God's word defines morality. I choose to follow His Word and choose to (attempt) to follow His moral code. Not my moral code - God's moral code. My faith is in God, but that does not imply I get to push my faith or His morals on you and never did. Please don't confuse all that.
Self righteousness? For you to say this here provides more info than may be realized....could write tons here.
Self righteousness has nothing to do with attempting to follow God's moral code - rather submitting to His moral code! If someone claims to be in submission to God and at the same time is self righteous......RUN!
If anyone is self righteous, they are the ones who deny they are the created. They do in fact - stand and rely on their own “self” for all things (well who else is there, then?). That....is self righteousness....but I'll bet you do find that surprising.
I don't determine morality on my own - I go with what God's word says.
I'm very curious as to how the Bible can be a ‘great book of morals’, and from your view, not be given by God to men to write, yet these men some how had a reasonable sense of morality.(?) (And oh by the way - you seem to think they are ‘ok’ morals some how?) (It is good tho, that you have read some of the Bible at least!)
This begs the question again that no one is too eager to answer....is where did any or all this morality come from, if not from God? It did not crawl up on a beach. It did not come to being by a billion years of some if-then-else cancellation process.
I'm not asking you to change your morals, I want you to tell me historically how the first decision between good and evil came to pass? Tell me where the very first thought of good and evil came from in human history.
The ‘holiness’ factor I mentioned is in ‘God given’ versus just a bunch of books written by men that happen to contain someone’s version of ‘morals’.
One of the big points here that is apparently not getting across - is that all of you who claim there is no God, and who are adamantly opposed to the idea of submitting to a higher power - need to be able to explain where morals, morale, good and evil knowledge came from.
I don't need to hear of your views of how life began. You can argue all day about big bangs, amoebas, beach scenes and monkeys - but I personally want you all to explain in detail where and how the human mind - uniquely - ‘developed’ knowledge of good and evil. And again, instinct does not apply.
thank you.
While I of course don't expect you to agree with my point of view, I am once again perplexed by the inability of believers to at least UNDERSTAND such a common view.
Ever hear of Aesop's Fables? They don't come from God, they come from tales told among just regular folks, assembled by a slave.
I'm not comparing these to the Bible in any way except to say these are morality tales, and they at no time have been said to come from God.
They came from the accumulated wisdom and observation of...people.
Again--you don't have to agree with my point of view, but it's bewildering to me why you can't simply understand what I mean when I put forth my belief that the Bible tales are invented stories meant to show what some have decided is morality based on the ethical beliefs that emerged over thousands of years of human behavior, during which a society or societies saw what, in their view, worked for them, what didn't; what actions were justified and which weren't.
The Bible says there are some actions which are justified, even killing, and others which are not; there are countless moral codes of lands, tribes, nations, religions which do the same, and they don't come from the god you choose to believe in.
You label your moral code as superior because it comes from God the Creator. Fine. Others say your god isn't the creator, and guess what? Their opinion matters TO THEM as much as yours matters to you.
You can say "But MINE is the right one!" all you like, and it doesn't change the situation, which is one person claiming his is THE God, his THE morality.
You're perfectly within your rights to do so. But that doesn't change for one second that I don't believe it, nor do I have to believe it.
Again, I'm not asking you to like it--I don't care whether you do or you don't. But can't you at least understand the position?
Just to be clear, I've addressed this--it came from the human experience of that behavior which benefits the individual while at the same time allowing society to function based on local custom and prefered behavior. I never said anything about instinct, so I don't know why you brought that up to me.