Would you do something morally repugnant in order to be saved?
- Thread starter greenberg
- Start date
Although a another question would be:
if it was a religious instruction and therefore has been handed down from the year X society would be based around that instruction (as part of the set).
So having grown up in that society how would you decide it was morally repugnant?
if it was a religious instruction and therefore has been handed down from the year X society would be based around that instruction (as part of the set).
So having grown up in that society how would you decide it was morally repugnant?
Agreed, but to posit a complete group (i.e. Sciforummers...) doing so...
Or are we going to flatter ourselves that each and every one of us is THE exception to the rule?
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Hell, I'd do it just for fun.
Please look at the OP -
I couldn't put the full question into the thread title because it's too long for that.
Why not? Again, I am referring to your personal morality, not to "generally accepted societal moral norms".
Agreed, but to posit a complete group (i.e. Sciforummers...) doing so...
Or are we going to flatter ourselves that each and every one of us is THE exception to the rule?
I don't understand what you are getting at with this?
For example, I find it morally repugnant to worship a god who gives people one lifetime to "get it right", and if they don't, condemns them to burn in hell for all eternity.
But there are many people who do not find this morally repugnant, people who believe that in order to be saved from burning in hell for all eternity, one must worship such a god.
But why do people do that? Leaving aside indoctrination, and all the other reasons that make people take up a religion, and focusing only on this one case where people act against their personal morality and accept a religious instruction that they find morally repugnant -
(And I have some doubts as to whether those people will post in this thread ...)
What is it that could drive a person to act against their personal morality this way? What is it that makes the promise of salvation from samsara/eternal hell so appealing that people are willing to sacrifice their personal morality for it? Do they think that even if they will sacrifice their personal morality, they will still be able to be happy?
Simon Anders
Valued Senior Member
If the answer is 'yes' it says interesting, and in my opinion odd, things about God - or that which saves. In other words you have a deity who is concerned with form and not with our alignment with that form.
The question, which I do think is a good one, presupposes something very unresolved in the person in that quandry. They must believe that the one who saves likes or wants something morally repugnant to be done.
I think many believers evade this quandry by assuming that their own intution/analysis/judgment is wrong and they must submit to the interpretation of the deity or the deity's official interpreters.
But this also raises issues - that are often not faced. How can such a person trust themselves to choose the correct authority - to whose interpretations they will submit, interpretations relating to incredibly important things (such as committing what might be morally repugnant acts) - but cannot trust themselves when it comes to moral decisions and reactions.
The former is an incredible act of self-trust:
'I know for sure that this person or text is a good authority, better than the others that say different things.'
but then this person refuses to trust this same self when it comes to the morally repugnant act-reaction.
I would guess that some religious people, however much they hope you will stop reacting to this act that 'really' only seems morally repugnant would consider it important for you to 'get it' before committing the act. Others solely concerned with form and obedience would have no similar concerns.
I think the answer yes is to evade resolving something.
My answer is no. Not because of my above analysis, but because at some point I got angry at what was supposed to be good - my own confrontation with the problem of evil - and decided - because of termperment? because of
how other responses did not 'work'? both? - that I would not align with a 'bad' God or universe. I would not approve, since I don't approve. The little voice in the brain that said I should seemed vastly more ephemeral that my reactions. This does not mean I am right, and while there may be an element in this that I would consider brave, it (rather) seemed like a 'choice' I had to make. However self-contradictory that last bit seems.
Perhaps God was very disappointed in Abraham.
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