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Subject: Why morals will always be around without the Christian God Author: Damoclese [ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ] Date Posted: 07/20/02 12:46pm Heated discussion over morality is often the subject of talk shows and theological discussions. The debate continues to rage over whether action A is morally acceptable as opposed to action B. Perhaps the lines of morality are so grey for people because it is an abstract concept of which without societies cannot function under a set of standardized rules? The fundamentalist Christian attitude towards morality is that without the Word of God which informs us of God himself, we would be some depraved society in which no sort of moral code would apply; chaos would ensue. However, it is generally known that the Christian God was essentially "off the scene" for a number of years. Some Christian arguments imply that during this time the rigid morality of the Christian God was still in effect, but we were simply unaware of what was moral and without awareness of the Christian God as the previous argument implies, chaos should have necessarily ensued. The question is, did chaos really ensue when people where unaware of the Christian God? The answer to this question is a resounding "no", unless one defines moral chaos as anything that is contrary to what the Bible puts forth. Socities like ancient greece forewent the notion of human life being something sacred, yet their society thrived. The christian values of morality imposed on society today were not applicable to many societies before the Bible ever came about; and we find that those societies did not fall into moral chaos; rather, they formulated their own laws and senses of justice without the need for any intervention from the Bible's behalf. What's more, many of the laws that were adhered to were similar to those of the Bible such as the code of Hammurabi. One explanation of this is that the code set forth in the Bible has pieces that are necessary for any society to still function. A society cannot function if people who perform key functions are killed regularly. It cannot function economically if people regularly steal. If the laws of morality the society imposed were not followed, it was no different than today in that the society in question would make it extremely painful for the person who dared to go against the grain of commonly accepted tradition. Arbitrary values that one society favored over another if not followed meant rejection and perhaps punishment. Morality is necessary for any society to function. That doesn't mean it has to be verbatim the morality that appears in the Bible. In fact, as I've attempted to show, it has been the case that societies have flourished without any knowledge of Christian ethics or the Christian God. For these reasons it is my opinion that societies will always have morals with or without any appeal to any God. Damoclese [ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ]

Replies:

Subject Author Date no shit! ozboy 07/22/02 9:20am Re; Why morals will always be around without the Christian God -- QUITTNER, 07/23/02 12:31pm Hey QUITTNER, I think I've lost the plot? -- ozboy, 07/25/02 9:12am Why morals will always be around without the Christian God -- QUITTNER, 08/ 1/02 2:29pm But what kind of morals? Biff 07/23/02 6:59pm The moral kind -- Damoclese, 07/23/02 9:12pm A Guy Named Bob -- Biff, 07/24/02 9:14pm Not a tight fit (I like my analogies to be size 3's) -- Damoclese, 07/25/02 12:59am Will you wear it out, or just around the house? -- Biff, 07/28/02 3:41pm If we go out -- Damoclese, 07/29/02 12:57pm