I fail to understand your explanation.
Actually, judging from the rest of that paragraph, I think you understood my meaning quite well.
I do believe that some who put value on absolute morals are too restrictive and short sighted. In their efforts to be clear and true to the absolute standard they have accepted, they try to over-generalize.
Good point. I would agree with that.
Yet many who advocate for enforcement of moral laws want to say that extenuating circumstances are of no concern. For them there is a duality that exists, separating moral and physical laws. The rules are different. I see no duality. If we look at the physical laws, and how they are demonstrated, observed, followed, we have a pattern for moral laws, as they are part of one whole.
That is an excellent philosophy, one which demonstrates what I believe to be the crucial flaw in absolutist thinking. The most effective moral laws should be based on physical laws, i.e. what is most consistently practical and beneficial for humans and their happiness.
Length of hair and manner of dress are often concerns of the peoples of the books, yet seem to serve no purpose than to make for easy identification of the true believers. Observance of particular days on the calendar similarly have strong moral associations with no intrinsic value except for unity of the clan. Hunter-gatherers and agrarians needed to be aware of particular seasons, and we surmise this lead to observance of particular days, but the sacred writings demand moral observance of particular days beyond what can be observed as beneficial.
Each law had a purpose to the culture it was created in. The laws might have been based on actual practical needs specific to that culture (i.e. seasonal awareness for farmers), or they might have been arbitrary concepts of "purity" designed to appease their god (hairstyle, manner of dress, observance of certain days, what have you). These arbitrary concepts were, of course, primitive grasps at understanding and controlling their world (if we sacrifice a virgin we won't have a drought, because that's what happened when we did it last year!).
Both practical and arbitrary laws were incorporated into sacred texts. In both cases, the laws were based on some type of observation in hopes that the appropriate behavior would produce the desired result.
I am saying followers of religions look to the sacred writings for all of their moral guidelines, many times disregarding what observation and reasoning might reveal to them.
Exactly. I think we're both trying to make the same point, you're just much more eloquent and concise than I am.
I stand by my statement that Christians get their morality from the bible. What you explain is that their interpretation of the bible varies, based on observation, common sense, or plain old pragmatism.
Sort of. Christians *do* get their morality from the Bible, as you pointed out, they just don't realize that the Bible came from a handful of belligerent desert nomads, as opposed to an all-knowing deity.
The point I am making is that while yes, Christians today look to the Bible, at some point long before the assembly and mass publication of the Bible, Morality as a concept had to be designed by the first primitive people.
What did they base their design on? Their own primitive understanding of the world and how to best get along in it. While that included some common sense relationship skills, like how to get along with your neighbors, it also included things like how not to anger that great mysterious being who crashes clouds together and prevents rain from falling when they need it. How were they to know thunder or drought had natural explanations that had nothing to do with their behavior? Disease, death, or illness were all thought to be punishments. Biblical morality thus evolved with a sort of oddball hit-or-miss pattern: whoops, we dated those cute Midianite girls and then that horrible disease hit us, God must not like that. Note to self: no dating pagans! And you'll notice today there is still the Biblical mandate to avoid being "unequally yolked".
If the natural world has laws which can be discerned by man without god, I say it is the same for moral laws.
Exactly! Again, I think we basically agree on this whole topic, we're just approaching it from different angles.
