tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2377914941549454200.post6473070298976055397..comments2023-07-02T09:06:16.665-07:00Comments on ADRIANS BLOG: Morals,Where Do They Come From?adrian2526http://www.blogger.com/profile/04314142401842891366noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2377914941549454200.post-56643737725330191752011-09-03T04:21:41.777-07:002011-09-03T04:21:41.777-07:00facebook
Hi Adrian,
Stuart Lindsell commented on ...facebook <br />Hi Adrian,<br />Stuart Lindsell commented on your note "Morals,Where Do They Come From?".<br />Stuart wrote "Hi Adrian, Thanks for your article which I have now read. My original response was to your provocative title – “there is no right or wrong”. I think your questions are really good ones on the issue of morality and conscience. Like you I believe in a Law giver – the creator God - and it always makes sense to follow the maker’s instructions. We ignore them to our peril. The Universe appears to be moral not solely physical. The fear of incurring God’s disapproval and judgement is perhaps secondary to the issue that society always reaps huge consequences when we forsake God’s good moral sense. Breaking God’s moral laws ends up with broken society. Judgment outworks itself in the present not just the future. My starting point for morality as a Christian is Jesus Christ who was not a moralist. He was a realist – he challenged us with realities – the way things are, the way God has made us. He summed up the Jewish moral code in his simple statement, which I paraphrase as, “love God and love your neighbour which means doing to others what you would like them to do to you”. E. Stanley Jones was a Methodist missionary who spent many years of his life in India. He used to say “the right thing morally is always the healthy thing physically – morality is not just written in the Bible – it is written in our blood, our nerves, our tissues, our bones, our organs, our relationships.” He then challenged people who rejected the Christian morality, which the apostle Paul called “fruits of the Spirit” to go and live for a week to its fullest extent the non-christian way “the works of the flesh” and see what happened. Of course everyone agreed it would lead to a disastrous and destructive breakdown in relationships. The only reason society is able to function as it does is because man made laws protect us from people who like parasites want to live off the reasonable behaviour of others. And if we are honest there is a parasite tendency in all of us – the Bible calls it sin. If we can get away with it then life becomes easier thanks to others of whom I am taking advantage. So for me the challenging question about morality is not whether we can have a moral code without God, because I think we clearly can. The problem is can we live by it? And the answer from human history tells us that we cannot, although Richard Dawkins appears to be the exception. Aldous Huxley, the grandson of Darwin’s famous ‘bulldog’ T.H.Huxley, in “Ends and means” confessed “I had motive for not wanting the world to have a meaning; consequently assumed that it had none, and was able without any difficulty to find satisfying reasons for this assumption. The philosopher who finds no meaning in the world is not concerned exclusively with a problem in pure metaphysics, he is also concerned to prove that there is no valid reason why he personally should not do as he wants to do, or why his friends should not seize political power and govern in the way that they find most advantageous to themselves. … For myself, the philosophy of meaninglessness was essentially an instrument of liberation, sexual and political.’ I respect Huxley’s acknowledgment of motives. Whether Richard Dawkins and other Atheists wish to acknowledge it or not a Universe without a day of accountability helps me to get around that uncomfortable conscience that tells me I am falling short of what I believe morally. I too have motives – I want to believe that there is day of accountability for al the world’s tyrants and perpetuators of evil and I also want to believe the Christian message that there is forgiveness for those who acknowledge that they have ignored the makers instructions and want to put right what was clearlyadrian2526https://www.blogger.com/profile/04314142401842891366noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2377914941549454200.post-20099133378874932382011-09-01T11:44:19.153-07:002011-09-01T11:44:19.153-07:00Stuart Lindsell
In some situations that might be ...Stuart Lindsell <br />In some situations that might be true - at least a very hard call.adrian2526https://www.blogger.com/profile/04314142401842891366noreply@blogger.com