y purely on the basis that Y is moral - not just because you might get a reward for doing Y.
In fact, that's the "morality" of psychopaths. Literally.
There's this famous experiment for detecting psychopathy early on in life. It involves a classroom of children and a couple of questions. It goes like this:
Generally, kids aren't allowed to drink in class. One day however, the airconditioning is broken and it's very hot outside. The teacher says to the class that they are allowed to drink during classes.
A third party then asks the children "is it okay to drink in class in this case?"
All children will say "yes, it's okay".
Now, the teacher says that all children are allowed to punch their neighbouring student in the face. A third party asks the children if it is okay to punch their fellow students in the face.
All children will recognize that "no, it's not okay - not even if the teacher says so". EXCEPT for a small group of children: those with tendencies to psychopathy. THEY will say it is okay to punch students if the teacher allows it. This is literally a "morality based on obedience to a perceived authority".
That's exactly what "divine command theory" is all about. You simply obey your perceived authority. If he commands you to rape and murder, then you rape and murder (plenty of evidence of that in the OT btw). If he commands you to give to charity, you give to charity.
You are not making any moral evaluation of the things that you are doing. You are JUST obbeying the perceived authority and ignore any moral implications.
Surely you must see how this is a problem when it comes to moral behaviour...
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While hell is a myth it was created to create pain and misery and destruction... it wasn't created to frighten... it just happens to be that the pain misery and destruction is frightening.
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Morals are your perception of right and wrong based on your values and desires... your desire to not be hurt or killed are inseparable from your morals.
It doesn't mean you don't have morals, your morals are displayed when you run away from pain and torment, that you don't think that's good and that you don't want it are products of your morals.
Give yourself a break... the bible insists that human nature is sinful and depraved and that god's way is higher and that you need to be reborn and empowered by god to live that life and it also describes hell as probably the most horrifying place ever imagined.
No one with a sound mind could blame you for feeling that way. There are reasons you struggle to LOVE the commandments, because they are contrary to your basic human needs or desires and there are reasons why you don't want to go to a place like hell.
That makes you normal, not a failure or a villain.
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I was watching Attack on Titan the other day and the main character made the statement that the military police were cowards who ran from the enemy and refused to do the honorable courageous thing which was go fight the titans.
Annie then made the statement that she wanted people to realize that those people were humans too.
Just because you're afraid of being hurt and punished and that motivates you to obey or concede doesn't make you are void of morals, it's supposed to be challenging to face those things, self sacrifice isn't supposed to be easy, especially if you are new to it.
Annie then made the statement that she wanted people to realize that those people were humans too.
Just because you're afraid of being hurt and punished and that motivates you to obey or concede doesn't make you are void of morals, it's supposed to be challenging to face those things, self sacrifice isn't supposed to be easy, especially if you are new to it.
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Not correct.
Obedience to an external authority is a specific kind of morality. It's a deontological ethic.
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That can be an intial, immature impetus, but with maturity comes identification with the goal of God, and that becomes the impetus.
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