Religious vs non-religous bases for morality

[MikeNovack]

If anybody calling himself a Christian said "Kill your enemies," then he was no Christian, by the word of Jesus Christ Himself.

I have friends who are Friends, known other Christians who oppose killing people. But these are a very small percentage of Christians. If you want to argue 99% of Christians aren't Christians, OK. If you want to argue that proper understanding of Christian theology SHOULD result in Christians not killing "others", OK As long as you recognize that as the term Christian is used and Christian history, not so.

How about yourself? You can love Muslims?

[Immanuel Can]

If anybody calling himself a Christian said "Kill your enemies," then he was no Christian, by the word of Jesus Christ Himself.

I have friends who are Friends, known other Christians who oppose killing people. But these are a very small percentage of Christians.

Then, on the authority of Christ Himself, I tell you that those are the only people you know who are acting as Christ commanded them to act. And you can see it for yourself.

[MikeNovack]

Ah, the old "the first and last Christian died on the cross"

Actually you have raised i very interesting question. IS "non-violence" a positive moral position (as opposed to a sometimes useful/usable tactic). Can a society/culture survive based on non-violence?

PLEASE -- if we decide ton discuss this, should be it's own thread. Under "App;lied"?

[Immanuel Can]

Ah, the old "the first and last Christian died on the cross"

Not that old. You're quoting Nietzsche. Nietzsche didn't understand, because Nietzsche thought one had to be perfect in order to be a Christian. Nietzsche himself was, of course, entirely unqualified to know.

No, one does not have to be perfect. But any action can be judged based on its conformity to the teaching of Jesus. He invited that, in fact, saying, "by their fruits (i.e. their deeds) you shall know them." Christianity is fideistic and a matter of choice, not of birth or mere profession.

I understand the confusion, though. One is a Jewish person if one is born a Jewish person, or if one lives in Israel. The Arabs claim that one can be b born a Muslim, too...in fact, I understand they believe all babies are inherently Muslim, and that to be anything else is a form of apostasy.

However, one does not become a Christian by being born with a certain skin or DNA, or by being raised in a nominally "Christian" ethos or culture, as if there were such a thing. One also doesn't become one by saying, "I'm a Christian." One has actually to put one's faith in Christ, and be reformed accordingly. That's the test that Christ Himself gave.

I'd stand by his test.

[MikeNovack]

I understand the confusion, though. One is a Jewish person if one is born a Jewish person, or if one lives in Israel. The Arabs claim that one can be b born a Muslim, too...in fact, I understand they believe all babies are inherently Muslim, and that to be anything else is a form of apostasy.

a) NOT born in/lives in Israel. That just makes you Israeli. There are Israeli Christians, Muslims, Druze,as well as Jews (other religion too)

b) I disagree with your interpretation that Nietzsche did not know Christians or that they deviated from the teachings of Jesus. YOU seem to recognize the same but instead say "but then they are not Christians". Sorry, words mean how they are used in practice. The bulk of the Christian population, who call themselves Christians and are known by others as Christians (how that term is USED) do not in practice turn the other cheek and they kill their enemies instead of loving them. Until (relatively) recent history that included killing other Christians of the wrong "brand".

c) There are Christian sects like then Friends, the Anabaptists, etc. do seem to follow the teaching. But but unlike you, they do not consider Christians who do not do so not to be Christians.

[Impenitent]

psst... Nietzsche's father was a Lutheran minister

-Imp

[Immanuel Can]

psst... Nietzsche's father was a Lutheran minister

-Imp

Indeed he was. And?

[Immanuel Can]

b) I disagree with your interpretation that Nietzsche did not know Christians or that they deviated from the teachings of Jesus.

You are free to disagree. Of course. No hard feelings.

However, I'm right. So there's that.

c) There are Christian sects like then Friends, the Anabaptists, etc. do seem to follow the teaching.

Indeed there are. I've known many.

The important point is merely this: it takes more than a name tag to make one a Christian. Jesus Christ said so.

“Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of My Father who is in heaven will enter. Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; leave Me, you who practice lawlessness.’" (Yeshua Hamashiach, Matthew 7:21-23)

[CIN2]

The important point is merely this: it takes more than a name tag to make one a Christian. Jesus Christ said so.

“Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of My Father who is in heaven will enter. Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; leave Me, you who practice lawlessness.’" (Yeshua Hamashiach, Matthew 7:21-23)

This forum is for discussing philosophy, not the meaning of the word ‘Christian’. Who gives a shit?

The only point that matters about Christianity is that, like all religions, it perpetuates itself by indoctrinating the minds of children with a mixture of assertions for which there is no evidence (e.g. that there is a God), the self-contradictory (that a man who has died, i.e. permanently ceased to live, returned to life) and belief in magic (the doctrine of the atonement). This is intellectual child abuse on an industrial scale. The notion that this horrible confection of irrationality and superstition could provide any kind of rational basis for ethics or morals would be laughable if it were not so obviously pernicious.

I don't know why you keep posting here, IC. Shouldn't you be in a church Sunday School somewhere, frightening children with this nonsense?

[MikeNovack]

Well actually, IC does this "definition thing" more generally. This is simply the reverse of what he does with. "socialist"

Christians who do evil X are not "Christians" => Christians so not do evil X
Socialists who do not d evil Y are not "socialists" => Socialists do evil Y

The problem is that on the left hand side, the terms are used with a personal meaning but on the right with their public meaning. What IC is doing is trying to "prove" a general )public) truth from his personal truth.

[Immanuel Can]

The important point is merely this: it takes more than a name tag to make one a Christian. Jesus Christ said so.

“Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of My Father who is in heaven will enter. Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; leave Me, you who practice lawlessness.’" (Yeshua Hamashiach, Matthew 7:21-23)

This forum is for discussing philosophy, not the meaning of the word ‘Christian’. Who gives a shit?

Maybe not you. And that's okay. But we're discussing "religious versus non-religious bases for morality." And I think it's fair that every such "basis" should defend its account, don't you? And that means we need to know who has the right to speak on behalf of that account.

In Christianity, that's Jesus Christ. In secular affairs, it becomes more difficult to say. Is it Nietzsche? Is it Marx? Is it Darwin, or Freud, or Hume, or Mill, or Richard Dawkins? Who gets to analyze what basis secularism can provide for morality?

The answer turns out to be, anybody who can try. Because the task is so simple that any thinking person could attempt it. All he needs is a basic understanding of what "secularism" means, and then some set of logical reasons we should rationally recognize that lead to a single moral imperative.

But no matter how hard we look, we can't find any such basis that stands up to the first question, "Why?"

[Immanuel Can]

What IC is doing is trying to "prove" a general )public) truth from his personal truth.

I actually draw on the common, ordinary conception of truth, not some "private" truth. I don't even believe in "private" truth, in fact. Truth is what it is, for everybody. One can deny it, or play around with it, but what one gets is never "truth." What one gets is only self-deception.

No, what I would say is that any account of morality worth believing has to stand up to the plain, common definition of truth.

[MikeNovack]

What IC is doing is trying to "prove" a general )public) truth from his personal truth.

I actually draw on the common, ordinary conception of truth, not some "private" truth. I don't even believe in "private" truth, in fact. Truth is what it is, for everybody. One can deny it, or play around with it, but what one gets is never "truth." What one gets is only self-deception.

Perhaps misunderstanding the private/public distinction.

You are saying (and your belief it is truth) that the term "Christian" refers to those correctly following Jesus. That the 99% of people who consider themselves defined by the term "Christian" and who almost all the rest of humanity considers "Christians" are wrong IN THEIR USE OF THE TERM.

You are arguing for your (private) DEFINITION of a word as opposed to the generally accepted (public) definition of that word. "Truth" has nothing to do with this. The truth of what a term means is how people agree to use that word. You are saying "people use the term to mean X but the truth is it really means Y". That is nonsense. You can of course choose to do that if making clear you are deviating from the normal use of the term. But you can't use "this is TRUTH" to tell others they are using the term incorrectly.

[Immanuel Can]

What IC is doing is trying to "prove" a general )public) truth from his personal truth.

I actually draw on the common, ordinary conception of truth, not some "private" truth. I don't even believe in "private" truth, in fact. Truth is what it is, for everybody. One can deny it, or play around with it, but what one gets is never "truth." What one gets is only self-deception.

Perhaps misunderstanding the private/public distinction.

No, I understand it. I just think it's wrong-headed. There's no such thing as "private" truth. Truth is always truth...the same for everybody. If it's not, then whatever it is, it's not truth.

You are arguing for your (private) DEFINITION...

No. For the objectively true one.

Scholars of religion have long ago recognized that the "self-definition" criterion for religious belief is not only the weakest possible definition, but the least accurate one. I could say, "I am a Jew," and it won't make me one. I can say "I am a Hindu, a Muslim and a Zoroastrian," and it won't make me any of them. So self-defining" is really a lame strategy for determining authenticity.

That to allow self-definition is the procedure preferred by Western liberals is not relevant...they only choose it because it saves them the hard work of knowing what's true and what's false, and lets them seem "inclusive" and "open," which they value above any kind of accuracy or truth. Besides, many of them think all religion is bunk anyway, so what care they for definitions? "Religious," to many of them, is understood to mean nothing but "supersititous and deluded." In fact,"religious" itself is a secular categorization. You won't find most actual practitioners of a "religion" go about saying no more than "I am religious...of some kind." They'll want you to know precisely what they are, and maybe more than that, too.

I suggest that the definition given by the founder of a given religion is a much more accurate one. And in the case of "Christianity," which, after all, was not a name chosen by Christians but applied to them from the outside, means "little Christs." Now, if a man claims to be a "little Christ," then there are criteria found in the life and teaching of Jesus Christ that define the conditions.

Liberals may wish to ignore that, but they ignore it for political, not intellectual reasons.

[MikeNovack]

Liberals may wish to ignore that, but they ignore it for political, not intellectual reasons.

LIBERALS ????? Do you seriously expect us to consider all those people who call themselves Christian, who other people consider Christian, are LIBERALS.