Is religion guilty of moving the goalposts?

[Felasco]

Another angle...

We try to live a life based on pursuing our self interests, and sometimes it doesn't work out. Sometimes it seems the harder we pursue our self-centered agenda, the behinder we get.

Some people pursue a self-centered path until they crash and burn, and then their minds are opened to alternatives.

The problem with a focus on "me, me, me" is that it reinforces and strengthens the core problem at the heart of the human condition.

We are thought, and thought is inherently divisive in nature. Thus, looking through thought, we experience reality as being divided between "me" and "everything else", which when you think about it is a pretty lonely, isolating, and scary place to be.

This lonely, isolated, scary place is buried deep within all of us, and is the source of most personal and social problems.

The more we think about "me, me, me" the stronger the illusion of separation becomes, along with the pain and fear that are inherent in perceiving "me" as so small and alone in an "everything else" which is so large.

Many people turn to Christianity either when they figure this out, or when they hit the wall with their self focused lives.

Jesus said "die to be reborn".

Just four words make up the genius of Christianity, a genius proven by it's survival for 2,000 years in every corner of the world.

To the degree that we can "die" to our self obsessed point of view, and be "reborn" in to a focus on the living things around us, the illusion of separation and the associated pain at the heart of our human condition are eased.

It's not really about being good.

It's about being smart.

To assist people in making this transition, lesser minds than Jesus have piled on scolding morality, guilt and all kinds of other negative crapola over the centuries.

[Kurt]

To go even further back, our morality and ethics might simpily be apart of our survival instincts. We need to work together at many levels to survive and this then becomes apart of our evolutionary DNA.

[Kurt]

Does religion change the goal posts, sure they do. Should there be guilt attached, no. Religion in many ways has always been evolving. Let's hope the principles of belief evolution ends up somewhere relevant and positive to the human condition.

[bobevenson]

Religion in many ways has always been evolving.

I guess you haven't talked to any Muslims lately.

[Kurt]

It could be said that Muslims are where Christians were a few hundred years ago during the inquisitions. I mean Islam is a few hundred years younger, evolution happens over time sometimes involves backward steps as far as morality is concerned. Who knows where the Arab Spring is going to take them, the effects of which might not be fully realised for many generations.

[mickthinks]

["moving the goalposts" is] Neither [sin nor crime]. What makes you think I should think it is?

Your choice of the word "guilty" makes it look as if you think Religion is doing wrong of some sort. Guilt is a strange concept to invoke if you don't think that. What did you mean by "guilty"?

[aiddon]

["moving the goalposts" is] Neither [sin nor crime]. What makes you think I should think it is?

Your choice of the word "guilty" makes it look as if you think Religion is doing wrong of some sort. Guilt is a strange concept to invoke if you don't think that. What did you mean by "guilty"?

Hi Mick. Yes, shrewd that you picked up on the semantics like this. I meant guilty in the same way as you would say "I am guilty of having a beer on a hot day" - more in the sense of a deliberate action rather than in the legalistic sense. Moving goalposts is something intrinsic to human nature (after all, religion is a human endeavour) however I believe that there comes a point when moving goalposts reaches a limit, and then reason becomes diminished in the face of overwhelming opposition.

[Immanuel Can]

Interesting point. Outside of "religion" there are no "goalposts" that assert we ought to hold to consistent standards. Moving the goalposts is diurnal for Constructivists, or Social Darwinists, or Pragmatists, or any ideological group with progressive aspirations.

If we personally subscribed to one of those views, on what basis would we indict "religion" for doing what we routinely do?

[aiddon]

Interesting point. Outside of "religion" there are no "goalposts" that assert we ought to hold to consistent standards. Moving the goalposts is diurnal for Constructivists, or Social Darwinists, or Pragmatists, or any ideological group with progressive aspirations.

If we personally subscribed to one of those views, on what basis would we indict "religion" for doing what we routinely do?

You are right, IC, there is no reason to indict religion. Religion has, to some degree, moved along with human progression in science and reason. But I think the reason I began this thread is that I sense religion is a great hulk of a steam train seeing the end of the track away at a distance and knows unconsciously that the only way to avoid catastrophe is to run along regardless into the mud and the gravel. There is a limit to the track, as there is to subverting reason.

At least when the goalposts are moved in the likes of philosophy or science or whatever you like, it is primarily (not always, I admit) to push out our understanding of the world.

[Immanuel Can]

Well, I would go the other way -- not to say that there is no reason to indict "religion" if it moves the goalposts, but rather to say that there is every reason to indict any ideology that does. (The only exception I would make is a belief that is actually acting modestly, and while being erroneous at the moment is making reasonable progress in the direction of truth: I would just call that "learning.") Any dogma that claims one standard is absolute and then reverts to another I would say is rightly open to criticism as hypocritical.

But then again, I have an advantage in making such a judgment. I'm personally making it from the view of a moral objectivist, so I can argue with rational consistency that hypocrisy is inherently evil. Yet I cannot see how anyone who is not a moral objectivist can do that, since there is no immorality in being two-faced or even outrightly dishonest if there is no value or morality that is inherently true.

And if that statement true, then only a moral objectivist can unhypocritically pose the question aiddon posed at the start of this thread.

So I would say, "From what moral stance is the question being posed?" "Who has so seized the moral high ground as to be able to put the question to "religion'?

Or to put it in Henry language, "Who's askin' ?"

[mickthinks]

I meant guilty in the same way as you would say "I am guilty of having a beer on a hot day" - more in the sense of a deliberate action rather than in the legalistic sense.

Hmmm - it won't wash, aiddon. If you are okay with goalpost-moving, then I don't see the point of your question. What are you hoping to establish?

[aiddon]

I meant guilty in the same way as you would say "I am guilty of having a beer on a hot day" - more in the sense of a deliberate action rather than in the legalistic sense.

Hmmm - it won't wash, aiddon. If you are okay with goalpost-moving, then I don't see the point of your question. What are you hoping to establish?

My point is that religion doesn't accept that it moves the goalposts. But I think we have covered this ground previously as this is an old thread at this stage. Feel free to click back over the discussion....

[mickthinks]

My point is that religion doesn't accept that it moves the goalposts.

You keep talking about 'religion' as if it were a person being accused. I don't think 'religion' has ever been asked to accept that it moves the goalposts.

[Immanuel Can]

mickthinks:

This is right on point.

There's no such thing as a collective entity called "religion." The word, at best, is an uninformative catch-all for any world view other than crass Materialism. It is usually employed only dismissively in debate, and primarily but secular critics bent on foolishly dismissing *all* of these diverse world views at once by mashing them together and not really understanding any of them.

It is very hard to see how such a phoney construct can be legitimately indicted (or, on the other hand, praised) for anything in particular, so perhaps the original question should simply be regarded as unintelligible.

I would say it is.

[QMan]

It could be said that Muslims are where Christians were a few hundred years ago during the inquisitions. I mean Islam is a few hundred years younger, evolution happens over time sometimes involves backward steps as far as morality is concerned. Who knows where the Arab Spring is going to take them, the effects of which might not be fully realised for many generations.

This is a very common fallacy, Islam considers itself to be much older than Christianity dating back to Abraham, which causes the problems today.

"One contradiction in particular has caused a great deal of conflict between Muslims and ethnic Jews and is thought to have been and continues to be the cause of much bloodshed in the Middle East. According to the Hebrew Torah, God made a covenant with a man named Abraham. God promised Abraham a child through whom He would fulfill this covenant ("the child of promise," Genesis 15). Abraham was at that time childless. His wife, Sarah, was barren. This of course made the promise very special to Abraham. But it would require nothing less than a miracle. Sarah, conscious of her condition, decided to help God out. She offered her maidservant Hagar to Abraham with the hope that Hagar might conceive and bear the child of promise. Abraham agreed to take Hagar as his concubine. She conceived and bore Ishmael (Genesis 16). God allowed Ishmael to be born but Ishmael was not the child of promise God had in mind (Genesis 17). God promised a child through Sarah, not Hagar (Genesis 17-18), and in due time God fulfilled His promise. "And the Lord visited Sarah as He had said, and the Lord did for Sarah as He had spoken. For Sarah conceived and bore Abraham a son in his old age, at the set time of which God had spoken to him. And Abraham called the name of his son who was born to him-whom Sarah bore to him-isaac." (Genesis 21:1-3) Isaac was the child of promise. Isaac later begot Jacob, the father of the twelve tribes of Israel, and the Messiah, Jesus Christ, eventually came into the world through the nation of Israel, fulfilling the covenant which God had made with Abraham. God also promised to give the land of Canaan (Palestine) to Isaac's descendants, the land which Israel possesses today (Genesis 12:4-7; 13:12-18; 15:1-21; 17:1-22; 21:1-14; 25:19-26; 26:1-6; 35:9-12).

The problem is that the Qur'an teaches that Ishmael was the child of promise (Sura 19:54; compare Sura 37:83-109 with Genesis 22:1-19) and so Muslims believe that God's covenant promises were meant for Ishmael's descendants, not Isaac's. Muhammad descended from Ishmael and so Muslims seek to lay claim to these covenant promises, namely the land of Palestine. Since Israel's U.N.-sanctioned return to Palestine in 1948 there has been unceasing hostility between Israel and her Arab neighbors, with major armed conflicts in 1948-49, 1956, 1967, 1973-74, and 1982. That Israel remains today is a miracle in-and-of itself. - See more at: http://www.allaboutreligion.org/Origin- ... VoMld.dpuf

http://www.allaboutreligion.org/Origin-Of-Islam.htm