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Decent Messages in Holy Books
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19-08-2017 10:46am#1
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I'm interested in the opinions of other atheists/agnostics/unsure people. But so many of the people in here seem to be pretty knowledgeable on the Bible, presumably from questioning and analyzing it! And whether we like it or not, much of our legal systems and the basic shaping of what is and isn't acceptable in western societies is based on bits of the Bible, so I'm interested to hear what people have liked or taken to heart from the Bible, or any other holy books that they've read. Or belief systems.
Well here's the thing. The claim I've highlighted above is one that get repeated a lot (in America more often than here) but it never gets any less wrong. There are a lot of problems with this idea but there are two important ones.
Firstly, there's the texas sharpshooter problem. You only get the idea that our legal system comes from the bible by being really, really selective about the commandments. There are lots of commandments that don't feature in our or most (if not all) legal systems like this:
“You shall have no other gods before Me."
Freedom of religion is a pretty important guarantee in most legal systems.
Then there's this:
"“You shall not make for yourself an idol, or any likeness of what is in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the water under the earth."
Imagine the impact on art and culture (and Catholicism) if this was part of our legal system.
Or this:
"“You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife or his male servant or his female servant or his ox or his donkey or anything that belongs to your neighbor.”
Not only does this prohibit the very basis of western economics and consumerism but it's a thought crime which we generally don't tend to enshrine in law.
And then there's this:
"You shall make an altar of earth for Me, and you shall sacrifice on it your burnt offerings and your peace offerings, your sheep and your oxen; in every place where I cause My name to be remembered, I will come to you and bless you."
"You shall not delay the offering from your harvest and your vintage. The firstborn of your sons you shall give to Me. You shall do the same with your oxen and with your sheep. It shall be with its mother seven days; on the eighth day you shall give it to Me."
A lot of people either don't know, forget, (or in the case of Christians) would like to pretend that the commandments stop at 10, but they don't. They continue through Exodus 20, 21, 22 and 23. This includes the commandment above in Exodus 22:29 and it's repetition in Exodus 34. I've also included the corollary commandment in Exodus 20 above but the commandment gets repeated again in Leviticus 27:28-29 and Numbers 3:13. But in western society we don't require or even allow child sacrifice.
Then of course, there's the ethnocentric nature of the commandments. When the commandment is given that "thou shalt not kill" that just means your fellow Israelites. It doesn't mean all humans. There's no indication of a shared humanity. If there was we wouldn't have passages like the Amalekite slaughter:
"Thus says the Lord of hosts, ‘I will punish Amalek for what he did to Israel, how he set himself against him on the way while he was coming up from Egypt. Now go and strike Amalek and utterly destroy all that he has, and do not spare him; but put to death both man and woman, child and infant, ox and sheep, camel and donkey.’”
Of course there's more examples of this throughout the Old Testament as God allows, sanctions or commands the slaughter of people seen to be Israel's enemies or just in their way. The Amalekite slaughter above is not a morally good pronouncement and out of step with the idea that thou shalt not kill is a universal commandment.
The only way to make the case for our legal system being based on the bible is by ignoring the commandments which aren't part of our laws, ignoring the laws which contradict the commandments or misinterpret the application of the restrictive racist nature of the original commandments.
Secondly, there's the genetic problem. There's two facets of this problem, firstly the fact that the legal code in Exodus is actually borrowed from the earlier code of Hammurabi and secondly, that even without Christian influence we would have had similar laws to the ones people claim come from the Bible.
You see, the laws obtained by Moses on Mount Sinai obviously never really happened. Moses is just a composite character and never really existed. Similarly the Exodus never really happened. So somewhere along the way you've got to make up some neat little story to explain why the Israelites follow the laws of another culture from hundreds of years previously. Unlike Moses, Hammurabi was a historical figure and his commandments were laid down on a stone tablet which we still have today:
Of course, even if the Biblical authors didn't come up with the laws you could still make the case that the Bible is the basis of our laws if you could show that pre-Christian Ireland was a lawless place with no concept of the kind of laws we now have. Except that it wasn't. Pre-Christian Ireland had a well-developed legal system one of the oldest in Europe. It bears some influence from the Hindu code of Manu (in itself hundreds of years older than the commands in Exodus) and includes prohibitions on murder and assault.
The reality is that there are certain restrictions which are necessary for a functioning society. Moral codes are an emergent property of the social nature of humans. It's likely that the cherry-picked commandments which people like to claim form the basis of our laws such as prohibitions on murder, predate any kind of written record and go back as far as humans have been living in social groups larger than families.Obviously there's the basic "don't kill people/don't be a dick", but more specific things. I'm a big believer in "an it harm none, do as ye will", which is a Wiccan tenet, I think. It sums things up pretty well although again, it's a bit general.
You see, the bible is only a moral guide if you're selective and a bit general. But being that general means that lots of books can be sources of morality. Take Lord of the Rings, for example:
"Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement."
For me, that's as good a moral message (or better) than anything in the Bible.Apart from that, Jesus (or how he is represented in the NT) said a lot of sane, decent things about how people should treat each other. I wish Christianity in general would focus a lot more on how he spoke and acted than on the Old Testament. (Side-note; he did also say some rather odd stuff, but I tend to take the unusually flowery passages with a grain of salt as it sounds more like someone being creative)
Well, yes and no. As you've touched on in your post how Jesus is represented in the NT isn't necessarily representative of how Jesus, if he existed at all, actually behaved. We don't know what Jesus said, did, condoned, condemned, promoted or discouraged. All we have are four stories, well two really (Mark, Matthew and Luke are just revisions of the same basic story), written as novels designed to flesh out the Jesus character roughly half a century after the events they purport to depict.
The stuff that Jesus says is contradictory at best and rarely original. For example, the "sane and decent" stuff about being nice to each other is lifted straight from the OT:
" ‘You shall not hate your fellow countryman in your heart; you may surely reprove your neighbor, but shall not incur sin because of him. You shall not take vengeance, nor bear any grudge against the sons of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself; I am the Lord."
Leviticus 19:17-18
But as you've noted there's just as much repugnant stuff in there too. Like this:
"“If anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters—yes, even their own life—such a person cannot be my disciple."
Luke 14:26
or this:
“Do not think that I came to bring peace on the earth; I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I came to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and a man’s enemies will be the members of his household. “He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me; and he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me."
Matthew 10:34-37
or even this:
"Then some Pharisees and scribes *came to Jesus from Jerusalem and said, “Why do Your disciples break the tradition of the elders? For they do not wash their hands when they eat bread.” And He answered and said to them, “Why do you yourselves transgress the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition? For God said, ‘Honor your father and mother,’ and, ‘He who speaks evil of father or mother is to be put to death.’ But you say, ‘Whoever says to his father or mother, “Whatever I have that would help you has been given to God,” he is not to honor his father or his mother.’ And by this you invalidated the word of God for the sake of your tradition."
Matthew 15:1-6
The problem is compounded by each author's implicit or explicit bias in writing their stories. You have Mark's action hero Jesus, Matthew's pro-Jewish Jesus (e.g. Lesser commission), Luke's pseudohistorical account and John's mystical sage. Picking all that apart leaves us with not much confidence that anything said by Jesus in the gospels is authentic.
The other big takeaway from all of this is what you've already noted yourself:
"but I tend to take the unusually flowery passages with a grain of salt as it sounds more like someone being creative"
You've already made a moral judgement about what Jesus said, deciding to listen to the good stuff and ignore the repugnant stuff. This means you've already applied your own moral standard to Jesus' teachings which means those teachings are completely unnecessary as a moral guide, you've already got one.Has anyone intentionally incorporated messages from any holy books into their own moral codes/outlook?
No. As I've already said, people don't really follow the moral code of the Bible, instead they read the bible and, subconsciously at least, judge those commandments against the moral code they've already got. I don't think it's necessary or worthwhile to look to holy books for moral guidance. It's much better to understand morality in terms of a rational consideration of your actions and a set of non-arbitrary principles. For example, I tend to agree with Scott Clifton here, where he says:
"A particular action or choice is moral or right when it somehow promotes happiness, well-being or health or it somehow minimises unnecessary harm or suffering or it does both. A particular action or choice is immoral when it somehow diminishes happiness, well-being or health or it somehow causes unnecessary harm or suffering or both."
Alternatively, QualiaSoup has a well done series on morality:
It's much better to have a morality which appeals to non-arbitrary principles than one which is just lifted from a holy book because eventually you're going to come across a situation which just isn't covered by that book and you're going to need some way to determine the morality of that situation. It's like the old cliched difference between giving a man a fish and teaching him to fish.0 -
All of that is fair enough and I agree with the most of it. I suspect I knew most of it anyway, but you do phrase it well!
Let me kinda try to explain what I mean. Growing up in Ireland and going through the Irish schooling system, I at least was exposed to a lot of religion (plus a couple of people who were important in my life being quite religious). My introduction to morality and concepts of specific things being good or bad for larger reasons than it being dangerous to me or someone else and/or whatever I was up to annoying a nearby parent :P Set concepts of morality rather than what is learned instinctively through one's upbringing was introduced in school in religion classes. Now, these were using the Bible and Catholic teachers for the most part - doesn't mean that I was never introduced to them elsewhere in action and word, but these were explanations of them, which is something I have always wanted with rules. Also read the Bible a lot (had a brief period of wanting to be a nun!) and had a big pash for mythology, which often has similar messages at base. Unconsciously, I must have absorbed parts of it. I've dropped various other parts of Catholic ideology and morals, such as its fierce resistance of homosexuality, its notions on women etc., because I do not believe in them. (Actually, I don't think I understood what homosexuality was before I was at an age to decide that I didn't care) I completely ignore large parts of the both Testaments because they espouse often cruel and unyielding notions from a different time and society. Parts of both, your basic messages, can still apply though.
But it feels very unlikely to me, about me, that I did not take bits from the Bible even unconciously to shape ideals that felt right or wrong to me. Given all this was happening in the period where I was learning how to learn and how to think critically and what morality is, I cannot say that I personally was never influenced.
I suspect that one will only take on these ideas as they correspond to one's own preferences - which is why I would take to heart something like "can any amongst you throw the first stone" for condemning people (with some limits, so yes, I'd build from Jesus'* words, same as I interpret what counts as "an it harm none") vs "thou shalt not suffer a witch to live" or "If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall surely be put to death; their blood is upon them."
One doesn't have to lift them wholesale, but one can find decent messages in the Bible that, while at their core are just good and moral and so may well be a part of one's own morality anyway, are particularly well phrased or well-shown and so have influenced ..er..one. (One can be a very awkward pronoun, btw). If something is presented well, argued well and shown to have positive influence, I am more likely to mull on it and take it in or reject it based on its own merits rather than just because it is in the Bible. But nor will I reject it just because it is in the Bible either.
Much of my morality has likely come from other people's examples; parents, friends, siblings, etcetera, reading and forming opinions on what is right or wrong, but being a very reading-influenced type of personality, a lot probably came from reading and thinking too. For all my issues with the use of the Bible as a weapon to condemn and attack others, I am interested as to where the Bible can or has influenced for good too.
Taking it away from personally affecting people, as I realise now that that is a rather inflammatory way to put it (all things considered!), how about just decent messages from it, what the core was intended to be? What will come down to non-arbitrary principles and are there any parts that don't, but aren't a bad idea even so (I'm absolutely aware of the ones that don't, and remain bad ideas!
)? What -is- a non-arbitrary principle, given that every aspect of morality is made up by humans (or gods if one is that way inclined)?
As a last point, remember again though that I am not talking about directly lifting all or none of the Bible - regarding your last paragraph. Influences do not have to be direct words, nor do they have to be limited by the phrasing. I can take "let the innocent amongst you cast the first stone" and agree with it in general principle, but absolutely condemn, say, neo-Nazi rallies based on a mixture of other influences that make up my own moral sense.
Quick example from something that troubled me as a child - that those who did not believe were going to hell. Anyone read the Narnia books, specifically ...either The Last Battle or The Horse And His Boy where Aslan explains that doing good in the name of Tash was taken as being to Aslan and doing evil in the name of Aslan is claimed by Tash? That was one that I took to as a kid in explanation of how using good intentions to do evil was still wrong. It was very well-phrased and an excellent explanation for a child so it stuck with me.
I hope that made more sense, my original post wasn't all that clear in what I was getting at. In short it was;
1. Decent messages in holy books that can actually contribute to a society (sure, can expand to non-holy books too, since I just used Narnia).
2. Any messages that have resounded with anyone reading as being worth taking in to their own morality, or presented a moral choice or ideal that anyone hadn't considered before or convinced them.
*For ease of discussion, I'll just say "Jesus' words" for words ascribed to Jesus, as entirely as I accept that he probably didn't say a lot of it.0 -
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Taking it away from personally affecting people, as I realise now that that is a rather inflammatory way to put it (all things considered!), how about just decent messages from it, what the core was intended to be? What will come down to non-arbitrary principles and are there any parts that don't, but aren't a bad idea even so (I'm absolutely aware of the ones that don't, and remain bad ideas!)? What -is- a non-arbitrary principle, given that every aspect of morality is made up by humans (or gods if one is that way inclined)?
Well, by arbitrary I mean what most people already understand:
"based on random choice or personal whim, rather than any reason or system."
So a non-arbitrary principle is one which is logically accessible to all people without having to invoke either personal taste or that of an imagined deity. For example, Barack Obama sums up the concept well talking about abortion:
"Now, I may be opposed to abortion for religious reasons, to take one example, but if I seek to pass a law banning the practice I cannot simply point to the teachings of my church or evoke God's will. I have to explain why abortion violates some principle that is accessible to people of all faiths, including those with no faith at all."
Similarly, when you look at some of the moral pronouncements in the Bible you can see just why arbitrary commandments fall apart. Take homosexuality, for example. When you discard the concept of something being moral or immoral just because it's in the bible, it becomes very difficult to rationalise a prohibition on homosexuality. There's no underlying principle by which homosexuality should be morally wrong.
So, when I say non-arbitrary principle I mean a logical principle like that in my last post like minimising unnecessary harm which is not just based on personal choice or chosen randomly.As a last point, remember again though that I am not talking about directly lifting all or none of the Bible - regarding your last paragraph. Influences do not have to be direct words, nor do they have to be limited by the phrasing. I can take "let the innocent amongst you cast the first stone" and agree with it in general principle, but absolutely condemn, say, neo-Nazi rallies based on a mixture of other influences that make up my own moral sense.
Quick example from something that troubled me as a child - that those who did not believe were going to hell. Anyone read the Narnia books, specifically ...either The Last Battle or The Horse And His Boy where Aslan explains that doing good in the name of Tash was taken as being to Aslan and doing evil in the name of Aslan is claimed by Tash? That was one that I took to as a kid in explanation of how using good intentions to do evil was still wrong. It was very well-phrased and an excellent explanation for a child so it stuck with me.
That's about as far as it goes for me. The messages in holy books can be well-phrased succinct summaries of a moral sentiment and they're useful in explaining positions to other people but in terms of influencing my moral decisions or positions, then no I don't incorporate said messages into my moral outlook.I hope that made more sense, my original post wasn't all that clear in what I was getting at. In short it was;
1. Decent messages in holy books that can actually contribute to a society (sure, can expand to non-holy books too, since I just used Narnia).
2. Any messages that have resounded with anyone reading as being worth taking in to their own morality, or presented a moral choice or ideal that anyone hadn't considered before or convinced them.
For sure there are decent messages in holy books but a lot of the time, for me anyways, those messages are only tangentially related to morality. For example, I like this passage from Ecclesiastes:
"For the fate of the sons of men and the fate of beasts is the same. As one dies so dies the other; indeed, they all have the same breath and there is no advantage for man over beast, for all is vanity."
It's not really a moral message but it's a nice message about humility and not believing ourselves to occupy some kind of privileged position in nature.
However, when it comes to moral messages, they're very often so universal that it seems pointless to attribute them to any one holy book. Take the golden rule you mentioned in the OP. It seems pretty pointless to use that as an example of useful morality in the bible because it's everywhere, from Egypt:
"Now this is the command: Do to the doer to make him do."
The Eloquent Peasant c.1700BCE
to India:
"Listening to wise scriptures, austerity, sacrifice, respectful faith, social welfare, forgiveness, purity of intent, compassion, truth and self-control—are the ten wealth of character (self). O king aim for these, may you be steadfast in these qualities. These are the basis of prosperity and rightful living. These are highest attainable things. All worlds are balanced on dharma, dharma encompasses ways to prosperity as well. O King, dharma is the best quality to have, wealth the medium and desire (kāma) the lowest. Hence, (keeping these in mind), by self-control and by making dharma (right conduct) your main focus, treat others as you treat yourself."
Mahābhārata Shānti-Parva 167:9
to Greece:
""Avoid doing what you would blame others for doing."
Thales c. 600BCE
Every religion has a concept of reciprocal altruism because it's inherent to our evolutionary journey. Understanding the root cause of the principle is much more enlightening IMHO than just listening to the message itself. I would recommend The Origins of Virtue by Matt Ridley as a good explanation of the origins of reciprocal altruism.0 -
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As well as noting that the bible's rule against killing extends only to cover one's own tribe, there are significant schools of protestant thought which say that rule doesn't prohibit killing per se (otherwise you'd have to outlaw armies!) but specifically against "murder" which is defined roughly as "the intentional killing of another human being, in a way not authorized by the local civil or military authorities".
If somebody has enough time on their hands, I'm sure they could dig down through the forum's fossil record and find JC, and probably a few more of the forum's protestant posters, confirming that this is their belief.
Most of this is probably covered by the notion of Just War but possibly deserves a new thread as following it on this one is not just derailing the OP, it is taking the thread through a full U-turn
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Less of an argument and more simply noting what some protestants claim.I'm familiar with the argument but it's not one with a lot of credibility IMHO.
Since it's based upon highly-selective, private interpretations of ancient texts of unknown provenance, you're not going to convince me that it has any credibility whatsoever
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