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IT occurs to me, and it’s occurred to others before me, that sometimes it seems like we don’t actually get our morality from the bible. But rather, we or society has its morality of the time and we pick through the bible taking out the bits that fit with our morality and ignoring those we don’t want to deal with.
Example:hundreds of years ago it was moral to own slaves. Many christians felt it was moral because of the bible but really they were just going with what society around them thought and using the bible to support it.
Lot using color eat punishment on children. The bible talks of hitting children with a rod. People used to do this in schools and they used the bible to justify it. But weren’t they just already viewing it as moral and then using the bible afterward?
If if our morals come from the bible, and not reason or society then why do they change over time?
I should finish my thought. So, today, attitudes towards slavery and hitting children have changed. But the bible dint change. So where do we get our ideas about right and wrong (our morals) from?
I agree with you david that people cherry pick verses out of the Bible to support what they are doing. That is fine of course, but stretching it toward unsavoury behaviour is taking it out of context.
Jesus says this to the saints: “…he that overcometh, and keepeth My works unto the end, to him will I give power over the nations: and he shall RULE THEM WITH A ROD OF IRON; as the vessels of a potter shall they be broken to shivers: even as I received of My Father…” (Rev.2:26-27).
In other words the establishment of the Kingdom of God on the earth shall virtually smash all of man’s governments on the earth. I do not see this as people and Christ whacking people literally with a rod when they go astray such as we see in Iran where women can be struck for wearing clothes that show their face etc.
We also see the rod of correction in scripture as far as raising children. But is it really advocating violence toward children or is it advocating that we bring up our kids with correction, because as Solomon put it, “foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child, but the rod of correction will drive it far from him”. The rod is used to drive animals, but I am not so sure it was meant in the same way toward our children. Obviously we discipline our kids because we love them, not because we hurt them.
Even if bringing up kids in correction means at times you may smack your child as a last resort, then you will find that a child should be more concerned about the punishment than any pain they might receive. If they cry because it is too painful, then I think the punishment has gone too far.
To put this in perspective, my kids run around and bump into things a lot. Sometimes quite hard and yet do not cry most of the time. Yet I would never inflict such force on them and call that punishment. To me that would be violence. I would imagine they would cry if I did, perhaps not so much because of the pain, but the fact that I am their dad and am the one who should be protecting them.
David,
Scripture can be interpretative many ways and predominate interpretation changes in time. The bottom line is that the people of the world are not true Christians because if they were then we would be in paradise.
Hi David,
Is morality the application of external behavioral constricts to our lives?
Is that not phariseeism ?
Hi t8
it feels like you are providing a perfect example of what I’m talking about. It also feels like you did as you said, cherry picked scriptures about the rod. I’ve looked up every one. While there are some that are definitely symbolic in nature most are not. Paul was even heated with a rod. Literally. Maybe in the days of stoning hitting people on the back with a rod wasn’t viewed so harshly as today. This is my whole point. In the past men would look at the rod scriptures and use them to defend hitting people with rods. But today when that’s illegal and frowned upon we look to different scriptures and ignore others. Such as you seem to be doing. So where does our morality or sense of right and wrong come from if not the bible.
Slacery is a good example. In the past when slacery was viewed as okay you had owners taking their slaves to church with them and they would all listen to the preacher point out the slave scriptures. Today the world view has changed. And so we mostly ignore those scriptures or find a way to make them not about literal slavery. So we are first starting with our morality and making the bible bend to it.
Or how women were treated in the past. They were viewed almost as property. And so men would look to certain scriptures about how to treat them or how they were treated and use those to support “discipling” their wives. What you own you may do with as you like, they thought. But today times are different. And today we look at different scriptures and interpret scriptures to match how the world views things today.
Scripture can be interpretative many ways and predominate interpretation changes in time. The bottom line is that the people of the worlD
Yes kerwin. Scripture (about what is good and what is bad behavior) can be understood in many ways and those ways seem to change, over time, with the views of Society and reason.
And so, where is our morality actually coming from if we can pick and choose and we seem to lean towards picking and choosing that which is generally accepted by world of the time?Nick, to be clear, I am not discussing what is right or wrong but am discussing what people perceive to be right or wrong.
And I’m not here arguing that anything is right or wrong but am asking where the ideas of what is right or wrong actually come from.30 years ago homosexuals were having hate crimes committed against them. Today that is changing a lot. And in 50 years what will people be doing with the scriptures about men lying with men? Remarkably they will be spiritualizing it somehow. They will be saying today it applies to this but back then it applied to that. And so, does it not seem that morality comes from….I’m not sure what. Reason? Society. The majority? I don’t know.
And one last thing to address. If someone says: without the bible how would we know not to murder or rape?
I would suggest that if the only reason you aren’t murdering and raping is because the bible says so, you should immediately check yourself into a mental hospital.
There are ways to reason out that these are immoral. But I’m mostly concerned with how through time it seems we use the same binle and yet have different ideas about what is right or wrong and somehow these March societies.
HI DAVID
i seem not to understand how it is possible to change the bible code of conduct and still call it the way of god?
hi david
And one last thing to address. If someone says: without the bible how would we know not to murder or rape?
this to me seems trucky ;for to a sensitive man it would be one thing but to a violent man he would see it differently ,no?
David
i think that education in the reasons for not doing one thing in on way or another is important,
Simple terr:
A thousand years ago when parents mostly liked beating their kids (this is a time when public gory executions were fun and people burned cats alive for fun and in Germany they paid to have a cup of the blood of the person whose head was chopped off thinking it would help them somehow…. I’m getting off point. Back then people maybe focused on the “if you beat your son he will not die” type of scriptures where today, the average person’s mind set has changed and like t8 they focus on the fact that some rod scriptures were symbolic and therefore they can use that to justify minimizing those scriptures in their minds.
My point isn’t to ask which group have it right. My point is to ask if either group actually begins with the bible or rather they BEGin with their own morality and superimpose certain scriptures over that morality.i think that education in the reasons for not doing one thing in on way or another is important,–terr
With slavey it was books that people could finally read and therefore they could empathize with other people. Put themselves in the others shoes. Before then we dehumanized others making it easier to treat that way. But when you read a story of someone you can suddenly empathize with that one. The enlightenment and the printing press changed things a lot.
david
i think the bible as nothing to do with it for look at lamech that killed a young man just based on his own emotions ,he did not care about any thing just he build precedent in his family and so spread violence ,look at juda and his brothers when they took the lives of an entire community of people because of dinah their sister
david
education ? if i look at the history of israel ,they have shown that education did not profit only sometimes for a time
people have to accepted first ,and should be willingly want to change their own behavior ,if not education is useless ,look at germany pre ww2 that country was one of the most educated nation ,but you know what they end up doing ,so there must be some thing else that plays
David,
i think that education in the reasons for not doing one thing in on way or another is important,–terr
With slavey it was books that people could finally read and therefore they could empathize with other people. Put themselves in the others shoes. Before then we dehumanized others making it easier to treat that way. But when you read a story of someone you can suddenly empathize with that one. The enlightenment and the printing press changed things a lot.
That probably helped but the lack of need of slaves and the competition between slaves and free man for employment probably drove politics just like it later drove the rise of unions. Economics is a huge driver in this world as can be seen by the politics of the U.S. where it is the dividing line between parties and non-economical social issues are secondary. There were heroes that challenged the evils that propagated through the legality of slavery.
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I agree with you david that people cherry pick verses out of the Bible to support what they are doing. That is fine of course, but stretching it toward unsavoury behaviour is taking it out of context.Jesus says this to the saints: “…he that overcometh, and keepeth My works unto the end, to him will I give power over the nations: and he shall RULE THEM WITH A ROD OF IRON; as the vessels of a potter shall they be broken to shivers: even as I received of My Father…” (Rev.2:26-27).
In other words the establishment of the Kingdom of God on the earth shall virtually smash all of man’s governments on the earth. I do not see this as people and Christ whacking people literally with a rod when they go astray such as we see in Iran where women can be struck for wearing clothes that show their face etc.
We also see the rod of correction in scripture as far as raising children. But is it really advocating violence toward children or is it advocating that we bring up our kids with correction, because as Solomon put it, “foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child, but the rod of correction will drive it far from him”. The rod is used to drive animals, but I am not so sure it was meant in the same way toward our children. Obviously we discipline our kids because we love them, not because we hurt them.
Even if bringing up kids in correction means at times you may smack your child as a last resort, then you will find that a child should be more concerned about the punishment than any pain they might receive. If they cry because it is too painful, then I think the punishment has gone too far.
To put this in perspective, my kids run around and bump into things a lot. Sometimes quite hard and yet do not cry most of the time. Yet I would never inflict such force on them and call that punishment. To me that would be violence. I would imagine they would cry if I did, perhaps not so much because of the pain, but the fact that I am their dad and am the one who should be protecting them.
?Eternal life is to know the ONLY true God AND Jesus Christ whom HE has sent. The only true God is the Father and Yeshua is his son.
Again, this is exactly my point. A hundred years ago or a thousand years ago when society liked to beat kids, they would start with that morality and then use the rod scriptures that speak of bearing your son. But today, we would start with our morality that bearing kids is wrong and we would then make the scriptures work with that by ignoring whole blocks of scripture while focusing on symbolic type of ones.
So does our morality come from the bible? Or do we just use the bible to justify our present day morality?
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