I believe that morality is absolute. There are values in our world that express how things ought to be. These values tell us that certain things are always right and certain things are always wrong.
As a religious person, I look to the sacred texts of my religious tradition to tell me what those absolute values are. My religious faith binds me to the Torah and the Torah guides me as I search for the God-given standards that I believe must direct my life.
In this case, my religious beliefs and elemental human instincts coincide. As a Jew, I know that God has certain expectations of me. As a human being, I feel in my gut that certain things can never be right in any place or at any time and that there are rules of morality that apply to all humankind; and not only that, I feel confident that the preponderance of the human race feels as I do.
True, the world is not lacking in relativists. For them, such matters are culturally determined, and we can do no more than suggest that something is acceptable or not according to the code of a particular nation, group or culture. But this is a minority view. Civilized people everywhere assert that taking a life or abusing a child is always wrong. And if that is the case, should it not be so that other things are always right? Hence, I continue to search for ultimate values, using religious texts as my guide.
But now the problem: Those religious people who share my belief about absolute morality often display an intolerance that I abhor and a coercive mentality that I reject. And the Jews who revere the same texts that I do often come to radically different conclusions about what they mean. Furthermore, I sometimes change my mind; after studying a text, I find myself reconsidering a moral decision that I had previously made. Given all this, is it not contradictory for me to talk about absolute values at all?
Because of the vagueness of religious language, it is not. The Hebrew Bible is written with majestic simplicity, but it -- like the Constitution of the United States -- is vague in many important parts. While it contains a record of God's message to the Jewish people and to all humankind, the exact meaning of the words is often not clear. I continue to believe in transcendent truth, but the Bible alone -- and its wonderfully imprecise language -- does not provide it.
As a Jew, I deal with this dilemma by studying both the Hebrew Bible (the Written Torah) and the Talmud and rabbinic commentaries (the Oral Torah). While the former is a record of God talking to us, the latter is a record of the Jews talking to God and each other. The Oral Torah is a massive work, a comprehensive effort to fill in the blanks of the Written Torah and construct a schema of what constitutes transcendent values in our imperfect world. For me, as a liberal Jew, this process is ongoing and unfinished. God's word is in the biblical text, and it is final -- after all, God instructs us "to do that which is right in the eyes of the Eternal" (Deut. 13:19) -- but getting to the ultimate, transcendent meaning of those words is something yet to be worked out.
What is true for Jews is true for others, too. When Presidential candidate Michele Bachmann was asked about the obligation of a Christian wife to be submissive to her husband, it was interesting for me to follow the debate among scholars and church leaders about the New Testament verse in Ephesians chapter 5 that deals with this subject. Those participating, it seems to me, were believers in the authority of the Bible on moral questions, but they engaged in spirited discussion on what the words mean and how they are to be translated. Despite differences in culture and context, Muslims argue about their texts as well.
My conclusion, then, is that as a believer in revelation, I look to the religious writings of my tradition for the answers that I seek about values. I search, study and question texts that are holy but imprecise and that I do not fully understand; engaging in this process, I see that revelation has a progressive nature. Still, I have no patience for those who want a non-judgmental morality that is so "inclusive" as to be without meaning. Values are not fads or fashions; they do not change everyday. Absolute values are there, even if, in all the particulars, I have yet to completely figure them out.
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Judaism Ethics, Morality, Community
You know where my morality come from? ME!
Yep, I just a naturally kind product of Evolutionary biology, my primate ancestors learned that being alone was bad, having others around made life more survivable and more fun.
I agree with my ancestors! I get a great deal of satisfaction by making others laugh, by watching children play together in a safe happy environment. I love all the little surprises that my children tell me about.
Yep, I'm not disappointed that there is no god, no absolute morality.
Religion is doing what you are told, regardless of what is right.
Do you mean to say that the likes of founders of this country were not civilized for their time yet they had slaves? Do you mean to say that Roman high classes were not civilized for their time yet they had slaves, murdered, raped?
Civilized people nowadays perceive morality in a far different way than the previous generations. As you see, all is relative and none have room to practice your theory of absolutism.
HuffPostThinker posts (perhaps posted subsequent to the development of Paul Robertson 09/10/2011 10:58 PM) appear to describe the individual-and-circumstance level at which the Bible appears to suggest morality to be evaluated by God. In which case, it appears possible that the apparent Paul Robertson 09/10/2011 10:58 PM assertion (that the HuffPostThinker posted theories do not allow for motive, consent or relative desirability of harm) might be considered to have been responded to.
"When he came before Hillel, (he also asked Hillel to teach him the entire Torah while standing on one foot) Hillel replied, "What is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor: that is the whole Torah while the rest is commentary; go and learn it."
I welcome your thoughts.
This theory appears compatible with apparent earlier HuffPostThinker suggestions that the God/human relationship appears Biblically suggested to be individualized.
Regarding the suggested history of changing moral environment, the apparent Paul Robertson 09/10/2011 08:26 PM assertion that humans changed it appears compatible with the apparent earlier HuffPostThinker theory that moral violations changed the moral dynamic. Regarding the apparent Biblical endorsement of slavery, not knowing enough about the context appears to offer little basis upon which to develop a reasoned perspective other than to note that slavery appears not to have been in the original design.
The intent appears to be to abstractly consider a circumstance as consisting of a unique set of parameters that might reasonably be considered to apply to moral issues such as place, time, goal, and knowledge. For each person, each unique act of that person’s life might be abstractly perceived as having a right/wrong parameter that indicates whether that act in that circumstance is right or wrong. “Right†and “wrong†are referred to by HuffPostThinker 09/10/2011 06:46 PM as the potential values of the “right/wrong†parameter as “1†is the value of the “x†parameter (or variable) in “x times 2 = 2â€.
HuffPostThinker 09/10/2011 06:46 PM appears intended to suggest that two persons’ similar circumstance might differ sufficiently enough to warrant different right/wrong moral evaluations of a particular act. In other words, the abstractly perceived “right/wrong parameter†of their unique circumstances might warrant different “parameter valuesâ€.
I hope this helps clarify HuffPostThinker 09/10/2011 06:46 PM’s intended meaning.
Perhaps, in the initial design of human reality, circumstance within that design was sufficiently within a range of values that merited the simple set of guidelines mentioned in BlogSpotThinker post http://blogspotthinker.blogspot.com/2011/09/gods-guidelines.html (blog URL http://blogspotthinker.blogspot.com). Perhaps, humanity’s challenge to and violation of those simple guidelines introduced new, apparently negative factors into the dynamic that appear to possibly have also complicated it.
A reasonable example appears to be that of parents with two children and a household tradition of dessert after meals. If Child A’s meal is appropriately consumed but Child B’s meal finds its way to a pet, the different context might merit a more complex outcome in which Child A receives dessert and Child B does not. That outcome might be considered inconsistent by an observer without sufficient background information yet appropriate to one with that information.
Perhaps violations of God’s initial moral guidelines merits and results in more complex, although perceivably inconsistent resolution. A Biblically suggested goal appears to be to return to that initial system.
The Bible appears to suggest a voluntary return of humanity, at some point, to God’s design. Perhaps, morality will continue to be a individual/circumstance level phenomenon, but greater social harmony would exist.
Using BannedInBoston 09/11/2011 08:07 PM’s slaveholding example, both terms appear to address the rightness or wrongness of slaveholding.
A distinction that appears reasonably extractable from BannedInBoston 09/11/2011 08:07 PM is that ethics are rules, whereas morality is a more intuition-based guide honed by illustration rather than rules.
I welcome your thoughts.
I would be grateful for clarification regarding the basis for the apparent RedRat 09/10/2011 01:45 PM assertion that God cannot desire or want.
Regarding God’s actions being outside of time, the possibility of including, yet also existing beyond time appears reasonable.
Regarding injecting God’s self into our universe, a reasonable alternate suggestion appears to be that our universe might be a formation of God, therefore, apparently not necessitating injecting Himself into our universe, but a process that might be considered conceptually closer to forming our universe.
I welcome your thoughts.
A reasonably appropriate example appears to be looking for a pair of glasses perched on one’s head. One might recall having had them recently, but they appear to be no where near. At some point, the recollection of having recently handled the glasses might even be called into question.
The above is submitted to suggest that casual logic might be willing to consider God to be fictional, but my understanding of scientific logic and reason appears to suggest that it might rather conclude that there appears not to be enough evidence to consider God to be either fictional or non-fictional.
Firstly, reference to an excerpt from a posted comment by mentioning the comment post’s time stamp, such as “HuffPostThinker 09/10/2011 07:52PM†appears reasonably expected to simplify reader effort needed to locate and review that excerpt in its context.
Secondly, this writing convention appears to be intended as a tool to facilitate and foster civil debate.
The debate here appears generally considered to potentially address concepts of great philosophical importance to the debaters. Resulting discussion and debate might include disputed assertions and critiques of logic and reason. Because logic and reason might be closely associated with personal intellect and self-worth, negative critique of logic and reason appears considered to be susceptible to recognized or unrecognized interpretation or misinterpretation as negative critique of personal intellect and self-worth.
Use of personal pronouns such as “Iâ€, “you†and “he†appear to trigger this suggested association of personal ideology and personal self-worth. Referring to comment posts rather than to their authors might help focus debate attention on the logic and reason of the comments rather than on the intellect and/or self-worth of their authors.
The suggestion that this is as it should be appears to have an alternative: that human reality appears “intended†for such conflicts to never occur because the moral standard appears suggested to exist in an entity more knowledgeable about such issues than humanity. Humanity, however, for varied and sundry reasons, appears to have decided to turn its back somewhat on that entity.
Perhaps humanity’s apparently persistent conflicts are more of a matter of humanity possibly having turned its back on that moral standard-knowledgeable entity, rather than the entity’s not having done a good job of managing human/human and God/human interaction. I understand the Bible to suggest that a salient point regarding God/human relations is the voluntary aspect of both parties’ part. If that is the case, depriving humanity of the opportunity to voluntarily choose that relationship (up to a certain point, it appears) appears suggested to defeat the purpose of providing for it.
You suggest that god is capable of resolving these conflicts. You admit that humanity has a history of this not happening, but you blame humans for turning away from god.
1) If humans can't hear god's instructions, do they have any practical effect?
2) If your theory about humans turning away from god is correct, then surely we could expect to find complete accord among those who turn to god? But in fact, some of the most violent disagreements in our history have been over a disagreement between worshippers of the same god. (e.g. Catholics vs Protestants; Shia vs Sunni Muslims)
2. A reasonable theory appears to be that human/human and God/human accord might exist to the extent that human behavior (for lack of a less clinical term) is in line with God’s design. Without claiming authoritative knowledge, the conflicts apparently alluded to in Paul Robertson 09/10/2011 10:47 PM might be due to factors other than compliance with God’s design, such as misinterpretation and misapplication of precepts appropriately and perhaps even inappropriately associated with that design.