| Subject: A Guy Named Bob |
Author:
Biff
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Date Posted: 07/24/02 9:14pm
In reply to:
Damoclese
's message, "The moral kind" on 07/23/02 9:12pm
>Your argument here seems to be that people could/did
>tap into the Christian God via other venues which
>ultimately ended up with the Christian God's morals
>being implemented. My question to you is why I
>couldn't make a simalar argument for Allah? Perhaps
>they didn't recognize "Allah" by name, but had
>knowledge of a sumpreme being? What about those crazy
>greeks which was more what I was thinking when I
>mentioned "before the Christian God came on the scene"
>with the many Gods they worshipped? Do they all point
>back at the Christian God? Why not Allah?
Well, let's say there's a guy named Bob, and only one guy named Bob. But for some reason, when you were introduced to him, you came to know him as Bill. Thing is, no matter how much you call him Bill, he's still Bob. But that's okay, because he's gotten used to you calling him Bill, so when you say "Hey, Bill," he answers, even though he's Bob.
This is where it gets confusing: then someone tells you there's someone named Bob, only they're not talking about the real Bob, just a guy down the street who they're sure is named Bob. So you're convinced that Bob is Bill and some other guy is Bob. Does that make Bob Bill and the other guy Bob? Of course not, only Bob is Bob. And we don't know who the other guy is, or if he even exists, for that matter.
>True enough, but then, you have to realize when you
>write a book you can make the characters say whatever
>you wish so long as it is consistant. If Abraham had
>replied with "Who the hell is this?" it might lead
>christians to question the same thing when it is God
>they think they hear.
That's fair. And the story is practically written in point form, leaving many details up to the imagination. However, put yourself in Abram's place. If some voice out of nowhere tells you to leave behind the only life you've ever known, the only people you've ever lived with, and take your family, young children included, to some place that you don't even know exists, much less where it is or what will befall you on the way, would you go or would you seek counselling?
>>True. And again, the Hammurabi Code came about in a
>>society that had an awareness of God, even though they
>>may not have recognized him by the name we associate
>>today.
>
>Again, what about Allah or the Greek Gods? Doesn't
>this argument fit equally well in those arenas?
Again, is Bob Bob or is the other guy Bob?
>Our perspective may be skewed, however, are you
>suggesting that socities can function without
>something like moral-like-codes?
Of course not. In fact morals (being derived from the root more) are a necessary byproduct of societies. They are, in the purest sense, simply societal norms. But the word itself has come to be used in a slightly different way, not as the distintion between normal and deviant, but rather as between right and wrong. So we're left with a basic question: what is right and what is wrong, rather than what is normal or necessary for a society's survival. A society might survive quite well by treating women as second class citizens, but is it right? Chinese society survived by gunning down countless protestors in Tienamen (forgive the atrocious spelling) Square. Was it right?
>>This is an interesting discussion in that neither
>>perspective is provable. There is presumably no one on
>>earth who does not live in a society of some sort.
>>Thus, it is not possible to put together a group of
>>people who have no concept of society or morality on a
>>deserted island and observe what develops.
>
>That's true, but what we can do is look back in time
>to other societies that began to flourish and compare
>and contrast what morality they agreed upon, and where
>they differed.
To get an accurate picture, I think we'd have to go back far beyond when certain societies began to flourish. We would have to return to the very dawn of those societies and examine how they developed the norms they did. I don't think it's fair to assume that a few movers-and-shakers from a certain group of people sat down, came up with a moral code and snap your fingers there's a prosperous society. Unfortunately, the history books don't tend to go back that far, they only begin to discuss certain societies when they became dominant.
(as an aside morality for ancient
>people's and even today is widely diversified which
>serves as more evidence that moral like codes come
>about that are not things that the Christian God might
>agree with).
And David Duke says alot of things God agrees with, does that make him moral?
>Finally, it isn't hard to justify any contradictory
>act with Bible scripture. Some verses indicate one
>thing, some another. It's just a matter of how you mix
>and match verses, what you choose to ignore, and what
>you choose to hold dear as to what perception and
>philosophy it is you wish to hold concerning the Bible.
Well, that's another discussion entirely. For the record, I disagree. I think that an objective reading of the Bible demonstrates that it is remarkably consistent throughout.
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