Would you not say that there is a social and moral obligation to help those stuck in disparate and immoral situations?
For example, the FGM going on in the Islam countries, do you think that it is moral because it is acceptable in their country? Remember that our cutlure used to think it was acceptable to burn heretics at the stake, after torturing them into confession.
Looking from the outside in, and seeing the historical mistakes of our own past, we have a moral obligation to help those trodding the same path.
Using the Yin Yang example, if we let “yang” do what it will without check, then yin becomes powerless and feeble. Yin must Challenge Yang. The borders of Yin and Yang are a contentious contrasting place. Without this contrast, there is no us, only them.
From another perspective; we know that there are activities and behavior that are patently dangerous to humanity, and to individuality. To say that they aren’t, because you can claim in some abstract way that “it doesn’t affect or hurt me or others”, is patently absurd, and basically saying that:
This was posted earlier in the thread… A passage from the Tao De Ching.
Cut off sagacity and get rid of wisdom
And the benefit to the common people will be a hundredfold.
Cut off authoritative conduct and get rid of appropriateness
And the common people will return to filiality and parental
affection.
Cut off cleverness and get rid of personal profit
and there will be no more brigands and thieves.
The concept that that passage pretty much claims that in order to get rid of evil things you must first get rid of good things.
I would say otherwise and this thinking is foolishness at its core. Because of this passage I got the idea for making that post about the Tao De Ching.
I have not read any of the Book with exceptions to what you guys have posted. And going over these posts, I feel that my comparison is the point being conveyed by the passages.
This is only an assumption and I could easily be wrong. If you have more food for me I will be happy to learn more. I will admit that my comment might be unfair as I have posted it, but I only had what you posted to work with. So please do not take it as my heartfelt thoughts on the Tao De Ching… but more like an intial reaction.
Yes I would say that has a lot to do with my intepretations based on what I know thus far. As I stated in a previous post I have not read the complete text or any significant portion of the Tao De Ching to consider myself any form of authority. But based on what is posted thus far, I do get the idea that this Book is implying that Good and Evil are actually both evil and create contentions were as good should be tossed over board so that evil shall go with it and leave us with a gray area in life where which we can abound in peace and happiness!
I submit that once you toss the Good stuff over board you are only left with the bad… and trouble is not going away!
Is relationship a factor here? For example, do I have a greater obligation to help my literal brother, sister, mother, cousin, best-friend and so on, moreso than some guy in China that I don’t know? Is there a point beyond which we have no obligation at all, or do we have at least a little obligation to everyone?
Charity begins in the home! Your cup is limited. Do not spill it out for others before you pour a little for yourself and your loved ones!
In the best interest of all things, try not to apply the attributes of a God to mankind… we will do what we can and to expound on our shortcomings will condemn us to a life that is filled with it!
Help where you can and when you can… anything more is effort that will more than likely negatively impact what you are trying to achieve!
I can see that one should be willing to help those who are suffering at the hands of others, but excuse me if I stay away from trying to define moral or immoral. Design any social construct you like, but saying this is moral and this is immoral requires a basis for saying that sort of thing. There are certainly benign social constructs, but call them what they are.
OK. But if we’re looking to make social changes, then we need to use socially neutral concepts and words. Introduce words like morality and the religious extrememists of all religions pop up and there goes the neighborhood.
Actually this is a very profound idea but not for this thread. I’ll just touch on it since selective morality is man made while this is referring to objective human psychology. You can see how hard it becomes to agree upon man made ideas.
The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil in Genesis caused death. This doesn’t make it evil but creates an implied distinction that does more harm than good so the sage avoids it and remains alive.
Paul refers to this in Romans 7:
I read this as Paul being alive in ignorance but died through the law that allowed him the ability to distinguish good and evil in relation to a higher life. Compensation for this death through ignorance is the higher life offered through Jesus sacrifice and its provision of the Holy spirit to enter into Man providing direction towards the good the law indicates.
So I do find a relationship between Genesis, Paul and that Tao excerpt in its perception of the Law, the objective morality associated with it, and its relation to human potential… However, it is easy to go wrong contemplating something so deep so I refuse to take a hard line position.
What is moral to an individual can come from any source. But morality is only personal. The moment there is a difference between two or more people it is now just social engineering, with either negotiated settlement of differences or the more usual my gun is bigger than your gun.
If social progress is to be made, then avoiding morality as reason must be the guiding principle. There is little to be gained in compromise when ‘God is on our side’.
The extremist is that person who has no way of compromising…
Yes man made ideas are hard to agree upon, I will agree with that statement.
about the sage avoiding the Tree of Knowledge. It is too late. Death has been brought down upon creation, and now the point of avoiding it will only continue to cause more harm.
One of Gods claims is that “My people perish for lack of knowledge”. If one chooses to avoid it, they will only succeed in failing themselves. The flesh that hangs upon you is that of sin and you cannot part from it until death!
Now about morality! This is unescapable! If we are to be judged this means that everyone knows what is good and evil. In fact that is the knowledge that the Tree of Knowledge brought about. One of the first things Adam and Eve realized after eating the apple is that they were naked and realized their shame. God had also asked “Who told you that you were naked?”
I never make a mistake about peopel who try to pass off this idea of moral relativity. Some things are wrong just plain and simple, yet people will try to hide from their own iniquity just as Adam and Eve tried to Hide from God! They try to hide their shame behind an elaborate cloud of lies! the concept of moral relativity is just one of the threads in this tapestry!
Long have the sinners sought to seek a refuge from the voice of God that is in their heads, to put their sins away and ignore them. Your conscience is not you, but God whom is talking to you! When you ignore your conscience, you come near being given over to a reprobate mind by God. If you perish while you have been given over to a reprobate mind there is no salvation.
If this is true, what is the sense of condemning others?
This seems to me to be saying that if the law exists within you as a motivating attribute, a person is righteous even if unaware of the written law.
So don’t become an "expert. But the temptation of fame and fortune make this a tough one to avoid for people that have this charisma that allows it.
So again there is caution about the relationship between the inner and outer man and that concern with appearance negates the entire esoteric or inner value of the perception of morality.
This is the great psychological damage of selective morality. It takes the inner experience of the unwary and distorts its value into secular approval of justified selective expression.
Good for the ego of the outer man but not good for the essence of the inner man.
it’s too late for that, there’s more of them than there are moderates and skeptics. it’s almost like it’s a sin to be a skeptic in the scientific community, as it is in the religious community.
This would need better etymological clarification. Like so many things in the Bible, their meanings have changed. And these meanings would require that you understand them as they were meant to be back then and not based on what we “WANT” them to mean now.
con·demn ( P ) Pronunciation Key (kn-dm)
tr.v. con·demned, con·demn·ing, con·demns
To express strong disapproval of: condemned the needless waste of food.
To pronounce judgment against; sentence: condemned the felons to prison.
To judge or declare to be unfit for use or consumption, usually by official order: condemn an old building.
To lend credence to or provide evidence for an adverse judgment against: were condemned by their actions.
Law. To appropriate (property) for public use.
Generally speaking the warning against condemnation is for pronouncing judgement, but not against expressing strong disapproval. So stop and think for a moment. Is there not a strong disapproval against murder? Is that not still condemnation… something spoken against? Are we no longer allowed to punish? Shall we no longer enforce the law so that we may not tresspass? God forbid that such a logic may come to pass!
You are not correct in your understandings. Faith is what justifies your actions. And if you have no faith to justify your actions then no righterousness will be counted in you.
You see… Faith releases you from the law. And if you live by the law, then you are under the law… and the law only brings death. Why? Because none are perfect and will cause a tresspass against the law! In times passed this was sufficient to grant salvation (living by the law) but we have now been purchased by the Blood of Christ. In Him, our faith of Him, can we now be justified! No longer shall our works in the Law be counted as righteousness but our Faith which justifies our works be counted as righteousness!
I hope you can undersand this… because it becomes really important to understanding the whole idea behind why having Faith in Christ becomes important to salvation.
I believe that humility and mercy are your counter agents to the overly righteous. One of the reasons they are a virtue. When missing any of the virtues you are incomplete. Many of the passages such as these are speaking of the consequences of only achieving some of the virtues and leaving the rest behind.
Yes you appear to understand that well enough. There are so many ways to dictate that. But never so eloquently as the Bible has.
I’m trying to understand your perspective and not criticize so don’t assume anything suspicious in these questions
[i]Matthew 22:
21"Caesar’s," they replied.
Then he said to them, “Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s.”[/i]
Is strong disapproval the domain of God or Caesar? Why didn’t Jesus express strong disapproval on the cross rather than to say "forgive them for they know not what they do?
[i]Gal 2
16Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law: for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified.[/i]
Do you consider faith OF Christ, belief IN Christ, and faith IN Christ as the same?
first astral. You are right. in the 20’s a scientist from the northwest tried pushing forward the theory that the features of eastern washington we’re caused by a catastrophic flood. He was panned, because what he suggested was too close to the biblical flood. His theory wasn’t accepted until the 30’s and even into the 40’s when archaelogical evidence for Lake Missoula was discovered.
Now today, it’s the same way… if you try being a true scientist, a skeptic, you are panned. A scathing report was written against global warming recently… the majority of the scientific communities response? He is a heretic, and god…er man willing he will burn for his atrocities.
this is a copy of a speech that Michael Crichton made, it’s related to the second point.