One of the difficulties is the appearance of people trying to disguise “I want . . .” with “God wants . . .”. At times, “sin” is the moral equivalent of a God of the Gaps argument. Why is this immoral? Because God says so. End of discussion. How do we know that God feels this way? Because I say so. End of discussion. Secularism is the idea that morality should be argued over, and should never be dogmatic. That is where the two clash.
At the same time, morality is tough to figure out because there can be a competing and contradictory positions. There are zero sum games where there will be losers, so it is tough to figure out who those losers are going to be. There is also a constant back and forth between fairness and personal liberties. This may be why some people are drawn to a set of rules, because they offer some sort of certainty about what is moral instead of the uncertainty of philosophical arguments.
I think you’re right that for some Christians, it is the “bible says so” or perhaps more accurately although they never say it this way: “I say that the bible says so…” … and therefore, end of discussion.
But in all fairness, here we are on a Christian site populated by a lot of folks who believe the Bible, and yet … none of the dialogue is being shut down because of any insufficiently secular outlook on our part. I suppose you could reasonably ask if it is only being kept a live issue because of the presence of a few of you “secularists” here. I suggest not. Even in your absence, I doubt we would all be one big happy family that agrees on all things moral. My main point, I guess, is I don’t think “religionists” have any monopoly on dogmatism. I speculate that we could probably find plenty of non-religious households where the words “because I said so” were heard. And that attitude would surely have a broader manifestation going far beyond a typical “parent-to-young-child” scenario.
That is an interesting avenue of exploration. We sure are in love with our certainties (or at least with the belief that we have them.) It is pretty easy to imagine that somebody’s over-enthusiastic embrace of “certainty” would often be to their evolutionary benefit. Not always, to be sure … “I’m just certain there is not a tiger by the path up there!” But it could be that in many more cases apparent certainty gets rewarded as a tribe coalesces around a confident leader who goes on to lead them to victory in some endeavor. There is no calculus to tell us whether history more rewarded the pensive and tentative over the confident and asserting. History lauds the successes off the latter, but leaves out the tales of failures of the same sorts too (unless they are spectacular and recent). Nor do we hear of the successes of the “carefully reserved” who chose another path and avoided the tiger. We are more likely to hear of their failures when their lack of confidence ends up costing them dearly.
Both postures have their necessary seasons in each person’s life, not to mention their group dynamics.
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I think I am on record as saying that the vast majority of Christians are also secularists, whether they want to admit it or not. In my experience, christian theology seems to be filtered through our own subjective views on morality. Even christians seem to pull away from the dogmatists in their own ranks. This is why it is jarring at times to see these same people arguing for an objective morality. As other writers have noted, this seems to be the result of popular arguments for the existence of God which are based on the assertion that there is an objective morality. Discussions on morality often get tilted towards arguments about God’s existence, and the two sets of arguments become entangled.
Not to go too far afield, but we see the same psychology in the evolution v. YEC/OEC debate. YEC’s will often cite the uncertainty and tentative nature of science as one of its draw backs while lauding the certainty of their interpretations of scripture. Of course, many of us think the uncertainty of science is one of its greatest features, but it does highlight the differences in how people view the world.
These are wholly unsatisfactory answers, because they don’t account for the level of outright, unadulterated evil that transpired in the Holocaust. Your combined answers are that there were historical resentments from the Treaty of Versailles and that, with existing anti-semetism (hate), somehow led to Adolf Hitler becoming an inhuman monster. Not only did he round up and murder millions of innocents, including children, he removed some of the most talented people from business, the government and the military, as he prepared for and was at war. There seems to be no way to account for such a massive act of evil and stupidity other than a malevolent spiritual force.
That’s a massive leap for a “seems to be”. The Nazis are hardly the only massive horror or folly in human history. I don’t see them as lying outside the possibility of the scope of human activity, unfortunately. You’d have to make a better demonstration for me that this force is actually present.
We’d also be left with what to me is a massive question: while this malevolent spiritual force was wreaking an inorganic havoc of the likes of which you barely scratch the surface of in your description above, what was the hypothetically more powerful positive spiritual force doing? Such a lack of positive action would be considered immoral in many cases.
Every opinion is subjective. But it is objectively reasonable that an oppressed, enslaved Hebrew would see God as a moral god if the Exodus narrative is true.
If that’s the case then we can’t believe in good. But you do believe in good because you state that you can make a case for morality, which is good behavior. So if there is good at all then we can live good lives. And the fact that we can live good lives at all is strong evidence that God, if he exists, is moral, otherwise every person would be unmercifully tortured on a daily basis if he wasn’t.
You’re conflating 2 very different contexts. The biblical context is that God had a need to form a house and family for the future messiah, Isreal. If the Exodus narrative is true, then God only wanted Pharaoh to grant the Hebrews a holiday to worship Him. When that wasn’t granted, he performed 10 plagues, with Pharaoh given the chance to change his mind after each one. The killing of the firstborn was after 9 devastating plagues in which Pharaoh refused to relent. He then saved the Hebrews from a certain slaughter by destroying Pharaoh’s army, after which he guided them safely through a desert for 40 years. There is no similarity in that to Hitler murdering millions out of hate.
This is really a facetious argument, because you don’t believe that God exists and I’m sure you believe Exodus to be fiction. But if someone really witnessed the miracles in Exodus, then they surely would have seen God to be moral. That is because, one, they would have seen God delivering them from an oppressive tyrant then saving them from slaughter. Two, they would have seen and/or experienced the, “good” that life has to offer, family, parenthood, love, beauty, morality, justice along with order and complexity. Any miracle, done on this earth, not on an Intel chip, would have led them to conclude that this creator god is good and is opposed by a force that compels people to do, “bad”.
Yes, but since we exist in a universe that hasn’t always existed that displays justice, morality, good, beauty, etc., atheists, like everyone else, come up with ideas as to why existence is the way it is. These sets of ideas are belief systems. So atheism may not be a belief system, but it conveys a belief system on its believers.
Yes and makes my point all the more, that evil exists in all ages and contexts, as a spiritual force would entail.
No, of course Hitler’s actions weren’t outside the course of human activity since they actually happened. But they are outside of any kind of proportion that would be considered rationale, because the Jews weren’t enemies, they were nice people and productive and talented Germans, including militarily. Therefore there’s no rational explanation for the holocaust other than there exists a spiritual realm that includes evil. Your response of, “people have been doing evil stuff for a long time” (which contrasts your previous explanation of, "the 20th century was a unique time) is not an explanation of evil. Also, stating, “well, there was pre-existing anti-semetism” doesn’t address the level of what was perpetrated against them.
It seems to me you’re simply assuming that bad things must be attributed to some malevolent force, without showing why or showing that the force actually exists. I’m saying that people are perfectly capable of doing malevolent things on our own.
Again, that’s just a gigantic leap. I don’t think that making such assumptions when faced with a difficult-to-explain situation is a good way of getting to truth.
It was unique in several ways, but not in man’s natural capacity for malevolence. Two main factors come to mind. First, the First World War kicked things off in Europe and obviously had a tremendous influence on people’s mindsets. Second, technology made actions possible which wouldn’t have been possible in earlier centuries.
I agree and I would suggest that religions have been a hinderance to the development of morals and ethics. Church leaders have not been very good role models. There is a much better role model to follow and I described this in my paper.
This is what the historian, Jacob Burckhardt said this about the period that gave us Euclidian geometry, the Pythagorean theorem, Aesop’s fables, democracy, the Hippocratic Oath and Plato’s dialogs:
All this demonstrates, first of all, consummate political aptitude. At the same time, the Athenians rise far above all other Hellenes onto the throne of education, art, and superior social graces.
The central location helped greatly to bring this about, but a more basic reason is the happy blend of rural and commercial life and the most favorable set of conditions ever encountered on earth. It was as if Nature had for centuries saved up all its resources to expend them at that time…
It is hard for us to give a fair judgment between Athens and Sparta, since we owe an infinitude to Athens and nothing to Sparta, and because Sparta did not hold on to any venerable primitive piety in the face of rapid Athenian progress, but from the beginning maintained a depraved rule of force over subjugated fellow Hellenes. We do not know, however, whether without such an adversary Athens would not soon have degenerated in other ways, e.g., gone in for conquests of the of the Sicilian campaign and other adventures. (Burckhardt, Jacob, and Harry Zohn. “Antiquity.” Judgements on History and Historians. Translated by Harry Zohn, Etc. London: George Allen & Unwin, 1959. N. pag. Print.)
I don’t find an argument from ignorance to be that great of an argument. Just because you can’t imagine someone being that evil without a malevolent spiritual force does not mean that there is such a force. It could simply be that you lack imagination.
Again, that is based on the subjective human opinion of what is good. An objective morality would be independent of humanity. As soon as you justify morality by referencing what humans would prefer then it is a subjective morality.
I also don’t see how killing the children of the people who enslave you is moral. If the Northern armies went around killing the first born children of all the slave owners during the Civil War I think we would have considered that to be immoral, would we not?
I believe that chocolate ice cream is better than vanilla ice cream, and I also believe that this is my subjective opinion. I don’t see how being subjective means I can’t believe in it.
Why would an all powerful God need to send any plagues or kill anyone in order to free the Hebrews? Also, God hardened the Pharaoh’s heart so that he wouldn’t let the Hebrews go.
You are also putting forth the idea that might makes right. You said that Hitler was wrong because he didn’t perform miracles or wasn’t as powerful as God.
What about the view of the Egyptians? The Pharaoh makes the decision not to let the slaves go, and because of that decision your child dies and all of these plagues are visited upon you. What bout the view of the first born children? They were innocent, yet their lives were ended.
Does a moral being kill children to convince someone to change their behavior when they could have used their unlimited power to free anyone without any deaths?
So it is a belief system that matter gravitationally collapsed and then formed our solar system?
Well please enlighten us with your imagination as to how a man with a history of no major tragedies and was not hurt by Jews in any way decided to exterminate them from Europe, killing million of children and talented men who could of helped with his upcoming war.
This is way off base. If there is a God who communicated an objective morality, then this god obviously designed the universe to produce humans, and his morality designed for his humans.
If it was vital for the existence of the Hebrew nation that was to produce the Messiah then you, it can be considered moral.
If you believe in any kind of morality, then you accept the concept of good. There may be disagreements about what is good, but we all believe in it.
Well, He could have magically placed them in the desert, or Canaan after magically displacing the Canaanites. Of course both of which would cause problems. Maybe he wanted to teach a lesson to the Egyptians. Either way, if the Exodus narrative then God is an almighty God and maybe we should just trust that this Creator God, who opened up a sea and let it back on a slaughtering army, knows what’s good for us.
It’s not, “might makes right”. It’s a the creator of the universe knowing what is good.
So now your comparing Exodus to Hitler? The ANE was a world full of children-sacrificing pagan nations who were continuously at war, some whom attacked a nation of former slaves as they traversed the desert. Hitler chose to murder millions of innocents. Two totally different contexts.
Yes, sin has it’s consequences and innocent people suffer. Maybe Pharaoh should have repented after 9 plagues.
Again, facetious. You don’t even believe in God, never mind the Exodus narrative. But, again, if it’s true then maybe this god was trying to show the evilness of sin that, yes, innocents suffer.
It’s a belief system that leads one to believe that matter and gravity on their own popped into existence from ontological nothingness.
He also had a poor relationship with his family, and was homeless or lived in homes for the poor in Vienna for several years. His anti-Semitism began developing in those years. Obviously as well, he wasn’t Europe’s first anti-Semite or the first to commit atrocities against Jews, by any means. In his mind (and that of many others) Jews on the home front were a major reason why WW1 was lost, and he didn’t envision them as an asset which could help him in a war. Defeating what he saw as a Jewish-dominated communist Russia was part of the very reason for starting the war. All evil enough to be a perfect poster boy for evil and a malevolent evil spirit, for sure, but not unexplainable in human terms either, it seems to me. He found many willing followers, even in other nations. There have been similar crimes in our time of technological prowess and ability for mass murder. And enough before that time as well. If we attribute them all to a malevolent external spirit, where does man’s own capacity for malevolence begin? What’s the worst we can do without a push?
Hitler fought in WW I and was temporarily blinded by chemical weapons. From the accounts I have read and seen, the loss in WW I affected him greatly. He also was part of the army that lost WW I. Anti-semitism was also present throughout Europe at that time, so Hitler wouldn’t have been that different from the rest of the population. Hitler was also stridently anti-communist, if that matters.
If morality is designed for humans then it is subjective. An objective morality would be true even if humans didn’t exist.
That’s scary. All kinds of atrocities and immoral behavior can be excused if someone believes it is supporting a religious cause.
The concept of good makes no sense outside of human experience. If there were no humans, what would be good? This is why I view morality as being subjective, because it is tied to what it is to be human.
It seems that you will say everything is good no matter what happens. No matter what God does, you will say that he is loving.
Yes, Hitler served in WWI, as did millions of others, none other of who decided to wipe out a population from the face of the earth. His worst injury was temporary blindness from a mustard gas attack. But most, after a war, want to end killing and destruction, not propagate it. And who recommended him for his First Order Cross that he wore on his tunic as Commander of the Wehrmacht? You guessed it, a Jewish commander
Most of historical humanity come from a dysfunctional family.
Yes, he lived in shelters for a time. All in all his background is wasn’t that out of the ordinary for his time.
His murderous anti-antisemitism didn’t formulate until well after WWI. It’s actually debated when his antisemitism began, since one of his friends later said that he sold paintings to Jews during his bohemian years in Venice.
All of which were easily seen to be demonstrably false.
“Seems to me” are the keys words there.
Yes, there was evil, murderous, irrational anti-antisemitism in Europe at the time. Which begs the question, where does that antisemitism come from to begin with, when one can observe that Jewish people are nice, family-loving people like everyone else.
Which explains nothing of how the perpetrators became so evil, like Pol Pot, who wiped out 1/3 of his country and, with his cronies, committed countless evil deeds, like killing everyone with glasses and performing such sick torture/murder that I can’t mention it here. The question is, how does someone get that evil.
From a Christian perspective, man’s culpability starts when he sins, or disobeys God. That’s why Christianity is the only real answer to for sin, because no matter our past, we can’t argue with God’s son allowing himself to be tortured and murdered for our sins. It’s when one allows himself to, instead of repenting, become progressively untethered from the teachings of Christ that people like Hitler, Pol Pot, Stalin and Mao become possible.
And what gave Hitler the push to become such an inhumane monster?
It might also have the unintended implication that as the evil one does becomes increasingly bad, the degree to which we hold the individual accountable decreases.
I only brought up those points because you said he hadn’t suffered from tragedy. I’m not saying anyone suffering the same conditions will definitely become the mass-murdering leader of a military empire. What level of tragedy would ensure that?
He records in his writings that his anti-Semitism began in Vienna, though indeed it is also recorded that he did have dealings and even friendships with Jews then. Those aren’t necessarily mutually exclusive, but I’m not sure it would matter anyway if he became an anti-Semite after the war. He didn’t invent anti-Semitism obviously.
Yet believed by millions. He didn’t invent “the stab in the back” either.
Sure, we have a disagreement based on opinion here. You’ve got a stiffer burden of proof in my opinion though. How do we know that this malevolent spirit exists? On the other hand, we can see men do malevolent things all the time, and we have been recorded to do so throughout history.
Where do any of the malevolent things people are capable of come from? Anti-Semitism is hardly the only one. Jealousy in times when most people were in dire straits at the best of times? Inborn tribalism? A religion which portrays Jews as the killer of their savior, to some extent certainly?
The very question this whole conversation is based on.
Sure we can.
It’s when one allows himself to, instead of repenting, become progressively untethered from the teachings of Christ that people like Hitler, Pol Pot, Stalin and Mao become possible.
You could say the same for any set of humanist ideals. Their malevolent, anti-humanist ideologies were certainly a factor.
You’ve avoided my question. Men do malevolent things at times. Are they all to be attributed to your evil spirit? Where is the line drawn?
I meant that Hitler himself wasn’t sexually abused as a child or had an lost both legs in the war or something like that, the kinds of things that people usually use to justify evil actions (though they in no way could justify the holocaust).
Yes, millions of people’s emotions were led believe something that their eyes could see simply wasn’t true. I wonder what it was that led them?
That’s exactly the point, there seems to be something, “in the air” that causes people to believe things and act in ways that betray rational thought. That why just about every religion recognizes an evil force with Satan in the revealed faiths and “bad” gods in multi-theistic religions.
Yes, and you and other skeptics here have offered nothing other than, “there was antisemitism” for the holocaust or, “historical factors” for WWII. That’s like stating, “the guy who shot up the restaurant was mad at the world”. Obviously he was, but what caused him, like Hitler, to go from typical malevolence to murdering and maiming innocent people?
So you’re blaming Jesus for Hitler? If Hitler hadn’t utterly abandoned Jesus as weak, lame and passive the holocaust never would have happened. The Jews, with the Romans historically were the killers of Christ. But the whole point of the cross is that we’re all responsible due to our sins - you can see that in the 1st gospel message in Acts 2 when Peter said, “all Isreal” was responsible for the cross when only a few were in the physical sense.
There is no real, “humanistic” ideals in our culture. Even excluding the OT claim that we were made in God’s image, everyone person’s moral code in the West has been substantially informed by the the teachings of Jesus Christ.
How have I avoided the question, John? I said that Satan is the source of all malevolence. It only grows to outright evil when perpetrators of evil ignore the negative consequences of their actions, however they rationalize it, and allow their hearts to grow progressively harder, giving the devil more of a foothold to do worse actions. The humbler among us (or humbled in many cases) seek a higher moral source.
The person did get there on their own, by ignoring the teachings of Christ, the hurt caused by their actions and going on to do greater evil. In Christianity you can’t, “blame the devil”, everyone is responsible for their actions before God.