Seasons

My mastery of myself may have practical and theoretical limits (for instance, I'm pretty sure I can't make myself levitate). From a moral perspective, one's worth as a moral agent is determined by the choices one makes and the effort one makes to act morally, not by perfect moral action. In real life we often have conflicting moral claims upon us. I am not responsible for the initial conditions, only for my response to them.

If *I* can't make myself "never tell a lie, never have a thought that is lustful, covetous, selfish, or otherwise evil" (not that I would agree with you any of those things is of necessity evil), then no one else can make me.

He's got a point, eugene.

Eugene, I'm going to ask you something I wish someone had asked me ten years ago: can you conceive of the possibility that reality MAY really and truly be different from everything you were ever taught, everything you are afraid not to believe in? Not IS it different, but might it be different? Can you imagine that possibility, if only for the sake of honestly putting yourself in the other person's shoes?

The fact that we have lustful thoughts and the ability to lie does not make us inherently full of sin. It is only because we have these capabilites within us and choose not to that we can have anything like morality. If we were not capable of sin we could never choose to do good. Without that capacity to choose we are not moral or immoral, but amoral.

I'll take sex and money over philosophy any day.

pick a religion where lustful thoughts are not a sin. There are so many other sins it would be more useful to avoid.

I'll stick with no religion, thank you.

I have a question. Have any of you watched any of the discovery channels shows on the universe? Well they paint a very depressing view which is scientificial based about how the universe itself will end and all life on it. That is if our own galaxy does not run into another one and basically imploded on itself. If there is no God or afterllife then what is the point of even trying to perpectuate our species? What is the point of life itself? Why not make merry and do what we want because tommorrow we die. Hell why not blow up the damn planet cause it will enventually die one way or another. My point is that a afterlife and God gives us hope where there really is none. It gives the poor a reason to believe that someday they will not ever be hungry or thirsty again. It gives the oppressed a reason to keep going on and hope that some day their oppressors will face justice. Would it be fair to allow everyone in heaven? What about african americans who have suffered at the hands of the KKK or the jewish people who suffered at the hands of the third riech? So no a loving God would not allow such people to go to heaven unless they had repented and believe. A loving God is going to be just just as a father would protect and take revenge upon someone who killed or hurt his children how much more would God do it. Humans are what they make theirselves is true to a point but lets face it there is no way a person with common sense can honestly believe that the entire human race is basically moral or nuetral. Our whole history proves otherwise. And don't tell me we are really basically better more moral people because I can point out millions of cases in recent history that says otherwise. What has happened though is a change in our thinking and treatment of others world wide, a change that would not be possible if Jesus had not ever come. In fact the human race did not really start to become humane until after Christ was born and died for us. He taught ideas that were radical for that time in history. Ideas that have changed the course of history for us all. If it had not been for Jesus men would still own women and would still have more than one wife and would still beat and rape her as often as he wanted and still get away with it. Travel would be a lot more dangerous for everyone, people would always be getting robbed and murdered for our possions. Children would still be sacrificed to gods. But Jesus did way more than influening history he fullfilled the requirement of the law so that we did not have to go to hell(and a real hell is basically being seperated from God himself, the suffering of hell is really only for a little while until the 2nd death where everything is destroyed that is wrong even hell itself) for the things we do wrong. Look at your own conscious can anyone being totally honest actually claim that we have not felt guilty for something we have done? Just the fact that we do feel guilt means that a sense of right and wrong is inhert in all of us. And that same sense of right and wrong is what condemns us because without the law there can be no sin. Do you see animals trying to make clothes just to cover up there private parts? Do animals stop and think about not killing another for food because it is wrong? No and they do not sin by doing what they do naturally because they are truly innocent. They have no sense of right and wrong and as far as I am concerned that is the only real difference between humans and animals. God is a perfect God. Let me put the analogy like this. God is the ulimate postive number and we are all different degrees of negative numbers. Now if we meet up with God face to face as a negative number what do you think will happen? We will be obliterated. Jesus died for us so that we could become postive numbers. But it is a gift. He does not shove it down our throats. and you can accept this gift or reject it. It is your choice. But without becoming a postive number we can not ever possibly be in the presence of God. What is sin it is a old fashioned word for personal shortcomings, or faults in our personalty, it is things we do wrong that we know is wrong. No one here is telling you that any of you have to believe in our God. But as Christains it is our duty to at least tell you about it so that your "blood" so to speak is not on our hands. You know what I think is funny? That of all the religions in the world christainty is the one that is ridiculed, pick on, picked apart, and scurtinized religion in the whle world. No many people froth at the mouth if a buddist were to tell you his beliefs but bring out a christain and the whole world gets upset. I think that in itself speaks volumes.

There's so much in the above statement that I can't really hold it all, but here, in no particular order, are my thoughts regarding it.
Regarding the fact that the universe/galaxy/planet will end: Life finds a way.
The point about animals pretty much echoes what I said earlier, that the fact that we are capable of sinning is what gives us the ability to be moral.
And as to the last part, it is a sad truth that the only thing we can ridicule these days and get away with it are mainstream/majority groups. Look at advertising. No longer are any of the jokes in ads at a woman's expense anymore. That would be un-PC. But the same is not true of ads which in some way ridicule men. They are everywhere. Now personally I'm not bothered.
The same is true in the case of religion. It's not allowable to make jokes about Muslims, Jews and Buddists, because in Western society they are a minority. But Christians are a majority group and there is a perception that it's okay to ridicule a majority group.

I think dogs have some sense of right and wrong. Do you have any dogs?

Ladydyke, you've given up. You've decided life is purposeless. Not all of us agree with you. Though it certainly lends itself to becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy. Why not ask and try to answer the question, "what can I do with this existence?"

You've confused me a little bit because it seems like you say in one breath that people have not become more moral over time and in the next that people have become more moral since Jesus came along. I think you'd find there have been lots of good people in a great many societies, and I certainly wouldn't lay the notion of "rule of law" at Jesus's feet -- after all, the Law was something he cast off, no? Let's not give him more than his due, historically at least.

As to the question Corwin answered, I think three factors contribute to Christianity being constantly under scrutiny and outside criticism (I'm not sure it gets the number one spot though -- for example, Islam's been getting rather a lot of attention lately, you may have notice! ):
1) Christianity is the most successful (in terms of numbers) religion in the Western world. So it's omnipresent. Even in this country which is supposed to have separation of church and state it is impossible to avoid being reminded at every turn that this is a Christian country.
2) Most denominations of Christianity place a high value of proclamation, "spreading the word", and conversion. When you put yourself in someone's face like that, you should not be surprised when they look at you.
3) Perhaps any dominant faction would have behaved as badly, but rather a lot of wickedness has been done in the name of Christianity and with the blessing of the Church. When you have been the victim of torture, political and economic disenfranchisement, religious persecution, rape and foul murder (as have many who were unfortunate enough to not convert when the Christians came to town) under the banner of the Cross, you carry some resentments forward through decades or even centuries. But it's OK, you *told* us about Christianity, so our "blood" is not on your hands.

Goodness has also been done under the same banner. But people tend to remember harm done them. Christianity's belief in its religious superiority I think is rivaled in modern history only by Islam.

My personal beef with Christian philosophy, if you haven't gathered by now, is the notion of damnation and reward and that, though I understood Jesus to have shown wisdom in prolaiming that it is not what is outside but what is inside that counts, to me this outside-placement of inside-states creates a psychological disconnect between the good and the just, and places the primitive childhood understanding of the world on a pedestal. In the present case, I just don't understand how a person can be moral or just if he does not generate these qualities in himself. How can you understand these if you cannot produce them, and these are things that I don't think exist if they are not understood by the perpetrator. The judge who rules correctly but doesn't know why cannot be said to be just. The man who helps the lady across the street but does so because he knows he is supposed to and not because he sees why it is good to do cannot be said to be moral. In my own reading of the reports of Jesus, it is this very thing I take him to have been reminding people of. To place belief above this -- in a religion where the Law has been disbanded... this I don't understand.

I live because things make me happy. And as long as those things exist or I believe that they will exist in the future, I'll continue to try to survive.

Okay serveral points were made that I will try to address: "Life finds a way" no it does not all the time recent scientific discoveries allude to the fact that everything dies, even the universe. Do dogs know right from wrong?(BTW yes I do have dogs 3 of them) Not really. They know what does or doesn't displease their owners. That is not the same thing. You won't find their wild cousins worrying about what a human thinks. As far as my seeming contradiction about the morality of humans what I really meant to say is that although society as a whole has changed their treatment of people, humans as individuals have not. the comment about "Ladydyke, you've given up." No I have not. I was using the point of life ending to illustrate a point. That point is that the sad facts of science are in and that leaves life without purpose or hope. In the book of ecclesiastes the author uses the same type of argument to illustate his point about the purpose of life. Whereas God gives us purpose in life and hope. Did jesus cast off the law? That has been a argument between christians and jews since the time of Christ. Old testment jews practised the ritual of sacrificing a lamb or cow, a firstborn without blemish, to cover their sins from God. But it was a temporary measure at best because it had to keep being repeated. Jesus was that sacraficial lamb for us. He died once and for all for all peoples sin so that we might have life. Does that mean He got rid of the law? No He fullfilled laws requirment for death once and for all.time. Because no one can meet the laws requirments to get into heaven, it is not humanly possible. A person would have to not sin either in thought or deed from the time they are born until the time they died. So people who accept Jesus's gift can be freed from the laws penalty. But we still have the reponsibilty to to show love to God and others. We still have to act responably. (yes I know that I can't spell for Sh*t) Yes some so called christains under a church very much in the wrong has killed and persecuted thousaands maybe more in the name of Christ. Does that mean that God would have blessed them for doing that? No He would be extremely angry at them for dragging Christ's name in the dirt. all of the 3 major religions who worship God have done horrible things in the name of their God. People are human and humans do alot of horrible things that is a sad fact of our species. God Himself will deal with such people. But that does not nullify The bibles message. Christains belief in Damnation and reward come from the old testament and new testament. If you look at your own jewish bible you will find a lot of the same theme there as well. The only thing people will be damned for is rejecting Christ's gift of eternal life. Like I said no one is forcing you to believe how we believe.h It is your choice but just remember crab that Christainians roots lie in the old testament, the jewish bible. Christ Himself was jewish from the family of King david.