<p>An interesting aside (since I seem to have opened the dogs of war a few pages back)… the passages in the Bible everyone seems to think refer to Homosexuality, contemporary scholars believe might actually not. The original Hebrew word which later got turned into “Abomination” (that word didn’t exist at the time) was toevah, or “ritualistically unclean” the same as a woman after her period. The scholars contend that this was not a blanket condemnation of Homosexuality, but rather a particular act (essentially Homosexual Rape).</p>
<p>Incidentally, if anyone has religious problems with Homosexuality (while rejecting that contemporary claim), they need to follow the other laws/rules in Leviticus, which I assure you they don’t… hence, he hypocrisy</p>
<p>But in regards to your statement, why? What’s the objective basis of your ethical system? Why is your ethical system more correct than any others’? </p>
<p>And how is that not an absolute? You just stated, absolutely, regardless of all other variables, that which causes the greatest amount of happiness should be done.</p>
<p>Utilitarianism is far from perfect, as anyone who’s taken a philosophy class knows.</p>
<p>Usually the trouble comes in when certain conflicts/ trade-offs must be made, and the fact that is it pretty much impossible to determine a precise “point-value” of utility for different parties – different weights/ judgments of utility can completely change a decision.</p>
<p>I don’t think a perfect morality has been distilled yet - if it’s even possible. It’s hard to define morality just like it’s impossible to come up with a definition for how any society determines what a ‘crime’ is.</p>
<p>the objective basis is the observation that humans like to be happy… it’s not an absolute fact, just a reasoned opinion that since we want to be happy, we should strive to be happy. i’m not trying to justify my own ethical system here.</p>
<p>all i’m trying to do is to show that faith-based systems of morality are wrong because they claim something that ain’t so, i.e. absolute morality.</p>
<p>my verbosity and incapability of expressing myself clearly disconcerts me :(</p>
<p>Itachirumon, you are right, there are two interpretations of the Bible and the Bible is not very clear on this subject. Some follow it strictly (the passages in Leviticus - which I agree, its hypocritical to follow some laws and not the others, I believe Jesus’s death on the cross wiped away the need for the Law laid out in Leviticus since he “paid for our sins” - and the passages in 1 Corinthians). Others say that the Hebrew that Paul was using meant male prostitutes not homosexuals. In Genesis 19, God destroys the city of Sodom and Gomorrah because of their sexual sin. Some have claimed that homosexuality was part of this but again others say that it was just rape etc… I guess we’ll never know 100%.</p>
<p>But as for me, the way I see is that God in Genesis 2 says that “for this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh.” If God allowed homosexuality, would he have said that “if two humans join together they will become one flesh?” I don’t know. The way I see is that God presented it this way and I believe it’s the right way to use what God has given me sexually. I forgot where it is in the Bible but God says that we’re to see our bodies as “his temple” and to keep it pure sexually. Again what “being pure sexually” means is up for debate but God did outline what a right way of marriage is.</p>
<p>I wish the Bible was more clear on what it did say. That’s just my interpretation. I think the best thing to do if you believe in Christianity (if you are christian and have homosexual desires) is to give up your situation in prayer to God. </p>
<p>ok sorry to drag you guys off-topic, just wanted to reply to that.</p>
<p>What I would like to know is: how do Christians know for sure that God said any of those things specifically? AFAIK the Bible has been published in various languages and versions, and things can get lost in translation; additionally, we know that the Bible has been transcribed by men, who could easily have decided to twist words to their own ends, or could have been forced to do so by others…</p>
<p>Is the assumption that God would have smited (smitten, smote?) these people if they did such a thing? You might say that the Bible is the Word of God, but did God tell you that the Bible is his Word? Or did some religious leader…?</p>
<p>they mean the same thing, but whatever, i’ll change my language a bit to suit you. why do other ethical systems, which tell you what should be done, tell you do to things that you shouldn’t? you are trying to dodge the question here by playing games with words.</p>
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<p>how do you demonstrate whether a morality gives you correct answers or not?! i’m not sure how you do that, but i’d be surprised if you could call your defense of your ethical beliefs in this thread ‘demonstrating’. i don’t see why some ideologies have to be demonstrated before being considered reasonable and others, not.</p>
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<p>1) there are a lot of things that we want that aren’t good. there is a difference between a prudent action and a moral action. you’d have to agree.
2) looking at what happens isn’t the way to determine what should happen. they are different questions to be answered. </p>
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<p>but your moral system is an absolute moral system . . . is it wrong as well?</p>
<p>We can continue to debate whether the moral code developed from a religion or the teachings of the religion itself causes social beliefs, but here is the example you asked for. I personally do not believe in sex before marriage. I think it is an example of society’s need for instant gratification and follows lust more than love. If two people really love each other, they should wait until they are married and have committed to spend the rest of their lives together. In this case, it is an acknowledgement of love and everything they will share together. Anything before this is childish and unnecessary.</p>
<p>Now please explain to me how any of my Christian “dogmas” have influenced this belief?</p>
<p>stop insisting in absolute morality. there isn’t. words like ‘correct’ or ‘absolute’ are meaningless in ‘should’ questions. only religious people insist that morality can be answered with ‘is’.</p>
<p>i’ve already said, i won’t defend my ethical ‘beliefs’. it’s not perfect. it’s not The Truth.</p>
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i don’t understand.</p>
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religious ideologies claim to be The Truth. secular ethical ideologies don’t. extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.</p>
<p>You left a (couple of) hole(s) in your argument. Sure, sex after marriage can be acknowledgement of love and everything they will share together. But how does it follow that pre-marital sex is childish and/or unnecessary? Who’s to say that sex before marriage cannot be an acknowledgement of love and everything a couple shares together. And then, why is love given a higher status than lust? And who are you to tell other people which need (lust v. love) to act on? And what does love have to do with marriage? Is marriage magic in some way or other? Perhaps sex doesn’t add anything to a relationship when the couple isn’t married because it is, in fact, magic, mm? Or maybe sex just has absolutely no benefits, physically, emotionally or mentally, and its only purpose is to solidify a marriage?</p>
<p>You can invent as many arguments as you want along the way, but if you go from ‘sex before marriage is bad’ to ‘sex before marriage is bad’, you can’t claim that your opinion is your own and uninfluenced by any other convictions.</p>
<p>I believe it was Kant (or was it John Stewart Mill, I forget) who claimed that you cannot derive an “ought” from an “is” – namely, just because something is the way it “should” be, that’s not necessarily “how” it is. Does that make sense? In a perfect world, A, B, and C, but it’s not a perfect world, so sometimes you have D, E, and F and that’s not always necessarily bad or good. Personally my biggest problem with rabidly religious people is the need for absolutism. A is always right in all situations across the board no matter what. Not always necessarily true, maybe B works better, or F, or J, whichever. But you can’t necessarily always commit to situational-based morality either. That’s one of the interesting Philosophical debates out there, and one of the joys of the dialectic.</p>
<p>Sithis, just to reply to what you said about the Bible. In 2 Timothy 3:16, it says that “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness.” Christians believe that God used men to write his scriptures but the men are inspired by God and the holy spirit. My pastor said that we have 13,000 original source documents of the Bible. He actually talked about several of the “conspiracy” theories that some people have:
-The Bible has been messed with/we can’t trust the Bible - We don’t have any documents that contradict the eyewitness accounts of the resurrection of Jesus Christ, and the documents were written not long after the resurrection within the generation. (Platy the elder, younger, Josephus, scriptures) The scriptures were written so soon that anybody who could’ve proved otherwise would have done so while the apostles were still living. Also, who could’ve tampered with 13,000 source documents? (There are only 50 from Plato/Socrates) Some guy had to live for 600 years and do it in 4 languages (Hebrew, Greek, and 2 others).
-Why would the apostles die for a lie? All of the disciples died for their faith except for John but he was boiled in oil so that’s pretty bad too. They believed the scriptures were true and the preached it openly. Men don’t die for a lie if they know its a lie. When Rome started chopping heads off, somebody would’ve come out and said that it’s all a lie.
-The Bible has lots of errors - The spelling mistakes make me trust the Bible even more (from the source documents) because it was hand written and not “perfect”. However, none of these spelling mistakes change the content of the Bible (important doctrinal/theological ideas, the mistakes were spelling/word order)</p>
<p>That’s just what my pastor said. I’m not a biblical expert or historian so I probably wouldn’t be any good at arguing past these points haha</p>
<p>all i am asking for is an answer to my question. Q: ‘why is your ethical system more correct than the other ones?’ is the answer: ‘it isn’t, no ethical system is correct.’ ?</p>
<p>if this is your answer, then how can you say that your ethical beliefs are more reasonable than those of a christian? if this isn’t your answer, please give me a direct one. you haven’t yet answered my question directly.</p>
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<p>you claim to possess an insight that says that christian morality is wrong (do you give up on this claim?). it tells people to do things that they shouldn’t do. how is your rule system more correct than theirs? </p>
<p>note: saying whether things should or shouldn’t be done is the same thing as saying that they are right/wrong, but i’ll use this language because you insist on it.</p>
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<p>your ideology (finally you are admitting that you have an ideology, and aren’t just a superior thinker, good . . .) is claiming the truth as well, namely, religious ideologies are incorrect.</p>
<p>with regards to claims & evidence, you haven’t yet justified utilitarianism, and now have decided that you won’t! it seems that there is a double standard here . . . </p>
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<p>you guys are misunderstanding the is-ought problem. actually an excellent example of breaking the is-ought barrier was done by pkmntrainerharry in this thread.</p>
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<p>here, he is using an observation about what is, humans like to be happy, to advocate his pet ethical system, which tells us what ought to be done–humans should be happy.</p>
<p>it isn’t, no ethical system is correct.
however, there are wrong ones. like christianity. why wrong? because it claims there is an absolute morality without a justified reason.
my ethical ‘beliefs’ are more reasonable because it isn’t claiming what ain’t so.</p>
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do you understand that an opinion is not an ‘is’? i think white is the nicest looking color. i think it shows cleanliness, which i associate with truth. doesn’t mean i claim that white is superior to other colors. one may think green is the nicest looking, because it’s associated with plants, i.e. nature. i will accept that. whatever he likes. but if you claim ‘red is the nicest color, because god said so, and other colors are inferior’, then you’re wrong. unless you can demonstrate.</p>
<p>edit: i don’t think i’m explaining this well… what i’m saying is, one may ‘like’ or ‘prefer’ a favorite color/ethical system, but none are ‘true’ in an absolute sense of the term.</p>
<p>on one hand, your beliefs aren’t strong enough to be correct so that you can dodge criticism & examination, but on the other hand, they are correct enough to state categorically that absolute morality isn’t true. </p>
<p>come on . . . if this is all that you have, then I think that I am done here . . .</p>
<p>your ethical system makes truth claims, but you really can’t back them up. you assume them to be true. this is your ideology. it isn’t necessarily more or less well-reasoned than a christian’s. you guys just have different assumptions. you like your own assumptions and dislike the other’s. </p>
<p>thanks for participating in my gay amateur socratic thing.</p>
<p>wow. congrats on your pompous, self-congratulatory conclusions.</p>
<p>my claiming that christianity is wrong has nothing to do with my ethical theory. it’s plain science: if you have no evidence that it’s true, you can’t claim it’s true.</p>
<p>you keep insisting that if someone has an opinion, it’s a truth claim… it isn’t. it doesn’t matter how much i try to explain if you insist. analogies on food, color, etc. don’t seem to be grasped by someone so absolutist as you are.</p>
<p>i do not claim utilitarianism is THE TRUTH. my claim is that christianity cannot back up its claim to be THE TRUTH and thus it is not THE TRUTH. i do not need to back up utilitarianism because i do not insist that it is THE TRUTH.</p>
<p>my utilitarianism has absolutely (yes, absolutely) no role in deciding whether christianity is making claims it has no right to claim.</p>