Interesting discussion on morality from a youtube vlogger. Most memorable quote is at the very end of the video,
The problem is not that people don’t believe in objective morality, the problem is… that they do.
That is, the problem is that so many people THINK they know what objective morality is and are unwilling to rethink their position because they think it is from God.
The Conscience of a Liberal by Paul Krugman
I will be blogging my way through this book as I read it. This is part 1.
A friend of mine who voted for Barack Obama ( I did not) gave me this book to read that espouses the economic policies of some of the current democratic party. I try to be open to different opinions that I do not agree with and so i am happy to read this book. This is also an exercise for me to practice what I preach. I push people to question their beliefs on a regular basis on this blog. Now I get to see how honest I am in questioning a long held belief of mine in smaller government and lower taxes. My hope is that I can take a serious look at my reasons for thinking what I do about how government should operate and have a thoughtful discussion with the person who gave me the book.
Chapter 1
The Way We Were
The biggest thing that hits me in this first chapter is that Krugman has a few premises that are clear he will be working from as he moves on in this book:
1. Economic inequality is a moral problem.
2. It is the responsibility of government to correct this problem.
3. Republican (conservative) policy causes economic inequality.
4. Democratic policies(the New Deal) decrease economic inequality.
My initial response is that economic inequality is not a morally bad thing at all.
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How do you parent your children if you are not religious? As a person who used to be religious, this is always a question that I think about. How do I teach my kids to think for themselves and to learn to understand what other people believe? When it comes down to it, I don’t want to indoctrinate my children in my (current) beliefs necessarily, I just want to give them the tools that they need to be able to enter the world and make a decision for themselves about how the world works and what worldview they should adopt.
The book parenting beyond belief deals with these questions and more. I actually have not read this book yet but I just ordered it here after hearing much about it. I have also been watching some of the videos that the author puts out on youtube on his youtube channel here. You can also find his web site which has lots of helpful information here.
Below is a video about the author and about what his approach is and a bit about the purpose of the book.
I will blogging about the book as I read it in the coming weeks.
When pondering the subject of morality, the subject of God’s actions and the questionable morality of those actions often comes up. When I refer to God’s actions, I would be referring to any religion which seems to make a claim to actually knowing what God’s actions are. In my case, Christianity is the closest to home and so that is where my questions are directed.
We are told by Christians that we derive our morality from God himself. We are told that without God there would be no morality and that God gives us moral directives which come from his nature. So a certain thing is not moral just because God says it, but rather it is moral because that is part of who God is and he can do no wrong.
The problem which arises however is that based on the Christian religion God supposedly does many things that from our perspective look to be pretty immoral. Jesus also seems to do things which he himself says are sinful but somehow he is able to do them in such a way where he doesn’t actually sin. In fact it would seem that God can actually do no wrong. And most Christians that I know, including my former Christian self, would agree that God is God and can do as he pleases.
Now while I would have to agree in part that if God is real and is as the bible describes him then indeed who am I to question God and to point out what I feel is evil or not. It does seem a bit strange however that we on the one hand are to get our morality from God but then when we look at his actions, we have to make a distinction between what he does as opposed to what he says. In all other contexts this would be considered hypocrisy but when it comes to God, it is just one of those mysteries that we are supposed to accept.
I heard this posed in a question on one of my favorite podcasts, Reasonable Doubts, recently. In episode 40 which they called “Unintelligible God” , they asked,
Name one action that God could not perform in order to preserve his moral character?
That is, if God is moral in all that he says and does yet we see him doing things which seem immoral, is there anything that God cannot do because of his moral character? It seems that every action which APPEAR to be bad are explained away in one way or another. A few examples are as follows:
Can God…
- Murder? See: 1 Chronicles 21:9-14 ; Deuteronomy 3:1-7; Joshua 11:7-15
- Kill children and other innocents? See: Leviticus 26:21-22; 1 Samuel 15:2-3
- Lie or mislead people? See: 1 Kings 22:23; 2 Chronicles 18:22; Ezekiel 14:9; 2 Thessalonians 2:11
- Stand by with the ability to help and withhold help to someone who needs it? See: Suffering children in Africa
- Make a bet with Satan that Job will still believe even after Satan takes everything he has and kills all his children. See Book of Job.
This is not an exhaustive list of things that God does in the Bible that seem evil but they are some pretty serious examples. If God can do these things and it is consistent with his nature, then do we really get any morality from God’s nature? Surely we cannot look at what God does in the Bible and follow that as a moral guide.
Jeff
I have four great kids and would like to think that I know a thing or two about raising children. But the truth is… I DON”T KNOW JACK! I am always looking for pointers and advice on raising kids and learning new ways to effectively communicate with them and to help them to become good, responsible people. Often I feel that I am making no progress at all and so it is good to read what other people have found to be effective.
I ran across this blog called called Half Full through a Point of Inquiry podcast and I have found tons of great stuff on there. The Half Full name comes from teaching kids to have a positive “glass is half full” outlook on life and does so by drawing on the vast amount of research that has been done over the last 50 years in psychology, sociology, and neuroscience.
The following is from their About Us page on their web site:
About
This blog is about science-based parenting advice. I’m a sociologist and the executive director of UC Berkeley’s Greater Good Science Center, and since I’m reading all the research related to raising happy children anyway, I thought we might as well make it USEABLE to parents. We hope this is a valuable counterpoint to some of the more opinion-based parenting advice platforms that are out there, especially because sorting out fact from fiction can be confusing when it comes to parenting.
That said, this blog is also about me and my children. It represents the intersection of my brain and my heart: my intellectual training in the social sciences and my very real, sometimes raw, experiences as a mother.
Why should you be a part of this blog?
I think that together we can make the psychology, sociology, and neuroscience of raising happy children approachable. When you participate by commenting, giving us examples from your family life, you enrich the information on the blog, raise questions, and help other parents apply your learning to their own lives.
On good days, I believe that all this research-based parenting advice can make us better parents, and that when we become better parents, the world improves measurably. In our materially rich but spiritually sparse culture we often fail to act as though children are our future. But our parenting really does matter both for our children’s well-being and for the greater good of the world.
Every single day I feel grateful for my children. And I work hard for their happiness. But I am not a perfect parent. In fact, I’m against perfectionism in just about everything, especially parenting.
I believe that there are happiness skills that we can practice with our children that will help them lead good, meaningful, happy lives. I believe that nothing that doesn’t ultimately bring joy is worth doing. And I believe that happiness and compassion are all we need to cure the world’s ills.
So welcome. Please sign up to receive this blog by email, and join me by sharing your thoughts—these real life experiences are more powerful than any academic study.
I love debates. I hate debates. Love live debates.
I love debates because I love the intelligent discussion of ideas. I love finely crafted arguments and skillful rhetoric. I love to watch someone with a quick wit and a storehouse of knowledge in their head articulate their position well in the face of equally talented oppostion.
I hate debates because more often then not it seem that you have two different people from two very different disciplines of study who find it hard to engage one another on the most relevant subjects of the debate. Or if you do have two equally trained people they can often talk right past each other in a formal debate setting. This is especially true in the so called presidential “debates”. The rigid format that you see in many debates seem to me to restrict the discussion of differences and allows people to weasel out of tough questions.
This debate on the topic Is God Necessary for Morality was not frustrating for me. In fact it was delightful. Each person had a 20 minute opening statement and then they sat down on two comfortable chairs with a moderator sitting off to the side and they discussed back and forth the ideas presented in the opening statements. Each was allowed plenty of time to cross examine and I really think it allowed the discussion to move along well.
The debaters are William Lane Craig representing the Theist/Christian position and Skelly Kagan representing the a-theistic/naturalistic point of view. Both are trained philosophers and both are extremely intelligent, capable and articulate men and both are very polite and cordial making it a real treat to watch.
You can watch the string of youtube videos here…
Or you can watch the whole thing or listen to the mp3 here
Enjoy
Here is a cool video that I came across explaining evolution.
My friend Paul wrote this and I thought it was really good so I am re-posting it here. It provoked a very long discussion on Facebook which has been quite good. I hope you find it interesting…
I am writing from exile. I have been out of the Church now for over 4 years, because ultimately, my conscience led me here. As many of you know, I was once a Calvary Chapel Pastor and missionary, but it slowly stopped making sense. I do have reasons for this, but that is not what I am writing about now. I was taught to believe that people like me became this way because of a gross sin, or because they loved the world more than they loved God. I now know this to be a lie. I am really not much different morally than I was then, nor do I wish to pursue things that would harm myself or others. Ironically, to be quite honest, I think I’m a bit more moral than I was then. I am most definately way more honest.
I’m not writing to make a case for leaving Fundamental Evangelicalism, because I know that to be a waste of time. The real point of writing is to ask a question to those who prefer Dogma over their own conscience when they collide. My question is:
If Conscience brought you to believe a certain Dogma, what do you do when that same conscience tells you to leave it?
A friend of mine who is also no longer involved in Christendom uses the analogy of Martin Luther. Martin Luther, upon leaving the Catholic Church, gives conscience as one of the reasons for his “protest” against the Catholic Church. “For a man to deny his conscience is neither right nor sane…..here I stand I can do no other”. As a Protestant, I found that statement to be very moving. I still consider it to be moving. However, the Catholic Church found it to be heresy.
For whatever reason, the high value of following ones “heart” seems to be a commonly held belief. As Joseph Campell puts it, to “Follow your Bliss” seems to be the key to happiness and fulfillment. He goes as far as to say that Maslow’s theory of five human needs mean nothing to a man who lives his passion. Following our heart is obviously a foundation for happiness and true fulfillment.
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This is an article by a guy who lost his Christian faith as a result of studying Islam. I can relate to his questions as I ran up against many of the same problems. When you are committed to a certain religious belief system (in my case it was Evangelical Christianity), you are not looking for ways to debunk it. You know it is true already and almost everything you see in the world is CONFIRMING evidence to you. You see answers to your prayers, you see and hear of miracles, you see how your worldview makes the most sense of the world compared to other worldviews. Sure, you know about other religions that have similar claims that yours does but you KNOW they are false. THOSE people are deceived but of course I know the one true God. And it seems so obvious too. Miracle stories in another religion sound like superstitious nonsense or wishful thinking, but they are anything but confirming evidence for this other religion. Miracle stories in My religion are solid evidence that it is true.
But then one day you look at things a little differently. You take a second look at your own beliefs from the perspective of someone who is OUTSIDE of your faith and it looks… well, different. This is what John Luftus calls the Outside Test for Faith and is a good exercise for anyone to do, even atheists.
Here is a quote from the article:
Gradually, scepticism of the claims made by one religion was joined by scepticism of all such claims. Incredulity that anybody thought an archangel dictated a book to Mohammed produced a strange contradiction. I found myself still clinging to belief in Christianity. I was trying to believe — though rarely arguing — ‘Well, your guy didn’t hear voices: but I know a man who did.’ This last, shortest and sharpest, phase pulled down the whole thing. In the end Mohammed made me an atheist.
You can read the whole thinghere or click on the link below
http://www.spectator.co.uk/the-magazine/features/3194231/studying-islam-has-made-me-an-atheist.thtml
Jeff
I love that the internet is full of so much information that 15 years ago, was only available to a very limited amount of people. This video is taken from academicearth.org which like The Teaching Company (teach12.com) has classes from prominent teachers and professors across the world that you can watch or listen to only academicearth.org is free. This video is of a class at Yale university which is an introduction to the Old Testament of the Bible. If you are interested in understanding more about the Bible as a literary book, this is a great video to watch. Some surprising things that you might learn is that the Old Testament is NOT:
1) The OT is NOT a Single Book with a single point of view but rather a collection of many different writings from divergent points of view that are often not in agreement.
2) The OT is NOT a pious tales about saints. They are full of real people who were good sometimes and horrible at other times. The humanness of the characters is evident through and through and some of the most famous are some of the worst in moral character.
3) The OT is NOT for children to read without parental editing. Yes, there are great narrative stories in the Old Testament, but many of those stories would be R rated if not NC-17 or X and care should be taken when letting children read it. Filter it as you would the internet.
4) The OT is NOT a theological text book but rather a series of varied literary genres which consist of narrative stories, histories, songs, poems, prophetic announcements.
5) The OT doesn’t claim to be authored by God, but is rather a collection of many different authors which was later compiled together into one volume.
Enjoy and take a look at some of the other videos at academicearth.org when you get a chance.
Misquoting Jesus:The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why by Bart Ehrman:
Misquoting Jesus:The Story Behind Who Changed the B... 2 comment(s) | by