God and Nihilism at College

Parent Cafe
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<p>Dstark,</p>

<p>It is far easier to condemn previous religious schools than it is to envision what one today would be like. I believe we’re not talking about a literal return to the 50s, racism, sexism and elitism included - things the Church is no doubt ashamed of today - but the strengthening of other positive values the Church preached then and still does. The alternatives are not atheism vs. my-child-will-be-abused-by-priests, or intelligence vs brainwashing-religion. </p>

<p>There are, without question, very moral atheists and very religious jerks. But it seems to me as evident that the dissolution of traditional values has led to increased immorality. The issue I see is not what colleges should preach but whether they should care for their students’ spiritual teaching at all. Religion is, like Dstark said, there for the taking. In exactly the same way a rigorous exercise program is there for the taking. Most students will not bother to discipline themselves physically if it is not required, and colleges with mandatory fitness classes will probably be much more fit. In the same way, colleges with mandatory spiritual instruction and reflection will breed at least a little attention to moral concerns. The comparison is not perfect, but here’s my point: atheists may or may not care for their morality, religion demands care. Take the example of Thomas Aquinas College, a Catholic “great books” school based on a traditional liberal arts education. There are many Catholics who attend, as well as a few atheists. They are hardly brainwashed, as the college demands close scrutiny of every claim, but they are required to adhere to strict rules - if you’re caught drinking, you’re expelled. Should the college abandon this requirement, like many other universities, and let the students do whatever they want on their own time as long as they show up for their afternoon classes or turn in their final project?</p>

<p>Personally, I believe the effect would be positive. I don’t think anyone loses by being required to read scripture (of any religion). But I doubt it would receive an enthusiastic reception, since the prevailing attitude is “get the hell out of my personal life.” It might just as well turn more people against religion.</p>

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<p>Very nice post, Psyche.</p>

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<p>Psyche, I think the effect is negative. I don’t want to go back to traditional values. Traditional values means one way of life is superior to others. It’s not.</p>

<p>If a person chooses to read scripture that is fine. If a person is required to read scripture, everybody loses.</p>

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<p>“The origins of sin would seem to be superfluous to the fact of sin itself as a moral act; although there may be theological implications to the origins of sin; bad moral behavior, or sinning, needs no proof—just pick up a newspaper on any given day and observe it as an objective fact.”</p>

<p>Suffice it to say that we reject your premise utterly as the basis for religious morality. And none of the religions cited view human sinfulness as the premise for religious morality. Such an idea would be wholly anathema to Judaism. Perhaps when you are admitted to Dartmouth, you can learn more about it. Your “substitution” just doesn’t work.</p>

<p>“Mini- off topic but could you tell me about the role of Jesus within the Quaker faith.”</p>

<p>Tom - PM me your e-mail address, and I’ll be happy to oblige.</p>

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<p><a href=“http://www.thedartmouth.com/article.php?aid=1996072701260[/url]”>www.thedartmouth.com/article.php?aid=1996072701260</a></p>

<p>You want religion. You can have religion.</p>

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<p>FountainSiren, are you going to be a seniotr in hs or are you going to college next year. If you are going to college, which one?</p>

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<p>dstark,</p>

<p>First, Dartmouth College.</p>

<p>“You want to control people’s thoughts, beliefs and actions based on some superior morality that doesn’t exist”</p>

<p>You’re right, there is no such thing as a “superior morality”—to call morality “superior” is to imply that there is a higher and lower level of morality in which people believe; and you’re right, there is no such thing. But, absolute morality does exist. As a good liberal, you may feel the need to challenge anything absolute in favor of the relative, i.e. a relative, subjective and even utilitarian morality. Show me a culture where vice was valued over virtue, cowardice over bravery, or hatred over love. These ARE traditional values. </p>

<p>Different religions/cultures may disagree about specific laws, but they all agree about the source and essence of those laws. For example, a Muslim may believe that drinking alcohol is a sin, but no culture believes that public drunkenness is a virtue, and not a vice. A polygamist believes that you can have more than one wife, but no one believes that it is morally upright to have any woman/man you desire as the flesh moves you. </p>

<p>My point throughout these posts is to make a case for morality, which is by definition traditional (unless you believe morality came into being as you plopped into self-awareness) as opposed to the now common culture of amorality (don’t misread as IMmorality). </p>

<p>“Traditional values means one way of life is superior to others.”</p>

<p>There is no time that isn’t traditional (lived-time)—every time is traditional, including the one in which we are living. For instance, now we teach adolescents sex-ed in school—this is the tradition of our day. Another “traditional” belief of our day is to do whatever you believe will feel good to you, so long as it does not land your butt in jail or leave you with a lamp-shade on your head with your pants down standing waiting for a taxi at 4:00 am. </p>

<p>This goes back to the moral relativity of “do what you please” since there is no greater reason to do it. It is a great irony of the moral relativist to believe that there are no absolutes except the fact there are no absolutes—or that you should be skeptical of all dogmas, except the dogma of skepticism. </p>

<p>Perhaps one of the most bothersome things about those who condemn tradition is that they assume that those who preceded us for thousands of years were all buffoons and blockheads. As G.K. Chesterson generously said—“In my democracy, the dead get a vote too.”</p>

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<p>Mini,
I found this Quaker web site interesting as regards the Quaker view of sin, although I’m not sure how to reconcile it with your posts on sin and Quakers. It’s from Robert Barclays Quaker Catechism.
“Let not Sin therefore reign in your mortal Body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof: Neither yield ye your Members as Instruments of Unrighteousness unto Sin; but yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the Dead, and your Members as Instruments of Righteousness unto God.”</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.qhpress.org/texts/barclay/catechism/chapter7.html[/url]”>http://www.qhpress.org/texts/barclay/catechism/chapter7.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p>mini,</p>

<p>seems a bit of a come-down from your previous posts.</p>

<p>To reiterate,</p>

<p>I, as a Sufi, have no intellectual commerce with “original sin”. Sufi’s view the “fall” as a necessary act to introduce the separation of God with humanity, and therefore bring love into existence as the fundamental principal of the universe, since there needs to be both that which is loved and that which loves.</p>

<p>“we reject your premise utterly as the basis for religious morality”</p>

<p>The premise for morality is free-will. Free-will is based on the pre-supposition that there is a good choice and a bad choice (or at least, a good, better, best/bad, worse, worst choice). I think you will agree that people are not beyond making bad choices; we make good choices alongside with bad choices. Morality is the dynamic which constitutes our relative position to good and bad choices. I can see that there are those who might believe that morality, as such, is superfluous, as is its edification–especially when there are “Under-Water Basket-weaving” and “The philosophy of Star Wars” courses to fill the gap. God knows the world doesn’t need a little more morality.</p>

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<p>FS, do you or don’t you believe that an athiest could live a deeply moral life?</p>

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<p>SBmom, hi,</p>

<p>To your questions:</p>

<ol>
<li><p>Do I believe an atheist can act morally and actually does so, to the degree that they desire to do so?
Yes</p></li>
<li><p>Do I believe an atheist views morality ‘deeply’?
That depends on what we mean by atheist. For instance a Taoist, Buddhist or those who follow the prescriptions of Confucius—to name a few—do not believe in a personified god as such (certainly not in the Western monotheistic sense) and have a highly developed sense of morality and thus a—to use a bad, bad word in these parts—“TRADITION” of moral behavior in which to draw upon. As to whether or not a person who does not draw upon a highly developed tradition leads a “DEEPLY” moral life, I would hope for the best.</p></li>
</ol>

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<p>“I, as a Sufi, have no intellectual commerce with “original sin”. Sufi’s view the “fall” as a necessary act to introduce the separation of God with humanity, and therefore bring love into existence as the fundamental principal of the universe, since there needs to be both that which is loved and that which loves.”</p>

<p>Well, bully for you. I’m glad it yanks your chain. I don’t see folks being forced on pain of expulsion into Sufi religious services on college campuses. I see nothing more productive of “nihilism” than being compelled to mouth words and platitudes in which one doesn’t believe. Good training in hypocrisy, though.</p>

<p>(I’m not even going to begin with your Barclay quote, as you have no concept of what role Barclay played in Quaker history.)</p>

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<p>So for you the “depth” of the morality would rely on the person having a traditional (but not necessarily theistic) belief system?</p>

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<p>I guess my belief system goes pretty far back, to the Golden Rule-
it has been incorporated into all of the worlds main religions- so does this mean I have a tradition even if I don’t necessarily believe in a seperate God?</p>

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<p>“Well, bully for you. I’m glad it yanks your chain.”</p>

<p>Mini,</p>

<p>Well, I don’t suppose that at 17 years old I deserve a more nuanced response than this. </p>

<p>“Good training in hypocrisy, though”</p>

<p>I doubt I have had the personal experience I assume you have had to comment on people’s sincerity, as a rule I assume people are sincere even if sincere in their error. </p>

<p>“I’m not even going to begin with your Barclay quote, as you have no concept of what role Barclay played in Quaker history.”</p>

<p>As I doubt you hold everyone on this board in the same regard, perhaps you would like to clear this up for those who could handle the “role Barclay played in Quaker history” as to not seem so, well, condescending.</p>

<p>George Fox:</p>

<p>If not Barclay, how about George Fox, he also seemed to have a bit of a handle on sin and its savior, Christ. As I understand it, he was the founder of Quakerism. This is from his autobiography:</p>

<p>“Then they asked me if I had no sin. I answered, “Christ my Saviour has taken away my sin; and in Him there is no sin.” They asked how we knew that Christ did abide in us. I said, “By His Spirit, that He hath given us.” They temptingly asked if any of us were Christ. I answered, “Nay; we are nothing; Christ is all.” They said, “If a man steal, is it no sin?” I answered, "All unrighteousness is sin."”</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.strecorsoc.org/gfox/ch04.html[/url]”>http://www.strecorsoc.org/gfox/ch04.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p>SBmom and EK4, </p>

<p>Yes.</p>

<p>I believe you can have a deep sense of morality, without God per se, if it is derived from the trial and error of tradition and those wise women and men who struggled through the same issues we struggle through day by day throughout all time. </p>

<p>Unless you simply believe you have nothing to learn from anyone and in some temporal sense are indeed some kind of ‘god’ yourself, relying on nothing but your own desires, needs and sense of purpose, you are likely to understand that the world did not begin with you and there is much to be gained from the wisdom of those who preceded you. </p>

<p>However, according to my own belief, a deep sense of morality would also involve God and God’s inner presence (similar to but not the same as it is understood in Quakerism).</p>

<p>God equals ‘grace’ in this regard. Freewill equals choice and the moral and ethical confrontations they will involve. To me, God really gave us free choice and freewill, it would make no sense if we could not use it to make the right moral decision on our own, even without a belief in the divine source of that will.</p>

<p>Having said this, I believe we need all the help we can get, or at least should avail ourselves of it to the degree that it is available…and it is available.</p>

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<p>FountaniSiren, since you want to make a case for morality, who values hatred over love, vice over virtue, cowardice over bravery?</p>

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<p>I beleive in spirit and energy- I believe that all living beings in the universe are connected and what affects one affects another. ( the butterfly effect)
I believe that if I do harm to another- even unintentionally- or through ignorance- that it will be revisted on me in some way. “come back to bite me on the butt” to put it more colorfully.
It is therefore my responsibiltiy to find out as much about any situation that I might put myself or my family into- to make the best choice.
I wont say I don’t make a lot of mistakes- and I have reached out to what I feel is a collective energy source that I can tap into- but I don’t feel it is a “God”.</p>

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<p>“FountaniSiren, since you want to make a case for morality, who values hatred over love, vice over virtue, cowardice over bravery?”</p>

<p>No one—isn’t that the point? In each of the above instances (and many more), given the possibility that either of these opposites could be adopted as the ‘rule’, there is one clear, absolute answer every time: the absolute moral choice: love, virtue, bravery etc… </p>

<p>The essence of the absolute includes morality, the same way the essence of water includes wetness. Nobody chooses vice over virtue out of principal because there is something within us—call it conscience or a “moral compass,” what we call it is unimportant, what is is the fact that such an ability exists—that tells us that virtue is and always will be the better choice, and we will always know it, even if we ultimately go against that choice and make excuses for the opposite choice. </p>

<p>EK4—what you are saying sounds a lot like the transcendentalist Law of Compensation (Emerson). I find all transcendental literature to be utterly moving and inspirational, especially Thoreau’s Walden which I’m sure you’ve read (both Emerson and Thoreau refer to Sufis, which was quite a surprise to me when I first read them).</p>

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<p>If nobody chooses hatred over love, vice over virtue, cowardice over bravery, then we don’t need religion, do we?</p>