Christianity has no Morality

[Andrew BrownParticipant]

Christianity is morally bankrupt and completely ignorant on the subject.

Their claims to Objective Morality are hypocritical when shown the crimes on their breatheren; Native Massacres, Jewish Holocaust and the 2000 year war on Judaism and Pagans, the Crusades and the 1200 year war on Islam, concealment of child rape, sacrifice of countless children to glorify god, etc.

Accepting a pure argument from authority which defines their moral concepts instead of allowing them to think deeply on the subject is their primary failure.

We cannot trust a Christian for all wrong doings are forgiven at tbe next prayer or confession. They have no way to justify any moral position besides bible quotes which have been through scribal editing and multiple political filters.

The religion is a tool for societal control, war justification, moral shield from atrocities, and a pleasant dream of a beautiful afterlife encouraging suicidal/altruistic actions in order to attain a pass through the gate.

 

[Simon PayntonParticipant]

I’m not sure I see much of a difference.  It seems to me that everyone believes what they want, and then justify it through cherry-picking the Bible or some other source.  I know that there are many Christian groups with a special interest in hating on gay people and being anti-abortion.  Religious groups tend to be more conservative than most in my opinion, and conservative groups are different from liberals in the moral foundations they emphasise.  According to Steven Pinker (The Better Angels of Our Nature) and Jonathan Haidt (The Righteous Mind), liberals are into helping and fairness exclusively, while conservatives have the “full range” of helping, fairness, respect for authority, loyalty to the group, and purity/sanctity/divinity.  Over time, empathic concern and justice (helping and fairness) become more prominent in the world.

So at its basis, as well as some particular idiosyncratic rules, God commands people to flourish cooperatively.  What’s wrong with that?  It aligns with the rest of us.  If it’s not God commanding it, it’s nature.

[jakelafortParticipant]

Andre Brown, we differ on the notion Christianity is ignorant on issue of morality. Christianity has done an amazing con job on the masses equating its practices with morality-selling the notion that it is the only path to righteousness. The issue of morality is irrelevant. It is simply about power. Fortunately its power is waning. May it die a vainglorious and ignominious death.

[JohanParticipant]

Yep. Religion is dying. But Reality is in its place. It was never about religion. Which is just another mindset. It is actually about dying as a human being and being born again as a Godly Being. Entering into the Life of God. Starting of as a Baby God. This means that there is no human morality in the Reality of being Christ. There is only “Godly Morality”. Just as a dog have only “dogly morality” and a bird has only “birdly morality”

[DavisModerator]

No, Godly beings have human constructed morality because God is a human construction, invented by confused, scared and fragile human beings yet to be enlightened.

[Simon PayntonParticipant]

Yes, but God has properties of “His” own, that are not human.  People act as if “He” were real, a real transcendent Creator God who governs the human race.  That’s not human.  So it’s the morality of a supernatural rather than a natural being.

I think that the religious version of morality is “whatever humans want it to be” – yet it introduces problems of its own, extra reasons to be pissed off with each other, such as, heresy for example.  Artificial sins.

[DavisModerator]

 

Man can work out morality mostly through reason and dispense the need for the artificial authority through an invented divine being. The bonus with this is you get rid of thought control punishment for victimless crimes (blasphemy) and can adapt much quicker to advancing knowledge (the need for the use of condoms or say the realisation that sexual orientation is not a choice).

[Simon PayntonParticipant]

According to Steven Pinker in The Better Angels of Our Nature, the capacity to reason abstractly has increased at least over the 20th century.  This means to detach one’s mind from the parochial concerns of one’s personal reality, and think about hypothetical things, and morally, could increase our capacity to take the perspectives of others and imagine what the world is like for them.  Hence, the widening “circles of concern” that take in more and more formerly oppressed groups.

[PopeBeanieModerator]

Andrew Brown wrote:

Accepting a pure argument from authority which defines their moral concepts instead of allowing them to think deeply on the subject is their primary failure.

As a preface, let me say that I agree with that statement, but it’s not just relevant in the context of one religion like Christianity, and it’s even relevant in some atheistic governmental institutions, e.g. where CCP clamps down on personal freedoms in China. (You can skip my next two “bigger picture” paragraphs that don’t directly address your point, if you like.)

Most pack animals have some decision-making ability wrt how they behave individually within their pack, which naturally includes some understanding and (temporary or permanent) acceptance of one’s position and role in the pack. Larger brains tend to have more comprehension of circumstances and knowledge of behavioral options; humans are not only supreme in this regard, but are especially prone to going overboard or even dysfunctional, especially amplified (in thoughts and deeds) by language, theory-of-mind preoccupations, obsession over particular habits, skill sets, and social capabilities.

Add to the above, new technologies and communication paradigms like the printing press and now the internet… this is how moralization and religion first developed and took over our various cultures, currently booming with contagious conspiracy theories, other unreasonable beliefs and convictions, and an explosion in group identity dysfunctionalities, whether religious/spiritual, political, panpsychism and “higher power” complexes… jeebus, pokemon treks and reality TV shows!

Morality’s always been on the minds of humans, and inventing religions was the first attempt to codify morality and add institutional power and structure that could enforce morality and impose other behavioral controls over the masses. Religion thrives on the contagious nature of its purported “morality”… it’s practically “moral” as a matter of definition. Morality has always been human invention/construct, and religious inventions/constructs grew to support the agendas of increasingly powerful institutions, for better and for worse. Back before science came into practice and influence, religion was the most amateur attempt to understand our world and ourselves.

Btw I know it’s obvious, but Christianity is just one version of religion and morality. And the advancement of civilizations depends now more on codified law (which is largely derived on somewhat more abstract moral and ethical principles), while we currently suffer more from Islamic governmental (and cult-level) impositions of morality. If I can generalize even further, I see a big tendency among humans to assume there is a larger picture of greater good for humanity that insists that a superior, but human-like power is the purest origin of morality, although many of them will say this power is purely divine and not human-like.

The power of this invented divinity is as strong as human imagination! And yes (to add to Simon’s observation), conservatives, practically by definition, default to traditional beliefs and prejudice against progressive beliefs, supporting the perpetuation of religious institutions and supposed “moral imperatives” around the world. Indeed, it’s typically the atheist who is questioned on his/her supposed basis for belief in any morality.

Meanwhile, the notion of perfection is a human idealism, along with the notion of supposedly perfect definitions of morality, as always, for better and for worse. In reality notions of morality will always exist as notions that evolve within their historical and dynamic contexts, and which traditional dogmas and scriptures will always forbid.

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