on right and wrong

Philosophy Forums Religion and Spirituality
1

on right and wrong.

I don’t understand the modern assertation that one cannot tell right from wrong, especially when examining ancient culture. Was something right then, that is not right now? Was something merely allowed because it came from a “revelation” of godly proportions?

I think that all violence comes down to two types of people: (this is an oversimplification, and there are exceptions.)

  1. The madman. He doesn’t care who he harms.

  2. The follower. The follower wants to act in benevolent fashion, and in fact treats those of the same faith in a very moral and just fashion. But when the madman, tells his followers to kill… They kill.

So, when a religious or relativist person tries justifying violence of the antiquities, you can tell them… “Yes I can tell right from wrong.”

I believe that “these truths are self evident.” That people have an inherent knowledge of right and wrong, and know that certain behaviours are wrong, and certain behaviours are right. For instance, when the bible or quran commands that we stone, hang, behead someone… under normal circumstances NO ONE would commit such an atrocity. No matter what time frame. But because it comes from the creator of the universe… All reference to right or wrong is dropped.

Voltaire writes on morals, “There is only one morality, just as there is only one geometry.”

So let us now examine situations from the holy of holies. (and this is where you the poster come in. examine these situations and express your moral value)

first the Torah:

Then from Jesus:

Then from the Qu’ran:

and a situational from the life of mohammed:

There is only one right answer for each of these situations of course. So either:

We’ll have the apologist defending the actions of their books or leaders in a relative manner.

We’ll have the moral relativist defending their actions on the grounds that one cannot really tell right from wrong.

Both positions are flawed. The apologist needs to realize that his/her book is not a moral treatise. The relativist needs to realize that relativism is impossible. Relativism can’t be stated, because stating it as an absolute is inherently illogical.

2

Simply put, people don’t matter. This goes for the Torah, the Bible, and the Koran. You’re trying to take a purely humanistic view of ethics, where the greatest possible wrong is something bad happening to a human being, and then pointing out that the ethics presented in Holy Scriptures conflicts with this. Well, yes it does.
I disagree with your assertion that nobody would stone, hang, or murder somebody. Religion didn’t invent these acts. I disagree that people back then inherently knew it was wrong. There was no therapy, there was no such thing as prison for a nomadic people, and even if there was a place to put a criminal, locking them away in a box while you feed, clothe, and house them would have seemed insane to a desert-dwelling people.

3

Did socrates have a moral treatise from god? Did he not still act in a moral fashion?

Did Buddha?

morality is universal, religion just gives people an excuse to excercise their bigotry towards others. No religion didn’t invent stoning. It didn’t invent bigotry.

It justified it.

4

I agree that there can be no justification of violence. Many religions entail violence due to there holy scriptures. And there is a certain level of reciprocity (sp) behind each of the Judeo-Christian stemming religions. People forget long ago who cast the first stone but they only remember the last person who hit them with it. I know you whole heartedly condemn the actions of the current Islamic fundamentalist as do I. But for it all to stop the violence on all sides must be stopped. And yes I do agree Islamic people are highly violent in our times.

5

uccisore, I am trying to avoid doing this because it’s so time consuming, but I feel my post above doesn’t adequately address all of your points.

Simply put I disagree… If other people don’t matter, then WE don’t matter.

And I’m wrong because people don’t matter? If people don’t matter, why care what other people are doing? If people don’t matter, why try converting them to your own belief like christ commands?

You’re diverting the issue. And how is the greatest possible wrong, not something happening to a human being? Are you okay with honor killings? With the spanish inquisitions?

Your words are no different than a relativist. If God is absolute, than morals should be absolute. It should be just as wrong to stone someone today, as when he inspired the writer of the quran, torah and jesus himself.

The fact is, god is a relativist (if he exists at all.) he justified murder and stoning then, but doesn’t now (unless you’re a muslim it’s still okay!) And KM is right. If god were absolute, it’d STILL be wrong to eat shrimp.

6

I know Satori. I can only hope that it’s that easy.

(a philosopher) stated that “It’s not that pacifism doesn’t work, it’s that it hasn’t been tried.”

7

Scythekain

  No, you're wrong because you're out of context. What you've done is criticized Communism because it doesn't encourage free enterprise.  Yes, Biblical morals aren't humanist morals- and?  It would be no different than if I told you your ethical system was wrong because it doesn't provide proper respect and worship to God.
8

The bible encompasses more than mere respect and worship towards the creator of the universe. It tells us specifically how to treat others, and the author of deuteronomy, and leviticus made sure that included stoning anyone that got out of line.

The question is, do you justify this writing as acceptable morals at that time? were not talking social ethics like slavery. Were talking about killing someone for being different.

When was that a justified moral, regardless of whether god was involved or not?

Here’s the point… (that applies to all beliefs)

Murder is wrong. They know it… but don’t want to tolerate outsiders. (especially the religious leaders) so they get “inspired by god” and right moral commands on how to deal with outsiders. For mohammed that’s beheading. For jews that’s stoning.

For christians that was self mutilation. Because christ taught there was nothing more disgusting and vile than the desires of one’s own heart.

Moral by god? or moral by man.

That’s your problem. If it’s moral by man, than god has no say and no importance.

To me it’s just the opposite. If it’s moral by god, than any sort of action the leader wants can be justified through god, because god trumps common sense, and engrained morality. God is the full house… 3 aces and two kings. Nothing can trump the word of god. And god forbid you question the interpreter who is writing down who god wants killed.

9

excuse me if I reference another moment in the Bible.

John 8:3 “The scribes and the Pharisees brought in a woman who had been caught in adultery, and placing her in the midst they said to him, ‘Teacher, this woman has been caught in the act of adultery. Now in the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. So what do you say?’…he stood up and said to them, ’ Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her.'…when they heard it, they went away one by one, …, and Jesus was left alone with the woamn standing before him. Jesus stood up and said to her, ‘Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?’ She said, ‘No one, Lord.’ And Jesus said, ’ Neither do I condemn you; go,…”

Does that justify stoning or bigotry? Didn’t think so.

10

And that’s Jesus in one of his better moods, when he wasn’t condemning families, or condeming entire peoples to hell.

Or telling the pharisees that because they don’t follow the law (in this example stoning children) they have no right to preach the law.

(both quotes below are from Matthew)

and this:

11

funny how the word hell isn’t even included in those…

anyway, He never condemned them to hell - it was to show what they were doing wrong, not to simply dismiss them as a condemned people. any one of them could have decided to follow Jesus, but they didn’t, and were given the consequences of their choices.

In chapter 15, he was defending his disciples’ actions, and pointing out an even more obvious wrong of the Pharisees and scribes.

In chapter 5, he was once again pointing out that the scribes and Pharisees, through their present actions and conditions, wouldn’t enter the kingdom of heaven unless they changed, also letting the people know that they were in no way “righteous”.

Condemning is different than pointing out someone else’s wrong. The difference with Jesus is that he gave them a chance to change. He told them how through several lessons, including visuals, etc. Whenever Jesus was angry or upset, it was for just reasons, and he took the initiative to change whatever it was that needed it.

12

Why are honour killings wrong?

13

Asphincter says what? (you’ll have to excuse my humor)

Seriously, Xunzian… Where in this thread did I bring up Honor Killings?

ChristianThinker,

"funny how the word hell isn’t even included in those… "

Way to change the subject from those two quotes. If you want I’ll dig up a couple condemnations for ya. I figure you know the bible moderately well and know that.

But in case you don’t, here ya go:

Mt 7:13-14. Jesus says most people will go to hell.

Mt 10:28 Jesus says we should fear god, who can unmake us and torture our souls for eternity in hell

Mt 11:20-24 Jesus condemns entire cities to hell

Mark 4:11-12 Jesus explains why he speaks in parables. To confuse people:

“That seeing they may see, and not perceive; and hearing they may hear, and not understand; lest at any time they should be converted, and their sins should be forgiven them.”

Mark 9:43-49 Self mutilation verse I quoted above from matthew. “better to cut off your arm, than for your whole body to burn in hell.”

Luke 13:23-30 Jesus says the vast majority of people will suffer in hell.

That enough?

In chapter 15 he was defending his own actions because he with his disciples were eating on the sabbath when according to the law they should’ve been fasting. The pharisees pointed out the jesus wasn’t following the law, so jesus pointed out that THEY weren’t following the law. And as we see from chapter 5:

I see it differently. He clearly states that the law is still valid. LIke in 15 when he quotes Isaiah he states, “these people honor me with their lips”.

They pay lip service to the laws, but do not actually follow them.

check out the NIV version:

20For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven.

The previous part of his teaching here, makes it clear that the law is still valid. Unless “we” are more righteous in following the laws, we will not enter the kingdom of heaven.

I really feel this translation nails it on the head though:

The message version:

17-18"Don’t suppose for a minute that I have come to demolish the Scriptures— either God’s Law or the Prophets. I’m not here to demolish but to complete. I am going to put it all together, pull it all together in a vast panorama. God’s Law is more real and lasting than the stars in the sky and the ground at your feet. Long after stars burn out and earth wears out, God’s Law will be alive and working.

19-20"Trivialize even the smallest item in God’s Law and you will only have trivialized yourself. But take it seriously, show the way for others, and you will find honor in the kingdom. Unless you do far better than the Pharisees in the matters of right living, you won’t know the first thing about entering the kingdom.

And the law informs us on right living.

The difference is in belief. Christians believe that christ is god, therefore has the power to say who goes to hell, and who goes to heaven.

Was jesus upset for just reasons? We have two perspectives on it, and both present a different picture of Jesus the man. In the synoptics, jesus is cryptic and speaks in parables, performs miracles, etc.

In Johns pictures, Jesus gives long discourses, doesn’t express ANY condemnations, doesn’t speak the beautitudes and doesn’t perform miracles…

My point is simple. One of the pictures of jesus is flawed. I don’t know which one, and frankly am inclined to believe that christ is a mythological character. But, I don’t have to deal with the flaws of the scripture in the same way as a believer either. (and yes the scripture is flawed.)

14

Well, that’s not entirely correct. One can certainly tell right from wrong, but only absolutely about himself. Naturally, my saying this seems contradictory; I’m talking in absolutes about my relativist thinking. I’m not talking about the way things most definitely are, I’m talking about my perception of them. Similarly, people who smash an unfaithful woman’s head with a stone could feasibly percieve that they’re doing the right thing. To them, it is the moral thing to do. There is no absolute measuring tape of right and wrong we can put up to them and say, “No, that’s universally/metaphysically wrong.” We can, however, tell them what we believe right and wrong apply to, and why–we can also do our part to enforce our beliefs.

It seems awefully innaccurate to blame religion for this one too, especially since people have certainly justified killing without it (and they weren’t all relativists either). Furthermore, religions established the ideals you’re working on now; universal human rights, anti-violence, etc.

Honor killings are usually based on the thinking that if someone dishonors you, your life (or their’s) is blemished beyond worthiness until vengeance is satisfied. This is a system that is always, always biased toward the people with power, because rather than using set laws and punishment, the abstract ideal of honor is the basis of judgement. I believe honor killings are wrong in the sense that they bring only skewed justice to a society, but given the transient and unstable nature of earlier civilizations that developed the concept, honor killing is better than the alternative, no justice at all.

15

Quote:

“You’re diverting the issue. And how is the greatest possible wrong, not something happening to a human being? Are you okay with honor killings? With the spanish inquisitions?”

So, what were you saying?

16

well I was asking Uccisore that question.

The question isn’t “what’s wrong with honor killings?”

The question is “what ISN’T wrong with honor killings?”

If you don’t get it, I can’t explain it xunzy.

Alun,

  1. vengeance is not justice.

  2. Do you know what honor killings are? That’s when the daughter gets raped, (loses her virginity, and in these circumstances it’s always by rape.) that is how the family honor is LOST. So to remedy the situation they kill her?

That’s justice? What planet are you from?

Should I show you what’s behind door number 2? Because not only are you wrong, but disastrously so. If it’s wrong to stone your children here and now, it’s wrong to do it in any country. and in any time.

They absolutely do. But… WE KNOW BETTER…

If we don’t, we should leave our country today and become a muslim and start throwing rocks at raped woman’s heads.

17

Your ideology leaves very little to recommend it.

“It’s right because it is right! If you don’t get it, then I won’t explain it to you!!!”

While I am sympathetic to the idea of natural morality, clearly it needs to be tempered since natural morality is clearly insufficient. Were natural morality adequate, then philosophy (which, by and large, is learning how to live) would be unnecessary, as would any codified morals.

18

No, xunzy. I stated, “if you don’t understand what is wrong with honor killings, I cannot explain it to you.”

You’ve got vaseline in your eyes, and think that murder is justified for them in such a situation?

I think you’re mixing up ethics and morality. We need codified ethics. I’m not so sure we need codified morals. Most children, that are not given an un-natural bias against other types of people, will naturally play with others in a “moral” way. It’s only when the parents are screwed up, that the kids get screwed up and the hatred survives for another generation.

The christian (and probably other religions as well.) thought is that we are born in a state of sinfulness and have to be taught to live right. My thought is the opposite. We are born into a state of innocence and have to taught how to do wrong.

19

While it is entirely possible that we are born innately good (many religions claim this, actually), where does thing bring us?

What you are talking about is what I would call principle (li). How do you propose cultivating principle? Do you believe in a form of dualism, where principle is pure and the material world is impure? If not, how do you distinguish them?

What about seemingly innate traits that linger in the human mind? While racism, per se, is not innate, the desire to seperate ‘us’ from ‘not-us’ in innate in the human mind . . . so do we cultivate those desires as well? Where in this naturalistic framework, is the cut off point between the material world and the world of principle?

20

Where does this bring us? That kids are being taught corrupt morals and therefore corrupt ethics. Like I said before, kids are taught to hate and kill.

a babies first NATURAL response is to love and to cling. And that is too humans. How do the propagators get around this? Simple, the people that are hated are “sub-human” or “animals”. That’s why most “pro-love” groups are also “vegan”. I can understand where they are coming from. I think it’s silly though. Some animals clearly have more feelings than other animals. (but that’s really getting to far away from the main topic)

Look at the speech from modern propagators and historic ones. They always make the human that is being killed into a sub-human. It’s what the muslims do today, it’s what hitler did yesterday. It’s even what the abortion crowd does today. At no point before the baby leaves the woman’s body do they want it to be considered human. That’s contrary to morals, ethics, science and common sense.

Here’s another example for british muslims, “We will not kill UK citizens” then in the same breath, “We do not consider british who agree with Tony Blair to be UK citizens.”

It’s the game that is played with semantics to justify murder and make it moral. It’s still immoral to kill humans, so we just make them sub-human.

I certainly think dualism is possible, but I think you’ve got it backwards. i think the material world is pure, and it’s our principles that our flawed.

The desire for seperation is not innate. We have a desire to be together that can overcome the flawed principles we are taught. That’s why slave owners would frequently become attracted to their slaves, and many treated them better than they were treated in the “free” north. (hardly a condoning of slavery…)