Morality... is it a prison or a tool?

I literally wanted to type the exact same message but he seemed like a nice guy so I didn't want to antaganize him

 

Most of it is pretty bad fiction, sure, but a substantial amount of itis pretty damn good (I'm talking about the the books of the Bible that I mentioned in the previous thread) when you don't look at it literally and from the conventional dogmatic viewpoint. It illustrates the spiritual struggles of mankind, how we obtained individuality, how we tried to explain forces that were beyond our grasp of understanding and it can tell a lot of about who we are even to this day. I mean, it's called The Bible pretty much cause it was THE Book that everybody read and studied for a Firking long time and that in itself should already be treated seriously if we want to understand anything about who we are and why we think the way we think.

 

It's not bad because whether we like it or not it has millions of followers all over the world so they obviously did something right

With that being said my position on that topic is pretty much h the same as yours as you already know

 

if he truly thinks morlity comes from god/the bible he would follow the morality in it meaning he would not be a good person.

Why lie to him about what he is? if he knows he can change himself or at least his opinion.

 

I believe No Morality does not equal great success.

Morality is more of an equalizer. You'll likely be medium successful with small chances of good luck and bad luck.

No Morality however is filled with much more risk.
The great success might end up massive, but the chance of that actually happening is pretty slim.
When living with no/little morals, the chance of a massive failure increases by a large amount.

Just compare the small ratio of millionaires to the large ratio people in prison.
These are of course extreme examples.

 

See, this is how these conversations always go. Geressen is on my ignored list (so thankful for that option on the forums) so I could really care less for his banter. I didn't attack anyone personally, instead, I give the guidelines for what God expects and what God did. But, regardless, I always get attacked personally. So therefore, I remove my self from the conversation. I mean be an adult. I listen to your garbage and ideologies that sound as absurd to me as you think mine sounds to you but I don't retaliate personally to you guys. You can ultimately believe whatever your heart desires. Its your decision and your soul that is playing with fire... good luck with all that, I really hope it works out for you.

And what exactly do I need to feel shameful about? Following what my God teaches? Bah... I'm more ashamed of wasting my time typing and reading all this rather than having the faith I have.
As far as my knowledge of the Bible goes, I feel it is quiet in depth. All of those things you mentioned; big bang garbage, fairy tale of evolution, and mankind's version of morality contradict what the Bible teaches and is therefore null and void. That again is man making a feeble attempt to explain the unexplainable.
I'm out.
Bond

 

someone tell bondman he should learn to read and then ask his mother to buy him a biology textbook.

also tell him that if he thinks @Gutsa deserves to suffer in a literal hell forever for not taking the bible literally he is an evil person that lacks morals.

also ask him why he signs his posts.

 

"depending on the religion"
I take issue with the ones that do as you describe, because they look at other religions that are in direct contradiction with their own and say those are also true. Islam says it is the only way. Christianity says it is the only way. Most ancient "pagan" religions say they are the only way. In order for the "all paths are equal" argument to be true, then each path must also accept that premise. The issue is that not all of the "paths" do accept that. And so they cannot be all true, because if any one is true, then the others must be by necessity, false. For it the "all paths are equal" premise to work, you'd have to start by saying that some paths have been misinterpreted or are partially wrong. In which case you've already broken your premise because the paths weren't equal to begin with.

So can I assume you aren't an atheist? Because what you're saying implies some sort of "higher power", beyond basic nature and what science can observe.

Ideas, dreams, aspirations, etc. don't require morality to function, though they often incorporate it. Morality, is either derived from nature (that is, survival instincts), or from religion (which could also just be from nature, but if it isn't, is spiritual).
Also, why do you think we need those things?

Religion can be explained to a great extent by naturalism. It can be seen as simply a result of survival instincts dictating what is "good" or "bad".
Left handedness has typically been rare, and one part of surviving is avoiding things we don't understand or aren't familiar with (because of the possible danger). So, people that were left-handed were unusual, and so "left" became associated with bad things, while "right" handers (the more common and familiar, and thus "safe") were associated with good things.

For now I'll keep poking you guys with things to try and deconstruct your worldviews and see if it makes you guys think on things more. But, if you recall from... Other conversations in the past, I tend to hold to a Christian perspective. I do my best to seek evidence, treat people with love no matter what (we're told to love even our enemies in the Bible). I hold to the idea of "people won't care what you know if they don't know you care". Basically, there's little point in telling people "you're a sinner" unless they already know you love them. Once the person knows that I love them and only want what's best for them, they might be more willing to listen to other things I have to say. Thus, my morality is based around the Bible. Luckily (from my perspective), everyone has "the law" written in their hearts (knowing the truth without really knowing it), so agreeing on what is moral is (usually) fairly easy.

It.. Kinda does. But that really gets away from the whole morality discussion and becomes a very in-depth study of the Bible and various scientific theories and hypotheses. One of the big things is that the Bible states that each animal/plant etc. will only make more of itself. Evolution, to an extent, can align with the Bible, as could TBBT and secular morality, but not totally.

 

A note to @Geressen, @Bondman007, while I REALLY want to involve myself in your part of the discussion (as in, I already wrote a bunch of stuff but then deleted it), please don't get off track of the thread, I would like the thread to not get locked due to hostility.

 

fine.

I think believing someone should suffer eternally for not believing the same things is both wrong and immoral.
Bondman is evil, from his point of view all of us are evil. but It is over, I have the high ground.

 

MUST. RESIST. REPLYING. IN DEPTH.

 

it's treason then!

 

Not really. Have you read Herodotus? His work is proof that pagan gods between cultures were interchangable.

I do believe in a divine somewhat similar to the concept that Stanislaw Lem layed out in his Solaris. In terms of the aspects of the divine, my understanding of it is based on Bhagavad-Gita, the Bible and some Buddhist texts.

They don't, but for some reason they always do. I've yet to find some person that has set a goal for himself that doesn't have some kind of moral code (note, even if the moral code could be argued as evil, like for example the Machievellian (which I don't think is btw) -- it's still a moral code)

I don't buy it. Primeval people believed in a lot of Bane Shift and the hierarchy of the society had the mystics/intellectuals (brahmans) at the high top (at least that's how it was for the proto-indo-europeans) so they could not possibly think of them as something out of place or wrong.

On that I totally agree and that's one of the main reasons I consider Christ a genius.

It comes down to how you interpret it. I'm completely against interpreting the Bible literally (although, obviously some of the books or passages are perfectly fine at being interpreted that way -- the Historical books for example (although even they have some metaphorical stuff going on.) And also, if it did, then the Catholic Church wouldn't have approved those theories.

 

How exactly does it contradict it? because you take the years presented in the Bible literally? or is it because of how god 'created' the animals for man?

 

you're not supposed to think for yourself, that's just the forbidden fruit talking, you are supposed to be an unthinking slave, slaves are not allowed to question.

 

I have not read his writing personally (not that I remember, at least), so I cannot say. Though, I would note that I mean the pagan religions usually thought of themselves as the only true religion, even if they were very similar to another religion (note that I would consider Greek and Roman "pagan" mythos to be essentially the same religion, since all the Romans did was rename things).

That's... Different. I would be interested to hear how you reach that.

Agreed.

While the "mystics/intellectuals" were often at the top, they were often still shunned, because people were afraid of them. These were people, who, apparently, wielded strange and often supposedly deadly power. Many people DID think of them as "out of place" or "wrong" in the sense of being unnatural, since they were connected to something that wasn't considered part of normal nature (that is, the supernatural).

The majority of Christian non-Catholic Church members do not see the Catholic Church as a reliable source on much of anything anymore, especially not over the past few decades or so (and before that as well, typically). Many Christians see the Catholic Church as adding to what the Bible "requires" of Christians, which can easily be considered heresy by many (including me). To me, Catholicism is almost a different religion from Christianity. That and they haven't historically been reliable anyway...

 

didn't read through this lengthy thread, but just wanted to point out the contradiction in this phrase - morality cannot logically be a prison for the "good guys," as the good guys wouldn't be good otherwise. Morality is thus the distinction between exploiters and non-exploiters.

 

It wasn't initially the same though. Before the Roman Empire emerged, the Apennine Peninsula was inhabited by Etruscans. Although they too have indo-european roots, their system of beliefs was much different than that of the Hellens (or of any other people for that matter). They incorporated Greek culture and mythology because they were awestruck by the beauty and sublimity of it, not because it was the same as theirs, which yet again proves that pagan religion didn't have the typical monotheistic rigid denial and was interchangable in its structure.

Unique experience with communicating with not-of-the-world type of people, intuitive approach to literature and quite a big variety of drugs probably contributed to it the most. After that I just went on intensely educating myself, both intellectually and spiritually.

Hm, fair enough. Still, I don't think that naturalism can provide all of the answers, especially when it comes to mysticism in different religions.

Hm, interesting. Aesthetically speaking, don't you find that Catholicism is the most appealing though?

 

Evolutionary speaking there are two things going on: selection at individual level and selection at group level.

Morality tends to be about creating a well functioning society, where people know and respect certain rules and codes of conduct that benefit us all. An orderly society/family/tribe will be likely to succeed and spread it's genes and memes.

But within that society there will be incentives for individuals to succeed at the expense of their compatriots - the individual can then spread his genes but at the expense of the wider group success.

This is essentially the tension between advantages that is the crux of morality - if you steal a car you are hurting your society, making it a worse place to live for everyone by helping to normalize crime. On the other hand you now have a car so your individual circumstances have improved. If instead you devote your life to helping the poor, you are improving your group (who share your genes) at the expense of you personally. Both approaches give an evolutionary advantage, but we call only one moral - for obvious reasons.

Of course, some would claim that we have created such an advanced system with a highly formalized laws and punishment system, that we don't actually need anything as ambiguous as morality anymore. That right and wrong is succeeded by legal/illegal. And that this provides all the incentive needed for society to function smoothly.

 

But isn't that just a product of morality? The way I see it, if the cornerstone gets removed, then the the legal system goes as well; maybe not instantly, but over time it would degrade and become corrupted.