Citations of The Bible As Sources Of Morality

December 8, 2007, 12:19 AM

I see a lot of believers citing their holy books as a source of their morality, but this doesn't make sense.
(Again, I saw this on a YouTube video.)
Okay, so any Christians reading this, I want you to imagine for a minute that you're an Atheist, you have no belief in God whatsoever, you've been bought up that way, and you will probably never change.
Okay, so, you step outside of your house, and you see someone on the floor, bleeding to death. Remembering that you're an atheist, so you don't have these so called "Morals" that the Bible instills in people. What do you do?
Unless you're one sick and twisted fuck, chances are you'd try to help them, regardless of your religion.

Our basic morals, are instinctive, not religious. In nature, you very rarely see animals killing other animals of the same species, except for territory.
And the only other reason for animals to kill, is that of different species; food.

The point I'm trying to get across is that I believe that the Bible is not the source of morality it's made out as.

Opinions?

December 9, 2007, 1:15 AM

The Bible is basically a list of citations which have for purpose of upholding its religion, and as natural as religion is for mankind, said morality only applies for what defines the religion in the first place.

Most of its moral etiquette goes against human nature, and is literally impossible to uphold, while some of it, such as the Ten Commandments, are easily followed. It is not hard not to kill somebody, so with such a contrast, it's easy to believe that shit like chastity or natural regression would make sense. But it doesn't.

Ingenious they are, too have included the Ten Commandments as the first and foremost thing to know about Christianity.

On the other hand, morality is subjective to many different folks, depending on their upbringing, ethnicity and culture. So it's not really fair to say that The Bible lacks morality, if you can't define morality yourself.

As Christianity is popular, of course its ethics will be questioned, and while I personally don't believe it to fit my repertoire as to what passes off as morality, I certainly see The Bible as a physical testament to human nature-so it has to be some sort of legitimate matter. But, well that goes into another subject entirely...

December 9, 2007, 1:38 AM

I don't think Christians (like myself) should see the Bible as the source of morality but rather something we can look to if the morality of a decision isn't as clear as the example you gave.

December 9, 2007, 4:17 AM

And that brings up another point in itself-what the hell is morality?

If you have to seek another source's confirmation for your actions as moral, then this renders void what you perceive as moral.

Should one define their own morality, or stick to a tried tested and true concept? And even so, we can tell that Christianity's past lacks what most of us would naturally define morality to be in modern times.

December 9, 2007, 4:22 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Das Ende

And that brings up another point in itself-what the hell is morality?

If you have to seek another source's confirmation for your actions as moral, then this renders void what you perceive as moral.

Should one define their own morality, or stick to a tried tested and true concept? And even so, we can tell that Christianity's past lacks what most of us would naturally define morality to be in modern times.

Morality can be seen as the combination of personal instinct and social influence which have been developed by the contemporary discourse (note: I'm using Foucalt's definition of "discourse", not the common definition).

December 9, 2007, 6:29 AM

I guess. Makes sense for The Bible. But I don't get that personal instinct part. You mean such as, what we've conditioned to ourselves as derivatives of universal nature?