yay plato

kidsagainstkows · Jul 5, 2010

so i recently read a bit of Plato's Republic and i came upon a really good question.

this is a question that was proposed nearly 2500 years ago.

Are things moral because the Gods say they are, or are things objectively moral and the Gods just point them out?

the conclusion is if things are moral only because the Gods claim, then what if the Gods say something that most people think is immoral such as slavery (Exodus 21: 20-21) or child rape (Numbers 31 17-18).

if however the morals are objective and the Gods just inform us, then why the Gods? couldn't we just figure it out by ourselves?

drich0150 · Jul 5, 2010

Are things moral because the Gods say they are, or are things objectively moral and the Gods just point them out?

I would suggest neither. Because what we know of Morality is completely subjective to the constraints our societies and cultures allow. For example the things we allow in the west can and are often found to be "immoral" in the East. That is why "Morality" as we understand it is nothing more than a sense of our own version of personal righteousness. This Personal or self righteousness is often times tied to one's own idea's of right and wrong. These ideas may or may not have anything to do with God's Expressed will or Righteousness.

the conclusion is if things are moral only because the Gods claim, then what if the Gods say something that most people think is immoral such as slavery (Exodus 21: 20-21) or child rape (Numbers 31 17-18).

Again God is not "Moral" as you understand the word to mean. That is why He can slide in and out of your/our personal/self righteousness and still remain Holy.
How can God do this and still remain Holy? Because God is Righteous. True Righteousness has little to nothing to do with our independent versions of righteousness, and subsequently is free from our versions of "morality."

Granted often times people in the west and in other parts of the world attribute their morality to God's law or God's expressed will. Even with a foundation built on God's expressed will, our knowledge of morality is still subject to our own personal brand of righteousness. In those who align their own personal righteousness with the Expressed will of God will still find them selfs filtering God's righteousness through their own, hence a judgment or ill feeling on a subject like slavery.. It isn't until we stop seeking "Morality" and Start seeking True Or God's righteousness will we ever be free from trying to justify God's Righteous actions, with our own Morality.

if however the morals are objective and the Gods just inform us, then why the Gods? couldn't we just figure it out by ourselves?

Because Socrates Morals just like your own are built on an ever changing popular standards.

BTW,
(Numbers 31 17-18) Has nothing to do with Child rape. Not killing Virgins and taking them doesn't mean they had sex with them right away. The Men Who took them were still bound by the Mosaic Law, and would have to govern their actions accordingly. Which in this case means marriage, or if the girl was a Child, then The Man would have to wait till she was of Age, and then He would have to marry her.

This is a perfect example of what i was trying to explain earlier. You assumed that because the scripture said Take Her, that Any Virgin, HAD to be a Child, because your society says it is wrong for anyone to have sex under a certain age, and For You the age places that person squarely in their childhood.

When in fact the "Morality" (if you prefer) of these men were Governed By God's righteousness, and not Modern Anglo America.

drich0150 · Jul 5, 2010

If I May,

YAY God!

ebia · Jul 5, 2010

kidsagainstkows said:
so i recently read a bit of Plato's Republic and i came upon a really good question.

this is a question that was proposed nearly 2500 years ago.

Are things moral because the Gods say they are, or are things objectively moral and the Gods just point them out?

the conclusion is if things are moral only because the Gods claim, then what if the Gods say something that most people think is immoral such as slavery (Exodus 21: 20-21) or child rape (Numbers 31 17-18).

/quote]
Morality is that behaviour that is in-tune with God's loving purpose for his creation.

if however the morals are objective and the Gods just inform us, then why the Gods? couldn't we just figure it out by ourselves?[

Click to expand...

Apparently not.

razeontherock · Jul 5, 2010

kidsagainstkows said:
child rape (Numbers 31 17-18).

Hogwash. That does NOT describe "child rape," nor does it condone it. Where did you get such an idea?

kidsagainstkows · Jul 6, 2010

thanks for the replies all

drich: firstly we do not "know" that morals are completely subjective. certainly could be some objective list of correct and incorrect actions for any given situation. but i actually happen to agree with you on this point, just have a knee jerk reaction to the word "know"

could i also suggest reading a lecture called "testing out ones sword" although for the life of me i cant remember who wrote it. the lecture, from what i remember anyway, posits that in olden times new samari would test their sword by going out of the city and murdering the first person they see. since this is a part of their culture, can we as modern civilized people say that they were immoral in doing that action. the conclusion (which i agree with) is that we can call that action immoral because i know that unjustified murder is wrong.

similarly i could say that forcing marriage upon a twelve year old (age of adulthood for a Jewish woman) and then sodomizing her is a completely immoral and heinous action.

Ebia:as far as im concerned we have made great moral strides in the past 2500 years. that is unless you think slavery, the stoning of rebellious teens, segregation, witch burnings, all manor of torture, and countless other clearly destructive things are moral. so not to be a jerk but apparently we can

raze: have you read the passage? perhaps you could clear up what this really means instead of saying useless nonsense like "hogwash". also if you wish to address the question i (Plato) posited then i gladly welcome it

And Moses said unto them, Have ye saved all the women alive? ... Now therefore kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known man by lying with him. But all the women children, that have not known a man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves.--Num.31:15-19

razeontherock · Jul 6, 2010

I can be incredibly verbose, I can also be very concise. You say you don't like me being concise, but I bet you like me less when I'm verbose. (LOL)

Look into the Hebrew words used for what somebody told you means "child rape." That ain't it.

"Are things moral because the Gods say they are, or are things objectively moral and the Gods just point them out?"

False dichotomy. Revise the statement to reflect the Truth that there is one G-d, and the answer is both are correct. G-d would not point out what is good unless it really was, in fact good. And you're not going to find G-d pointing out slavery is good.

Catherineanne · Jul 6, 2010

kidsagainstkows said:
so i recently read a bit of Plato's Republic and i came upon a really good question.

this is a question that was proposed nearly 2500 years ago.

Are things moral because the Gods say they are, or are things objectively moral and the Gods just point them out?

the conclusion is if things are moral only because the Gods claim, then what if the Gods say something that most people think is immoral such as slavery (Exodus 21: 20-21) or child rape (Numbers 31 17-18).

if however the morals are objective and the Gods just inform us, then why the Gods? couldn't we just figure it out by ourselves?

The pagan concept of gods is very different from ours. To start with, they had lots of gods, who all had powers which were sovereign over mankind. The only way a person could escape the wrath of one god was by getting another one with more power to fight against that god. It is the world of the playground bully, and of gangs fighting one another. It is, in a sense, the world of the mafiosi.

However, just as with the mafia, the pagan gods are not omnipotent. They each are under the sovereignty of other forces; the fates, time, fortune. Depending on the whims of these other forces, things can either go the way the gods plan, or not.

In such a context, morality is a difficult thing for Plato to consider, because the pagan gods are NOT particularly moral, but instead are very human in their desires and their behaviours. They fall in love with people, and they come from Olympus and attempt to seduce. If that fails, they rape instead. If both fail, then they punish their love object without mercy. These are not the kind of gods to define morality for us.

Therefore, to Plato, Morality must exist over and above the gods, and must be capable of being defined separately from them. The only alternative is to accept a bendy kind of morality, which sways with the wind, or more accurately with the animal passions the gods display.

So then we come to the Judeo Christian God. This is not a God who is ruled by his passions as we are. He is a God of love, but that love is not the love which Zeus demonstrates. In Christian terms, God is the source of all morality, because he is incapable of acting immorally. Therefore, we are safe in using him as the benchmark for our behaviour, and saying that morality is invested in him, and is found only in him. When we attempt to behave in accordance with moral principles, we are seeking to emulate the Deity, or alternatively, we are allowing the Divine within us his due sovereignty.

Human ideas of morality change, as you rightly say. What one generation accepts, the next will reject out of hand. What we ought to realise is that as we change our morality we do not leave God behind, in some kind of state of impotent wrath towards our sinfulness. Rather we move closer to his actuality; the actual love, mercy and acceptance that Christ demonstrated, and that our society inches towards, bit by painful bit.

kidsagainstkows · Jul 6, 2010

im not reading the hebrew bible but what i cut and pasted is kjv so its a pretty literal interpretation (as opposed to looser ones such as niv and *shudder* the message).

so go take the young virgins for yourselves to me sounds like rape, and more importantly, it doesnt do anything for the posited question.

and yes i want you consice so i dont have to read the post a hundred times to get the point.

allow me to present a true dichotomy. morals are either objective, or they are not. if they are not objective, then assuming the Gods exist, they would inform us of what the correct action would be in a given situation. if they are objective, then what use are the Gods?

Catherineanne · Jul 6, 2010

drich0150 said:
Again God is not "Moral" as you understand the word to mean. That is why He can slide in and out of your/our personal/self righteousness and still remain Holy.
How can God do this and still remain Holy? Because God is Righteous. True Righteousness has little to nothing to do with our independent versions of righteousness, and subsequently is free from our versions of "morality."

Speak for yourself. Your God may not be moral, but mine certainly is. The difference is, I suspect, in who defines what is moral. It is unsafe to rely for that definition on the moral values of people writing 2,000 years or more ago, of moral decisions made long before that time, to a different culture with different values. The Bible is useful for teaching, it says. It also says that if we are not careful it will lead us astray.

St Anselm said, 'God is that, greater than which we cannot conceive.' Therefore, God's morality must always be superior to mine, and yours, and indeed the sum total of every other person's morality. If ten million people say slavery is moral, even if Scripture says the same, and only one person speaks out against it, and says it blasphemes the status of man made in God's image, that person necessarily speaks for God.

None of us can outdo God in love, mercy and compassion, leaving God behind with the reactionaries, muttering into his beard that things aren't what they used to be. God is always in the vanguard of increasing moral awareness, and prompting our hearts to change.

ebia · Jul 6, 2010

kidsagainstkows said:
Ebia:as far as im concerned we have made great moral strides in the past 2500 years. that is unless you think slavery, the stoning of rebellious teens, segregation, witch burnings, all manor of torture, and countless other clearly destructive things are moral. so not to be a jerk but apparently we can

Are we talking about practice or theory? On either score you've got massive problems with your thesis, but I need to know which I'm addressing.

kidsagainstkows · Jul 6, 2010

"This is not a God who is ruled by his passions as we are."

God certainly seems passionate especially in the OT, usually when people act disapprovingly he takes the kill everyone approach.

i think that our main disagreement will be over that you think god is a good benchmark, because as you can see from my first post, god condones certain things that i would not call moral, in fact the two that i highlighted are probably the worst things that one person can do to another.

oh and just so you know you have to address me and not the other christians in this post i think theres another forum for that which i am not allowed on. these guys can be pretty serious with their modhats (maybe thats just for me) but wanted to throw out the heads up

ebia: i think we have made great strides in both but to make things simple ill just say practice

Catherineanne · Jul 6, 2010

kidsagainstkows said:
"This is not a God who is ruled by his passions as we are."

God certainly seems passionate especially in the OT, usually when people act disapprovingly he takes the kill everyone approach.

i think that our main disagreement will be over that you think god is a good benchmark, because as you can see from my first post, god condones certain things that i would not call moral, in fact the two that i highlighted are probably the worst things that one person can do to another.

Just because someone says, 'God told me to kill them all!' does not mean God actually said anything of the kind. This is projection; giving the responsibility to God in order not to feel guilt. People do not change; they did this 2,000 years ago, and they are still doing it.

Understand that, and you understand much that is otherwise incomprehensible in Scripture. Fail to understand that, and you risk ending up with a Psychopathic God. God is certainly passionate, but he is not a psychopath.

kidsagainstkows · Jul 6, 2010

i was thinking sodom and gehmorah and the flood when i wrote that. god is directly responsible in both cases

Catherineanne · Jul 6, 2010

kidsagainstkows said:
i was thinking sodom and gehmorah and the flood when i wrote that. god is directly responsible in both cases

According to whom?

Consider asking yourself, if that same person wrote about the Tsunami of a few years ago, would they have concluded the same thing?

Chances are, they would. And they would have been just as mistaken.

And consider also what we now understand as survivor guilt, and also the effects of witnessing hugely traumatic events.

Lots of people died, in the most terrible circumstances. Why did they die? Why did I not die? Why did they deserve such a terrible end? Where was God? How am I to find meaning in what is essentially meaningless?

The Bible presents one perspective in relation to such events. We can, I think, understand another.

ebia · Jul 6, 2010

kidsagainstkows said:
Well then we still have slavery in the world - we've just farmed it out to other countries. We are in a position to feed the world, but we don't. We are easily in a position to make sure everyone in the world has easy access to safe drinking water - but we don't. The last 100 years has seen war and genocide on a previously unimaginable scale and we have turned cities into infernos that Dante could never have dreamed up. And we are continuing to burn fossil fuels with abandon while knowing that our doing so is destroying the planet.

Doesn't sound crash hot on the progress front to me.

kidsagainstkows · Jul 6, 2010

wait what?

are you saying that those events are not directly caused by God?

in that case there must be some scientific way to instantly turn a person into a pillar of salt, and Moses must have been lying about all those conversations with god.

since the other posters cant respond to you directly, do you view events such as sodom and the flood as just another natural disaster and not the direct cause of god as is specifically stated in the bible?

or are you saying that at least some of the bible is not true, if this is the case how do you filter what is truth from falsehood.

ebia: im not saying that we dont have work to do, just not as much work as we did 2000 years ago. everyone in civilized society thinks that slavery is wrong. slavery happens in spite of this but not because of this. and im not sure you grasp how bad the crusades were. christians came just as close to wiping muslims of the map as the nazis came to jews. and the big news, we stopped that in six years, the crusades lasted about 400 years. first world countries do feed most of the world. i dont know about Australia but the US grain industry feeds something like 60% by itself.

Catherineanne · Jul 6, 2010

kidsagainstkows said:
or are you saying that at least some of the bible is not true, if this is the case how do you filter what is truth from falsehood.

Yes, some of the Bible is not true, as we understand the term. Which does not mean that it does not contain truth, but it is a different kind of truth.

How do I filter truth from falsehood? I don't have to. Spiritual truth is what I am looking for, and spiritual truth is what I find. The rest does not bother me, because I don't try to make the Bible what it is not.

There is no point using a dictionary as a cookery book and then complaining that the food you end up with is really, really terrible. If you want to cook, use a cookery book. If you want definitions, use a dictionary. If you want spiritual truth, use a Bible. If you want history, use a history book. If you want journalism, read a newspaper.

It isn't rocket science.

kidsagainstkows · Jul 6, 2010

could you do me a favor and define spiritual truth so that i understand better?

Catherineanne · Jul 6, 2010

kidsagainstkows said:
first world countries do feed most of the world. i dont know about Australia but the US grain industry feeds something like 60% by itself.

I do hope you have evidence to back up that assertion. It sounds very, very dodgy to me. If the US were feeding 60% of the world, there would be no famine whatever.

yay plato

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