Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site pyuxd.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!gamma!pyuxww!pyuxd!rlr From: rlr@pyuxd.UUCP (Rich Rosen) Newsgroups: net.religion.christian Subject: Re: Evidences for Anthropocentricism Message-ID: <1608@pyuxd.UUCP> Date: Tue, 27-Aug-85 20:18:27 EDT Article-I.D.: pyuxd.1608 Posted: Tue Aug 27 20:18:27 1985 Date-Received: Wed, 28-Aug-85 10:28:19 EDT References: <855@umcp-cs.UUCP> <1226@pyuxd.UUCP> <942@umcp-cs.UUCP> Organization: Whatever we're calling ourselves this week Lines: 151 >>I mean, seriously, this particular example is all well and good. How >>does Christian morality deal with it? What I'm saying is that 1) the >>men are going to have to come to an agreement of some sort of their own >>doing regardless of ANY societal morality, and 2) that is THEIR agreement >>alone and no existing system of morality answers this question any better >>than what I've described. > Well, I think Christian morality *does* have an answer for > this. It is not an easy answer, and you may not like it, but it is > there. The basis for the Christian answer is two-fold, first there is > the belief that death is not the end, nor even the ultimate evil, > second there is the idea that to be responsible for anothers death > will harm me. So this leaves two possibilities, sacrifice myself for > the other person(especially if that person is not a Christian) or > leave the outcome to "fate" or "the hand of God" or whatever you wish > to call it. Your "solution" is no solution at all, in fact it raises new problems. (The whole "death is not the end, so let me eat your leg" thing notwithstanding.) First, you may get stuck with two people in a lifeboat each offering themselves to the other for dinner, which sounds like a Python sketch involving a waitress taking an order for a "leg of Hodges". The other problem involves the real crux. The Christian morality TELLS you that "God will punish you" for your "evil ways" (whether we are talking about truly evil things like murder or non-evil things like sexual "aberration"). What if you don't believe it? What if you see the evidence of the world and conclude that there's no proof at all for this God business!!! Well, obviously you go ahead and eat Hodges (the other guy in the boat) because there's no reason not to. And then when you return home, you ransack the town, rape and pillage, take what you want, etc. After all, the only thing you learned from this Christian morality was that "God says (don't) do it, so (don't) do it". Given that you've shirked the notion of God (owing to non-proof), what reason do you have not to do as you like? You haven't learned anything to the contrary! On the other hand, rational minimal morality lets you in on the reason why you shouldn't do harmful things to other people: enlightened longterm self-interest. If you do "bad", you're likely to provoke retribution of others in some form or other. The Golden Rule wasn't a good idea just because Jesus said so. What more stupid reason for adhering to it could there be! It's a good idea because it makes sense in dealing with other people. The point is that a religious morality for a society is completely untenable and unsupportable in this world. If the only thing stopping you from doing something (or making you do something) is "God says so", without proof for the existence of God, you have no reason to adhere to the code! God says so? Big deal!! Religionists claim that it is the breakdown of religious values that cause the "moral decay" of society. Guess what? Without proof of the existence of God, those values will simply wither away, and all you'll have left is a society with people who think "There's no God, who's to stop me? What reason do I have not to do this?" The only alternative I can see is the strict indoctrination of everyone into a belief in God at all costs. Is that the goal of your morality? >>> Oh, but all Genesis says is that we have dominion(i.e. control) >>> over the Earth, which is obviously true even if you are not a Christian. >>Whoa, slow down! "Obviously true"? I don't recall if you were one of the >>voices of anti-science that have been barking about recently, but they >>would be the first to tell you that one of the biggest failings of scientific >>"progress" is in the fact that we have ASSUMED that we did have dominion over >>the earth and could do with it as we liked. But thanks for pointing out >>where that assumption comes from: not from those who study science, but >>from those who study the Bible! > >>I would never use Los Angeles as an example of humanity's "control" by any >>stretch of the imagination. :-) PERCEIVED control, perhaps, but again, >>it's nice to hear the place where this notion comes from pointed out. > I think you have misunderstood what I was trying to say. What > I meant was that we have the *ability* to alter our environment to > meet our percieved needs or desires. That we indeed *can* do so is > amply attested to by history, humans in all eras and in most cultures > have deliberately modified thier environment. The LA example is in > fact a perfect example of what I was talking about, since it is a case > where we have heavily modified the world for our own benifit. You've obviously never been to Los Angeles. :-) Or else your using a new definition of the word "benefit" which I am totally unfamiliar with. > Other examples, think of all the millions of acres of land in cultivation > instead of its original wild state, how did we do this if we do not > have the ability to control our world? Modify, yes. Control, eh. Los Angeles is a perfect example of that. > In fact Christian morality provides an > aexcellent basis for tempering our tendency to misuse the Earth, we > are in domnion yes, but it is the dominion of a steward or caretaker, > not the dominion of an owner or ruler. We are *responsible* for what > we do with our world. It is a sad fact that many people take a might > makes right approach to life and feel that if we *can* do it ther is > no reason not to. True, but you have gon far afield of the original point, which was the anthropocentrism of the Bible, as especially noted in the Genesis story. You have merely proven my point about the Bible's claims for a special status for humanity based on nothing but anthropocentrism. And face it, some people don't like to be knocked off a pedestal, so they're not likely to cotton to this revelation. >>No, what I'm trying to do is to debunk the notion that the Bible can be used >>as a basis for impositional morality. Those who want to do so feel that they >>can and should because it's the so-called word of god. Thus, to eradicate >>and squelch their notions it is necessary to show the Bible for what it is: >>a nice set of stories, nothing more. > But you are not demonstrating that unless you use valid > argumentation, based on the actual content of the book, not someone's > interpretation of what the book says. Or areyou trying to say that > impositional morality is so bad that you are justified in using > improper reasoning to eliminatre it? Also, I do not think that > debunking the Bible is necessary to squelch these people, All you > need do is show the absurdity of thier position. The absurdity of their position is in the fact that they seek to use this book as the basis of a societal morality. As I mentioned above, since there is no proof for their subjective notions, not only is it wrong to impose their unprovable view onto others, it is downright stupid, it won't work. If all you've got to go on is "God says to/not to do this", and if you can't prove your funny notions about God (whatever they may be), do you honestly expect everyone to just believe them and say "Uh, huh, right, God's gonna punish me for this, sure, excuse me..."? The only way to enforce such a morality is with rigorous mass indoctrination. We've tried that. Eventually the stalwart individualists still win out and break through, and real learning recommences. What is your alternative? >>Of course there are invalid applications and conclusions drawn by bad >>so-called scientists. The point of real science (no, that's not a movie >>in which high school kids build a woman and blow up New Jersey :-) is to >>ferret out the silly. The question is: Are there VALID applications and >>conclusion drawn by religious believers, and how do we ferret THEM out from >>the wishful thinking? > Well, I would use many of the same tools as science. I would > use archaeological evidence, textual criticism, careful study of the > whole Bible, with proper attention paid to the different sorts of > literature it contains. In short a bit of old-fashioned study will do > wonders for weeding out absurdity in theology as well as in science. Sounds good, but it seems you're more interested in using scientific tools to somehow prove yourself right rather find out the truth. What I was referring to had nothing to do with archaeology or textual criticism (esp. since neither has any bearing on a proof about God). What I meant was to use those same reasoning tools to figure which of the notions present in the Bible are good, which are not, which other outside might also be included or rejected, and build from there. Without bogus assumptions of "this is good because god said so"... -- "Wait a minute. '*WE*' decided??? *MY* best interests????" Rich Rosen ihnp4!pyuxd!rlr