Plagued by Certainty
Other — By Joe Carter on March 20, 2008 at 12:07 amAlthough I don’t often write confessional posts, there is an issue that has been weighing on my heart. Certain discussions throughout the evangelical wing of the blogosphere have led me to finally speak up about an issue that I’ve tended to keep to myself. The problem concerns my faith: I am plagued by certainty.
It’s no secret that I have a high opinion of my own opinion; a confidence in their correctness that borders on the obnoxious. Like Ivan Turgenev, “I share no man’s opinions; I have my own.” But while I may embrace and defend my opinions with firmness, it is a humble form of certitude in which I have to acknowledge that there is a statistical likelihood — whether trivial or significant — that I could be wrong.
Not so, however, when it comes to matters of faith.
I don’t doubt that God exists or that the Bible is his Word. I don’t doubt that Jesus was born of a virgin, that he died and was buried, or that he rose again after three days in the tomb. I don’t doubt that he died for me, a truly wretched sinner, or that I will spend eternity in His presence. I would find it easier to doubt my own existence than to doubt the Nicene Creed. Maybe I’m delusional (though I doubt that) but I have few doubts about my faith.
My certitude is admittedly personal. I believe I have justification and warrant for my beliefs and that if pressed, I could attempt to provide proof and evidence for these claims. The level of “proof” I could give, though, would not provide the same level of certitude for you that I find sufficient for me. Proof is rather limited in that regard. I couldn’t prove that Joe Carter exists much less prove that he likes the color blue, that he kissed Christie Cozart in the 7th grade, or that he hates referring to himself in the third person.
While I can’t prove those things beyond a shadow of a doubt, I don’t doubt them at all. Similarly, my certainty in my faith isn’t based on what I can prove to other people or even, for that matter, what I can prove to myself.
Perhaps I was born too late, for prior to the 1630’s my view wouldn’t have been out of the ordinary. But the Catholic philosopher Rene Descartes changed everything when he set out on his inner quest to find certitude. He realized that the one thing he could be certain about was the fact of his doubting. Doubting is a form of thinking and thinking requires a thinker. The existence of the “I” that was doing the doubting, therefore, could not itself be doubted. Descartes declared Cogito ergo sum – I think, therefore I am–but what he should have said was Dubito ergo sum –I doubt, therefore I am.
However, for many people today doubt not only confirms existence, it confirms humility. To lack doubt is to be pretentious, perhaps even un-Christian. I’ve heard some people claim that doubt is necessary catalyst for faith! In the Gospels, though, the word ‘doubt’ consistently carries a negative connotation since Jesus character and abilities are almost always the object of doubt (see: Matt. 12:38-42, 14:31; Luke 24:38; John 20:27). James even calls the doubting man “double-minded” and compares him to a person who “is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind.” Yet while Scripture may have a low regard for it, many Christians consider anyone lacking in doubt to be pretentious, arrogant, or dishonest.
Lest you think I’m being facetious, let me assure you that I’m quite serious about the matter. This inability to express doubt has even caused tensions in my marriage. My wife used to suffer debilitating panic attacks brought on by a still, small voice that whispers, “You’re going to die someday.” Although she’s a believer, the thought of dying traumatizes her both physically and emotionally. Seeing her in such a state is heartbreaking.
She would often asks me why I don’t have a fear of dying. I want desperately to empathize and say that I do, but I cannot bring myself to tell that lie. Instead I explain that I believe in eternal life. I tell here that eternal life is not something that begins in the future but something has already begun. My “life”–my entry into eternal life– began the day I surrendered to Christ and will continue, though with some considerable changes, forever.
I might as well be speaking in Swahili, though, for she finds my words incomprehensible. For her this life–the in-the-flesh, day-to-day existence–is certain, while the future glorified existence can be–doubted. The fact that I can’t comprehend such a distinction divides us and prevents us from communicating.
As Jude exhorts, “be merciful to those who doubt” and I truly do try to be compassionate and understanding, recognizing that my sense of certainty is a gift from God. Without it I’d probably allow doubts about my faith to become an excuse for even greater depths of navel-gazing. An extra dose of certitude is probably needed just to bring me up to a level of basic normality.
Yet while I recognize that theological certainty does not make me a special brand of saint, it also doesn’t make me some perverse freak of faith. I shouldn’t feel a need to hang my head in shame because I don’t question the existence of God. I shouldn’t be asked to dismiss the experiences I’ve had with the Lord as if there is a possibility that they are not real. I shouldn’t have to lie and say that “I understand” when people say that are not sure that there is a God or that life continues after death.
I also don’t expect you to be ashamed if you feel differently. I won’t dismiss your questions or your hesitations. I won’t ask you to say you understand my faith if you don’t. I’ll respect your doubts and in return all I ask is that you be merciful to those of us who are certain.
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141 Comments
Given the fact that these people can and do influence legislators and school board members,
Surely you wouldn’t deprive them of this right. Many of these people are parents of children in the school systems they influence; it is appropriate that they have some input into how and what their children are taught by a school system they support.
They don’t question these supposed authority figures enought to realize what these people are pushing.
And what exactly are these people pushing? You make them sound like “crack dealers”. I don’t think it is all that dangerous to teach children that there is a debate about evolution and this debate doesn’t just impact how we teach what is, in my opinion, a relatively unimportant portion of the science curriculum. In all honestly, I think we could stop teaching evolution in K-12, without science education suffering at all. I really don’t want to get started on this but how important is the theory of evolution to science? It is really much more important to philosophy than science. Are there any major scientific or even medical developments over the past century that would have been impossible with out the theory of evolution? Mendel was doing his experiments on genetics without knowledge of evolution and I doubt Pasteur’s work on the Germ theory was impacted by it. I go back to my assertion you cited earlier that the debate about evolution is less about science than it is about philosophy and the sooner both sides recognize this, the sooner we can resolve the “debate”.
I wrote a response to you but I need to edit it heavily because I didn’t read your exchanges with Rob. So I’m going to have to beg off again for a while.
Sorry! Later again, sir.
Sorry to make you do double work, Matt.
We’ve had this discussion before, ucfengr, so I won’t go into tedious detail, but for the record: many atheists do believe in objective morality.
I do and I know that Peter Singer does.
For further reading:
http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/michael_martin/rape.html
Other article on atheism and morality can be found here:
http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/nontheism/atheism/ground-morality.html
Atheists and many philosophers in general are split on whether objective morality exists. Although I believe in objective morality, even those who claim that morality is subjective have convincing arguments regarding norms for ethical behavior in human society.
Question for ucfengr: Is torture an objective moral wrong? How do you know?
We’ve had this discussion before, ucfengr, so I won’t go into tedious detail, but for the record: many atheists do believe in objective morality.
I know this and I am glad they do, but I think that objective human morality requires an appeal to an authority above man, so, in my opinion this belief is not rational.
Is torture an objective moral wrong?
Without context it is impossible to say. It is always wrong to hit somebody in the head with a club for the purpose of stealing his watch, but it is not wrong to hit somebody in the head with a club with the purpose of preventing him from hitting somebody over the head for the purpose of stealing his watch. Both cases involve hitting someone over the head with a club, but one case is morally wrong and one is morally defensible. This is not inconsistent with belief in an objective morality.
Is torture an objective moral wrong? How do you know?
I think you are confusing “moral absolutism” with “moral objectivism”. Moral objectivism allows for context, moral absolutism doesn’t, so a moral objectivist could allow for torture to be morally acceptable under certain circumstances (i.e. the ticking bomb scenario), while an absolutist would take a position that it is always wrong no matter what the circumstances.
Under what situations is torture (or causing pain with no resulting benefit to that person) acceptable? You seem to be saying that it is acceptable only when it prevents pain to others. Is that right?
Is torturing (or causing pain with no resulting benefit to them) a baby ever right?
Under what situations is torture (or causing pain with no resulting benefit to that person) acceptable? You seem to be saying that it is acceptable only when it prevents pain to others. Is that right?
I don’t know that I accept your definition of torture, the definition of pain is pretty broad and covers quite a lot. For example I would consider listening to an entire Helen Reddy CD quite painful;). Accepting your definition for the moment, I probably wouldn’t go that far, but I can see where it could be acceptable to save innocent lives, i.e. preventing a terrorist from carrying out an attack or attacks. I guess you could call me a “graded absolutist” in that I believe protecting innocent human life is the highest moral calling. So while I believe that torture is wrong in most cases, I have a moral obligation to use it if it were to come into conflict with the higher moral calling of protecting innocent life.
“He deserves better.”
I appreciate your efforts on my behalf, Matthew. However, I think they are in vain.
“I believe protecting innocent human life is the highest moral calling”
So would you have obeyed Joshua’s command to kill with the sword all the men, women and children of a Canaanite village?
So would you have obeyed Joshua’s command to kill with the sword all the men, women and children of a Canaanite village?
It seems inconsistent with my understanding of God that he would order the death of innocent people. Do you have some knowledge about the Canannites that I am unaware of?
I know that infants and children (including unborn children) are usually considered innocent, even by Christians.
“So, if I understand you, you are admitting that you have no rational basis for your belief in your own moral superiority, which has been my argument all along.”
No, I am not admitting any such thing. “Rational” is not the same thing as “objective”. Do you mean to imply that opinions cannot have a rational basis?
No, I am not admitting any such thing. “Rational” is not the same thing as “objective”. Do you mean to imply that opinions cannot have a rational basis?
You haven’t given any indication that your’s do, Rob. You have made two main arguments regarding your morals, one is that you think your’s are superior because everybody thinks their’s are superior. That’s nice, but it isn’t really rational. Didn’t your mother caution you against jumping off a bridge, just because all your friends did? The second argument is that you have your morals because those are the morals that your society conditioned you to have. That doesn’t seem to indicate you have put any thoughts into your morals; you merely accept them because your parents (or your society, or your culture) told you to. Again, I refer you to the story of the lady and the ham. You are doing the same thing, following the morals of your ancestors without ever putting any thought into whether the situation still applies.
I know that infants and children (including unborn children) are usually considered innocent, even by Christians.
Yes, they usually are. So, given my understanding of the “nature of God”, I must assume that there is more to the story than what we read in Joshua. Why didn’t God see fit to include that in the story, you might ask? I don’t know.
More to the story? Like what? What about your understanding of the “nature of God” is at odds with Joshua’s command to butcher all the people and animals?
This is for Believers. God is awesome. He makes correct judgments. It is his nature. IF he calls something bad it is. We don’t have that right. God who demonstrated his love through the incarnation and everything that follows is the only Judge of guilt. What happen in Canaan if decided by me would have been wrong. I don’t have enough of anything to make that decision. As the children in Narnia said he is not a tame Lion, but he is good. The nature of evil is so black that we can not comprehend its fruit, but Canaan had arrived at some awful place that judgment was the only plan for the whole culture.
Unbelievers: Since the human heart is as the Bible says then these people forming their own conclusions about ethics are deceiving themselves and acting like there is no Judge. They best seek Mercy at the foot of the cross while they can with the rest of us.
Okay, they had a vague expectation of finding a transitional creature and they got lucky in finding one after 4 unsuccessful expeditions. I don’t know if I would call that proving a prediction, but I’ll let it slide.
Here’s another one for you though. I believe it is safe to say that one of the conditions necessary for fossilization is near instant death and burial to prevent decay and allow the thousands of years necessary to turn the bone into stone… a rather cataclysmic event so to speak. Doesn’t that mean it is possible the creature that was buried might have been buried in material that was much much older than the age in which the creature actually lived? In the event of volcanic action, most of the material that comes up is quite a bit older than the surrounding environment in most cases is it not? Maybe the fossil record is not so much a pattern of development, but a pattern of extinction? Do paleontologists catalog even data that appears anomalous with expectations?
You blog was just recommended to me by a friend and I wanted to tell you how much I’ve enjoyed your posts. I look forward to diving into the conversation.
While I’m not as “certain” about some aspects of my beliefs, and as a pastor believe it’s healthy to share those feelings with those I serve, I am encouraged by your perspective. Thanks for sharing.
Brian Jones
http://www.brianjones.com
“You are doing the same thing, following the morals of your ancestors without ever putting any thought into whether the situation still applies.”
You assume that is what I am doing; you haven’t bothered to ask up to this point. But that is understandable; we haven’t been talking about rational bases for my morals up to this point in the conversation, we have been discussing objective vs. subjective morals. I rather think that subjective morality requires more thought than objective morality. I think about morals quite a bit, and morals that I don’t feel have a rational basis are morals I quickly toss aside. For instance, I have no qualms about eating shellfish or about mowing my lawn on a Sunday. I adopt morals that make good sense to me.
My morals are largely concerned with the effects of my behavior on other human beings and are strongly informed by what Christians call the Golden Rule. And, yes, my morals are strongly informed by my nominally Christian upbringing.
Truth U.& D.,
Rob is someone you don’t know. You have described him as an unrepentant sinner. I brought this to your attention, and I mentioned that I thought this was both unfair and rude. Your response was to taunt Rob and challenge him again in even stronger terms.
You said that the only way he can repent is through acknowledging Jesus as his Saviour, even though he denies that Jesus is God or that God even exists.
I disagree very strongly with your insistence that he acknowledge Jesus as his Lord and Saviour.
Let’s say I meet you in a dark alley and I hold a gun to your head and say, “I love you, I am your Saviour, worship me or suffer the consequences.” What should your response be?
I strongly hope that you would try to frustrate me by any means possible, and, naturally, I certainly expect that you would.
If you didn’t do that – if instead you submitted to my will and started to worship me – then I would not say your biggest problem is that you are an unrepentant sinner who needs my redemption. I would say your biggest problem is that you are easily intimidated into going against your better judgement.
However, if you want to relate to Jesus in that way, it’s not really any of my business. Just leave Rob out of it, please. He was just trying to engage you in a civil debate. If he offended you, then perhaps you could just agree to disagree and be done with it.
Perhaps this is not the most diplomatic stand I could have about all this, but I don’t like the way you’ve treated Rob, and it’s not fair to him to pretend you didn’t disrespect him. And more to the point, by claiming you need Jesus’ saving grace to live a good life, it seems to me that you are disrespecting yourself.
If the Bible and your church lend you valuable spiritual support, then more power to them and to you. But I hope you can find a way to make your religion work without demeaning yourself in the same way that you demeaned Rob. If Jesus saved you, it’s because you are worth saving, not because you are unworthy of it without him.
At least, that’s how I see it. If you want to avoid sin and do good works, please try to understand that you have the strength and the character to do that. Because it is true, whether you realize it or not.
Cheers,
Matthew
Smmtheory,
You raise good questions about evolution and about the fossil record. If I had enough time, I would be inclined to answer them all in great detail and try to help you understand why evolution is true.
Since I don’t have enough time, I will pass. If you are interested in the answers, however, you could do research on them yourself by surfing the internet for about an hour or so. Let me know what you find if you do.
Ucfengr,
As you point out, materialists experience outrage, and shame and guilt for that matter, as if they believed in a higher moral order.
Rob points out that this is a psychological or reflexive response more than a thought-out intellectual stand. You point out that without some objective way to weigh rival moral claims, we have de facto moral anarchy and no way of honestly asserting the superiority of one claim over another.
Outrage is an emotional response that says, “Pay attention to my moral claim, right now!” Guilt is an emotional response that says we have neglected the moral claim of another person or persons. And shame is an emotional response that mixes guilt with embarassment. None of these feelings are entirely rational, unless we have a way of judging one person’s moral claims against another’s.
(Note: Christians themselves are often guilty of emotions that would appear to be somewhat irrational in a world ruled by an all-benevolent, omnipotent God. Two examples would be fear of death, or any kind of despair.)
So, in a materialistic world, is there a way to adjudicate competing moral claims or beliefs?
I would say, yes, very much so.
Morals are based upon the objective facts of pleasure and happiness, and pain and suffering. The basic moral imperatives are to help people and to avoid hurting people.
Perhaps not every person in the world would agree with me, but some people think the world is flat, and perhaps there are others who think 2 + 2 = 5. We don’t let those people define what geography and mathematics are about.
Why is “help, and don’t harm” a moral imperative? Because in 99 out of 100 situations (more like 999,999 out of a million situations), that is exactly how a person would insist that other people treat him/herself. My moral imperatives don’t have the force of an edict from the almighty creator; but neither do they need such a divine warrant.
If apples fall from trees, or if hot water evaporates and cold water freezes, that will be true whether God exists or not, whether the Bible is true, or just partially true, or the work of Satan himself.
Now people are free to ignore moral imperatives if they choose. But once again, that is true whether we live in a materialistic universe or not.
I concede that in a materialistic universe, good people do not go to heaven and bad people do not go to hell. If you can’t accept that, we will not be able to disagree, but I, as always, respect your disagreement and salute your strong moral sense.
Sorry for the typo in the second to last line:
“we will not be able to disagree” should have read “we will not be able to agree”.
Guilty of emotions? Never. All emotions are irrational, all of the time. Guilty of how we react to those emotions? Maybe. By extension, morals cannot be based on emotions or feelings like pleasure, happiness, displeasure or unhappiness, only on actions.
Smm,
I’m using the word “guilty” as a synonym for “equally liable to experience”. No moral content is implied; please excuse me if that wasn’t clear.
… morals cannot be based on emotions or feelings like pleasure, happiness, displeasure or unhappiness, only on actions.
Not exactly right. If my actions produce positive emotions or negative emotions, then that has a lot to do with whether or not my actions are right or wrong.
For example, if I am feeling grouchy and I tell a joke for the sole purpose of annoying those around me, then that would be rude and, therefore, mildly immoral.
If, on the other hand, I tell the exact same joke because I know those around me will like it and enjoy it, then that would be a good thing to do.
Emotions are not the only consideration. Sometimes emotions can be totally misleading. Sometimes emotions are outweighed by more important factors. But emotions are, nonetheless, a very important part of one’s moral calculus.
No, it does not. You are no more responsible for other peoples emotions than they are for yours. That is a terrible burden to try to lay on somebody else. Half the problems in all relationships would go away if people stopped trying to hold others responsible for their emotions.
Your morality example falls apart when you remove the action, in this case telling the joke.
And the second sentence is the reason why. Emotions are not reliable. Even if you are trying to annoy somebody with a joke, there is no guarantee that it will annoy the other person.
Smmtheory,
You are no more responsible for other peoples emotions than they are for yours.
I agree with you that under normal circumstances, we are each responsible for our own emotions.
It’s important to qualify things with “under normal circumstances”, because obviously one person can directly produce and be responsible for negative emotions and/or suffering in another person, such as when one person tortures another. But, generally speaking, our emotions are subjective beasts that each of us has to deal with using our own inner resources.
Your morality example falls apart when you remove the action, in this case telling the joke.
Of course it does, that is my point. If someone’s action is intended to produce, and does produce, a specific consequence, then the person is responsible for that action and for that consequence. That is exactly what I am saying.
Emotions are not reliable. Even if you are trying to annoy somebody with a joke, there is no guarantee that it will annoy the other person.
But if you are trying to annoy someone, your action is still immoral, even if you don’t succeed. In such a case, the intention happens to be more important than the consequence, or lack thereof.
Now apply that line of reasoning to telling the joke to elicit a positive emotion. Either way, you are trying to manipulate somebody’s emotion, so if one (the intent to annoy) is supposedly immoral, then the other (the intent to cheer) is as well.
Smm,
All other things being equal,
Making someone happy = good
Making someone unhappy = bad
Intending to make someone happy = right
Intending to make someone unhappy = wrong
Now in real life, all other things are not going to be equal.
For example, the funny joke might reinforce some negative stereotype, or it might even be used to distract someone in a deceitful way. The annoying joke might instruct more than it annoys. The possibilities are endless.
But the underlying principles, or what I have referred to as the “moral imperatives”, are constant and unchanging.
Matthew,
‘Making someone happy = good’ and ‘Making someone unhappy = bad’ is useless as a base for moral calculus since by default some things such as disciplining children must always rely on exception consideration.
Smmtheory,
‘Making someone happy = good’ and ‘Making someone unhappy = bad’ is useless as a base for moral calculus since by default some things such as disciplining children must always rely on exception consideration.
Actually, that is not even the biggest problem.
When disciplining children, the longer-term happiness or welfare of the child usually outweighs the immediate emotional response (although the immediate response is not irrelevent or insignificant; it is just outweighed in the balance of considerations). Long-term welfare clearly trumps short-term emotional appeasement as a general rule.
A thornier problem is when two or more people have valid moral claims that come into conflict — how does one pick winners and losers in a satisfactory way, and how can the result be viewed as objective from the losers’ point of view?
I believe there are ways to do that, but not everyone will be as satisfied as I am with the answers, to say the least.
I have a couple of problems with your critique, however. You raise a perfectly valid question, or criticism. But your choice of words, “useless”, indicates that you believe a good response is impossible. Your skepticism meter seems like it might be stuck on the “reject” setting.
More important than your possible negativity, though, is my failing to be clear about what the basis for morality is. It most definitely is not, “Making someone happy = good” and “Making someone unhappy = bad”.
First of all, those two equations aren’t even true unless all other things are equal. What does that mean? It means, in this particular example, that the only moral variable involved is happiness versus unhappiness. If anything else of a moral nature is involved, such as teaching children rules or discipline, then the condition of all other things being equal no longer applies.
Secondly, those two equations, even when they are true, are not the basis of morality. The basic moral imperatives are “Help people” and “Don’t hurt people”. That would include helping them to be happy, and it would include avoiding making them unhappy, but it also includes a multitude of other things as well.
For example, if one is Christian, it would, perhaps, include tending to the care of someone’s immortal soul, even at the expense of his temporary unhappiness.
But what I am trying to explain in my clumsy way is that happiness and/or unhappiness is NOT a moral variable, because feelings are neither good nor bad.
Even those are not particularly solid as moral imperatives, not when you have to qualify them. The highest moral imperatives are as Jesus said, the first (which you obviously do not adhere to) is “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.” The second, which also does not need any qualification is “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” In this case, the word ‘love’ is being used as a verb.
If it seems as if my skepticism meter is stuck on reject, it is because I am certain that I am right about this.
Smm,
… happiness and/or unhappiness is NOT a moral variable, because feelings are neither good nor bad.
Well, let’s say you are right. Feelings just are, like an object sitting on one’s table, morally neutral. For example, if an orchestra playing a beautiful symphony inspires great emotion and pleasure in its audience, that’s all well and good, but it is not a moral action or service.
Then I ask you, what does constitute a moral or immoral act? What is a good goal or a bad goal for someone to aspire to?
“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.”
That’s sounds nice, doesn’t it? From a religious perspective, what could be more noble?
But what does it mean here on earth? What specifically, besides praying, does one do to love God?
The second [moral imperative], which also does not need any qualification is “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” In this case, the word ‘love’ is being used as a verb.
Ah, but that is what I have saying. When one loves someone, you are promoting his/her welfare. You are helping him, and you are refraining from hurting him. The Golden Rule is nothing more and nothing less than a re-wording of my two moral imperatives. Which, of course, is the same as saying that my two moral imperatives are merely a re-wording of the Golden Rule.
Please understand that I am not trying to be cute about this at all. “Help, don’t hurt” really is the equivalent of “love your neighbor”. The only difference is that I am making explicit what “love” means in practice.
… feelings are neither good nor bad.
I think I understand what you mean by this.
If a bear attacks a person in the woods, on one level it’s bad, it’s just about the worst thing that can happen.
On the other hand, it would be ridiculous to claim that the bear is behaving badly. The bear is what it is, and does what it does, and morality just doesn’t enter the picture (unless it’s a momma bear protecting her cubs — then one could say she’s acting with good intentions that have gone awry).
Similarly, emotions can be considered a fact of life. More often than not, they are little more than a reflex, with no conscious decision on our part to feel one way or another.
If I feel awe and pleasure while contemplating a beautiful sunset, that is just a natural reaction on my part, not unlike a bear attacking an intruder.
But what if I am working away in an office, and my wife calls me on the phone and tells me to look at the beautiful sunset? Is not her act a moral act? Not just moral, but thoughtful and loving to boot?
Of course, when my wife calls, perhaps I am not in a proper mood to appreciate the sunset, or for some other reason I don’t happen to find it particularly inspiring. But my wife’s act, with the intention of making me happy, was still good and loving, even without the desired result.
A few thoughts on the clumsy or arkward nature of the conversation…
We are not used to thinking about morality in terms of analyzing a given situation and weighing all the factors. The only time we might normally approach things that way is when confronted with a genuine moral dilemma, and we have to focus more carefully about what is going on under the surface.
The way we usually do morality is to recognize that there exist various moral truths and principles (which can vary a bit from culture to culture). These moral truths can seem absolute and intrinsic to reality, but our belief in them is actually the result of a combination of instinct, moral instruction during our youth, and the trial and error of personal experience.
We can develop good character or bad character depending on how much we make a habit out of adhering or declining to adhere to these truths/principles. Then our actions and our decisions will tend to flow naturally from our character, without a whole lot of conscious dickering over what happens to be right or wrong or good and bad.
What I am trying to do with my two moral imperatives (help people, and avoid hurting people), is to respond to Ucfengr’s objection that a non-divine morality is not objective, where “not objective” refers to the apparent fact that there is no way to resolve a moral conflict by appealing to a higher authority than one’s own personal preferences. I admit that my way of treating morality is not the most natural way of looking at things, but it does have several virtues.
For one, I believe it corresponds to what actually happens in the real world, as opposed to what one might be taught in a catechism or a madrassa.
It also does provide a reasonable way out of the problem of conflicting or competing moral claims. It does this by providing two basic moral principles that can be used to deconstruct, evaluate, and weigh any moral claims that might be under consideration.
Finally, it is itself based upon the truly great wisdom of all the world’s major religions, the Golden Rule.
So, however unnatural my perspective might seem to you or Ucfengr, or to anyone else, it does serve to provide a common ground that people who don’t share the same cultural traditions can relate and agree to. Even someone raised in a gangsta’ ghetto culture can admit the reasonableness of “help, don’t hurt”, and understand why people should agree to abide by it.
Now remove any emotional inflection/overtones what ever they may be. The action of calling to speak to you is the moral, the loving act; letting you know that you are worth a little while of her time. Do you sit and ponder what her true intention was? I don’t imagine that you do, but I’m just using that as an example.
Which looks to me like you are limiting what love means in practice… sort of allowing yourself to exclude the ickier, more dicey things when it comes to loving neighbors if you can limit it to refraining from hurting them. By this you token you can claim to have loved them simply by avoiding any interaction with them. But I’m willing to entertain the notion that this might not be what you mean.
Unless you exclude Islam (and by extension all the religions that practiced some form of human sacrifice) from the classification of ‘all the world’s major religions’, I don’t think that the Golden Rule is a common denominator of all the world’s major religions.
Smm,
Now remove any emotional inflection/overtones what ever they may be. The action of calling to speak to you is the moral, the loving act; letting you know that you are worth a little while of her time. Do you sit and ponder what her true intention was? I don’t imagine that you do, but I’m just using that as an example.
Two points:
1) Her true intention does matter.
She could have called on a morally neutral point of household business. She could have because she was angry about something and wanted to make me feel bad. Or she could have about something else with the intention to make me happy, or happier. Each intention puts a different moral value on the act of her calling me.
2) If letting me know that I am worth a little of her time is what makes the act moral (and of course, that is part of it), isn’t that because it improves my mood, my emotion. After all, I know darn well that I am worth a little of her time. The reason the call makes me better is because it serves to remind me of something I already know and to thereby improve my mood.
Which looks to me like you are limiting what love means in practice… sort of allowing yourself to exclude the ickier, more dicey things when it comes to loving neighbors if you can limit it to refraining from hurting them. By this you token you can claim to have loved them simply by avoiding any interaction with them.
The two moral imperatives go together. One must help and one must avoid hurting people. One without the other does not cut it.
Unless you exclude Islam (and by extension all the religions that practiced some form of human sacrifice) from the classification of ‘all the world’s major religions’, I don’t think that the Golden Rule is a common denominator of all the world’s major religions.
Islam has it’s own form of the Golden Rule. And every religion that I’ve come across has some variant on it. Some religions and traditions’ version are very similar in wording to the Bible’s.
If Islam and other religions leave the infidel out of the scope of their own some Golden Rule, then that is similar to what Christians used to believe until not so long ago.
If Christians can learn to embrace a Golden Rule that includes everyone, including non-Christians, then that is a very good indication that fundamentalists in other religions could do the same.
Do you have an answer to my question about loving God? In terms of one’s interactions with one’s fellow humans, is loving God covered by the Golden Rule, or is something else involved?
And here’s another question: Do you really believe that an orchestra performing a beautiful symphony is not a deeply moral act? If it is a moral act, is it not because of the emotions and pleasure inspired in the audience?
A couple of typos above; here’s a correction for one of them:
Where I said,
If Islam and other religions leave the infidel out of the scope of their own some Golden Rule
should read instead,
If Islam and some other religions leave the infidel out of the scope of their own Golden Rule
Not really, because how you feel about her expressing her anger with you is an emotion, which is neither good nor bad, and you shouldn’t hold her responsible for your feelings. In calling you up and expressing her anger, or joy or other emotion with you she is making herself vulnerable to you. And that is an aspect that doesn’t fit into your version of the Golden Rule, but does fit into my version.
I wasn’t sure if that was just rhetorical or not. I may have guessed incorrectly. Think of it like this… would you be loving your wife if all you did was talk at her in a one sided conversation? Of course, God is a bit more patient than your wife would ever be in that sort of situation, but that’s the gist of it. God is a real person, not just a radio receiver in the heavens. But at any rate, no, loving God is not fully covered by the Golden Rule… because loving your neighbor does not hold the requirement of ‘with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.’
Nope, I can’t wrap my reasoning around it being a deeply moral act. And if I’m wrong, and it really is a deeply moral act, I’m certain it will not be on account of emotions elicited or inspired.
Not quite, Christians have never in theory excluded infidels from the Golden Rule the way the other religions have. The practice may have been hard to stick to, but the underlying scope of the meaning of neighbor even applied to unbelievers. Now if the stranger removes themself from the scope of being neighbor, well, the Christian can hardly be blamed for the stranger not allowing the theory to be practiced can they?
Dang, sorry I missed all this. I may try to respond, but with so much and my generally lazy nature, I am not optimistic.
Smm,
Not really [her intention to make you feel bad doesn't matter], because how you feel about her expressing her anger with you is an emotion, which is neither good nor bad, and you shouldn’t hold her responsible for your feelings.
I didn’t say she actually did make me feel bad. In fact, if she were genuinely angry and trying to make me feel bad, I might very well understand the anger and sympathize with it and not feel put upon at all.
What I am saying is that if her intention is to make me feel bad, then no matter what my response is, then the moral value of her phone call is different (it is worse) than if she intended to make me feel good. You are dancing around this very simple point repeatedly. It is as if you have a blind spot that refuses to let you see or understand that emotions are real phenomenon that exist and are important.
If I steal $100 from you, you would consider that to be an immoral act. But if I steal your peace of mind by stalking you and harassing you, how is that any less of an immoral act?
True, you are responsible for your emotions, but you are also responsible for safeguarding your money.
Nothing is instrinsically a moral phenomenon. If a stone is picked up by a gale and hurled through the air and breaks a window, then that is a morally neutral event. Yet if I pick up a stone and use it to break the same window, that is certainly a(n) (im)moral act.
The same with emotions. If I am happy or unhappy, then that is morally neutral. But if someone acts in order to make me happy or unhappy, then the act has a moral aspect, positive or negative.
In calling you up and expressing her anger, or joy or other emotion with you she is making herself vulnerable to you.
Yes, that should be weighed against any intent to hurt my feelings. And almost all the time, I would probably give it much more weight than any bad intention. So on balance, the bad intention would be outweighed by the good intention of her sharing how she felt and addressing her own personal needs.
But I was discounting that aspect of her phone call for the sake of the example. We could make up another example where the pure motive of someone’s phone call was simply malicious, was simply to cause hurt feelings. But in the example I did give, you are correct, normally such a phone call should be judged with a large dose of indulgence and understanding.
And that is an aspect that doesn’t fit into your version of the Golden Rule, but does fit into my version.
It does fit into my morality, as I explained above. I was just giving an over-simplified example in order to illustrate the underlying principle.
Nope, I can’t wrap my reasoning around it being a deeply moral act. And if I’m wrong, and it really is a deeply moral act, I’m certain it will not be on account of emotions elicited or inspired.
Maybe it would help you understand my point if we further stipulated that the orchestra was composed of volunteers who were not payed for their performances. They just came together and played for the primary purpose of giving pleasure to those who attended their concerts.
If you are indeed certain that the morality of a concert will not be on account of the emotions generated in the audience, then you are deeply, deeply mistaken.
Two comments about the importance of feelings or emotions:
1) Emotions are an important part of morality. Not so much because of the emotions themselves (although the emotions themselves are important). But rather, because they are indicators of how people feel about things and how they evaluate the worth and importance of things.
In that sense, emotions play an analogous role to prices in a free-market economy. They generate signals that tell us to produce more or to produce less of a certain action (and to “consume” more or less of a certain activity).
Emotions are far from infallible or comprehensive, but neither are prices. Your inability to see the importance of emotions is similar in some ways to the way that communist dictatorships were very averse, for a long time, to understanding the importance of market-pricing mechanisms.
2) Emotions are just a small part of morality. Other things are just as important, or much more important.
For example, saving someone’s life is infinitely more important than guarding that person’s feelings while that person is in danger. But even here, one would expect that most people would be extremely happy and grateful to have their life saved, even if it was done in a rough way that was inconvenient, or troubling, or painful.
And as I pointed out in a prior comment, if one believe’s in a Christian afterlife, then the care of one’s immortal soul might be considered more important than a variety of emotional considerations.
In general, emotions will in fact be quite secondary to other, more pressing matters. But producing happiness and alleviating suffering are often the very goals of those other, more pressing matters, so things have a way of coming full circle when it comes to emotions.
If you don’t see that, then it doesn’t make any difference how certain you are, you are still deeply mistaken.
Not quite, Christians have never in theory excluded infidels from the Golden Rule the way the other religions have.
This seems to me to be a tangent to the discussion. I’m willing to concede, for the sake of argument, that Christianity puts the Golden Rule in a more central place than other religions, and that, in theory at least, it has included infidels of every stripe within the scope of its applicability.
On the other hand, until the late nineteenth century, it was a point of Roman Catholic doctrine, shared by many other denominations, that un-believers, folks who weren’t baptized, would be condemned to hell. Even pre-Christian pagans, like Plato and Socrates, who had never been preached the Gospels, would be consigned to hell, or at least limbo.
In theory, that has almost nothing to do with the Golden Rule: a person’s salvation or damnation is a personal matter between that person and God. But in practice, how is a Christian supposed treat his dammed, unbelieving neighbor with the same love as he does himself, when the Christian knows that his unbelieving neighbor is going to hell? This is testing human psychology to the breaking point, and I strongly suspect that most Christians would have failed the test.
Now if the stranger removes themself from the scope of being neighbor, well, the Christian can hardly be blamed for the stranger not allowing the theory to be practiced can they?
There’s a lot I could say about this, because this is a very interesting aspect of morality. But I think we’ve already got a lot to chew on and digest.
Ucfengr,
… I may try to respond, but with so much and my generally lazy nature, I am not optimistic.
Actually, you did just respond :)
Don’t call yourself lazy. Perhaps you are indeed motivationally challenged, but I would guess it’s more likely you just know how to set priorities.
If you call yourself lazy, you might hurt your feelings, and that would be bad ;)
Good day to you and Smm,
Matthew
Way to go Joe…*: ) I join you in giving a shout out for the Holy Spirit!
Signed, (A delusional Mary Poppins and happy to be such!)
Godliness with Contentment is GREAT GAIN!!
Empathy is the ability to identify or sense what another person is feeling. It is like seeing through someone else’ s eyes. Empathy should not be confused with compassion, which is the desire to alleviate the suffering of another, and sometimes contains empathy, but really goes beyond it. You can act compassionately even when you do not empathize with a person’ s emotional state or situation.
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