Stamp out anti-science in US politics

[Neil]

3) Moral and Ethical knowledge improves over time just like knowledge of Physics and Geography and thus more modern works which either contemplate or are on Ethics and Morality are more relevant

[Viking]

3) Moral and Ethical knowledge improves over time just like knowledge of Physics and Geography and thus more modern works which either contemplate or are on Ethics and Morality are more relevant

BTW Naval technology and doctrine improves over time so... Dreadnaughts are obsolete.

[Razgovory]

3) Moral and Ethical knowledge improves over time just like knowledge of Physics and Geography and thus more modern works which either contemplate or are on Ethics and Morality are more relevant

I wonder what the ethics of the future will be like.

[Ed Anger]

I wonder what the ethics of the future will be like.

'futuristic'

[Neil]

BTW Naval technology and doctrine improves over time so... Dreadnaughts are obsolete.

The Dreadnaught was a tugboat, you goof.

[Oexmelin]

I think the reason you are confused is that I'm debating on two fronts against not a consistent view of nature, but rather a shifting ground fallacy which one moment argues that it is all in the interpretation and the next that the Bible is good and true. They also think I'm a dick for saying the Bible is a bad and immoral book, but they refuse to show that it is good and moral. 

Argh. I had a long answer, which I lost and lack the courage to retype it. Suffice to say: the reason I am confused is not because you are trying to argue in the alternative, but rather that the argument you trot out to fight the contradiction in the nature of the Bible lead you on wobbly hermeneutical grounds, which are unnecessary for your argument. One can be a atheist and find wisdom in the Bible; one can be an atheist and not subscribe to that bizarre evolutionary argument on the nature of ethics and morals; one can find knowledge, and things true, in works of fiction -- which can include the Bible if you are an atheist. In other words, I find your two fronts to be poorly chosen, leaving you open to many side arguments and counterpoints which can be, could be, easily made tangential.

[crazy canuck]

Your deeper meaning is ultimately what you brought with you to the passage. 

Indeed, for that is what interpretation is all about. By definition, one cannot interpret something from elements he can't fathom. Which doesn't mean that it is unchanging, nor that one only reads what one wants. One can certainly argue about the best fits - but one can never positively "prove" meaning.  Which is why I am puzzled by your positivist view of morals.

I am trying to to convince my debate partners here that

1) The Bible is not a source of knowledge itself (e.g. from God)
2) The Interpretation and Analysis of the Bible only serves as a buffet for you to pick and choose what supports your existing moral and ethical ideas
3) Moral and Ethical knowledge improves over time just like knowledge of Physics and Geography and thus more modern works which either contemplate or are on Ethics and Morality are more relevant

The reason you are confused is that the defense against these claims of mine shift from pre-modern to post-modern views of knowledge. At one time the Bible is a good book with good content and should be used as a source of morals, it then being shown that the Bible has obvious immoral claims then the defense is that it is all a matter of interpretation.

My argument against the Good and True Bible is that it is neither good nor true by showing evil and untruth in the Bible.
My argument against the Liberal Interpretative Bible is that in that case Religion is irrelevant and Mark Twain and Charles Dickens are better sources of Morality and Ethics.

I think the reason you are confused is that I'm debating on two fronts against not a consistent view of nature, but rather a shifting ground fallacy which one moment argues that it is all in the interpretation and the next that the Bible is good and true. They also think I'm a dick for saying the Bible is a bad and immoral book, but they refuse to show that it is good and moral.

You are ghost fighting then.

1) The Bible need not be the word of God to have valuable lessons.  Neither BB nor Raz have put forward a literalist interpretation that requires it be so btw.  You are the only one here that does insist on a literal interpretation and you seem to be unable to comprehend how it might be interpreted differently and so you seem blind to the arguments BB and Raz are making.

2) How is that any different from any other great work of literature or art.  As I said before, the fact that there can be many interpretations does not make the text devoid of meaning but rather the opposite.

3) I am not sure where to start here and will leave it to Oex since this is much more his field than mine.  But suggesting that the Bible, Socrates, Plato or any number of other ancient sources are no longer relevant to our understanding of ethics and morals strikes me as odd in the extreme.  I think you come to this view because you seem to misunderstand the nature of the ethics and morals much of the Bible teaches.  Just to be clear, one does not need to count themselves a Christian to understand the Bible has valuable moral lessons to teach.  There are some lessons - like the Golden Rule that will always be important to civil society.

[Viking]

Argh. I had a long answer, which I lost and lack the courage to retype it. Suffice to say: the reason I am confused is not because you are trying to argue in the alternative, but rather that the argument you trot out to fight the contradiction in the nature of the Bible lead you on wobbly hermeneutical grounds, which are unnecessary for your argument. One can be a atheist and find wisdom in the Bible; one can be an atheist and not subscribe to that bizarre evolutionary argument on the nature of ethics and morals; one can find knowledge, and things true, in works of fiction -- which can include the Bible if you are an atheist. In other words, I find your two fronts to be poorly chosen, leaving you open to many side arguments and counterpoints which can be, could be, easily made tangential.

I would have like to see the long answer. You know what hermeneutics and positivism is and you use both words correctly in the sentences you use.

At this point I am not arguing for Atheism. Atheism is also not a required step in my argument (though the strictly material god that my argument allows is rather uninteresting), though it helps. I'm arguing that the Bible is a bad book with bad morals. When making that case accepting that the Bible can be a source of wisdom is something the other side needs to make me do.

As for my chosen fronts, Hier stehe Ich, Ich kann nicht anders. (Here I stand, I can do nothing else.) I'm arguing my conviction, not trying to find a non-defeatable position to hold.

[Martinus]

I agree with Viking - the main problem with Bible is not that it is not a word of God - but that it is a book presenting a worldview that is not only alien and out of sync with modern morality - but often it is outright immoral, even if you compare it to some of the contemporary ethics, such as those developed by the Greeks.

The Old Testament is particularly bad at this - it is a book which glorifies murder, rape, betrayal and arbitrary barbaric laws. The New Testament is a little better, but not if you consider the letters, which are equally filled with prejudice.

All the valuable lessons of the Bible (mainly confined to the gospels) can (and could, at the time they were written) be already found elsewhere. And they are standing side by side with a lot of disgusting crap produced by a rather primitive culture.

In short, arguing that the Bible is a valuable source of moral lessons is a bit like arguing that Galen's books are a valuable source of lessons about medicine. Sure, he got some of his more basic stuff right (the equivalent of the "Golden Rule" which is one of the basic tenets of most modern ethical systems - but at the same time was neither invented by "Jesus" nor it is accepted without additional qualifications or refinements anymore - so again you can find it better elsewhere), but other things he got horribly wrong. There are now many better, more accurate books about medicine. You could read his books for entertainment or if you are interested in history of medicine - but no modern medical professional needs to read his books to be good at what he does (and in fact, if he started his medical education from Galen's books - not to mention if he only read Galen's books for his medical education - he could be very very bad at what he does) - they are obsolete.

[Martinus]

3) I am not sure where to start here and will leave it to Oex since this is much more his field than mine.  But suggesting that the Bible, Socrates, Plato or any number of other ancient sources are no longer relevant to our understanding of ethics and morals strikes me as odd in the extreme.  I think you come to this view because you seem to misunderstand the nature of the ethics and morals much of the Bible teaches.  Just to be clear, one does not need to count themselves a Christian to understand the Bible has valuable moral lessons to teach.  There are some lessons - like the Golden Rule that will always be important to civil society.

Unlike most Bible supporters, those who study Socrates and Plato do not claim they were divinely inspired. And to my knowledge no modern philosopher or ethicist embraces them as a primary material or a source of his or her system.

Btw, when you say "Bible" do you really mean "Gospels" or are you saying that the Old Testament (e.g. Leviticus, or the history of the conquest of Canaan) teach us a "valuable moral lesson"?

[Viking]

You are ghost fighting then.

1) The Bible need not be the word of God to have valuable lessons.  Neither BB nor Raz have put forward a literalist interpretation that requires it be so btw.  You are the only one here that does insist on a literal interpretation and you seem to be unable to comprehend how it might be interpreted differently and so you seem blind to the arguments BB and Raz are making.

Now, if that were really the case (that nobody is suggesting the bible is anything special) then why can't any of you accept that some of what the bible teaches is monstrous and that there exists other literature which can be morally instructive without including monstrous bits?

2) How is that any different from any other great work of literature or art.  As I said before, the fact that there can be many interpretations does not make the text devoid of meaning but rather the opposite.

It's no different, yet it gets treated differently. The fact that there are many interpretations means that it cannot be a source of knowledge in itself. In that case ANY book is a source of meaning. Anything from Porn to Poetry can be infused with meaning.

3) I am not sure where to start here and will leave it to Oex since this is much more his field than mine.  But suggesting that the Bible, Socrates, Plato or any number of other ancient sources are no longer relevant to our understanding of ethics and morals strikes me as odd in the extreme.  I think you come to this view because you seem to misunderstand the nature of the ethics and morals much of the Bible teaches.  Just to be clear, one does not need to count themselves a Christian to understand the Bible has valuable moral lessons to teach.  There are some lessons - like the Golden Rule that will always be important to civil society.

Pretending that me arguing that Plato and Aristotle are no longer the best sources to go to for moral knowledge means that they are no longer relevant is not true. But, they are to modern philosophy what Newton is to physics and Darwin is to biology, the guys who got the ball rolling and had the first good ideas. It is a bit of a slight to Kant, Hume, Locke, Voltaire etc. imho.

You do make my point with your reference to The Golden Rule. Both Confucius and Rabbi Hillel (plus various Greeks) defined the Golden Rule in their writings hundreds of years before Mary and Joseph had their per-marital romp in the hey.

But, since you do open for this, what from Plato or Socrates or Aristotle has remained cutting edge for all these years? And more importantly, if we are to use them how do we separate their bunk (plato's forms, aristotle's ethics) form the more useful stuff? We rely on more modern work to sift that. The bible, as is, does not undergo such a process.

[Martinus]

3) Moral and Ethical knowledge improves over time just like knowledge of Physics and Geography and thus more modern works which either contemplate or are on Ethics and Morality are more relevant

I wonder what the ethics of the future will be like.

I don't think it is that hard to predict. If there is one consistent trend in the history of ethics and its development, it's the extending definition of "us", "tribe" or "community" (which is accompanied by affording the rights "we" have - and personhood - to more individuals).

If this trend continues, stuff like veganism or "great apes' rights movement" is probably the relatively near future of human ethics.

[Razgovory]

3) Moral and Ethical knowledge improves over time just like knowledge of Physics and Geography and thus more modern works which either contemplate or are on Ethics and Morality are more relevant

I wonder what the ethics of the future will be like.

I don't think it is that hard to predict. If there is one consistent trend in the history of ethics and its development, it's the extending definition of "us", "tribe" or "community" (which is accompanied by affording the rights "we" have - and personhood - to more individuals).

If this trend continues, stuff like veganism or "great apes' rights movement" is probably the relatively near future of human ethics.

How long do you think this "trend" has been going on?

[Martinus]

Since the creation of civilization.

It started with a family, then moved into a tribe, then into a state, a nation, a religion ("There will be no Greek nor Jew" - Christianity played a significant role here - the concept of "Christendom" is also an example of this trend), then a race/"civilization", then the humanity as a whole. Now we are starting to coopt other beings capable of feeling pain, emotion etc.

[Razgovory]

Since the creation of civilization.

It started with a family, then moved into a tribe, then into a state, a nation, a religion ("There will be no Greek nor Jew" - Christianity played a significant role here - the concept of "Christendom" is also an example of this trend), then a race/"civilization", then the humanity as a whole. Now we are starting to coopt other beings capable of feeling pain, emotion etc.

Nonsense.  The 20th century is full of examples of the narrowing of "us".  It fluctuates, it doesn't steadily move in one direction.  Even your examples demonstrate this.  "State, nation, and religion, race/civilization" aren't an example of increasing size of accepted groups.