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Jesus of Nazareth
I found this on the Amorality of Atheism Facebook website page. I don’t endorse the idea that all atheists are amoral though.
Read an article in the Belfast Telegraph recently which said that “Today religion remains a popular historical hobby but not, thankfully, something we take seriously any more”. But whilst the narrow circle of people the author knows might not take religion seriously, there is one person they cannot afford not to take seriously.
He lived millennia ago, travelling by foot, with no car or horse, never leaving a rural area only slightly larger than Northern Ireland. He was a tradesman most of his life, and taught for only three years, spending most of his time with small crowds, and dying in his early thirties. He left behind no children, no army, or political lobby group, to trumpet his cause.
Yet today He is the central figure of the world’s best-selling book, and the subject of millions more. His name is known all over the globe, and spoken in hundreds of different languages. His followers are the most persecuted people on Earth, yet increase by 25 million every year, and his message has outlasted kingdoms, empires, dictators, revolutions, ideologies and religions.
He is arguably the most influential, lauded, loathed, misunderstood, controversial and quoted man to ever walk the face of the Earth. You can write him off as a liar, cast him aside as a lunatic, or look on Him as Lord, but one thing you cannot do is ignore Him. — Andrew Kirke
I’d also add that contrary to what some rags or magazines or online sites put out today of all days, or in prior Easters (Raw Story, CNN, Huffington Post) that no serious historian has ever seriously believed that Jesus did not exist. Only historical illiterates do. Christ was mentioned in Jewish, Greek, and Roman writings. For historians of the 1st century that is more than enough to prove he lived. Keep in mind that what we know of Alexander the Great or Aristotle depends on one source or sources written hundreds of years after their life as in the case of the former.
My faith in Jesus often wavers. I have a doubters’ mind. Nevertheless when I see atheists or non believers rubbish the man’s existence it is as if my faith is renewed again. For in doing so I am confronted not with reasoned belief but blind ignorance. An ignorance at its heart rooted in the desire of the accusers a wish for him not to exist. After all if Christ did exist the onus becomes on the modern unbeliever to take more seriously his words. This can be problem for them, indeed for any soul.
But their refusal also forces me to re-look the evidence for Christ. It also causes me to learn more things about the man. In a weird way it strengthens my faith. Christianity is after all a faith which is soaked in contradictions. It’s also one grounded in the search for Truth. Ecce homo — Behold the man. A man whose life changed humanity.
Published in History, Religion & Philosophy
I have a very different understanding of Kantian ethics. I believe that one can arrive at an a priori universal understanding of right and wrong through application of the categorical imperative. Kant’s entire philosophy is based on the understanding that one can use pure practical reason to arrive at moral precepts.
MJ, I’ve asked you before to dispense with your expressions of concern for my eternity. It’s arrogant, condescending and obnoxious.
This is exactly wrong. Before, beneath and beyond God is nothing. Among other aspects, God is the uncaused, eternal first cause and all that is entailed therein. There is no lower level or prior entity.
You may believe that. You may even be right. As an agnostic, I take no position. I humbly acknowledge my ignorance. But your belief is one of faith, not evidence. It is not a “fact” in the sense of having been proven. It is merely what you’ve been taught and have come to believe about questions that have always been beyond the ken of systematic human inquiry. And in terms of the turtle metaphor, you have, in fact, just arbitrarily declared one of the turtles to be standing on nothing.
Even if we grant this as true it doesn’t mean that the questions stop at that level. Asserting Gods existence is just a way to short circuit the reasoning process.
If this is mutually satisfying debate, go for it; if, however, it’s: “Nettle Cato and Jamie until one or both gets exasperated and commits a CoC violation.”, please drop it…Not sure it’s what Paddy intended, anyway. :-) Happy Easter Monday, All!
There can be no objective morality without God.
The problem with Kant is that morals are seldom absolute. Take the “no harm” principle. In fact, it is not black and white. Not only is “harm” subject to debate, not doing harm is not always possible. To use the “pushing old ladies” canard, I might hurt a woman pushing her out of the way of a bus, maybe even badly. I did harm. I engaged in an act she did not ask for. In fact, she might have been seeking to kill herself.
On a bigger scale, the self-evident morality of Asian cultures is nothing like it is in the West. Hinduism assumes people deserve what they get, and that some people are naturally sub-human. Racism is common in Asia. Without Christianity, there is no libertarian understanding of individual liberty. Heck, the whole idea there is no God at all is reason to kill people in most of history.
On an even bigger scale, the vast universe is likely to have many aliens in it. Aliens might have very different morals indeed, if there is not divine inspiration to them. Of course, it would be fascinating to come across an alien culture with its own version of the Jesus story. What if every world had that same story? Makes for neat thought experiment.
Yeah. I think that’s right. I have returned to thinking more about Kant’s categorical imperative, which I can interpret as nothing but the Golden Rule. I mean, I know that’s what he said it wasn’t, but I can’t understand it as anything else. The no harm principle maybe? That all seems like semantics? And since man is capable of infinite rationalization, this just doesn’t seem very… solid? Robust?
I’m not trying to be snide or arrogant or anything else either. We all have to work through these questions on our own and find our own answers.
I mean… I know one thing for certain: I’m not God. ;)
I just can’t reasonably get to an objective morality without some infinite in the picture. Truth is, I can’t even create “good” and “bad” if based on concern for self…
Regardless, once I reasoned there was a god, I got to the God. The second, I’ll admit, was harder for me to find than the first, which is why I was an agnostic for quite some time before I became a Christian. When it made sense though… it just made sense. I accept that’s “faith.”
But I guess I’m saying I also find it reasonable to find joy in Easter, though I wish everyone well, whatever all think. There’s no animosity in this dialogue.
True enough, but so is the whole idea that there is a God. It might be that human beings are just really good at rationalizing killing each other.
Indeed it does. If we are ever so fortunate to be able to communicate with intelligent alien life, the availability of triangulation opportunities will not doubt teach us a great deal.
You can assert this all day long, but that’s not an argument.
The Categorical Imperative is best understood as a tool through which we can use pure practical reason to discover moral absolutes.
I understand what this is. I just don’t understand how it can ever lead to a moral absolute.
I think we are both operating with our own versions of faith, but we are also both trying to use reason to lead us to the faiths we find reasonable.
I kind of look at smart people who have different politics than I do in the same way that I view this.
It’s okay. We just disagree.
The existence of Objective Morality is the positive claim. It is up to those making it to prove is exists, not on my to prove it does not. I do not claim to be able to prove it exists, and rely on faith in God to have written said morality into the hearts of man. That cannot be refuted or proved.
You are the one saying it can be proved as a natural law, like gravity. In order to do that, you have to have to defend your thesis against others. Thus far, I have not seen that done here in this thread.
If it is incumbent on me to prove the existence of objective morality (I have shown one method by which one can dervive objective morality through reason by the way) then it is likewise incumbent on you to prove the existence of God in order to establish the existence of your objective morality. You can’t just kick the can down the road throw up your hands and say “Well now it’s faith!”
I saying I believe in objective morality because if my faith. I don’t have to prove God to you, as what you believe has no bearing on my faith.
You, are making an assertion about natural law. That puts it beyond faith and into the provable.
If you wish to assert that objective morality exists for everyone then you would need to prove God’s existence. All you’ve proven is that you believe in objective morality – congratulations.
You are both missing the point. There is no “objective morality.” You are both acting on beliefs grown from experience. I would suggest that it is a sort of consequentialism that teaches us what we believe about morality. We believe what we think, based on our experience, works reasonably well, for ourselves first, for those close to us second, with the good of humanity generally being of real, but tertiary priority.
I disagree. I think there is an objective morality born of nature and nature’s laws. This is discover-able through reason.
@bryangstephens I couldn’t take issue with this if I wanted to: It’s perfectly logically consistent and makes for a very strong argument.
However, that seems a far more limited statement than what I responded to back on page one:
To recap: “I believe in objective morality because if my faith” describes your thought process to arrive at the conclusion that objective moral standards exist. In contrast, the earlier statement — and similar ones made by others — argues that there are no independent means to arrive at the same conclusion.
Seconding Jamie, I think Kant provides at least one independent path toward the existence of objective moral standards through the categorical imperative. To be clear, Kantianism is based on unproven suppositions that must be assumed to reason forward from and, in that sense, require a degree of faith, but that’s true of any philosophy.
God I hate to find myself agreeing with Bryan. But que sera sera.
First off, what you posted about my faith was not in response to you, but to Jamie, so you are confusing two different arguments as one.
The basic argument that Christianity as the core of Western Morality is so obviously true, it makes me wonder why someone has to claim it is not. A quick look at the history of the world shows that slavery is normal, killing “the other” is not murder, and that defining “the other” on the basis of race is how humans being naturally think and feel. Christianity is the religion which spawned the notion of “The Just War”. Christianity is the religion which informed the stand against slavery. Christianity, moving beyond its Jewish roots, focused on the individual as unique to God, regardless of his race, or parents. The whole concept of that individual as having worth just by being human is alien to most cultures. I do not say it is unique to Christianity, but as the dominant religion of the West, Christianity is the driver of the ideal of liberty as a right.
Now, there is political thought from Greece and Rome which are also important, and I would say, necessary for our culture to be what it is. They are not, however, sufficient without Christianity to from our ideas of individual liberty.
Modern atheists tend to like to dislike Christianity. They like to say that our morality is natural and can be discovered like a science. Setting aside how unnatural proper scientific investigations are to the human brain, it is a stunning claim. Despite all the evidence of Mankind’s normal civilization being an lack of liberty, we are told that liberty is an clear right that can be arrived at through reason. This says there is an objective morality, like a natural law. Based on the evidence of other cultures I do not see it. The world has already seen atheists murder more fellow human beings than any one religion in the name of “reason”. The death of God is a will to power.
I believe in a God who revealed himself to Mankind, who cannot understand him. We grope in darkness towards his light. His Son came to Earth to help show us the way, including telling us just how important every human being is in the eyes of God. It is not our parents, or what we own, or who we are born as, but our relationship with God that counts. Cato is wrong. Belief in a creator allows for Objective Morality, because the creator’s voice has spoken it into being.
I’m going to respond to Bryan in a few posts. First, some points where I agree with him:
Agreed.
To my knowledge, this is true.
I’d add that the same is true about Greco-Roman philosophy; I otherwise absolutely agree.
Now, as to some points where I disagree:
I disagree that it’s the core, but it’s absolutely one of the cores. Since at least Origen, Christian theologians have been in direct dialogue with the Greco-Roman philosophy. Christianity would make little more sense without Platonism than it does without the Torah.
Again, I posit that our Greco-Roman heritage is as essential to our civilization as our Judeo-Christian one: our civilization would not exist without either of them.
I think you’re overselling his. I’d say that Christianity may well have been essential to abolitionism but it was hardly sufficient; had it been, it seems odd that it took 1800 years to get around to it. There are a lot of other influences here.
Regarding the first half, I think you’re overselling this. Judaism absolutely made such claims and believed that the most essential moral laws apply to all of humanity, not just Jews.
Regarding the second, I feel you’re claiming the influence went all one way. That is, all good things that happened in Western thinking are attributed to Christianity, rather than Christianity being influenced (at least in part) by non-religious thinking.
I know there are people who claim such things, but I think they’re wrong. If someone said as much, here, I disagree with them.
Rather, it seems to me that moral philosophy can be informed by science, but ultimately rests on having some unproven principles. That’s fine. It’s called philosophy.
That would only follow if good morality were easily discoverable. Again, if anyone here has said so, I think they’re wrong.
If, on the other hand morality is discoverable analogously to how we discover other immaterial things — aesthetics, some kinds of math, etc — then it would follow that we start basic and work our way up. Most primitive cultures have a very limited sense of mathematics, but generally develop more sophisticated (and accurate) ones as they advance. I think (at least, I hop) it’s roughly the same with morals.
Bryan G. Stephens (View Comment):
My beef with this claim is not that it’s entirely wrong, but that it overreaches. Yes, I know you went on to give some credit (deservedly) to Greece and Rome, but it’s more than that. Even Christianity itself did not emerge out of whole cloth. Did it represent a turn (one of very many) in the culture? No doubt. But it built on the cultures from which it emerged, and was influenced by the cultures around it. Only faith (or bias) not history can locate it as some kind of sole or primary “core” of our morality. You need to almost willfully disregard too many things to make that claim.
Perhaps one explanation would be that for much of human history up to that point there was not the clear line between slave/free that became so apparent within the last 200 years. A feudal serf, indentured servant, or a sharecropper in later times was not always significantly better off than a slave labeled as such. The “big business” of the slave trade, its wide reach (truly global, for the first time), and its systematic implementation combined with a more sophisticated economy merely served to make the issue more obvious as a problem.
We are basically in agreement on the needed pillars of Western Morality. I do not deny the influence of Greece and Rome.
Cultures with advanced math and science can still be barbaric culturally. See China. It does not appear to be the same with morals at all.
No other culture figured it out. Without the ideas of liberty planted, I do not see any of the other factors being enough. Christianity on its own may not have been enough. Without it, however, no other amount of items would have made things turn out the way they did. Christianity has fundamentally changed the world like no other faith. It is a key part (not the only part) of changing the direction of Mankind for the better, no matter how long it has taken. Everything the West is, Christianity has colored. I know that can be upsetting to some non-Christians, but it is true.
It is not odd at all that it took so long, from a Christian point of view: We are fallen sinners. Love one another as you love yourself is a tall, tall order for humans. Jesus came to proclaim an inhuman type of love.
A man walked the Earth with a 3 year ministry. He did not preach for a life time. He did not convert at the point of a sword. He had no army, he left no text, and he preached in a small, backwater of the world’s largest empire. Just one more mystery faith. And He changed the course of history for the better.
I don’t mind agreeing with Bryan! :) He made a lot of very good points. :)
Christianity did not “grow out of the surrounding cultures.”
Christianity was a dramatic transformation of Jewish culture, with Jewish teachings for its morality. Christianity called on gentiles to reject Pagan culture and Pagan morality of the surrounding cultures.
Christianity still calls sinners to repent and follow the Way of Jesus. This is often difficult as it requires the new Christian to put aside their favorite sins. But a third of the world clings to our Lord Jesus the Anointed One.
The offer is forgiveness and eternal rest with our Holy G-d. Please give it an honest consideration.