mepalmer3 said:
Added: Ok... editing and adding in some sources. I hope this helps.
God, as defined within Christianity is also the true source of love & goodness. And evil is a lack of love or goodness. Sin is an evil act, or an act void of complete goodness.
Added: Certainly we all have different definitions of christianity. As far as the logical view of good and evil being a lack of good, this idea was first put forth by St. Augustine (as far as I know -- and I'm afraid I don't know the book). See the wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Privatio_boni
Also, for some good reading, see CS Lewis's "Mere Christianity" and "Surprised by Joy". The surprised by joy book has a lot of good short essays/snippets of stuff he said/wrote of topics such as hell, good/evil, etc... Scripturally, um, looking on http://www.biblegateway.com and searching for the word LOVE will show a great number of verses saying how loving God is. Psalms 57:10 for instance, "For great is your love, reaching to the heavens." Other verses that can be looked up: John 15:10,12 and certainly 1 Corinthians 13 has a lot to say about love.
Obviously stated numerous times by christians is that the Bible tells us generally what a sin is and isn't. For the non-christian, and even for some christians, this doesn't seem to cut it. For whatever reason, there seems to be a feeling that we simply
can't know any truth the bible might be saying... as if literary criticism is an illusion, as if thousands of years of theological study on these matters are pure fluff and should be disregarded as pure guesswork. There are numerous theological books that can help the average reader understand the bible and it's theological doctrines better. I think there's a false dilemma that the bible is so strange, vague, or obscure that we simply can't learn anything from it. The fact that people claim different things and use biblical quotes doesn't lead us to believe that there isn't in fact some sort of truth in there. People get graded in english classes all through school on how they interpret stories. As we all remember, there were different grades given out. If there could be any interpretation, and any one was as good as another, then there would be no real reason for studying it. But as the english teachers point out, there really is a right way to interpret literature. But just because some bloke came up with a completely different conclusion means that he is somehow right -- on the contrary, he most likely would have flunked the test.
Added: The only part I reference any scripture here is where I say christians say the bible tells us generally what a sin is and isn't. Exodus 32:30 for example says, "The next day Moses said to the people, 'You have commited a great sin. But now I will go up to the Lord, perhaps I can make an atonement for your sin.'" This was when God gave his people the 10 commandments, which were laws. To break God's law was a sin.
Well, for one thing, I could point out that there's
isn't one right way to interpret a text. There are wrong ways, but no one right way. That's not to say that people like the New Critics didn't claim that their way was the only right way, but there are many schools of criticism and no one school has shown that its method is correct and all others are incorrect.
Furthermore, even within a single school of criticism, the absolute is the
method of analysis, not the
content. Within the deconstructionist school of criticism (Jacques Derrida), for example, the critic searches for binary oppositions (black/white, good/evil, god/devil, presence/absence, and so on) and examines their interactions and how they relate to Western metaphysics. But what binary oppositions will the critic find, and which ones will he feel are most important in the text? That's up to the critic.
In other words, there are things
not to do in studying the Bible, and there are general guidelines to follow (for example, theological study is usually an exegetical analysis, an attempt to determine what the author intended to convey), but there is no one interpretation that is correct by definition. Obviously the author did intend to make specific statements, but the content of those statements is left open to interpretation.
But more importantly, it doesn't matter whether the Bible can be considered an unambiguous guide to sin. To accept that definition of sin, one must believe that the Bible is the Word of God, which many don't. It remains an opinion, not an objective fact.
mepalmer3 said:
You're arguing for relative morality here, that morality is purely a subjective statement. Murder is wrong is akin to I like grapejuice. But then you go on to state that people should no claim moral axioms, such as murder is a sin.
I did not say any of that. The statement that murder is a sin is not a moral axiom, it's a theological axiom. I did not say that one should not make moral judgements, I said that one should not make judgements of sin -- that is, claiming that a certain behavior is wrong regardless of any rational argument, simply because it's "sinful," or disobedient to God.
Of course we can place different values on different behaviors -- murder is almost universally recognized as a bad thing, for example, because there are good reasons to consider it so. If the only reason to call murder wrong was that it's a "sin," then it becomes a personal choice whether or not to engage in it. Do you believe that God doesn't want people to murder? Then in your personal moral universe, murder is wrong and you should not do it. Do you believe that God doesn't care or wants people to murder others? Then your personal moral universe doesn't preclude murder. As long as the only criteria for determining the "rightness" of a behavior are God's private desires, one cannot argue objectively that it is either right or wrong without objectively proving their religion true, which nobody has ever done.
In actuality, though, murder causes serious social problems, so there is a reason external to anyone's personal moral code to consider murder socially immoral.
mepalmer3 said:
But how is your claim, itself, not an absolute moral statement? You're saying in effect that people should not push their personal opinions on others. And inherent to your statement is the fact that this is your personal opinion.
I'm not exactly saying that people should not push their personal opinions on others. I'm saying that people cannot expect or force others to act according to their personal opinions when they have no objective argument in their favor. Obviously, anything you believe is a personal opinion, and everything you do is based on what you believe. This is an inevitable situation for any thinking being, IMO.
And if you feel that your personal opinions would be good ideas for society (for example, you may personally feel that homosexuality is wrong, and also believe that it would be a good idea for society to reject homosexuality), there's nothing wrong with that. However, if you expect society to obey your rules, it is unreasonable not to show objective, secular evidence of a clear need for them (that is, to claim that your rules are valid simply because anything else is "sinful" or otherwise wrong in a personal way). That is my point.
mepalmer3 said:
The idea of purely secular objective moral laws though is somewhat arbitrary. I think we already agree that if Bob makes up moral laws, then nobody else really ought to be required to follow them. This seems to be your main complaint. But clearly, with secular objective laws, some man is making up moral laws and telling others to follow them. The idea that something is really wrong is merely illusional. Without some external source of the moral law, and with it being made up by a person, there's no reason to think that we ought to really obey that law.
But that's exactly my point -- if Bob is making up moral laws and telling us to follow them, then he needs to show a "reason to think we ought to really obey that law." Furthermore, the assumption of an unproved external source of the morality is clearly a private opinion and is not a reason for anyone to think they should obey the law unless the already agree with the religion of the person making up the laws. That's not religious freedom, so wouldn't you agree that an "external source" (that is, a non-human, transcendental moral objective) is not a good argument that society should accept a moral rule? If you do not, then how do you think we can protect religious freedom?
But since every moral rule is somebody's personal opinion, and everybody's personal opinions contradict, we have to choose which moral rules should be applied to society and which ones shouldn't. The only reasonable way to do this, IMO, is to examine secular, objective arguments for or against them. What other way is there that does not deny one or more of the fundamental freedoms in the Bill of Rights?
mepalmer3 said:
That we ought to tolerate others is a product of a Godly objective moral law. But the idea that we ought to tolerate others according to Bob is just some private fancy of Bobs and no more meaningful than whether or not Bob likes grape juice.
Added: The idea that tolerance itself is an objective moral law that is Godly is also supported biblically and by christians. In recent times, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr preached a message of tolerance, peace, and equality. Here's a page with some references to bible verses on tolerance: http://www.ctruth.com/home/beliefs/tolerance.html Also, Norman Geisler, a modern apologist, makes the statement about the fact that objective morality allows for a real objective moral claim that tolerance is something we ought to do. Relative morality claims that any notion of tolerance is a person's opinion. You can read more in "I don't have enough faith to be an atheist."
As I've said before, "relative" does not mean "equal". That is, morality is relative to the social forces it coexists with, but we can still value some behaviors as better than others based on their consequences to society. Tolerance, for example, has some strong arguments in its favor. For more details, read posts #12 and #17
here, where I make my objective arguments in favor of tolerance.
But really, my argument is simple, and has very little to do with moral relativism, though I am a moral relativist in many ways:
Bob says, "I've got a moral rule, and it's really awesome, so you have to follow it."
I say, "Why? What's awesome about it?"
Now, if Bob replies with, "Well, it's awesome because I believe...", then I must respond, "Yes, I know
your beliefs tell you it's awesome, but that's still no reason for
me to think it's awesome, is it?" But if Bob responds with good objective arguments above and beyond his own beliefs, then he may have a case, and his rule may be a good law.
I am simply saying that one's personal, private beliefs are not a good argument in favor of applying a rule to an entire society.
