Morality

There have been multiple assertions made about the nature of morality and I'd like to look at two of them.

First; Definitions.

Morality
1.   Morality can be a body of standards or principles derived from a code of conduct from a particular philosophy, religion, or culture,
2.   In its descriptive sense, "morality" refers to personal or cultural values, codes of conduct or social mores. It does not connote objective claims of right or wrong.
3.    Morality in a descriptive sense may be defined as a code of conduct endorsed and adhered to by a society, group or—much less frequently—individual. Moral codes in this sense will, therefore, differ both from society to society, within societies, and amongst individuals.
4.    Morality in a descriptive sense may be defined as a code of conduct endorsed and adhered to by a society, group or—much less frequently—individual. Moral codes in this sense will, therefore, differ both from society to society, within societies, and amongst individuals.
5.     Conformance to a recognized code, doctrine, or system of rules of what is right or wrong and to behave accordingly. No system of morality is accepted as universal, and the answers to the question "What is morality?" differ sharply from place to place, group to group, and time to time

The first is that morality is subjective.   If one looks at the dictionary as well as what sociologists say the morality is subjective, at least at the level of the society or group.  So far no one is suggesting that morality is subjective at the individual level, which seems as though it would result in chaos.   But what does it mean to be subjective at the society or group level.   In practice that probably means that as long as either 51% of the society or group agree, or if there is some sort of intellectual or ruling "elite" who guide the society, that decisions about morality will be made by either of those two groups.   Personally the idea of 51% being able to impose their will on 49% doesn't sit well with me on some level.  Of course, neither does having some "elite" class doing the same thing.  The primary problem with this construct is that things change.  For example, in many cultures throughout history (even today in many Islamic nations) chattel slavery was a practice that was approved of by a majority of the population, which made it a moral practice based on the social mores of the groups in question.   Nowadays, many people regard chattel slavery as an immoral act and condemn it.   Yet, if one holds to morality as subjective and society driven, then both the anti slavery society and pro slavery society are moral as defined by their societal norms.    Or, what happens when a society changes it's mind?   Again take slavery.  For years slavery was considered as a moral act by much of western society.  Yet as attitudes changed, slavery was considered immoral.   This raises the question, can an act be immoral at one point in the development of a society, yet immoral at another point.

The second is that morality is self evident.   This one raises numerous questions.

1.  If morality is self evident, why do we see so much variation on moral principles from society to society and group to group?
2.   If morality is self evident, how do we explain the large numbers of people who act in immoral ways?
3.   How can morality be both self evident and subjective/
4.   How can one argue that protecting the right to live is self evidently moral, and argue that abortion is not immoral?   (That abortion is either moral or morally neutral)
5.   When people engage in acts that contravene these self evident morals, why do they engage in those acts?
6.   Are people simply unaware of these self evident moral standards and act from ignorance?
7.   Are people aware of these self evident moral standards, yet choose to act contrary to them?
8.   If a member of a society who considers it moral to randomly kill innocent people, acts in a way they (and their society) believe to be (subjectively) moral, what basis do other societies have to condemn those actions?
9.   Are actions moral or are individuals moral?

Finally, no matter whether you believe that morality is subjective and culture driven or that morality is objective and God directed, what morality really comes down to is simply exercising human effort in order to outwardly conform to some external standard of behavior.   It doesn't address motive or attitude.  It doesn't address acts in private.  It is simply peer pressure from either society or authority that forces conformity of action.     Don't get me wrong, "Don't kill innocent people." is a good moral standard from either perspective and I'm glad that most of the world agrees, but is it enough to simply exert enough control to avoid acting on our impulses?

Jesus never once told people to be moral.   Jesus told the one guy who bragged about how moral he was that his incredible morality wasn't enough.   Jesus talked about not just avoiding actually killing people, but about avoiding the internal hatred that is equivalent to killing someone, about the lust of the heart that is the equivalent of adultery.    Jesus commanded us to love Him with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength and to love others the way we love ourselves.   Jesus talked about how those who love Him will keep His commandments, He never mentions conforming to some societal ordained subjective list of behaviors.     Elsewhere we hear talk about faith and not works, lest anyone should boast about how incredibly moral they are.

I guess I conclude that subjective societal morality certainly plays a role in regulating behavior, but that if someone claims to follow Jesus then that bar just seems like it's much to low.  

Personally being moral doesn't seem like much to boast about, but if it's enough for some, then I guess it's better than nothing.

Incredible

Part of the root of this ongoing discussion about morality, is Dans claim that he is "incredibly" moral.  So I thought it might be helpful to look at what "incredible" (or" incredibly") means in the hope of providing some understanding.

INCREDIBLE

1.  Difficult or impossible to believe.
2.  Too extraordinary and improbable to be believed
3.  Amazing, Extraordinary
4.   So implausible as to elicit disbelief

5.   Astonishing, extraordinary, or extreme

6.    Beyond belief or understanding; unbelievable

7.    So extraordinary as to seem impossible

 

So, in reality, the claim being made is that Dan is so moral that the level of his adherence to a set of subjective societal rules is simply beyond the ability of people to believe, that he is so good at obeying subjective societal rules that it seems impossible that anyone could be that good at obeying subjective societal rules.

 

As an aside.  One of my cousins is an incredible musician, he has been compared to people like Jimi Hendrix, people who have literally changed how people thought about what can be done with a given musical instrument and genre.   The terms that others use to describe him are glowing, and incredible is entirely appropriate.    But, I can't for a second imaging him describing himself in the terms others use.   He is much mor humble and reticent when talking about his musical abilities.

 

I think that most of us are unwilling to make superlative claims about ourselves call it modesty, humility, realism, self deprecation, what have you that when someone actually makes such an outlandish claim about themselves that it comes off as jarring, like a note out of tune.

 

Had Dan simply said something like "I think I'm a pretty moral guy." or "I think that I'm more moral than the average person." then I wouldn't have had a problem.  It's the claim that "I'm so moral that people can't believe how amazingly, extraordinarily, impossibly moral I am."  that rubs me the wrong way.

 

Jesus encountered a guy like this, a guy who claimed that he'd kept every single law perfectly from the time he was born, Jesus punctured his balloon.   

 

I suspect that one way Dan has convinced himself that he is "incredibly" moral is that he has constructed a system of morals which happen to align with how he behaves.   He's clearly made comments in earlier threads that indicate that he does not believe that things like drug use, pornography, or abortion are immoral.  His point may be that he believes them morally neutral, but even that puts him at odds with millions of people.

 

In closing, perhaps modesty and humility is a more appropriate choice when describing ones self    

 

At least for now, I am not going to allow comments on this post.   This is simply my expressing my opinion and explaining why I have responded in the way I have to Dan's claim.   Given that I fail to see how comments will be useful.   Comments about this posted elsewhere will, of course, be ignored and/or deleted.

Beginnings

I suspect that most would acknowledge that everything that currently exists has an ultimate beginning.   I also suspect that how one views that beginning speaks volumes about their worldview.   Here are three options for what caused that beginning, each of which has ramifications for ones values and moral code.

1.   Everything that exists was created from nothing.  Absolute nothing.

2.   Everything that exists was created by some impersonal force.  Energy, matter, gravity, time, chance, whatever.

3.   Everything that exists was created by some personal force.  

Interesting racist drivel

A good piece, even if it is written by someone who is clearly racist.


http://freedomsjournalinstitute.org/latest-news/family/white-privilege-black-fathers/

Mass shootings

Lots of talk lately about mass shootings and how to stop them after the terrorist attack in Orlando.  Yet, one wonders why the attack below by an armed man at a club didn't get nearly the publicity of the Orlando attack.



http://www.goupstate.com/article/20160627/ARTICLES/160629757/-1/wire?Title=Lyman-man-charged-following-shooting-at-nightclub


I have a few thoughts on why, but for now I'll just let this stand.

Some things shouldn't be ignored

There is a wide ranging discussion spread over a couple of blogs that boils down to one's view of "regulated worship" and "Christian Liberty".   While both constructs seem to have significant basis in scripture, they are still an attempt to corral a bunch of widely separated scriptures and to give those scriptures a label to express a scriptural concept in a sort of shorthand.

At one of the blog I posited that this whole discussion really boiled down to how one answers a few questions, and listed the questions.   Since they were ignored over there, and since some folks who might not comment there might comment here, I'm going to list them here.

1. Are there any limits on what is appropriate in corporate worship at all?
2. If a book contains any rules does that automatically classify it as a "rule book"?
3. If a book, or compilation of books contain a number of different genres of literature, dose that fact automatically invalidate one of the genres?
4. Does the human construct of "Christian Liberty" automatically trump the human construct of "Regulated Worship", even though both have scriptural support? If so, why?
5. Does the construct of "Christian Liberty" have any limits at all?

I honestly think that #1 and #5 are the most significant, but that's just me.

Infant Baptism

Back in the early 90’s I spent a fair amount of time considering the concept of infant baptism when my first child was born.    I was a member of a church which practiced infant baptism and I felt like I needed to decide whether or not to baptize, dedicate, or skip the entire thing.   After a fair amount of investigation I came to a few conclusions.

1.       

• 1.       Most importantly I realized that baptism, while important, was not required for salvation.
• 2.       I concluded that the Roman Catholic position was problematic.
• 3.       The position of my denomination that allowed only for infant baptism or adult baptism was also problematic.
• 4.       Biblically, baptism was an act performed by adult believers.
• 5.       Infant baptism as practiced by the church I was part of was much more analogous to the Jewish ritual circumcision than to believer baptism.
• 6.       There is a certain value in having some type of ritual in which the parents and the church make promises to the child and acknowledge that both parties are accepting some responsibilities for the spiritual welfare of the child.

In short, while I think that calling what happens baptism is a poor label, I think that there is value in the sacramentally making a set of promises between the child, the family, and the local congregation on behalf of the Church.

Recently, I had the occasion to reflect on this and what exactly we as a congregation were promising.  In my experience, most people affirm the promise they make thinking that they might teach Sunday School or VBS of something like that and to engage in some general act that will generally help the child grow up in the faith.

A few weeks ago this seemingly theoretical question became immediately and crushingly real to me, when I got the call that my younger sister had died suddenly leaving two young daughters without a mother.   At one point during the week between her death and the funeral there was a prayer service at the church, at which someone brought up the point that this circumstance was the time when the church needed to step up and honor the promise that was made when these two girls were baptized.   Not in a “Hey I’ll bring cookies to VBS.” way, but in a real, deep, ongoing, and meaningful way. 

Obviously the family, both immediate and extended, has the primary responsibility, but that doesn’t let the Church off the hook.   

I actually am looking forward to see how this plays out over the next several years and to see some amazing people step into roles in the lives of these two girls in amazing ways and in ways that we can’t even imagine.     This is one of those areas in which the Church can and does step up and really shine and frequently does.