

No matter how "absurd" it is to suggest that a common moral system created by
mankind is absolute, it is not contrary to reason to suggest that a common
moral system created by mankind is sensible. In fact, for the Bible to be of
any use to mankind as a moral code, it must be interpreted by mankind and a
workable moral system created for everyday use.

The Jewish Talmud is the result of centuries of Biblical scholars analysing
every word of the Torah to understand the morality behind it. The Children of
Israel were given a very strict set of Moral, Civil, Judicial and Ceremonial
Laws to follow and yet this was clearly not enough to cover every instance
of moral dilemma in their Society. For a Christian, the situation is no better.

It seems to me that the only code of morality that we have from the Judeo-
Christian God is that which is contained in the Bible (which we can see from
the diverse opinions in the Christian newsgroups is not clear). There may well
be an absolute morality defined by the Judeo-Christian God for mankind to
follow but it seems that we only have a subset simply because the concept was
written down by man.

This leads to the problem of defining morality for our society. If we take the
divine Morality then we have a code of practice which may be interpreted in many
different ways (as an example, consider the immolation of heretics in the
fifteenth century and the interpretation of the Bible which allows a man to do
that to another man under the precept to administer Justice). If we take an
agnostic Morality then we have a code of practice that can be modified to suit
society (with all the danger that this implies). Alternatively, we could take
the basis of the Judeo-Christian morality and interpret/extend this to create
and justify a code of morality which suits the society we live in and enables
the people to live Righteously (as many Christian and Non-Christian philosophers
have done).

Whatever the driving force behind the definition of morality for our society, I
think the important aspect is the result.

David.

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