Morality Decreasing With Time?

'Love thy neighbor' and 'love thy enemy' are becoming the universal absolutes for morality.I see the problem arising in 'hate the sin, not the sinner'.In the effort to love the sinner in equality, we are ceasing to see the sin. We are in many cases declaring the sin not to be sin any longer. From a Christian perspective morality is indeed declining.The thing is, we Christians don't see it being a perspective. We see it as being asolute truth. If God has ordained the moral norms, and God is eternal and unchanging, the morals therefore must be unchanging and timeless. So, a blanket statement 'morality is in decline' is absolutely true. We don't see there being any such thing as Muslim morals, or christian morals, or societal morals, or any other subjective morals.Again, the problem appears to be in the interpretation of morals. All morality comes form God, but God has left the decision about what is moral somewhat up to us. The decription of what is moral is changing in our lifetime, as it has before. Therefore, to say that morals are declining-shifting-changing-is true, IMO.Christian absolutist morals are in decline...we just don't acknowledge the seperation between Christian absolute truth, and absolute truth. In our opinion there is none. So, hence the statement 'morals are in decline'?

Does God have morals?Brian.

In my opinion?What were the relevant actions?David found Bathsheba attractive -- presumably (I will assume that their affair was mutually consensual), Bathsheba was attracted to David. Nothing wrong with that.David and Bathsheba carried on an adulterous affair. Was that wrong? It's hard to say. Considering that Bathsheba was probably little more than property to Uriah, and the whole honor thing might have made things a bit dicey (look how David had to kill off Uriah to hide the affair), a secret affair was probably the only way at that time they could have acted on their mutual attraction.But then, when Bathsheba became pregnant and their affair was about to be discovered, instead of admitting to it, taking the consequences, and using his power to protect Bathsheba, he decides to kill off Uriah. That is pretty much wrong.This is just my opinion, being raised in 20th century North America.An interesting note: in the punishment for this sin, God allows David to choose to have a large number of his innocent subjects die in a plague. Pretty wrong there, too, so it appears that the author of the Ten Commandments doesn't exactly have the moral high ground either.

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Never believe anything in politics until it has been officially denied. -- Otto von Bismarck

I had a conversation with Jon about whether or not God has pride. I think this is along the same lines.God does not have morals, He is The Moral.God does not have ego, He is Ego.I am Who Am.Weird, huh?

So we should raise our standards to His standard?Brian.

That is the general idea behind religion, yes.Men are still confused at times about what His standards are.

why? what reason makes this so? can't god change the moral norms he ordained?you then contradict yourself with: this, then, means that moral norms can change. yet you claimed they were unchanging.make up your mind.

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But, if we take God's actions as reflecting His morality how can we conclude that God is nothing other than a bloodthirsty tyrant?Brian.

A contention, but one that no one has ever been able to defend here at EvC when examined.What makes man different from the other animals is our understanding that morality is not an absolute, but rather depends entirely on the particular characteristics of an incident.Morality is a matter of behavior, it is what we do and why we do it. It is not LAW. It is not Commandments. It is changing and relative, and this is what the Bible teaches us, what Jesus tried to teach us. Good has no meaning except in the context of a particular incident. What might be good in one case may well be bad in another. Inevitably it comes down to actions, and actions within a specific set of events that are related in both time and spatially to that action.The great Gift of the Garden of Eden story is that we receive the Knowledge of Good and Evil. That means in every situation we need to examine our actions, our behavior as it relates to that specific incident and try to make a judgment call.It is all relative.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

Well, I should rephrase it. God is the moral norm, and God can't change, so morals can't change.Men just don't know enough about God to know what is morally absolute, and our opinions change over time...WE change our minds, not God.

Relative to absolute truth, I think.Doing evil may be good, if it is done for a greater good which brings you closer to the absolute truth.Killing in relation to a lesser evil, is wrong.Killing in relation to a greater evil, is right.

If this was a science thread I would call you on this point. I would counter argue that enlightened self interest is a major driver of 'morality'. What works for the society, works.Morality is a fashion. If you tie a religion to a morality (as I contend you are doing) the religion may go down (fnar fnar) with with the fashion.However, the fact that xianity is still banging around despite a multitdue of cultural revolutions would indicate to me that religion is not the driver of morality.As it satands I would ask you to read some of Deuterononmy and Leviticus and come back to me about religion driving morality. I'm pretty sure I have given a reasonably convincing arguement that (sans religion) this assertion hold no water. Good is what people say it is. Okay, I'll bite, what exactly make you think this?

You mean from Old Testament stories? Just wanting more clarification.

What Absolute Truth?People keep throwing around such assertions but so far no one has been able to show what they are.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

And no one ever will. We are all just guessing.Scottness' best guess at absolute truth tells him that by those standards, morality is decreasing.Since his best guess is one which he believes to be more than a guess, then he is justified in saying that to him, morality is decreasing.It may not appear that way to anyone else.He believes that absolute truth which he has found applies to everyone whether they know it or not.And before I put more words in his mouth, I will shut up.