The word comes from the Latin redimere, to buy back, to honour a promise, to perform an obligation undertaken whose performance is secured in some way (so releasing the security). So far as I know in the Roman world its primary meaning was that legal/financial one.
The theological meaning comes later. The word doesn’t appear anywhere in the Gospels, but Paul uses it (or the Greek equivalent, to be accurate), and he is plainly drawing an analogy with the established legal/financial concept. As I can free a property by paying off the mortgage on it, or liberate a captive by paying the ransom, he suggests, so Christ frees us from the bondage/consequences of sin through his sacrifice of himself. The point of the analogy, I think – or one of the points - is that it presents “sin” not as a particular wrong act or a number of wrong acts, but as a sinful condition or state, analogous to being mortgaged, or captive, or enslaved. Paul uses legal/financial analogies quite a bit.
I don’t think this has anything to do with “blood money” The original, and I think still the primary, meaning of that term is money paid to someone to bring about the death of another – a fee paid to an assassin, or to a corrupt witness in a murder case. In scriptural terms, this resembles not so much the liberation worked by the sacrifice of Christ as the thirty pieces of silver paid to Judas Iscariot to betray Christ.
That leaves open, as you say, the question of whether redemption (in the moral sense) can have any meaning for an atheist, who presumably doesn’t accept the Christian account of the fallen condition of humanity, which is what Christians consider us to be redeemed from.
But you can be an atheist and consider the human condition to be characterised by moral imperfection, and I suppose in theory you could also have some concept of how we might transcend our moral imperfections, and you could call that transcendcence, or whatever brings it about, “redemption” by analogy with the Christian concept. But whether there are any atheists who actually do this I rather doubt.
Don’t get stuck on the word “sin”, substitute “wrongdoing”. I’ve long thought that people get too stuck on the word “sin” and on thinking it means “what makes (the) God(s) angry” rather than “what’s bad for you/your people.”
smiling bandit, I cba search for this bit, but you said “societies don’t have morals”. Yes they do, “morals” and “morality” come to mean “customs”: customs, “generally accepted and/or expected behavior” are what make a society be the specific society it is and not the one next door.
Don’t the Jews have a day where you ask for HUMAN forgiveness? I thinkit’s the day before you ask for God’s forgiveness. Not being Jewish I don’t know the names.
Andmy question would be… “Is redemption NECCESARY without religion?”
The difficulty being that one cannot therefore compare any society to any other and judge its morality as superior except on purely arbitrary grounds.
Society A practices infanticide, wife-beating and FGM. Society B does none of those things. There is no rational basis to say that A is better than B, or vice versa. Appeals to utilitarianism fail, because society A does not accept utilitarianism as a moral system.
Well, I can’t agree. The problem is that “morality” is views as why reformers can reform a society. If morality meant only what was customary, then what was common would inevitably be moral. Yet that is not at all how people view things as a practical matter. Society can be reformed only if it is possible for it to improved according to an external standard.
Of course, As I mentioned earlier, we might be using a selfish, biologically-determined version of good which may benefit us as a group. Thus, we might call it “morals” and “reform”, just giving a very glorified word for a prosiac reality. Can’t rule it out.
Appeals to a magic sky fairy sure as hell don’t work.
Basically, it’s because morality is an aesthetic. It’s an emotional response to stimuli, and those emotional responses are shaped by evolution. It’s very simple. There’s nothing magic about. And there’s nothing objective about it either. Morality does not exist outside of human thought. There’s nothing arbitrary about my moral judgement. My moral judgement is perfect and is the last word, just like my taste in beer is definitive as to what is the best tasting beer. I decide what’s right and wrong. There is no appeal. The end. My rational basis for saying A is better than B is that I am the ultimate moral authority.
Incidentally, you do this too. Everybody does. All moral judgement is autonomous. Your objection is like telling somebody they have no rational basis for saying that vanilla smells better than shit.
And yet, people violate their own morals sometimes. The “redemption” we seek as individuals is to realign ourselves with our own moral compass, and that can certainly be done without religion.
That’s ridiculous. Good and Evil are social constucts, not merely religious ones. You don’t need to believe in a deity to understand and agree that setting homeless people on fire for fun is wrong, and rescuing a child from a speeding car is good.
I’m not sure that’s the best differentiation; really, the only reason anyone would have to accept would have to be through persuasion, but that’s true for an objective system too. A person who believes in objective morality can pull that out of their rhetorical bag, but in the end you’d be accepting the point of a subjective opinion.
That seems illogical. As you’ve pointed out, it’s nonsensical to talk about “truth” as regards a subjective system, except within and of itself. With regard to an objective system, however, the claim rests against the nature of that system. It’s quite plausible that, for example, an objective system that regards knowledge, at least in part, of correct morality be inherent to all people that unreflective social acceptance is pretty much a better idea.
I’m uncertain that that works out. I get your point, but wouldn’t you consider a culture that regarded a group as evil, and then to be good, to have changed itself and not simply it’s views? A culture-specific morality is only variable if the culture itself is.
But that’s true of all judgement, us being subjective beings. If there is an objective morality, we still cannot judge any moral system. No appeals may be made full stop, because we don’t have access to the objective morality to know for certain even if there is one, and being subjective beings we have no tool for measuring potential means of accessing that objective morality that we cannot hold up to the same suspicion.
In a sense, it’s like the difference between a game with no rules and a game with the rules locked away in a cupboard somewhere. Certainly, in the latter, there are objective rules. But that doesn’t really help us at all in making rule judgements. Even with the rules in existence, we still have no means of reading or putting them into practice that aren’t subjective. The problem you mention is just a big an issue for objective standards, because when we actually get to playing the game, we have to translate that to “claimed” objective standards.
Rather the opposite in fact; religion is more likely to create a “morality” where setting people on fire is “moral”, because it doesn’t need to base itself on reality. Just “God say we should do it that way”. Religion is not the source of some “objective morality”; it is in fact the opposite since it denies what objective facts there are.
The closest we can come to creating an objective version of morality is to base our standards on objective facts about human nature and the objective consequences of our actions; religion denies those things matter and commands us to base our actions on fantasies instead. Morality doesn’t come from following religion; it comes from ignoring it as a necessary first step.
We have access to an objective system with mathematics, and can make judgments about the truth or otherwise of mathematical statements. The fact that people’s judgment can be wrong does not mean that no appeal to objective truth is possible.
How exactly do you determine, test or calculate any objective truth about morality? Is it wrong for me to masturbate in the shower with my wife’s conditioner? How do I find out the objective truth?
My take on it is if what you are doing is based on love. We are imperfect and make mistakes, but if you are trying to live by love there is no error as love itself will cover our shortcomings.
In your example, nothing wrong with taking a shower or masturbation, there may or may be a issue with using ‘her’ conditioner and what you are masturbating to, or who’s shower you are using. It’s what is going on in your heart, not the physical action.
You have to test morality subjectively, as it’s your heart, and no objective rules can apply, nor should they.
Well, I am talking about actual fact, not our belief about that fact. I can objectively see that certain events would be the case in various situations. Let me say that there would be, and could be, no logical or rational way to make a choice. All possible options would be objectively equal, and only your own whim could matter.
The problem with this is not at all a practical objection: most people feel a stronger urge to survive, and then gather resources, and then reproduce and muse themselves. You could have a society this way. However, it would basically be a society of socipaths - and where the sociopaths were right. People, at least, do not feel that this is correct and true. I cannot rule out that they are simply pre-programmed to do so.
However, people at least do not feel that this is what is happening. They mostly at the very least want to believe that what theya re doing is right and good, and just. That would be a strange thing if the very concepts of right, good, and just are simply polite fictions.
I would refer you to Ted Bundy, the serial killer. He noted the problem with this kind of morality, and decided that if it wasn’t really true, if those arbitrary choices really were all equal, that he’d just go around killing people. He was caught and executed, but the question I have long lived with is this: was he right?
That is what I want to know. Either Ted Bundy was right, and there is no “true” morality however we opt to live for our best interest, or he was wrong and there is a true moral order. This order may be illogical by our standards, but it may still exist.
Perhaps, but in such a circumstance we could never have known that. it would be as absolutely opaque to us as anything. I like the idea that people are innately drawn to correct and true morals, but I cannot be sure of it.
For myself, Truth is absolute and always valuable. I want to know, not merely guess. Perhaps others do not share it, but I am never content to simply go with “probably.” I want, to the greatest degree possible to find “certainty.” If I am just meat with mental processes solely determined by natural law, I am faced with the further difficulty: in knowing that my mental processes are simply applications of natural law for survival I also know that I can never be correct and find something which is True. My brainwork itself would be inherently flawed and uncertain. I can map the processes and theoretically predict future thoughts. But if that is possible, I then would know I have no real seperate life. I am simply some subatmoic partles glued together, able to recognize its absolute imprisonment of mind and body but not escape it. I cannot even sure my reason is correct in discovering that very situation! I cannot die, because I am not alive in any meaningful sense. I am simply deluded into thinking so, precisely because the semi-random chaos of evolution so programmed it.
But if not, then I may be able to find something True. There is no certainty of it, but it cannot be ruled out as a possibility.
Therefore, there are two possibilities: First, that our reason is entirely controlled through natural law and incapable of independant analysis, because even if it were very well designed by chance/evolution/peanut butter for detailed investigation, they will inevitably go on thinking as natural law orders. We can never be sure of anything, and all our science is so much wasted paper, except inasmuch as it allows us more and more power to feed our whims.
Second, we may alternatively be able to harness the power of the sub- or super-Natural; an order which exists outside of space and time - outside of Nature and the universe. This need not be “divine”. It could be that our universe is enfolded in a different rules-set, with different natural laws. Certainly, many sub-atomic particles wave cheerfully at this universe, or just give it the finger as they go merrily past. They obey no particular predictable law, except in aggregate.
Now, even if this is true, we may not be able to harness it for any purpose. Our reason may always be suspect and utilitarian, a mere tool for survival like any other and endowed with no more capabity for independant thought than a toenail. But it coudl be, and may be able to actually think, to discover, to explore possibility, and the analyze for truth. It is in the hope of the latter that I live.
EXACTLY!
Culture changes. The problem with a culture-based morality is that cultural changes are unpredictable, variable across space and time, and sometimes unconnected to previous cultural moralities. Ultimately, if all we mean by “morality” is “the culture of the moment”, then we must logically accept that criminals aren’t wrong: they’re just part of a different culture. At the very most, a culture requires only two people, who can form a society of their very own. And I can’t really in good mindfulness say it should go as high as two. This would not stop us from arresting them or executing them, or for that matter lauding them as heroes. It woudl all depend on what the most powerful faction of society decides.
Thus, reformers are always wrong, until they are right. That is, they are automatically wrong to change culturally-determined morality, unless they succeed. If they do, then they would retroactively become right. This is not what people think about reform. People would say that moral reformers are those who see morality better than others. If they can succeed, then other people do not change their morality, but instead see it better themselves.
However, if your theory is correct, than this is not what is happening. And moreover, the nature of the reformer is irrelevant. Martin Luther King Jr. would be no better or worse than Hitler. Both succeeded, at leat in some way. Thus, under this morality, Hitler was evil and vile before he took power, but after he did so and changed the culture to match his Nazi morality, he was then good. But then, after he
Now, I do not claim that to some degree this is not what actually happens in real life. We are always social creatures and make some compromises to live together. But it is not at least what we think occurs. I cannot rule out that it is possible the case.
Now as regards your reply to Shodan, the problem is that you are entirely right - but this does not in any way address or challenge Shodan’s point. you have a practical objection, that we may not be capable of knowing the true morality if it exists. And I agree, that is a possibility. But it does not change the facts of the case, which go on regardless of our perception.
I do not believe, and have never seen any evidence, that reality changes itself to suit our perceptions or whims. I am capable of believing in anything, even flying spagetti monsters or invisible pink unicorns, if and when I see evidence for them. Even if I possessed infinite power and knowledge within this universe, I could not rule out that they might exist outside my knoweldge base.
However, if a true moral order exists, it is likely that we can at the very least approximate it. It will be evident in subtle ways, including that we would have an intrinsic perception of good and evil. Precisely because we would be intelligent and able to make choices, we are creatures under moral law and judgement (assuming they exist, yadda yadda). Thus, we would preceive it, if only hazily, as elements of our lives no less than the natural forces. It took us thousands and thousands of years to discover gravity as a specific force: but before that we weren’t free of gravity. It was the very fact that ghravity was always there, always a part of our lives, that made it hard to see: it was always present to our senses, but we didn’t realize that it could be a law. We never thought of it as being seperate from anything else.
(and I’m sorry this monster post hsa gone on so long, but I’m trying to pour out my entire search for truth and goodness here)
So here it is: if we are capable, even slowly, uncertaintly, and erratically, of discovering any independant truth not pre-determined by natural law, then we can potentially discover through that reason a true moral order or the lack of it.
I don’t claim to be a great scholar or thinker. I try to think, and often I can’t come up with anything. But this is what I want to do, what I am trying to do, and what I choose to do… unless I am in fact simply pre-programmed by the entire cycle of nature, in which I case I only think I want to do it (I could never have wanted or done anything else, so in what sense can I desire something), only think I am trying (whether I act or put an effort is likewise predetermined), and think I am choosing (I never had a choice). But either way, I want to KNOW that fact. So I am trying to use my Reason as intensely as possible, in the hopes I discover contradictions which may show holes in one theory or the other. My thought is built on contradictions.
Sorry for vomiting all that onto the page. But this is why truth is so all-important to me. Without truth, I can never know or do anything else.
No, we don’t. We may posit an objective system of mathematics, but it is as manipulatable by subjective ideas as is anything else. The fact that people’s judgement can be wrong does not mean that there is no objective truth - but it does mean that we cannot trust people’s judgement. You can’t measure an objective standard with a subjective tool and declare an objective result.
Perhaps, but my point was solely that using as an example something that depends on other people doesn’t really work all that well. Especially if you’re talking about actual fact, not our belief about that fact.
Actually, I would tend to disagree with you. People may want to believe that what they are doing is “right”, but that does not seem to stop people from believing themselves to be doing “wrong”. It may well be that our desire to do right influences our opinions on the rightness of our actions - i’d probably argue that case right there with you - but it doesn’t seem to be a totally mind-bypassing concept. We want to be right, but that isn’t enough, in most cases, for us to define what is right entirely by what we do. In fact, I would tend to say that that is the reaction of someone who adopts an entirely unreflective opinion; to my mind, the ability to say and believe “there are some things which are good, and I would like to think of myself as a good person, yet I have just done something bad” almost necessitates some level of self-examination.
I honestly mean no offense by this question, but it seems to me you may have fallen into the same “trap” as others; that you want something to be so, you like the idea, and thus you believe it. You don’t want another system to be so, so you don’t believe it. How do you self-examine in order to ensure that you don’t believe what you believe because you would like it to be so?
Second, we may alternatively be able to harness the power of the sub- or super-Natural; an order which exists outside of space and time - outside of Nature and the universe. This need not be “divine”. It could be that our universe is enfolded in a different rules-set, with different natural laws. Certainly, many sub-atomic particles wave cheerfully at this universe, or just give it the finger as they go merrily past. They obey no particular predictable law, except in aggregate.
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But how can we harness such a power, if we are inherently subjective beings? It does not change the situation to have an objective standard, because we have no means of recognising or understanding that. It’s not simply a matter of us “may” not being able to harness it, we can’t harness it at all, because we cannot define objectivity with subjective standards. Essentially, we are left with hope that we are capable of that, which is irrelevant.
This doesn’t seem correct to me. If I define morality as “the culture of the moment” that doesn’t mean that the next culture of the moment along changes morality. It’s a constant, not a variable; when the next culture comes along, that does not change the morality of “the culture that was”, it simply replaces it with a new one. When people say “the culture of the moment” has the correct morality, it is generally not because it is the culture of the moment; that is to say, they are simply defining the current form of it, not defining the basis of it.
I think I understand the problem. It’s like saying “redness should be measured by the red cube on the table”. Once the red cube is removed, and a different red cube is placed on the table, then we have a different measuring system, by those words. But if the point is “redness should be measured by this particular red cube, which at the moment is on the table”, even when the first cube is removed and another put in its place, you still have the same standard; you’re just required to change the explanation, not the basis.
Well, you wouldn’t, would you?
Why? You’ve said that you like this idea, but I don’t understand why it must be so. Why couldn’t you have a true moral order and yet the total inability to approximate it? Why must an intrinsic perception of good and evil exist?
Not if those judgements are invisible to us. You use gravity as an example, but even before we could explain it, we could see something happening. It’s like being arrested for a crime you don’t know the law behind. You couldn’t say why you were being arrested, but certainly there appear to be policemen bundling you into a cop car. But if there are no cops, you aren’t enlightened as to either the judgement or to the legal aspect. In fact, I could say that your posts upthread have broken my rules of posting - up until I said that, you had no idea of that rule-breaking, nor even of the existence of those rules. Why not objective standards by the same standard?
Ah, so a serial killer who likes to kill and eat people he falls in love with is a moral man? Supporting your beloved spouse the terrorist mass murder is a moral act if you love him? Come on; love is not a particularly moral or admirable emotion.
I really find this fetishization of love in our culture creepy.
Love not being a emotion, but a entity and a Deity. If we are trying to Love, we are trying to be a child of Love (a child of God), Love will see our action, and being a Deity, is capable of correcting it, and will correct it because of what Love is.
As for killing for Love, if it is truly Love that one believes one is killing for, Love, again being Deity, will correct you as you are Love’s child.
Then at best all you are doing is misusing the word. As if I posted about how I surf the internet with my socks, and when people say that’s impossible I replay that “Oh, that’s just what I call that machine on my desk, my socks.” And at any rate, calling your god “love” brings us right back to the fetishization of the emotion love, since there’s no other reason to try to equate the two. It’s just an attempt to buff up the image of the Christian god by cashing in on that fetish.
There’s no reason to assume that your god has any objections to murder, or is moral in any way even if it was real.
