quote:
The OT with its prescription of blood sacrifices, slavery, calls to arms with the offer of fresh virgins and booty, denigration and devaluation of women, etc. describe the mind of man and evolution of culture, not the mind of God in any such way.
I agree that the OT writings come from the mind of man and describe the evolution of culture, but since the character of God comes from the mind of man; what is the mind of God?
While I think we are on the same page as far as the reality of the Bible, I think we differ in our view of what the ancient Gods were. I think this excerpt from Schweitzer's 1936 article concerning "
The Ethics of Reverence for Life" closely follows along my lines of thinking.
When one has seen whole populations annihilated by sleeping sickness, as I have, one ceases to imagine that human life is nature’s goal. In fact, the Creative Force does not concern itself about preserving life. It simultaneously creates and destroys. Therefore, the will-to-live is not to be understood within the circle of Creative Force. Philosophy and religion have repeatedly sought the solution by this road; they have projected our will to perfection into nature at large, expecting to see its counterpart there. But in all honesty we must confess that to cling to such a belief is to delude ourselves.
quote:
For example, I can attempt to understand alien life; I can draw images, assume a characterization and envision alien native environments, but just because i attempt to understand does not mean that I come anywhere close and in all probability would be far from the mark.
Also just because one can envision alien life or environments, doesn't mean that aliens actually exist for us to understand. Mankind has a vivid imagination and many fictional characters exist only in our literature but have become part of our culture. In Job (fiction), Satan was a personification of the adversary. That doesn't make Satan a real being to understand outside of the story.
quote:
This is an absolute and reasonable ethical foundation. However it also unavoidably condemns the notion of blood sacrifice, slavery, and genocide as evil.
Albert Schweitzer's article on "
Reverence for Life" is very interesting although I'm not sure which version you pulled your excerpt from.
Albert Schweitzer writes:
Therefore, I see that evil is what annihilates, hampers, or hinders life. And this holds good whether I regard it physically or spiritually. Goodness, by the same token, is the saving or helping of life, the enabling of whatever life I can to attain its highest development.
In the 1936 article your excerpt is preceded by these words, which explains why he comes to conclusion you quoted.
What shall be my attitude toward this other life? It can only be of a piece with my attitude towards my own life. If I am a thinking being, I must regard other life than my own with equal reverence. For I shall know that it longs for fulness and development as deeply as I do myself.
Even Schweitzer acknowledged in this article that in reality at times we are forced to choose who or what lives.
True, in practice we are forced to choose. At times we have to decide arbitrarily which forms of life, and even which particular individuals, we shall save, and which we shall destroy. But the principle of reverence for life is none the less universal.
In this article Schweitzer differentiated between ordinary ethics and the absolute ethic of reverence for life.
Ordinary ethics seeks to find limits within the sphere of human life and relationships. But the absolute ethics of the will-to-live must reverence every form of life, seeking so far as possible to refrain from destroying any life, regardless of its particular type.
In this sense, reverence for life is an absolute ethic. It does not lay down specific rules for each possible situation. It simply tells us that we are responsible for the lives about us. It does not set either maximum or minimum limits to what we must do.
Schweitzer's definition of evil is based on what he deems an absolute ethic and by that definition we are evil even if we kill a fly or kill a flower by stepping on it. A tree is evil if it falls and kills a rodent.
So while all this thinking is fascinating, in reality mankind has to determine when death or destruction is necessary. So humans tend to consider wanton death or destruction evil.
Given what has been written in both of these articles which is pertaining to actual life, how does that absolute ethic apply to literature?
I write: The old cat in my basement died of starvation.
Although the statement now exists, no old cat died in my basement of starvation or anything else. So nothing unethical or evil actually happened.
Just as in the story of Job. It is a fictional story so no one died.
So what deems an entire work of literature evil?
Are characters within a work of literature to be judged good or evil by the context of the story and the intended audience?
I don't feel that literature would fall under Schweitzer's definition of evil. I feel he intends it to pertain to reality.
Edited by purpledawn, : Subtitle Change
"Peshat is what I say and derash is what you say." --Nehama Leibowitz
™ Version 4.2
