There are SO MANY MORONS posting in this section!

[trini_gsr]

I don't think the Bible is a reference for human morality. it tells us that human morality is out of our reach and that our morality has nothing to do with our ability to mend our relationship with God...(trying to keep the point simple, but it is a lot more involved than that)

i agree with most of what you've said but this is a little confusing. how can "human morality" be out of our reach as humans? I'm assuming you mean God's standard of morality? And what makes you say this?

[sport_122]

i agree with most of what you've said but this is a little confusing. how can "human morality" be out of our reach as humans? I'm assuming you mean God's standard of morality? And what makes you say this?

Great question. Thanks for checking me on this.

Human morality is subjective and I would define it as the laws/rules that are varied amongst nations and then the personal rules that we set for ourselves. What i am saying is that even the rules of conduct that humans make for themselves are not kept. We have an understanding of human conduct, but we do not even meet our own moral standard. Like being on time, keeping a budget, respecting one another, not speeding, cheating, maintaining a certain diet, new years resolutions etc. So maybe I should have said that keeping our own moral standards does not happen. And I guess I would also need to add that when I think of keeping or breaking your own rules, I am saying that if you break one of your rules you have severed your entire code of conduct or your personal morality.

And then based on the Bible, it is written numerous times that our most righteous acts are worthless. This is saying that the things that we do to try to earn our way into Gods favor are pointless. Christians do not believe that we get into heaven by being good, we believe it is purely by grace and mercy because we believe that we are guilty of breaking God's law and what we deserve is punishment, yet we are spared because of Christ.

Did that make more sense?...lemme know if I failed to define my statement.

[trini_gsr]

Great question. Thanks for checking me on this.

Human morality is subjective and I would define it as the laws/rules that are varied amongst nations and then the personal rules that we set for ourselves. What i am saying is that even the rules of conduct that humans make for themselves are not kept. We have an understanding of human conduct, but we do not even meet our own moral standard. Like being on time, keeping a budget, respecting one another, not speeding, cheating, maintaining a certain diet, new years resolutions etc. So maybe I should have said that keeping our own moral standards does not happen. And I guess I would also need to add that when I think of keeping or breaking your own rules, I am saying that if you break one of your rules you have severed your entire code of conduct or your personal morality.

And then based on the Bible, it is written numerous times that our most righteous acts are worthless. This is saying that the things that we do to try to earn our way into Gods favor are pointless. Christians do not believe that we get into heaven by being good, we believe it is purely by grace and mercy because we believe that we are guilty of breaking God's law and what we deserve is punishment, yet we are spared because of Christ.

Did that make more sense?...lemme know if I failed to define my statement.

thanks for the clarification. what you've described is my fundamental problem with the Bible, that I'm still trying to work out. the whole idea of sin, humans deserving punishment, heaven/hell, etc. it's just another system of control. and too one-dimensional/non-inclusive of other cultures' ideas of what spirituality means to be truly universal.

still, those who truly live by the Bible are often exemplary ppl in my experience, so I can't front on it, it does have a viable spiritual message.

[sport_122]

thanks for the clarification. what you've described is my fundamental problem with the Bible, that I'm still trying to work out. the whole idea of sin, humans deserving punishment, heaven/hell, etc. it's just another system of control. and too one-dimensional/non-inclusive of other cultures' ideas of what spirituality means to be truly universal.

still, those who truly live by the Bible are often exemplary ppl in my experience, so I can't front on it, it does have a viable spiritual message.

Great statements...Maybe we should start another thread to discuss freedom and if it ever really exists. This was a big discussion when I was in college because the matrix had just come out so every psychology class started talking about this.

I am not sure if spirituality is something that we could consider to be universal. Mostly because it is usually tied to a persons faith or religious preference in some way. You are correct though about the christian faith is in a God who is another form of control. It really is. The roots of the faith stem from believing in a God who is all powerful and in all control of all things. Because the faith is set on a sovereign God, the idea of him being controlling and doing things to suit his purpose is not far fetched at all. its actually almost point on for the thinking of reformed believers. And it is also important to point out that believers also believe that in all that happens, this God has the intention of redeeming us to him.

I guess the big thing is trying to understand that sovereignty does not denote tyranny. We are accustomed to believing that sovereign rulers and overbearing dictators are the same. They can be, but by definition they are not always the same. A sovereign ruler can be just, loving, benevolent, jealous, angry, and peaceful and still be good.

...this could easily become too much discussion for this thread.

[DrivenMind]

Great statements...Maybe we should start another thread to discuss freedom and if it ever really exists. This was a big discussion when I was in college because the matrix had just come out so every psychology class started talking about this.

I am not sure if spirituality is something that we could consider to be universal. Mostly because it is usually tied to a persons faith or religious preference in some way. You are correct though about the christian faith is in a God who is another form of control. It really is. The roots of the faith stem from believing in a God who is all powerful and in all control of all things. Because the faith is set on a sovereign God, the idea of him being controlling and doing things to suit his purpose is not far fetched at all. its actually almost point on for the thinking of reformed believers. And it is also important to point out that believers also believe that in all that happens, this God has the intention of redeeming us to him.

I guess the big thing is trying to understand that sovereignty does not denote tyranny. We are accustomed to believing that sovereign rulers and overbearing dictators are the same. They can be, but by definition they are not always the same. A sovereign ruler can be just, loving, benevolent, jealous, angry, and peaceful and still be good.

...this could easily become too much discussion for this thread.

I think I understand what you're saying here, but doesn't the very essence of believing in an all knowing, all seeing, creator in a sense confine a persons beliefs to celestial tyranny. Is it not the nature of tyranny to condemn all who disagree, and to ask people to submit blindly to authority?

I still don't understand why we feel so compelled to assign our petty human emotions to an entity that is supposedly all knowing and all powerful? Either god is all knowing an all powerful creator, or god is a personified figment of humanities collective imagination.

[sport_122]

I think I understand what you're saying here, but doesn't the very essence of believing in an all knowing, all seeing, creator in a sense confine a persons beliefs to celestial tyranny. Is it not the nature of tyranny to condemn all who disagree, and to ask people to submit blindly to authority?

You are right about the nature of tyranny, and if you believe that the all knowing creator is a tyrant then yes you are absolutely correct. But when the christian believes that that creator provided redemption when you should have provided wrath, then it is hard to see Him as a tyrant. Also the believer would say that God's character is always righteous.

If God did not provide redemption then he could be considered a tyrant. The foundation of the Judeo-christian faiths is about a God who will provide deliverance and redemption (and for the Christians we believe this has already happened), so the beliefs will flow out of the goodness that we believe God does for us personally as believers and collectively as a race of people.

I still don't understand why we feel so compelled to assign our petty human emotions to an entity that is supposedly all knowing and all powerful? Either god is all knowing an all powerful creator, or god is a personified figment of humanities collective imagination.

It could be that every human on this planet is crazy or there is something that is somehow a part of us that gives us certain knowledge that is embedded in the very fabric of who we are. Some people act on this knowledge and it becomes their faith, and some people deny this knowledge and rebel against it for whatever reason. But we ALL believe something, whether or not it is a religious belief of not, we ALL believe something and make something or someone a god in our lives. And that doesn't mean a trancendency, it just mean that we all have something that we use to fill that void.