Rhoetus wrote:
@wise_owl
I do not think that treating women as second class citizens is correct, nor is it Biblical. I have pointed out that the Bible itself tells us to treat them as if they were our own body, as part of our own body, and as someone to sacrifice for.
No, it tells you to treat your 'wives' in that way, after admonishing said wives to obey you. It also proscribes physical corrective violence as morally correct, a notion that a woman who is widowed and young is undeserving of the financial support she would recieve if she were older, that women should not teach or lead men, etc. What's more those beliefs are foundational in plenty of denominations of Christianity. I hardly just pulled them out of thin air, it's quite easy to find denominations discussing them. I mean the Catholic church bars women from positions of leadership, go have a talk with them about what's 'biblical'.
Here's where the problem starts and really ends; your suggesting the bible as a source of morality, yet you and others can't agree on what that morality is. I've read the thing and for a host of reasons rejected it as a moral foundadtion. It's just a collection of texts written at various points centuries ago. It has no intrinsical moral idea's and plenty of morally abhorent ones.
Quote:
I also think women are equal to men...as pointed out in the Bible...also that their worth comes from God's love for them rather than their ability to bear children, just as a man's worth does, being physically attracted to a woman isn't a sin, but lusting after a woman is...because it dehumanizes or devalues the woman, as stated in the Bible.
The bible doesn't point this out. It in fact repeatedly points out they are not equal. Unless you believe of course that the 'Church' is equal to Jesus? No, of course not. That of course goes without considering the Old Testament, which is even more patently misogynistic and sexist. Your last sentence is not structured in a very understandable way. I'm not sure what 'being attracted to a woman' and 'lusting' are in different terms. That last argument is also intrinsically sexist; do you think lusting after a man dehumanises or devalues men? How? Back this up with Biblical quotes. I see plenty in the bible on a woman's proper place, less on their 'value' as humans.
Quote:
As for lack of talking about rape... if you don't look at a women with lust, if you treat each person as valuable in and of themselves rather than as a means to an end, if you only engage in sex within marriage, that would tend to make rape pretty rare. As for slavery, the NT talks about slavery from the viewpoint of the slave in the same way it does any affront: put up with the slight for the glory of God. From the POV of the slave holder in this way: treat everybody as your equal, as valuable in their own right, as a brother...in other words, as if they weren't a slave.
It tells slaves to obey their Masters and Masters to try their slaves kindly. Says nothing about manumission or slavery being wrong. Says plenty that makes chattel slavery just a normal part of existence instead of an abhorrent practice. The bible is an artifact of a time when this was true, when most places in the Roman world had slavery. It's why it's morally silent on the issue and it's a serious problem from the perspective of the bible either as a moral centre or as description of literal truth. How much suffering could, torture and mass-rape coudl have been avoided by Jesus saying "Yeah, you are not to hold others in human bondage" and yet he doesn't.
Quote:
No, being self-righteous is believing that ones' self is more righteous than others. If I believed that you were more righteous, that wouldn't be self-righteous. I can't believe you are still struggling through this one, talk about intellectually dishonest. you believe that everybody's moral judgement is just the same...based on YOUR moral judgement. That is self-righteous. I make no claim that my moral judgement is superior to yours...it could very well be inferior. I do believe that God's moral judgement is superior to both of ours...not based off of my own judgement, which it goes against on more than one occasion.
Yes, you have determined you have knowledge of an absolute moral source which can lend you moral judgement of an absolute nature. So do Objectivists. Both can very readily lead to Self-righteousness, because you believe you have a basis for judging morality that is absolute and unquestionable. In both cases it is also arbitrary. You are suggesting that if I said 'Mao was absolutely and in all ways Morally correct" that I would not be self-righteous when I than tell you how your morally wrong because that disagree's with Mao? Self-Righteousness is a lack of humility, a lack in the belief of one's own fallibility. You have in essence attempted a 'dodge', "I'm fallible, but my invisible friend who tells me what to do isn't..."
Quote:
As for direct physical evidence... ever hear of the Kalam Cosmological* argument? Physical reality is direct physical proof of the existence of a Deity. Even these weak attempts at marketting quantum mechanics as a disproof of the KCA* ignore the fact that quantum vacuu is something rather than a lack of anything.
Yes, and it's an idiotic argument. It's fourth postulate doesn't flow from it's original presmies. Even if we accepted the 'first cause' argument, nothing in the argument posits that the 'God' of theism has to be that first cause. That the first cause can't be a naturalistic occurance, or anything else. It really has nothing to say about that. The Cosmological argument isn't one.
That and of course Virtual particles disprove it's first premise, as does the uncertainty principal. Whether or not Quantum Vacuum is 'something' is irrelevant in regards the KCA. All that matters it that things come into existence without prior causes, indicated that the first postulate is false.
Quote:
Just what kind of philosophical impossiblility is it you speak of? I'd be interested in hearing that. ( are you refering to the problem of evil again? )
It's one. If we're referrring to the common 'theist' god(i.e. an Omnipotent, Omnipresent, Omnibenevolent entity) that I'd assert the three common traits I just outlined to define such a being are meaningless and can't be described in any definite terms. That they are abstract concepts that each collapse in on themselves under consideration. Here... let me give you a 'angles on pinhead' argument against the existance of god.
1.If God is all powerful, he can will a Universe in which he doesn't, nor has he ever existed.
2.God has no reason not to do 1.
3.Ergo there is no God.
This is the same sort of flimsy self-examination done in defence of the theistic god. Similar one can point to the God of Eld; that there is nothing that prevents us from taking every potential argument for the theistic god and using it to prove the existance of a Maltheistic deity.
Quote:
If there were no God, then I wouldn't believe that there were anything immoral about murder. Give me a good reason why one sentient being should hold other sentient beings at an equal value, rather than as another natural resource to be exploited as one would see fit.
Wouldn't that, in fact than, suggest that you are immoral? That you only act the way you do on the basis of fear of reprocussion. If someobodies only reason for not stealing is the existance of the justice system, we wouldn't say they are 'ethical' in regards to stealing.
To answer your question, there are dozens of different viewpoints on ethics that don't require a theistic god. Others have already pointed out the 'golden rule' and it's variants. There are buddhist sects which have no theistic belief but an elaborate system of ethics. There is Kant's Categorical Imperative, Virtue Ethics, Utilitarianism...
Am I to conclude you are in fact a sociopath who thankfully has a secondary delusion which keeps you from being a mass murderer?
Login
Register
FAQ
Search
