Ask a Christian Theologian

[Chaingang]

The reason people have morals is beacuase there is an all powerful morl giver (God, seeing as Im Christian), someone or something that sets standards for what is right and what is wrong.

Morality is socially constructed. Your culture teaches you modes of thought and behavior that define how you conceptualize "right" and "wrong" not only philosophically but on a subconscious, emotional level. There's a biological foundation to it but the particulars are learned behaviors acquired through social interaction during childhood development.

-- Alex

Even cold blooded killers have morals. Orphans, outcasts, and nonbelievers have morals. If they are brought up in dysfunctional households, surrounded by people more screwed up than they are, where are these morals learned? Why are people opposed to God, who gave them these morals? Because these people do not want to believe that they are not in control of their lives. Morals? Not relative. There is, in every person, an instinctual sense of right and wrong. This sense of right and wrong is warped, not guided, by social interaction, whether for better or for worse. There are those that don't care, and those that care to much, and there are even those who have trained themselves to be indifferent to their feelings. But it's there. It always has been and forever will be.

 

[MasterSqueak]

I have a few questions.

1. What is God?

The core question. Is he an all-powerful being? Is he a man? I mean no disrespect, or an attempt to convert you, or anything. I just need to know what he is to you.

2. Do you mix science with faith?

Things like Creationism versus Evolution, or a theory like God caused the big bang?

3. Why do you worship God?

Why does he need us to pray to him? Is there a reason? Or is it just to show you have faith in him?

I apologize if these questions seem rude or sarcastic, as I know this is a touchy subject.

I am only asking in the hopes of generating more understanding in the world, and some intelligent conversation.

 

[Alex_P]

I have a few questions.

Just FYI: This is a long-dead thread that's recently come back. The OP seems to have stopped responding a while ago.

-- Alex

 

[Alex_P]

Even cold blooded killers have morals. Orphans, outcasts, and nonbelievers have morals. If they are brought up in dysfunctional households, surrounded by people more screwed up than they are, where are these morals learned?

From the wider culture around them. The culture that's embedded in every word you've ever learned to speak. For example, society teaches its outcasts a lot about shame very, very quickly.

When you actually isolate a child from enculturation, you get a person who doesn't think or behave in recognizable "human" ways.

-- Alex

 

[Paragon Fury]

Here's one for you.

As an Atheist, why am I automatically condemended to something like for simply not believing in something that has not only caused moe suffering and strife then anything else on this Earth, whose mythos is directly in conflict many verifiable and logical sciences, whose express purpose it seems it to undermine and de-value humanity as a whole, to deny its power and ability, and make us subservant to a being that may or may not exist all while attempting to discriminate against several groups of people for no good reason?

Further, should all the of the above simply be humans misusing and abusing the power of religion, the question remains as to why, irregardless of any other factors, one is condemend for simply not believing, instead of how they live their lives? By the logic presented in Christainty, someone who doesn't believe but leads a good, generous, and altruistic life is just damnable as someone who murders and rapes and denounces religion.

 

[Alex_P]

Here's one for you.

1. This is a dead thread. The OP isn't responding to questions.
2. That's not a good-faith question.

-- Alex

 

[Trace2010]

Why? because the challenge is what we need. Can you imagine living in a world where you could not or would not feel any sorrow? Where you had no sorrow before to even have a baseline? Yes you may be happy but at the same time its just not the same. You need lows to have highs, at least thats how it makes sense to me.

One, I'd have to ask about what happens when we understand the chemistry of the brain well enough to treat sorrow as nothing more than a minor medical inconvenience, like heartburn. What happens when we can migrate our consciousnesses into undying support structures that remove all possibility of sorrow or true loss?

Two, I've never felt that sorrow provided any sort of 'baseline' to make the highs feel higher. Challenge? Sure. But not every defeat necessarily results in sorrow. We could still have the highs without the lows--all we need is the, well, 'middles'.

1) Then we kill joy and happiness as well. Possibly pride, love, and every emotion we know to be human. We already are treating "sorrow" and "depression" - it's called Prozac and Ritalin. The only problem is: for most of the people they are prescribed for, they are no more effective at solving the INHERENT PROBLEM then drinking the problem away in a bar. I have seen students in my classes so drugged up on Ritalin they are the waking dead. And many of these drugs are causing side effects much more dangerous than the ones we are trying to prevent.

2) Sorrow is not a baseline...it's the trough, not the middle. There is no such thing as a middle ground. At one time, we were TAUGHT to LEARN from DEFEAT and FAILURE (not control it using drugs).

 

[Trace2010]

Here's one for you.

As an Atheist, why am I automatically condemended to something like for simply not believing in something that has not only caused moe suffering and strife then anything else on this Earth, whose mythos is directly in conflict many verifiable and logical sciences, whose express purpose it seems it to undermine and de-value humanity as a whole, to deny its power and ability, and make us subservant to a being that may or may not exist all while attempting to discriminate against several groups of people for no good reason?

Further, should all the of the above simply be humans misusing and abusing the power of religion, the question remains as to why, irregardless of any other factors, one is condemend for simply not believing, instead of how they live their lives? By the logic presented in Christainty, someone who doesn't believe but leads a good, generous, and altruistic life is just damnable as someone who murders and rapes and denounces religion.

Here's some verifiable science and logic for you:

First of all, WHO HAS CONDEMNED YOU?
If you don't believe in God, then what are you concerned with?
Christians do not have the right to condemn people...
So all you have to worry about is a God that you do not believe in in the first place...
thus, logic prevails again!!

Second of all, despite the fact that pieces of humanity do not believe in God, that does not mean that God devalues humanity. Humans were created with a purpose, they were given the abilities to think, create, and enrich the world around them. In the Garden of Eden humans discovered for the first time that said knowledge could be used to serve evil intentions and purposes. If God had wanted us subservient, he would have taken the ability to choose to disobey Him out of our programming, but he did not. Yes, He knows when and where you will fail or falter- from up there you may think in the terms of the Merol-Vigian (badly misspelled, sorry): "Choice is the illusion granted by the beings with power to those who have none." The problem where nobody stops to think is: I can't go up there, where is the true freedom from the perspective I am at?

Just between you and me- as an Atheist, the fact that YOU exist proves that humankind has been given, for better or worse, true freedom.

Third of all...it is not PEOPLE we are supposed to discriminate against, but the BEHAVIORS they choose to associate themselves with.

Fourthly, the FAITH vs. WORKS argument is in itself fundamentally flawed- works are simply supposed to be the outward reflection of an interior faith and morality. We believe that only God can know and understand the hearts of all people. We can't.

 

[Trace2010]

Here's one for you.

1. This is a dead thread. The OP isn't responding to questions.
2. That's not a good-faith question.

-- Alex

I believe our umpteen million year old sea-monkey "ancestor" has brought this thread back to life.

 

[Trace2010]

Might makes right.

That's pretty much the justification for God's moral authority, too.

-- Alex

As well as the justification for the moral authority of every society the human race has ever constructed...don't be so narrow minded all the time, it stunts your growth.

 

[PatientGrasshopper]

You have made only claims that people feel justified in what they do. You have made no claims about the validity of this justification, or what even makes such feelings valid in the first place.

And while people view morality differently, I argue that events have objective impacts. They have measurements, even if we have difficulty measuring them. And I know I said I'd stop, but there really is nothing to do.

If morality is not relative, as you say, then it must be collective. BUT, since morality changes from person to person, then it is NOT collective and therefore relative to each individual.

And if events have measured impacts then who measures it and by what authority?

I'm not really understanding you. Can you explain your belief in an atheist's morals (or lack of) to me a bit more?

I'm not saying a non-theist can't be moral. What I'm saying is that there is no basis for morality within the non-theist worldview. Meaning there is no reasoning behind morality and being such. As Dawkins himself put it: There is no right or wrong, we're all just dancing to our DNA.

I, as a theist (Christian, in this case), have a basis for morality, which is God.

Just because some people have different views on morality doesn't mean that it is relative, it just means someone is wrong. If morality is relative I could kill you and could not get blamed for any wrongdoing.

Morals dont work like that, though. The reason people have morals is beacuase there is an all powerful morl giver (God, seeing as Im Christian), someone or something that sets standards for what is right and what is wrong. you would have to trully believe in your heart that killing this man would be perfectly fine and you would have no qualms about it. While I dont know you personally, Im fairly certain that you wouldnt go and kill someones grandma or hit a woman, simply because you feel that that kind of action is just plain wrong. If you were to laugh at a cancer patient or make fun of them to their face, I dont think you would feel justified. Under any circumstances. While I expect you to find the flaws in my reasoning, I welcome it. It lets me learn how people think.

I agree with you I am a Christian too, I jut aid that to prove a point.

 

[Alex_P]

As well as the justification for the moral authority of every society the human race has ever constructed...

That's kind of the point of half the posts I make.

-- Alex

 

[Trace2010]

As well as the justification for the moral authority of every society the human race has ever constructed...

That's kind of the point of half the posts I make.

-- Alex

Including the human societies that believe in no god at all, lol!

 

[Alex_P]

Including the human societies that believe in no god at all, lol!

Cultural beliefs are, for the most part, entirely arbitrary. I bring this up every time there's a runaway trainwreck of a thread about any kind of social issue.

What's up with the patronizing tone?

-- Alex

 

[Trace2010]

Including the human societies that believe in no god at all, lol!

Cultural beliefs are, for the most part, entirely arbitrary. I bring this up every time there's a runaway trainwreck of a thread about any kind of social issue.

What's up with the patronizing tone?

-- Alex

Just getting a few laughs in man (especially the one about Skrat from Ice Age being everyone's ancestor)...haven't seen you online in a while and I missed your intelligent insight into things...that's all.

 

[Sh4dowSpec]

How can you justify belief in a loving, benevolant God who will, statistically, send well over 70% of the world's population to burn in agony for all eternity just because they were raised to believe something different?