Simon Anders
Valued Senior Member
Would God ask you to do something morally regugnant? If yes, you have an interesting God. If no, who is it you are listening to and why do you believe their promises?
Would you do something morally repugnant in order to be saved?
- Thread starter greenberg
- Start date
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M*W: Don't mean to be off topic, but what does "samsara" mean? Thanks.
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M*W: I would never do anything I found to be repugnant, salvation or not. I would follow my own code of morals and deal with whatever may come of me. What I do in this life is the only existence I know for sure I have. Whatever may come of the next life is anybody's guess. I will always follow my own heart no matter what.
M*W: I would never do anything I found to be repugnant, salvation or not. I would follow my own code of morals and deal with whatever may come of me. What I do in this life is the only existence I know for sure I have. Whatever may come of the next life is anybody's guess. I will always follow my own heart no matter what.
Leo Volont
Registered Senior Member
People are REALLY Stupid!
Being Saved IS morally repugnant.
How is not the Automatic Rejection of Justice that is involved in procedurally dismissing all Sins... how can that NOT be Morally Repugnant?
As I have often said, the biggest Winner in this Doctrine of Forgiveness of Sins is Satan.
All other Religions must try to live up to their Moral Outlines. Catholicism has been blamed by the Protestants for trying to forget the Doctrine of Forgiveness and Salvation. After all, Catholicism had a Civilization to run. But once rid of Catholicism, then PURE Christianity -- those Doctrines of Forgiveness and Salvation brought us Slave Traders, Rum Runners, Pirates, Capitalists (before only Jews were allowed to live by Greed, but Forgiveness openned that Door for everybody).
Anyway, Salvation -- this Religious Justification for the Evasion of Moral Responsibility... its all nasty and putrid right on its very face. Every Christian needs to be ashamed of himself.
Then... How did this Salvation come about in the first place. By willfully murdering the Messiah. Kill Jesus, be Saved.
Everything about Salvation stinks like crap!
Being Saved IS morally repugnant.
How is not the Automatic Rejection of Justice that is involved in procedurally dismissing all Sins... how can that NOT be Morally Repugnant?
As I have often said, the biggest Winner in this Doctrine of Forgiveness of Sins is Satan.
All other Religions must try to live up to their Moral Outlines. Catholicism has been blamed by the Protestants for trying to forget the Doctrine of Forgiveness and Salvation. After all, Catholicism had a Civilization to run. But once rid of Catholicism, then PURE Christianity -- those Doctrines of Forgiveness and Salvation brought us Slave Traders, Rum Runners, Pirates, Capitalists (before only Jews were allowed to live by Greed, but Forgiveness openned that Door for everybody).
Anyway, Salvation -- this Religious Justification for the Evasion of Moral Responsibility... its all nasty and putrid right on its very face. Every Christian needs to be ashamed of himself.
Then... How did this Salvation come about in the first place. By willfully murdering the Messiah. Kill Jesus, be Saved.
Everything about Salvation stinks like crap!
Simon Anders
Valued Senior Member
Part of the scenario presented in the OP is that you do believe that you will be saved if you do something immoral. So the assumption is that you do believe in salvation. It is a hypothetical situation, which may or may not be easy to imagine oneself into, but it is not the situation you are answering.
I find all religious instruction repugnant, morally or otherwise. If I don't act in line now, then why should I for a specific instruction that supposedly saves me from Hell?
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M*W: What the hell are you talking about? I don't believe in anykind of salvation after death. I don't expect anykind of personal salvation after I die. The only personal salvation I will receive is what and how I will handle situations while I am alive. Salvation is a loose term. It doesn't mean eternal life after death. What it means to me is that I have reconciled what I choose to do when I am alive. There are no promises of life after death, but there are promises of personal satisfaction within one's life. I couldn't care less about any promises beyond that. I can only judge myself on my actions while I'm alive.
You are so totally misinformed and delusional.
The thing with morals and the thing with gods is that gods make morals - it is entirely whatever they say it is. Theists always excuse their own gods when they go against their very own moral laws. A god could come down and rape every woman on the planet and it would be a moral act because it is god that is doing it.
The thing is, with your general stranger I very well might but I do know that if it involved my children I would happily burn instead of worrying about my own skin. The question is, would this god send himself to hell to save you? The answer is seemingly no. I however would go willingly and happily to save my children but this god apparently wont. I am therefore morally superior to him.
The thing is, with your general stranger I very well might but I do know that if it involved my children I would happily burn instead of worrying about my own skin. The question is, would this god send himself to hell to save you? The answer is seemingly no. I however would go willingly and happily to save my children but this god apparently wont. I am therefore morally superior to him.
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Simon Anders
Valued Senior Member
I know that.
The OP is presenting a situation. In that situation you do believe there is salvation, but in order to be saved you have to do something find morally repugnant. You were not answering what you would do in this hypothetical scenario. Your answer is not a response to being in the kind of bind the OP is asking about. You are sure there is no salvation. There is no tension between your morality and self-interest. So your answer lacks any attempt to put yourself into the scenario.
No. I am referring you to the actual question. I can imagine someone with your beliefs saying that you cannot place yourself in that situation. But you responded as if you were answering the question. You were not.
It is like if you are asked if you had to choose between a free cruise, but there's a catch, you have to lie to a friend.
There's no free cruise, but we imagine it, we allow for a hypothetical situation and make our best guess what we would do if we were in it.
In this situation there is salvation.
I think it is perfectly reasonable on your part to say you can't answer it, but I was pointing out that you did not answer it, something you did not and still do not seem to realize.
Please keep your insults to yourself.
And by the way: if you don't know 'what the hell I am talking about' you cannot draw the conclusion I am totally misinformed and delusional.
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Not all theists are like that, of course. The scenario above applies mostly to the fire and brimstone version of Christians.
Are you sure you could be happy, if what was required to be happy would be morally repugnant to you?
What sort of heaven would that be, if you knew that in order to get there, youo had to do something you find morally repugnant?
But according to some people, this is not enough. Namely, they say that if you only formally do something, but do not align yourself accordingly, you still failed, and will go to hell.
It appears that what is actually expected is that you squish every notion that is contrary to some other notion of yours. Which is such a general recipe that it can lead both to enlightenment as well as to insanity.
Exactly. It is expected that one simultaneously trusts and distrusts oneself. This is a logical impossibility.
I agree.
I can relate to this.
I think this is possible, yes. Perhaps God, upon witnessing that Abraham was about to plunge the knife into his son's heart, God actually thought something like "Have you no moral conscience?! Do you just do every stupid thing ordered to you?!"
Perhaps the instruction to kill his son was not God testing Abraham's obedience, but his moral conscience.
In fact, I shall post this as a thread. I shall use your sentence as the cue.
It doesn't matter if God was testing Abraham, either way, it's a sick fucking test.
Simon Anders
Valued Senior Member
Yes, there are more consistant positions, some with more compassion then others, and some individual adherents with more compassion than others. I suppose my guess is that such a process can lead to 'enlightenment' and I have met a number of people who were supposedly in this state. What they seemed to be experiencing and how they were relating was not appealing to me AND
seemed to fit with descriptions of said 'state' in the literature. Many seems, but there is only so much I can do before I make, consciously or unconconsciously, decisions.
My point however was mainly that the pressure or injunction you are focusing on in this thread is handled with greater subtlety by some practitioners and 'experts'. These would not say that one should pressure oneself to do something that STILL seems morally repugnant. The time is not right. One can view this as compassionate, more subtle, more pernicious, more coherent, but at least it seems to indicate a God with some depth.
I am not, however, making the case that the processes they would suggest: more prayer, contemplation, text study, dialogue or whatever would be effective or is a path I like for myself. Not at all. Nor that this deeper God is an appealing one - I don't know the specifics of the issue in this thread. Perhaps I wouldn't find the act morally repugnant, for example.
Which is why many Christians, for example, find ways of denying any authoritative choice on their own part. The Bible said it.
But how did you know that you should trust the Bible, where did you get this amazing ability to intuit that this text is the right one?
God's grace Or something else. But what is evaded is the hubris involved. I am not saying hubris is necessarily bad, I actually think it is very hard to avoid. We will make choices. We will live as if this is true or that is true. Hubris. But to not acknowledge it as such, that is sneaky.
Or even, more sadly, trying to reach Abraham THROUGH an old image of God and what God would say
and not being able to.
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Simon Anders
Valued Senior Member
Agreed.
Simon Anders
Valued Senior Member
What if God demanded you commit a homosexual act? (which ought to be easier than Abraham's task)
Depends what it is maybe, maybe not. If it is something that involves harming innocent people or animals then no.
peace.
And then comes the inner Christian saying, "Yeah, take your time to figure things out, but know that you are risking eternal hell with every second you do not place full faith in Jesus."
Personally, the morally repugnant act I have in mind here is -
Primarily:
1. instantly accepting Jesus as one's savior,
2. vouching that he existed as a historical person,
3. accepting that everyone who doesn't accept Jesus as their savior will burn in hell for all eternity,
4. declaring that it indeed is an act of love for God to let his children burn in hell for all eternity if they don't accept Jesus as their savior,
5. instantly believing that one is sure to go to heaven once having done 1-4.
Secondarily:
1. instantly declaring that this one lifetime of about 70 years is all we have in these bodies,
2. instantly declaring that there is no such thing as karma or rebirth as known in Buddhism and Hinduism,
3. instantly declaring that an action done by another person has been intended with precisely the intent one projects,
4. instantly declaring that an action done by another person has been intended to bring about precisely the result that one perceives.
Basically, you have to assume and declare omniscience. And I find doing so to be morally repugnant.
A part of me thinks that Christian justifications like the one's you list above are actually the result of choice-supportive bias or hindsight bias, and not a description or explanation of what actually went on.
But how can I know for sure? I would like to know, of course, because I wish to avoid burning in hell for all eternity, and when Christians give me instruction on how to do that, I would like to follow that instruction. Yet it is an instruction that is impossible to act on deliberately, or it is an instruction that I find morally repugnant.
Simon Anders
Valued Senior Member
I wondered - really! - if you would think this, so I am glad you said this. This seems like another sticking point where one must resolve something: could a loving God want to rush us through something like this? What value is the panic-saturated response we make - gun to our head?
To me this cannot be resolved logically. In the abstract their 'could' be such a hostage taking and making deity. I think one can make a good case such a God is not good, which makes the religions that describe such a God vulnerable to severe questioning on all points if they can be confused on this one. But terror can always be prodded by the possibility that there is such a deity.
When is it all right to no longer allow a thought to torture us? I do think one can no longer give permission to such a thought to be present because phenomenologically I have found that I invite it in. But this can also be a question: is this possible? Further: is it smart or moral? Obviously I think 'yes'. But I do not think it is easy. I think the invitation has to be focused on and what made us think we needed to send it out.
Thanks. Do you have enough control to perform this act? Can you perform it intentionally?
I just feel very sad here. No because of the specific points, but because, I think, I am reminded that at times I think these religions were made precisely to box us in and weaken us. I tend to think Jesus was a real person and had some special knowledge, though I do not think he was infallible. But what was built up around him was built up precisely to keep us docile and impotent and half alive. I am beginning to think with greater confidence that a lot of things I have seen as misunderstandings or well meaning but damaged theories have actually be much more intentionally and consciously used to do us harm.
It is not a pleasant realization. On the other hand it feels freeing somehow. The issue is unresolved, but I do notice this trend and I think the sadness I felt there above, is connected to it.
Yes. And we have come upon this one a number of times together and separately.
The part in bold answers my earlier question.
It makes me think of the Problem - Reaction - Solution concept used by some 'conspiracy' theorists. That powers that be create a problem - without intervention you will burn in hell for all time/without giving up your rights terrorists will destroy your family - wait for the reaction which is often a cry for help - and then offer the solutions which involve a reduction of one's freedom, integrity, wholeness and so on.