[Luis Dias]

Ok, I'm having trouble expressing my idea here. What I mean is that if Battuta is right in saying that "Words don't matter" inside the bible, what matters is the behavior that results from the interaction between the believer and the bible, then we are making a case for ignorance and irrationality, damning us to be stupid to not understand the book, while at the same time accepting that the believers are sufficiently "smart" in a "different" way to get good behavior out of what rational people would recognize as "pretty weak source for morality".

So there's an element of nihilism here. Relativism. As if the believer is in a "different" universe that we cannot really understand with the same tools we actually understand everything else.

[MP-Ryan]

[EDITED]

OK, I'm sorry, but I can't resist.  Nothing personal Luis:

The GenDisc Drinking Game:  every for every instance of a word with the "ism," "ist," or "ional" ending in one of Luis's posts, take a shot.  If the word is italicized, take two shots.  If there are quotes around it too, finish the bottle.  If Luis's post is immediately followed by MP-Ryan or General Battuta who use the same "ism, ist, or ional"-ended word, switch to a different alcohol and begin again. 

[Luis Dias]

Please don't do that. You'll run out of bottles pretty fast!!!

[General Battuta]

Ok, I'm having trouble expressing my idea here. What I mean is that if Battuta is right in saying that "Words don't matter" inside the bible, what matters is the behavior that results from the interaction between the believer and the bible, then we are making a case for ignorance and irrationality, damning us to be stupid to not understand the book, while at the same time accepting that the believers are sufficiently "smart" in a "different" way to get good behavior out of what rational people would recognize as "pretty weak source for morality".

So there's an element of nihilism here. Relativism. As if the believer is in a "different" universe that we cannot really understand with the same tools we actually understand everything else.

hahahaha what the ****

[NGTM-1R]

Yeah, I'm with Batts on this one. I don't see how that follows.

[Luis Dias]

Ok, let me try giving an example. Let's admit that the bible has the following passage:

But those mine enemies, which would not that I should reign over them, bring hither, and slay them before me.

I naively say, this is an immoral passage.

Now someone comes along and says this:

"heeey don't say anything bad about that passage, because it's all metaphorical you see, and your literal eyes can't see anything intelligent, KTHNKSBYE"

Another dude comes along and says this:

"Ease up, dude. You can't really criticize that because that passage doesn't really matter. What matters is the behavior of the believers"

And I say, what the ffuuuuuuuuuu????

[AtomicClucker]

Ok, I'm having trouble expressing my idea here. What I mean is that if Battuta is right in saying that "Words don't matter" inside the bible, what matters is the behavior that results from the interaction between the believer and the bible, then we are making a case for ignorance and irrationality, damning us to be stupid to not understand the book, while at the same time accepting that the believers are sufficiently "smart" in a "different" way to get good behavior out of what rational people would recognize as "pretty weak source for morality".

So there's an element of nihilism here. Relativism. As if the believer is in a "different" universe that we cannot really understand with the same tools we actually understand everything else.

What's the difference between believing in evidence and believing in a flying fried chicken bucket?

Belief is limited by human experience, but you imply that belief itself is a separate entity. Except that we believe, and all are believers until we can ascend to a Transhuman state to escape our human confines, or else the Combine shoves a bunch of mechanical doohickeys into our skulls and achieve Transhuman ineptitude to be killed by an angry headcrab and explosive barrels.

[General Battuta]

Ok, let me try giving an example. Let's admit that the bible has the following passage:

But those mine enemies, which would not that I should reign over them, bring hither, and slay them before me.

I naively say, this is an immoral passage.

Now someone comes along and says this:

"heeey don't say anything bad about that passage, because it's all metaphorical you see, and your literal eyes can't see anything intelligent, KTHNKSBYE"

Another dude comes along and says this:

"Ease up, dude. You can't really criticize that because that passage doesn't really matter. What matters is the behavior of the believers"

And I say, what the ffuuuuuuuuuu????

All that example does is establish that you say what the ffffuuuuuuuuuu. It doesn't make any argument.

[Luis Dias]

Ok, Battuta, so please enlighten me. Is that passage immoral or not? Or do you render yourself unable to morally judge the passage?

[General Battuta]

Well I don't know, does it cause violence, hatred, or any sort of transgression of the rights of others in those who read it?

[Luis Dias]

Ok, so you say that you are unable of making a prima facie judgement. Let's imagine another line:

The personification of the devil as the symbol of all evil assumes the living shape of the Jew.

You are saying that you can't really decide upon the morality of this sentence without seeing history playing through?

[General Battuta]

Of course not. If Jews did not exist as a real group, if they were instead fictional, if there was no history of prejudice and attempted genocide, the line would have no moral meaning aside from the general sanction we hold against describing even fictional groups as 'evil incarnate' - a sanction which in turn arises from our experience with the consequences of making generalizations about groups.

It is impossible to make a moral judgment without empirical context, because all morality derives from history. Hell, you could even tweak that line by replacing 'Jew' with 'white man' and I bet you'd find get people nodding in sympathy because it's now an anti-colonial statement sympathetic to the oppressed.

I don't subscribe to religious notions of morality as some kind of objective thingaling. All moral systems are methods of proscribing behavior.

[NGTM-1R]

You are saying that you can't really decide upon the morality of this sentence without seeing history playing through?

You appear to be assuming that the influence of any particular thing is unchanging. The influence of the book as a whole has clearly changed throughout history, the assumption that its components have unvarying influence is weak at best.

[MP-Ryan]

I don't subscribe to religious notions of morality as some kind of objective thingaling. All moral systems are methods of proscribing behavior.

Hear, hear!

[General Battuta]

The personification of Sauron as the symbol of all evil assumes the living shape of the orc.

[Luis Dias]

All of what you said is not an argument against what I said. I didn't say that your moral judgement wouldn't come from your empirical knoweldge about the world at large, nor did I say that morality was objective, a thing in itself (man **** you should know better by now than throwing that dust into my eyes) nor did I say that morals don't change over time.

I asked another very specific and yet important question, which I'll rephrase:

Do you agree that we can have moral judgements on those prescriptions I quoted?

[General Battuta]

Absolutely I agree, and they should be based on whether the quotes cause violence, hatred, or any sort of transgression of the rights of others in those who read them.

The very question I asked when you presented the quote, and the very reason scripture is irrelevant except in how it impacts the behavior of its followers.

[Luis Dias]

The personification of Sauron as the symbol of all evil assumes the living shape of the orc.

This is tautological, Battuta. Don't play that silly game. Orcs and Sauron are defined by the narrative to be evil incarnate, so what you are making here is a description of a fairy tale, not a prescription of what to do in our world.

[AtomicClucker]

So Luis, why is your belief in scientific evidence any different than a belief in a god/goddesses/houseplant?

And does that make the form of meta-reference in the human experience any different to confirm belief in evidence or a talking puppet?

[Luis Dias]

Absolutely I agree, and they should be based on whether the quotes cause violence, hatred, or any sort of transgression of the rights of others in those who read them.

But you are rendering yourself more incompetent than what you really are.

Imagine that someone says something preposterously bigoted, yet entirely novel. You sit there, incapable of saying "hey dude, that's not cool at all", until that sentence creates something evil out of it? And how the hell will you even detect its effect? You won't.

So basically, if this is your only tool to decide, you are saying you are incapable of making moral judgements about something novel.


But we have more than this. We can infer, based on similar sentences, bringing up the kind of behavior that the "type" of prescription one is hearing and its usual consequences. We can say, with those tools, that both of those quotes are morally bankrupt.

The very question I asked when you presented the quote, and the very reason scripture is irrelevant except in how it impacts the behavior of its followers.

How do you detect its impact in a way that will assure you?