From: mathew <mathew@mantis.co.uk>
Newsgroups: alt.atheism.moderated,alt.atheism
Subject: Commandments as morality
Date: Thu, 30 Jul 92 11:11:16 BST
Distribution: world
Organization: Mantis Consultants, Cambridge. UK.

Stephen Buckley <sbuckley@sfu.ca> writes:
> mathew <mathew@mantis.co.uk> writes:
> >Over the years I have come to the conclusion that it is impossible to behave
> >in a reasonable moral way purely by following lists of commandments.
> >Given a simple list of rules for moral behaviour, there are always situation
> >where adhering to the rules results in ludicrous or unpleasant behaviour.
> 
>  thanks for your reply.  i agree totally with your ananlysis of the failure
> of lists of rules to guide moral behaviour.  in christian lingo, the old
> testament was just that--a list of rules--which was replace by the covenant
> of the new testament in jesus, who [and this idea is rooted in the bible
> and present in the lives of spirit indwelt christians] once living in a 
> persons heart is a tremendously powerful force to guide a person [me for
> instance] to be christ-like--i.e. living according to a morally perfect
> role model.

There are problems with such an approach, though.  Firstly, it seems not to
be subject to detailed analysis.

Talking to someone who follows commandments, I can ask "What are your moral
rules?"  I can then work out why he's doing something, ask about his reasons
for picking certain rules, and so on.

With someone "guided by the heart", about all I can do is watch what he does.
It's impossible even for me to determine whether he's being fair or
consistent with what he claims as his guidelines.  If a mass-murderer claims
to have been "guided by the Holy Spirit", how can I tell if he's lying?

Maybe the solution is to combine both sorts of morality.  (Then again, maybe
not.)

>             the teachings in the bible, when rooted in a personal relation-
> ship with god, are far more effective than when we just try to wing it on
> our own by following those rules.

I'll have to take your word for that, as I have no way to tell which
"Christians" have rooted their moral behaviour in a personal relationship
with God, and which are just following rules.

> >Religious followers seem to have a tendency to define people as 'good' or
> >'bad' based on what kinds of sexual behaviour they enjoy.  I tend to feel
> >that morality is more a matter of how you treat people.
> 
>   sometimes that general tendency is accurate.  but even as you recognize,
> it is a generalization.  jesus said to love everyone regardless of what
> disagreements we have.

I'm reminded of the section of "Bloom County" when Fundamentally Oral Bill
speaks out against "penguin lust".  Opus is being kicked out of the house,
and asks (from memory) "Didn't Jesus say to love the sinner and hate the sin?"
and the reply is "Yes, we do love you.  Specifically, we'd love you to
leave."

It's not just a joke, either.  I know of someone who was kicked out of a
house because the landlord and other residents (Christians) found out he was
homosexual.


mathew
-- 
"Even the most bizarre of the unions (probably that between a cat's gall
 stone and a single note 'G' from CNN's ident theme) managed to convey a
 sense of rampant impropriety."  -- 'Fortran Five', Simon G. Lawrence Leonard

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