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Originally - ACCORDING TO JEWDEO CHRISTIAN TRADITION - there was no morality. There was no right or wrong. There was no sense of good or bad.
Please refer to the Book of Genesis. Adam and Eve had no concept of morality. They were 1. Pure 2. Innocent 3. Natural.
Like a child.
Now, please, refer to exact moment of when they "became immoral", or "sinned".
They ate a fruit of a tree.
What tree was it?
Was it tree of lust? Of greed? Of anger? Of violence? Name seven deadly sins, was it tree of any one of them?
No.
It was tree of KNOWLEDGE.
Immediately after, they knew that they are naked shame fell down on them.
Why exactly is it KNOWLEDGE, not a deadly sin or combination of them, that tree was of?
As before, they were like children. Maybe in adult formed bodies (Read BoG. They were not created, they were FORMED)They had no mind. Had no ego. Had no knowledge of that. All of their behavior and emotions was pure and innocent. Just like a child. It gets angry - it is pure anger. Then it is a child again. Child is naked - there is purity about that nakedness, as child is not aware of it being something unnatural or "bad". After all, it is a natural state for a human.
But after they acquired mind, ego, that is when principles of "good and bad", of "moral and immoral" came upon them. And so it went.
As everything in the Bible or Jewdeo Christian tradition, it is all allegories and parables.
But here comes The Savior. What does He say about Kingdom of God? Does He say - if you pray 20 times a day.. Or, If you go to church every Sunday... Or, if you give to poor.. Or whatever else that is "doing religion" now...?
No. He said - And when you become LIKE A CHILD again, ONLY THEN can you enter the Kingdom of God.
Like Adam and Eve.
Before they acquired their minds.
Puere. Innocent. Natural.
The Bible is God teaching us how to live. We are all born with the capacity for a conscience, but it must be developed. Sociopaths can be developed in childhood thru always giving into them, or being very abusive and neglectful to them. Of course, these types of upbringings don't guarantee turning a child into a sociopath- just makes it more likely. A person may be "morally good", but if God is not in their heart, then that "goodness" will not be rewarded with eternal life. After all, man on his own- his good deeds are like filthy rags when compared to Gods righteousness. The more we practice living the way God teaches in the Bible, the more "good" we can offer this world. Without God in our heart, we are limited, since His influence is much less.
The fact that bible-thumpers invariably contort themselves to no end to explain away all sorts of Biblical directives that they know fill well are moral abominations - how much to pay a man after you rape her daughter, when and how slavery is okey-dokey, etc. - tells every last one of us (even those who refuse to admit it) that our morality does not come from ancient books.
The fact that bible-thumpers invariably contort themselves to no end to explain away all sorts of Biblical directives that they know fill well are moral abominations - how much to pay a man after you rape her daughter, when and how slavery is okey-dokey, etc. - tells every last one of us (even those who refuse to admit it) that our morality does not come from ancient books.
The OT law does not apply to modern day Christians. So why keep bringing that up?
The fact that bible-thumpers invariably contort themselves to no end to explain away all sorts of Biblical directives that they know fill well are moral abominations - how much to pay a man after you rape her daughter, when and how slavery is okey-dokey, etc. - tells every last one of us (even those who refuse to admit it) that our morality does not come from ancient books.
Quote:
Originally Posted by jeffbase40
The OT law does not apply to modern day Christians. So why keep bringing that up?
So?
Stop being so utterly self-absorbed, Jeff.
First, this thread concerns 'the Bible'. See the title? So the fact that you find the Old Testement inconvenient is irrelevant. Biblical morality. The Old Testament is part of the Bible, obviously. Deal with it.
Second, stop being such a raging hypocrite. You happily cite the Old Testament when it serves your purposes, then you run away from it and cry that it doesn't apply when you find it inconvenient.
You do so here:
Quote:
Originally Posted by jeffbase40
So you just ignore Leviticus 18:22? After all, it says homosexual activity is detestable. Please explain to me how detestable doesn't mean, well detestable.
'Do not have sexual relations with a man as one does with a woman; that is detestable. 'Do not have sexual relations with an animal and defile yourself with it. A woman must not present herself to an animal to have sexual relations with it; that is a perversion. 'Do not defile yourselves in any of these ways, because this is how the nations that I am going to drive out before you became defiled. Even the land was defiled; so I punished it for its sin, and the land vomited out its inhabitants.
Lev. 18-22-25
The sin is seen as so bad before God that it cursed the land itself.
Third, the whole notion that the particulars of morality vary depending on whether or not you're a Christian or a Jew or none of the above is so laughably inane that I'm almost - not quite, but almost - surprised that even you would embrace such an absurd idea.
However, it does make clear that you think morality is nothing other than what your favorite mind-changing deity declares at any give time, and is prone to change his mind at some point in time, meaning that since there is no objective morality, tomorrow he might claim that torture and child rape are good. And since you hold that their evilness is only a matter of God saying so, then if he says otherwise then they would not be evil.
And that is the reality of your idea of morality.
Fourth, the New Testament does in fact contain clear and unequivocal commands for slaves to be obedient to those who own them, from Ephesians to Timothy to the parable in Luke in which Jesus approves of beating disobedient slaves. And you will contort yourself - just as I said - to explain away or 'alternately translate' those passages, precisely because you know slavery is a moral abomination despite the fact that the Bible (even the New Testament, the part that you don't selectively dismiss when convenient to your agenda) holds otherwise.
The fact that there are, and have been throughout history, many people that are seen as highly moral people who do not, or did not, subscribe to the teachings in the Bible, indicated plainly that morality for some people is not dependent on the contents of the Bible. Gandhi come to mind. Nehru is another. Sun Yat-sen qualifies. There are many other leaders known for their morality that had no connection with any Bible-based religion.
Maybe you need a Bible to be a moral person, but Gandhi didn't.
Folks, you keep discussing sociatal, imposed morality, forgetting, that existentially, morality does not exist. Look into nature. Is nature moral? No. Nature is. It cares less about NT, OT, B or whatever else human came up with. It is as it is, what it is and is perfect as such, as there is none other.
You so called morality dissects a human. Makes it a duality. A multivarity, if I may to come with a word.
Your moralists say - we allow love in you but we forbid hatred. But there is no love without hatred, as they are opposites of same energy flow.
They say - we allow serenity, calm in you, but we forbid anger. But anger and serenity, peace, are simply opposite poles of the same energy.
They say - we allow generosity, but we forbid greed. But they are nothing but opposite poles of the same energy.
They say - we forbid sex but we allow celibacy. But what is celibacy if not rest between peaks of sexual energy?
It is like saying - you are allowed to inhale only, but exhaling is forbidden. One dies, attempting this.
So happens, when man tries to follow what moralists tell him to. Then he either dies, turns into a zombie, or explodes, as man can suppress immoral all he wants to - it does not disappear, it simply builds up energy and potency. It will haunt your moral heroes in their dreams. That's why your saints don't sleep much - they are afraid to, as THEN suppressed comes after them. Violent man can turn calm like a lamb - but all that is is that he is not violent against his own nature - yet praised by others as saint. Violence went nowhere, it can't, as it is at man's core. You can not make a no fish out of fish. You can not make a non greedy out of greedy.
So your morals ask for things absurd, as they ask man to become a non man, and that is making fish out of non fish.
So what man does? Man figures it out, his cunning mind figures it. He starts giving lip service to moralists, to priests, becoming great saint, great sage.
This is said in the Bible - do not judge, as have you measure to measure with. This is wrongly referred to "bad" people. Do not judge them. This is same for "good" ones too. As you have no measure to judge, as no one of you knows what is inside of them, what hell they sometimes go through, great saints and Ghandis of the world.
Man is what man is. Man is anger. And is love. Greed and generosity. Violence and compassion. Whatever is known, that man IS. Not "feels like" at a given moment. Is in its core, its center. But man's cunning mind always operates at the periphery, always says - I feel angry. I am sorry. I ask for forgiveness. I'll be better next time. And ego is tickled, how good a man I am. Priest will say - go buy indulgence. Or, say 20 ave Marias. Like that is going to change your CORE.
And at your core, you ARE all those feelings. You do not feel them. You ARE them. So how are you going to change that? With stone tablets and parchments with 1320 instructions of how to behave properly in society? So you followed all this, you became a great saint. An example. Lead the way. But inside, your core stayed what it was and you accomplished naught.
As every man is WHOLE. Every man is Wholy and as such, every man is Holy, when he recognizes not imposed principles from moralists and priests and politicians, but recognizes his WHOLENESS
The New Testament take on morality is a 180 switch from Old Testament
But the question ---does morality come from a book or your heart
Neither ---
humans can justify absolutely anything with or without books
Justice wisdom and mercy
Are divine qualities and only come to our thought in our best moments
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