If this is your problem with the Bible, you are getting it all wrong. The Bible isn't a rule book taken literally, it is to get to know the Author of it. You're supposed to read each verse and take away something that somehow relates to your life. In a way, it is God speaking to you. When you ask a Christian what proof do they have of God without using some quote in the Bible, some will answer, "my life." It's all faith, bro. And listening to your inner Spirit.
As far as morality goes, as i would interpret it from the Bible: It is anything you know deep inside that is wrong and hurts your Spirit, anything that tunes out God's voice for you.
To me, there's God and there's religion. The former is a theory. The latter is real and provides a collective moral framework which is of immense value to society. You can create a collective moral framework without religion, but it's not easy to do, especially since religion has the advantage of hundreds if not thousands of years of tradition and history behind it. Faith and belief in society is still important even assuming that God does not exist.
Morality precedes religion, and always has. What is considered morally acceptable by Abrahamic faiths was merely a reflection of the standards of the time. We did not come to the conclusion that slavery is wrong, or that abusing animals was immoral, or that homosexuality should be accepted, or that women should be given equal rights through religion. We actually came to those conclusions, and most other conclusions on morality, despite religion. Obviously, when convenient, the religious will cherry-pick fractions of fractions of scripture to promote moral revolution they support, but by and large, the impetus comes from within us. Rational discourse, theory, philosophy, politics, law, these create our moral consensus. Religious moral code changes at our behest, not the other way around. The "framework" is best for creating community and promoting the moral standard, but the moral standard itself comes from within us.
That hundrends, thousands of years of tradition and history can be an immense dis-value to society. Luckily, religion "morals" changes with time.
I was trying to describe my problem with the debate, and the concept of objective morality brought up as proof of a god.... not the bible.
Kojirou is right when he makes this statement. Its important to realize that God did not send His Son Jesus here to form a religion; He came to establish a relationship. Christianity is not a religion and that is what makes Jesus different...everything else is a religion. Religion is a man-made attempt to somehow connect to "god." Religion is based on good works or "being good enough." The problem is that man wants to use his standard to measure how much is good enough and it doesnt work that way. God has a standard of perfection that only Jesus could accomplish. Theres no way any of us could ever follow the law to the letter without breaking it. My point is that religion is not of God. In fact, religion is what ended up killing Jesus. It wasnt the citizens of Israel who killed Him, it was the religious "holy ones" who demanded that He be killed. I think when you separate God from the idea of religion, you will begin to see that Christianity is different from everything else. Muhammad, buddah, confucius, mahavira, are all dead. Jesus is the only one who ever claimed to be God and make the claim that He is alive. I understand that in the end, it comes down to faith. If you take a closer look at Chrstianity, you will find that it offers one thing that "religion" does not; hope. Like I mentioned earlier religion says you have to be good enough. Christianity denounces religion and says there is hope because its not based on what you do; its based on what Jesus ALREADY DID for us on the cross. I think thats why theres such a debate and such confusion because "religion" is flawed like I stated above.
" Reality, God, divinity, truth, love are unknowable; that means they cannot be comprehended by the thinking mind. That would set at rest so many questions people have because we're always living under the illusion that we know. We don't. We cannot know. What is scripture, then? It's a hint, a clue, not a description. The fanaticism of one sincere believer who thinks he knows causes more evil than the united efforts of two hundred rogues. It's terrifying to see what sincere believers will do because they think they know. Wouldn't it be wonderful if we had a world where everybody said, "We don't know"? One big barrier dropped. Wouldn't that be marvelous? A man born blind comes to me and asks, "What is this thing called green"? How does one describe the color green to someone who was born blind? One uses analogies. So I say, "The color green is something like soft music". "Oh", he says, "like soft music". "Yes", I say, "soothing and soft music". So a second blind man comes to me and asks, "What is the color green"? I tell him it's something like soft satin, very soft and soothing to the touch. So the next day I notice that the two blind men are bashing each other over the head with bottles. One is saying, "It's soft like music"; the other is saying, "It's soft like satin". And on it goes. Neither of them knows what they're talking about, because if they did, they'd shut up. It's as bad as that. It's even worse, because one day, say, you give sight to this blind man, and he's sitting there in the garden and he's looking all around him, and you say to him, "Well, now you know what the color green is". And he answers, "That's true. I heard some of it this morning!" The fact is that you're surrounded by God and you don't see God, because you "know" about God. The final barrier to the vision of God is your God concept. You miss God because you think you know. That's the terrible thing about religion. That's what the gospels were saying, that religious people "knew", so they got rid of Jesus. The highest knowledge of God is to know God as unknowable. There is far too much God talk; the world is sick of it. "
Whose morality are we talking about? If you're referring to individual morality, what you or I believe to be moral, then you're certainly correct. But from a collective standpoint, it's more complicated. This is especially true when it comes to the transition when one seeks to transfer an individual moral belief ( ie. slavery is wrong) into a societal ideal where the collective believes that slavery is wrong. While religion certainly isn't necessary to do that, it is frequently a useful means. How often does the Left, for example, attack the religious right by arguing that Jesus's message was essentially socialist? Did not anti-slavery groups use the Bible to advocate against slavery, or half a century use it to advocate either for or against imperialism?
