Posted on 05/01/2003 8:44:18 AM PDT by RJCogburn
No, it's not open to interpretation. The hebrew word is clearly "murder".
Which society sets the standard? All are different. You mean the society that has the most power to enforce its brand of morality? I will tell you now that morals will not make sense if they are manmade - relativism is full of holes and there is no way to plug them.
In order for suffering to have meaning, God must exist. If God doesn't exist, then suffering is merely part of the overall machine and is neither good nor bad nor profound, it just is.
Secondly, Jesus Christ suffered more excruciating pain than we will ever suffer, and He is God. Therefore, we do not go through anything that God Himself has not been through. And it is thru Jesus' suffering that we attain eternal life! If God himself suffered, how can I say that I should not?
Again, the hebrew clearly means "murder". It is the original language that is authoritative - kill is mistranslation. The bible is inerrant in its autographs not in the translations. The bible says that the laws of God are written on the hearts of mankind, so even most atheists know in their heart is wrong to murder.
Your last question deals with the principle of "just war". I recommend you read Augustine on that and learn for yourself what wars are just and what wars are not. Let me ask you - was crushing Nazi Germany a just war? How about going after Al Qaeda? Isn't is quite obvious?
Let's be real shall we? Even when atheists attend the funerals of family members, they grieve! Is this grief a mere meaningless chemical process in their brain, or does it have meaning? You see, atheists like you live a hopeless dichotomy in that there can be no real meaning if there is no God - all is just a machine and man is part of the machine; but the atheist can't live that way! They live as if the love they have for their wives and children has meaning! They consider their wife and children to be valuable persons and not meaningless masses of molecules! They live as if the lives of their loved ones have meaning They live as if the death of a loved one has meaning! They live as if grief has meaning! It's a hopeless inescapable dichotomy. They cannot escape the mannishness of man.
Tell you what, if grief is meaningless, and you are a machine, then that feeling of grief is just a chemical process in your brain - nothing more. So, the next time you attend a funeral of a loved one, just keep telling yourself, "what I feel is meaningless," and see how far that gets you.
The fact that you are assuming in your arguments a just and unjust position, you are acknowledging the existence of moral standards. If you say those wars were just, then you believe in just wars. What's your beef? Yes, there have been unjust wars - Hitler waged some of them, Saddam waged some of them, and so on. Man is a free moral agent - he can decide to be immoral or moral. That does not mean that morality is relative. Again, you are confusing moral behavior with moral principles. Just because there is both good and bad in the world does not mean that there is no standard for good. If there is no standard for good, then the world would make no sense whatsoever and cruelty and non-cruelty become equal, in which case, there is no just and unjust. Make up your mind.
In many ways, your beliefs mirror atheists - you equate animals with people, you equivocate between murder and killing, you say just wars don't exist, you say morals are not absolute - these are atheist beliefs. Tell me why I should not believe thatyou are an atheist. Oh, and please spare me the comparison of animals with people. Do you really want to go there? You are opening up another huge can of worms that you cannot defend. Do you really think that animals grieve like people? Do you really think that animals understand loss as humans understand it? Do you really think that animals love as humans love? Are animals self aware? Do animals consider their plight?
Well, without some sort of working theory for what happens, we're left to gauge morality based on the results of this life.
Without such a theory, there's no reason to adopt the sort of transcendant moral posture that seems to drive the objectivists. Indeed, objectivists' theory ("this life and you're done" ) much demands that morality boils down the old bumpersticker: "He who dies with the most toys, wins."
Note that there are no particular rules mentioned for how one gets those toys -- if you manage to die old, rich, and happy, you've won.
What it reduces to is a pragmatic approach, such as general_re has described in this thread, to the effect that on average, people who behave well will do well. Unfortunately, pragmatism doesn't preclude the mafia don or murderous Pharaoh who, by "getting away with it," can be "winners" in the same sense as an honest man. We can say it's wrong -- but really we can only justify retaliation based on our communal dislike for what they do; we have no objective basis for saying it's wrong.
For transcendant moral values to have any meaning at all, they must have some consequence beyond our lifetime. In the "evolutionary approach," the consequences may be an inability to pass on our genes. From the Christian perspective, we know we will be judged.
Ironically, the objectivist self-interest angle seems to be one of those which logically cannot support the existence of those transcendant values it claims to have derived. It simply cannot answer the question of why the happy Pharaoh is wrong.
I have enjoyed your fasscinating and superb dialogue here. Please forgive this interjection, but I wonder what made J.S. Mill think that taking away evil in the world has anything to do with God's power? Power can only do what power can do. I might as well ask our dear general to make a square circle, as to ask how a Good God if he is omnipotent, permit evil in the world.
Cordially,
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