"be nice, because Jesus said so"
I am uncomfortable with the idea of basing our morals and values and restricting our actions solely on "That's what God wants" or "God told us that's bad" or "Jesus said so." When I hear parents discipline their kids with, "Don't bite your sister, because it makes Jesus sad," I think, Huh? How about, "It makes your sister sad"? or "It hurts your sister"? Why appeal to an unknown, unseen entity for a 5 year old, who can barely understand abstract concepts? I do good and avoid bad to make the world a better place, and to help people be happy, and to help my family. What's wrong with that? If it helps to have an outside, powerful, all-knowing God to help direct your actions and help find peace, fine, do it. But I can find direction and peace without one, too.
6 comments:
Ah-HAHAHAHA! It makes Jesus sad! heeheehee. Seriously. SERIOUSLY. Who SAYS that?
In addition to God and Jesus is the mormon profit.
What I never understood was don't do (insert something here) because the profit said so. There was never any logical reasoning behind it. Just that some guy who theoretically speaks for God and is white and over 90 thought blank was a bad idea. This includes having your ears double pierced, wearing shorts above your knees and drinking coffee, among other things.
I agree that it's a little insulting that the belief in God is the only thing keeping us as humans from stealing, cheating and murder.
rebecca- Who says that? Uh, people related to me?
aerin- Good point. I want to get my ears double piecred _because_ Hinckley said not to! Oh, and I'm enjoying a pumpkin spice coffee on this cold, cold day.
I thought making Jesus sad was the whole point of the Atonement. We do bad stuff that makes him sad and he says "Don't worry about it." We should be encouraging our children to partake of the atonement regularly by making HIM sad.
Silly for sure.
And I am Alice, falling, falling, falling down that rabbit hole, looking forward to all the drug-induced, funky visions I might have... ;)
Good points, Z. Need it be universal? Each society makes its own laws, values, morals, do they not? Of course, I'll have to explore this more.
I would be very hesitant to label any culture as degenerate and uncivilized, but I see your point. But by those standards (treating women poorly), _every_ culture qualifies as uncivilized. We all have work to do.
but why do we "need some standard that exceeds the particular conditions of human experience"? Why is the human experience itself not enough? Doesn't humanism argue that we don't, in fact, need to appeal to God, and that humans are capable, in and of themselves, of achieving what we need to in order to make the world a better place?
I recognize that you have much more training than me to argue religion and ethics, and I have yet to get to the literature that would help me argue effectively. But it seems to me that relying on the necessity of appealing to God for our morals and standards short-changes us as humans.
But I know you have different views on this: you feel that humans are "fallen" in a metaphorical sense and need help ("redemption"). We are sinners and need the idea of God to make us better. Did I portray your basic ideas on that correctly?
This difference between us is perhaps what makes me lean toward humanism and you Christianity.
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