You know I have great respect for you and that I learned a lot about Christianity and morality from you growing up. However, I’m not entirely sure what particular points you’re disagreeing with. I never said that there shouldn’t be laws or a form of justice. We do have to make some attempt to put boundaries in place to protect people, property and have a civilized society, using the best knowledge we have at the time. However I just believe that those laws (whether legal or moral or both) should stem from our shared values and not be dogmatically followed because of tradition or upbringing or because we think “God said so.” We also shouldn’t demonize other people that disagree with us, because even if they have their facts wrong, sometime they are still trying to do what they think is right.

I know you’ll disagree with me on this but please know i mean no offense. The bible and Christianity does indeed have a lot of value in terms of morals and values, but is is my belief that the Bible is also a human construct, just like human laws and morals, and all the other religions of the world. As such some of it will be inaccurate or immoral. I have read things in the Bible that I just have not been able to accept at face value and that I think hurt rather than help people. Also, people have actually discovered valuable moral rules that are NOT explicitly stated in the Bible, such as the outlaw of slavery. So we ARE able (sometimes) to find out what is right and wrong, by looking at and feeling the effects on ourselves and others. That was the main thrust of my post, that we should look at the effects of the moral rules to see if they’re working. The rules should serve people, not the other way around. Or to quote a famous moralist “The sabbath was made for man, not man for the sabbath.”.

I do agree that no matter what moral rules you believe is the standard, noone is able to adhere to them perfectly. We are by nature imperfect, flawed human beings. We should constantly be striving for improvement, even if perfection isn’t ever possible. I disagree with Christianity’s view that “perfection is the standard.”

MIke,

I agree it is difficult for people to put their religious prejudices aside, but not impossible. It is much harder for a fundamentalist (Christian, Muslim, etc.) to do so, because as you said they believe God has handed down the moral commandments, and those commandments never change. The problem stems from their dependency on the specific rules and words–they believe that people should serve the rules rather than the rules serving people. So they ignore any evidence that the rules are actually hurting people–because to them the effects are irrelevant! This is why you get muslims stoning women for adultery in some countries or Christians being against sex-ed in schools. If you look at a particular holy book and its laws as being absolutely perfect, unchanged and directly out of the mouth of God, then its difficult to change your mind on those rules regardless of evidence. After all, Abraham was willing to sacrifice Isaac at God’s command. If you look at a Holy Book as imperfect humans writings as they tried to understand life, death, morals and (possibly) the intervention of a loving creator, then its easier to accept new information.

Your last question seemed to be whether religion helps humanity or hurts it overall? Thats an extremely complex question and most people want simple answers. An extreme atheist would say “all religions are thoroughly bad.” An extreme adherent of a religion will say “my religion is good, everyone else’s is bad.’ But I think these answers are simplistic.

I view religion like any other human endeavor–technology, politics, etc. There is some obvious good and truth in all religions and some bad in all of them. Our friend Brady from Mansfield told me that conservative Christians donate far more to charity than liberals do, and I think that is because they are inspired and commanded by Jesus’ discussion of caring for the poor and giving to charity. At the same time, we have crusades, the Spanish Inquisition, and modern day televangelists–things that were all aided by or made possible through religion. I myself have received outright abuse from some more fundamentalist christians, back when I myself considered one.

I don’t think all religions are equal. Some are better than others. Even Sam Harris, a very respected atheists talks about how the Jains are more peaceful and harmonious than many Christians, and how eastern religions actually have a lot of value. He talks about how George Bush was even on much higher moral ground than many of his Islamic political counterparts.

Sorry I think I’m rambling. In final answer, I think if God is real, then yes following his commandments to the best of your ability would make the world a better place, because he would be a loving God that would want the best for us. The problem stems from the fact that we can’t prove whether God exists (or doesn’t) nor which religion is the “best” or “true” one and so we often fight about that. If God’s not real, then the benefit of everyone following the same religion would depend on how good that religion is at promoting, health, happiness, peace and all our other values, but it would always be imperfect and based on something not real.

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Man on his own does not have the ability to control his own desires much less determine what is right or wrong. In the Garden Adam lost his connection with the source of all things good and righteous. Leave children to themselves without any parental control and they will fight until one strong willed child takes over. Self preservation takes place with the others so that they can survive. Some might call this the survival of the fittest.

After the fall in the garden Cain killed his brother Able and chaos began until God sent the flood to destroy the wickedness in the earth. We find much later that God chose a people for himself so that he could teach them his ways. In order to establish right from wrong God gave them his laws. The problem was not solved with laws because even though God’s people were better than the others who had no God, they would still break his laws. So the truth is law is not the answer either with the exception that God’s chosen people now knew right from wrong. The term sin refers to the breaking of God’s laws. Without law sin is not charged against us.

Rom 5 12Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men, because all sinned— 13for before the law was given, sin was in the world. But sin is not taken into account when there is no law.

Tell your child he cannot do something and he will wonder what he is missing. Sometimes the temptation was not even there until we set the boundaries for them.

So when man creates a legal system to control the evil in our society they have not solved the problem. Take a look at the corruption at every level of society it simply cannot be completely controlled, in fact it is much worse today than when I was a boy. Society left to itself without God will self implode. Man will eventually destroy himself and even now has the ability to do so. The only reason it has not already done so is because God is still in control.

Romans 13:1-7

vs1 “Let every person be in subjection to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those which exist are established by God.
vs2 Therefore he who resists authority has opposed the ordinance of God; and they who have opposed will receive condemnation upon themselves.
vs3 For rulers are not a cause of fear for good behavior, but for evil. Do you want to have no fear of authority? Do what is good, and you will have praise from the same; vs4 for it is a minister of God to you for good. But if you do what is evil, be afraid; for it does not bear the sword for nothing; for it is a minister of God, an avenger who brings wrath upon the one who practices evil.
vs5 Wherefore it is necessary to be in subjection, not only because of wrath, but also for conscience sake.” vs6 For because of this you also pay taxes, for rulers are servants of God, devoting themselves to this very thing. vs7 Render to all what is due them: tax to whom tax is due; custom to whom custom; fear to whom fear; honor to whom honor.

What we all need is a changed heart, one that does not want to sin. God is the God of peace and he has provided a way for man to make peace with God. The problem with those who reject the existence of God is that they usually do not want the peace that God gives, they still want to live according to their own rules. They do not want to believe that God would destroy the evil in this world.

The greatness of the Gospel (good news) is that God sent his own Son to take on himself the sins of the world. He did not do it by changing the laws but by giving us a new heart that no longer wants to sin. But because we still live in a fallen world walking around in a physical body that has not changed and still thinking with the same mind we were born with we still sin. The scripture says that we must begin to renew our minds Rom 12. We do that by the written word. There are two phases (this term is rather vague) to salvation . What I mean is that we are justified (saved) at the point of genuine faith but we are still living in this world and God uses the rest of our days to sanctify us. This is where he molds us into vessels he chooses, so that we can do the things he calls us to.

In heaven there will be no laws to break for we will have no inclination toward sin, all things will become new. This is very condensed but hopefully we can get a vision of why we need someone greater than ourselves to rule over us with justice and mercy. I purposefully left out the meat of the gospel to simply address the problem of man’s inability to rule himself.

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If God is real, would EVERYONE ON THE PLANET following THE SAME GOD and commandments and “moral values” make the world an entirely better place… OR… has religion and religious turmoil been the downfall of mankind advancing up to this point? Is religion holding the planet back, or is it the lack of ___INSERT RELIGION NAME HERE___ keeping us back?

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For example, you said “I think the solution here is to stand outside our own personal biases and view morality as another scientific inquiry…”. Asking a Muslim, Christian, or just about any other devout religious person to put down his personal belief in his God’s commandments is impossible for them to do. They believe that they’re God has instructed them to rebuke you!

It’s like the Islam-o-nazi’s who blow up themselves and innocent people. They believe so strongly in their cause, that all other things go out the window. While that is an extreme viewpoint, it’s the same on a smaller scale for any organized religion. They will have no part of your “put my bias aside” statement.

So the real question then becomes: If God is real, would following his commandments and “moral values” make the world an entirely better place… OR… has religion and religious turmoil been the downfall of mankind advancing up to the point? Would love to hear your thoughts on that one.

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