Marsha, Platt and MD Jan. 8
Marsha exclaimed something I guess is exasperation over my raising such an odd topic, but I like to draw conclusions from premises. You should try it some day. Platt wrote: > It has always been of interest to me that people here and elsewhere who > claim to be atheists invariably invoke the teachings of Jesus when asked > to describe the basis for their moral guidance. Whether it's extolling > the goodness of being my brother's keeper or making love not war, > invariably Christian moral principles are imputed by atheist > intellectuals. Some radical leftists have even gone so far as to claim a > Marxist government would be a an expression of Christian ideals. Yes, the Bible was so long our frame of reference that it became ingrained. Even if "enlightened" I find it a loss that it no longer is generally known, there are so many to-the-point phrases there. For instance "Give unto Caesar what Caesar's is" that I forgot in my opening post, indicating Jesus' budding intellectual leaning, what we now know as the secular/religious dichotomy. The lack of what is Islam's curse. > All of which raises the question: Is Christian morality also an > intellectual level morality? Yes, there are definitely moral aspects that are Christian and intellect-influence, in general the human worth and rights which so dominate it, but the term "moral" is still synonymous with the Fall Myth about good and bad entering existence. What is good and what is bad is the Ten Commandments on to which countless additions has been added, particularly in Judaism and Islam (if Islam has something like the commandments??) at least the Tora and Koran are choke full of rules and regulations. Then Christendom. My knowledge is not great, but the Greek influence began with Constantine making it a "state religion" (that was the first secularizing) and Aristotle becoming a Church Father. A major shift took place when the S/O offshoot Soul/Body entered and drove a wedge between Christendom and it's Semitic roots. This dichotomy is not known in Judaism and Islam something that demonstrates their pre- or non-S/O quality. But is was not until the said Renaissance and enlightenment that it really took off. But still Christendom is still a peculiar mix, how liberal many clegypersons are and accepting the scientific explanation of most aspects of life, also that Jesus was conceived normally by Joseph and merely a "good person", morals is still a religious matter; good and bad must have some divine reference, hence the Old Testamentists. And I guess the latter not grasping the there can be highly moral cultures - the Chinese f.ex. - without any it having a divine guarantor. > That a Christian-suffused group of Founding Fathers in the U.S. > established the MOQ-cited intellectual level guarantees of freedom of > speech, freedom of religion, trail by jury, etc. would suggest a "yes" > answer. Definitely. For the Founding Fatheres FF) these rights and freedoms were what they saw as the highest divine message (I guess there weren't atheists in late sixteenth century). So this is the point: We see that something greater than religion picks the parts of holy texts that fits its purpose, the Bible surely has parts that supports despotism, but this greater something made the FF focus on the parts that support human worth and rights. And the MOQ reveals what's at work behind the scene. Bo Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
