is it wrong

[RDKirk]

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.

That's the erroneous approach taken by the one-talent steward. He so feared the penalty for doing the wrong thing that he missed doing the right thing.

When I was a heavy cyclist, I learned that when you're approaching an obstacle in the road, you don't focus on the obstacle, you focus on the path around it.

Focus on the mission, what God wants you to do today for the sake of that mission. If you're taking a step every day toward heaven you won't have to worry about hell.

 

[DogmaHunter]

Not correct.

Obedience to an external authority is a specific kind of morality. It's a deontological ethic.

I simply can't agree to that.

Obedience is just obedience and has no moral implication one way or the other as far as I am concerned. It's just following orders like a robot without contemplating the moral implications.

In fact, it's quite easy to imagine a situation where someone does X out of obedience, while considering X to be an immoral act. All the while the authority that is giving the commandment, considers X to be a moral act.

What's the difference in moral implication for me if I give to charity when I'm ordered to on the one hand, and rape when I'm ordered to on the other hand?

I, as the executioner of the act, am not thinking about the moral implication of my actions. I'm just following orders - or what I perceive to be orders.

 

[RDKirk]

I simply can't agree to that.

Obedience is just obedience and has no moral implication one way or the other as far as I am concerned. It's just following orders like a robot without contemplating the moral implications.

<shrug>

Look it up. It's a thoroughly discussed philosophical proposition, and you haven't said anything that hasn't been said and answered before. It was an old philosophical discussion even in the first century, and Paul makes note of it in his first letter to the Corinthians.

 

[Hikarifuru]

RDKirk,

While a person's moral system may be based on the rule that obeying the authority figure or avoiding punishment is what determines good or bad... it has some seemingly apparant short comings. It's no different that making a rock or a book a dog your authority figure and obeying it.

What is the point of morality if morality doesn't involve actually considering the moral content of the action and only considers the instruction of the authority figure? Morality is subjective but this doesn't seem like morality to me.

It's like someone saying "my moral system is based on the rule that acting like a frog is right" if they believe that then you can't claim that it isn't a moral system, no matter how silly it seems.

 

[RDKirk]

RDKirk,

While a person's moral system may be based on the rule that obeying the authority figure or avoiding punishment is what determines good or bad... it has some seemingly apparant short comings. It's no different that making a rock or a book a dog your authority figure and obeying it.

What is the point of morality if morality doesn't involve actually considering the moral content of the action and only considers the instruction of the authority figure? Morality is subjective but this doesn't seem like morality to me.

It's like someone saying "my moral system is based on the rule that acting like a frog is right" if they believe that then you can't claim that it isn't a moral system, no matter how silly it seems.

All ethical systems have strengths and problems, which is why they are all ongoing philosophical debates rather than having been settled 2350 years ago.

Most people don't even have a thought-out ethical system. Most people don't even have an ethical goal--no specific idea of what "good end" they intend to move toward. They just mozy along through life making choices that seem right at the time with no thought of whether that particular action is moving them toward an "good end" or what that "good end" might be.

Those who have thought out their ethics and attempt to apply them consistently understand the problems of their particular systems and attempt to mitigate the problems whenever possible.

So what is your "good end?" At the close of the game, how will you rack and stack your points to decide if you have finished a "well-lived life," or as Paul put it, "finished the race?"

 

[DogmaHunter]

<shrug>

Look it up. It's a thoroughly discussed philosophical proposition, and you haven't said anything that hasn't been said and answered before. It was an old philosophical discussion even in the first century, and Paul makes note of it in his first letter to the Corinthians.

I'm well aware of "divine command theory" and the nonsense apologetics that "philosophers" like William Lame Craig throw around.

The fact of the matter is that this is not an ethical system for the one who's following the commandments. He just follows what he perceives to be orders.

To quote Sam Harris, the ONLY argument a proponent of this "theory" can make to argue why the islamic suicide bomber is immoral, is that they are following "the wrong god". If they had "the right god", then what they are doing would be righteous and even a moral duty.

Again, this is not a moral/ethical system. This is just blindly following orders. Befehl is befehl.

 

[Hikarifuru]

RDKirk

So what is your "good end?" At the close of the game, how will you rack and stack your points to decide if you have finished a "well-lived life," or as Paul put it, "finished the race?"

I think it will be determined by how much I feel that I have done good things or not so good things. How I feel at the time. I don't believe there is any other way to do it. If people try to apply rules the end result is still determing whether they feel they have done enough or not enough good. The rule just serves to justify that feeling.

 

[Rusha]

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?

IMO, there is nothing virtuous about obedience IF it's for the sole purpose of avoiding something unpleasant or frightening.