Jesus the ritual sacrifice


Hi, radarmark.

My view is that both are right. But limited.
They each have one thing in common. They each define "morality" as a "code of conduct."
A "group" code.

(To me, actual morality is something other than a "code of conduct." Morality exists solely between two persons. It is shaped entirely by the nature and details of their here-and-now interaction. Morality is not a group mandate.)

1. "Descriptive morality" is not "morality" at all, but (in fact) a "system of values."
2. "Normative morality" is not "morality" either, but is (instead) an "ethical system."

[post=279224]--Jane-Q.[/post]

---------------------------------

I do not even agree with Jane Q's most basic ideas (all morality is either descriptive or normative and there is no in-between).

[post=279360]--radarmark.[/post]​


Come again? . . . :confused:


Jane.

----------------------------------

(Did you need cheat-notes for my second thought-experiment?:

1. wilderness called swamp-desert {tribal values}
2. platform called civilization {public ethics}
3. forcefield called the modern person {situational morality}​

Or are you just not into "thought experiments"?
Zhuangzi, it seems, wrote one thought experiment after another. Here is the conclusion to one of them:

The Tao is hidden by partial understanding.
The meaning of words is hidden by flowery rhetoric.
This is the cause of the dissension between Confucians and Mohists.
What one says is wrong, the other says is right;
and what one says is right, the other says is wrong.
If the one is right while the other is wrong, and the other is right while the one is wrong,
then the best thing to do is look beyond right and wrong.
--Inner Chapters: Chapter Two.​

Thought for the day: not daatsi but correctly contextualizing then "looking beyond" . . . ? --J.)

 

Hi, Dream.

My argument is simple:

There is no "God of Mercy" in Leviticus.
If you want to find "mercy," you have to look elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible.​

I once heard the Quran described as "Leviticus on steroids."
This is not entirely unfair. Because the Quran too consists mostly of Arab tribal customs promoted to the status of "law." Plus some choice favored bits from actual urban law codes mixed in, law codes of regional vassals or of their masters, the larger Greco-Roman or Persian political administration.

What is unfair in this description of the Quran is that the Quran goes further than Leviticus:
The disputation between competing interests which hammered out the actual Quran? Most of its anonymous key players believed that the Divine was a "God of Mercy." Wherever this vision of the Divine came from, within their community, from prophets similar to Hosea or teachers similar to Hillel or Chasidim similar to Jesus, this principle of a "merciful God" became a given within the text of the Quran.

Leviticus in its own day? (700s BCE.) No!
a. Mostly tribal values (customs masquerading as Law).
b. Some civil law (multicultural ethics necessary for running a civilization).
Mercy is entirely absent or irrelevant.

Tribal law has this character to it:

An honorable man does not commit adultery.
If he discovers adultery, he brings it to the attention of the community.
If a council of honorable men find the charges warranted, the two parties to the adultery will be executed.​

There are exceptions, meant to protect the innocent. But the solidarity of the community is foremost. Ridding it of "bad seeds" is as necessary as pruning a fruit tree, to make the community more fruitful in years to come. Of course, back in more "primitive" times when the community was smaller (and women had an equal voice in communal decision-making), the punishment for adultery would have been "banishment" from the tribal-band, not death. Sending into the wilderness one, but not necessarily both parties to the adultery. (This is how most Native-American tribes on the Great Plains handled adultery.) Banishment from the community might well mean a death sentence, practically speaking, being sent out alone into a harsh environment.

Civil law, by contrast, has this character to it:

A just man deals evenhandedly with every man he meets in public. (No matter what he thinks in private about this person or about this person's tribe or race.)
A just man will cut a poor man or a foreigner some slack.
Not because they deserve it. Rather, because it helps keep civic order. And generosity is a spur to future general prosperity. Which will only help a just man (and his sons) eventually get richer than the family already is.
Good civil law builds trading relationships.​

Dream. The Leviticus law codes which you quote (Leviticus 19:33 & 23:22) were not new to Jewish Monotheism in Hezekiah's time. And they were not about "mercy."
Indeed these ancient civic law codes are far older than when Moses supposedly lived. They came from Mesopotamia or Egypt or Hatti or beyond. These laws were adopted by the Israelites because they were good public policy. Period. The scent of "altruism" just sweetens these laws for public consumption. And adds pressure to miserly landowners to "do the right thing." The just thing. Helping some people economically, helps the whole economy. And rural economies can be extremely fragile. The rich looking out for Number-One has ruined many economies under climate-induced or over-population-induced duress. Follow a public policy which demonstrably works!

Case in point:
Leviticus 25: "Debt-forgiveness." This is not unique to the Israelite people:

Hammurabi (the Semitic king of ancient Babylon 38 centuries ago) enforced a "sabbath year," i.e. every seven years, and a "jubilee year," i.e. every half-century:
All debts (except foreign trade-debts) were forgiven, throughout the citystate (and empire). All bond-servants were given their freedom (bond servants were citizens sold as semi-slaves in order to work-off their debts).​

Debt-forgiveness (and the freeing of "slaves")?
Did Hammurabi do this out of "mercy"?
Hell, no!
Debt-forgiveness was a long-practiced trick to revive laggard economies.
One of the earliest citystates in ancient Sumer, Lagash of 4400 years ago, appears to have practiced debt-forgiveness. Ancient, ancient idea! Debt-forgiveness was an invention of civilization like the clay-pot or the wheel. So was leaving some of your grain, along roadsides, unharvested. Or being kind to a traveler, a person who might (or whose nephew might) bless your family by becoming a trading partner with you, some day.
(Zeus, high god of the Greeks, was described as "friend to travelers." He guaranteed "safe passage" of all foreigners, typically merchants, traveling throughout Greek lands. Was Zeus a god of Mercy, Dream?)

All this is not about mercy. It is about correct public behavior, aimed at success. At prosperity for all. (A strong tide which rises all boats.)

"Impersonal," Dream?
Yes!
(That's why good public laws work.)

So where do you find mercy?

Actual "morality" has zero to do with "law" (tribal or civic).
Mercy should be the tip-off. When you witness actual mercy at work (within others or inside yourself), you are in the presence of the only genuine form of morality.
An intensely personalized (acutely person-to-person) way of feeling/behaving.
It is situation-specific.​

Morality is not about tribal honor (community solidarity).
Morality is not about public justice (peace, good order, and general prosperity).

Morality is not about "Law." Not about "one size fits all." Not about a "code of conduct" of any kind.
(Morality is not a behavioral "in this situation you must..." mental rulebook.)
Thus genuine morality is never at home in Leviticus.

Only when mercy is present (hesed, "steadfast love") can there be any flicker of genuine morality present.


Jane.

 
Jane-Q said:
My argument is simple:
Click to expand...
Jane-Q said:
There is no "God of Mercy" in Leviticus.
If you want to find "mercy," you have to look elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible.​
Click to expand...
We need not presume the existence of God to discuss the ritual sacrifice of Jesus, but I think you are merely denying that God could be merciful and also that laws can be founded upon mercy. It is a one-sided approach to History to begin with that as an axiom. If true then of course the laws in the Torah cannot be moral as you have concluded, by virtue that they are laws. I cannot see your reason for believing this.

I once heard the Quran described as "Leviticus on steroids."
This is not entirely unfair. Because the Quran too consists mostly of Arab tribal customs promoted to the status of "law." Plus some choice favored bits from actual urban law codes mixed in, law codes of regional vassals or of their masters, the larger Greco-Roman or Persian political administration.
Click to expand...
The law contains some old tribal customs, but this does not eliminate goodness from their intent. People are mammals and like all mammals we can be compassionate without any return favors, and this is a part of our DNA. I could impose that it is impossible for any set of highly successful laws to contain no trace of mercy since they are human in nature. Our own nature forces them to be merciful. I'm only going to impose that the existence of tribal customs and the development of laws does not exclude mercy.

What is unfair in this description of the Quran is that the Quran goes further than Leviticus:
The disputation between competing interests which hammered out the actual Quran? Most of its anonymous key players believed that the Divine was a "God of Mercy." Wherever this vision of the Divine came from, within their community, from prophets similar to Hosea or teachers similar to Hillel or Chasidim similar to Jesus, this principle of a "merciful God" became a given within the text of the Quran.
Click to expand...
While your thoughts about Quran may have shaped your view of tribal customs it is a book that is outside the scope of our conversation. It is not a set of laws with a tradition built around them. We are talking about two very different things.

Tribal law has this character to it:
An honorable man does not commit adultery.
If he discovers adultery, he brings it to the attention of the community.
If a council of honorable men find the charges warranted, the two parties to the adultery will be executed.​
There are exceptions, meant to protect the innocent. But the solidarity of the community is foremost. Ridding it of "bad seeds" is as necessary as pruning a fruit tree, to make the community more fruitful in years to come.
Click to expand...
You have modeled tribal law this way, but I cannot apply it to Leviticus. Leviticus may have miraculous war stories in it but the laws themselves preserve and naturalize weak members. There are no laws for culling the weak in Leviticus but rather the opposite: to place the burden of their existence upon the society. Show me otherwise if you can. So far you have merely been able to cast the aspersion by implying that laws are innately impersonal and that tribal customs must be harsh. Leviticus does not seem to remember these attributes. I cannot seem to find where it says to 'Get rid of bad seeds'. Are you referring again to the miraculous history that you don't believe ever really happened?

Dream. The Leviticus law codes which you quote (Leviticus 19:33 & 23:22) were not new to Jewish Monotheism in Hezekiah's time. And they were not about "mercy."
Indeed these ancient civic law codes are far older than when Moses supposedly lived. They came from Mesopotamia or Egypt or Hatti or beyond. These laws were adopted by the Israelites because they were good public policy. Period. The scent of "altruism" just sweetens these laws for public consumption.
Click to expand...
So in order for the laws to be moral the Israelites would have to have invented them from scratch? The adoption of a good law seems like a good idea to me, and it incidentally does go with the idea of evolution. Good laws would be the fittest species while 'Bad' laws could be the weak species.
And adds pressure to miserly landowners to "do the right thing." The just thing. Helping some people economically, helps the whole economy. And rural economies can be extremely fragile. The rich looking out for Number-One has ruined many economies under climate-induced or over-population-induced duress. Follow a public policy which demonstrably works!
Click to expand...
Ok, but now you are arguing philosophy not history. People are innately compassionate, some more than others. The morality of laws would not work otherwise. Therefore good laws are good and bad laws are bad. People judge themselves and their countries by how just their governments and laws are. Whether this is due to evolution or what have you, the laws are still considered moral or immoral. Therefore it is not unreasonable to allow for moral laws in Leviticus, compassionate laws. The laws in Leviticus unlock the compassion in the people in other words.

Did Hammurabi do this out of "mercy"?
Hell, no!
Debt-forgiveness was a long-practiced trick to revive laggard economies.
Click to expand...
Again this is a philosophical question. The law worked, because people are moral and compassionate in nature. An immoral creature would have revolted against such a law not seeing the sense of it. Whether Hammurabi meant it for good is beside the point that the law was moral.

So where do you find mercy?
Actual "morality" has zero to do with "law" (tribal or civic).
Mercy should be the tip-off. When you witness actual mercy at work (within others or inside yourself), you are in the presence of the only genuine form of morality.
An intensely personalized (acutely person-to-person) way of feeling/behaving.
It is situation-specific.​
Morality is not about tribal honor (community solidarity).
Morality is not about public justice (peace, good order, and general prosperity).

Morality is not about "Law." Not about "one size fits all." Not about a "code of conduct" of any kind.
(Morality is not a behavioral "in this situation you must..." mental rulebook.)
Thus genuine morality is never at home in Leviticus.

Only when mercy is present (hesed, "steadfast love") can there be any flicker of genuine morality present.
Click to expand...
Circling back to our conversation about authors like P & Q: A person is moral and compassionate under the right circumstances. Leviticus is about creating those circumstances. It may contain tribal customs and ideas from Hammurabi, from Egypt or from anywhere. Reading it as a system of laws as-is, it is a system that depends upon compassion in the populace, encourages compassion and mercy. I have to conclude it is moral. I will admit that it is more likely that evolution was involved than I had been thinking, but I still do not see why I must conclude that there were authors P & Q etc. It still appears that the stories are too integrated and produce something unique by their duplication -- an acceptance of diversity. I can see reasons to have multiple versions of the various stories, so they could have all been written by one group.
 
QUOTE=Jane-Q;279224]
Hi, radarmark.

I have an observation from moral philosophy for you.
Plus two "thought experiments."

My best recollection from college days is that, in arguing "moral philosophy," there are two major positions (plus innumerable variations).
1. Descriptive Morality. Every culture has its own moral code, its own prejudices and presuppositions about human nature. Each culture's customary beliefs are just as valid as any other's. Anthropologists like this definition because it is unjudgmental and tolerant toward what in the present-day might seem politically-incorrect behavior (like "cannibalism" or "female genital circumcision").

2. Normative Morality. This moral code (supposedly) transcends culture. Differences between cultures are seen as temporary. There is just "one" human nature, and thus ultimately one universal code of morality which everyone is working toward. Apologists for large and powerful civilizations are attracted to this definition because it appears fair and unbiased (not just an excuse for the powerful to impose their will upon the less powerful).
There is no ground in-between these two positions. In this debate, one viewpoint must be right and the other viewpoint wrong. But which is which?

My view is that both are right. But limited.
They each have one thing in common. They each define "morality" as a "code of conduct."
A "group" code.
(To me, actual morality is something other than a "code of conduct." Morality exists solely between two persons. It is shaped entirely by the nature and details of their here-and-now interaction. Morality is not a group mandate.)
1. "Descriptive morality" is not "morality" at all, but (in fact) a "system of values."
2. "Normative morality" is not "morality" either, but is (instead) an "ethical system."
"Values" are cultural, custom-bound, tribal. Family values, clan values.
"Ethics" refers to public behavior. Correct civic behavior, civilized behavior.

"Values" existed before cities came into existence. (It was the clan which promoted honorable "tribal" conduct, based upon an ancestral value-system.)
"Ethics" did not exist until there were cities. (It was citystates that promoted and enforced "civilized" ethical conduct, based on notions of fairness to all citizens.) [/QUOTE]

Let me make this real clear, I do not accept your definitions. At the most basic level is the axiology of good-bad, right-wrong, etc. What one chooses to value is a function of many things (from the lowest rung of “kill or be killed” to the ultimately individual and species defeating rung of “Perfecti-Parfaits-Perfects”). I am, of course referring to the "Perfect Heresy" of (for example) the Cathars for whom any violence or sexuality (even a chast kiss) or flesh-eating (or lieing, cheating, stealing, being mad, hating) would lead to their be-birth.

Ethics is the study of the nature of value (as “speculative philosophy” is the “endeavor to frame a coherent, logical, necessary system of general ideas in terms of which every element of our experience can be interpreted” per Whitehead) to frame a set of coherent, logical, necessary ideas to govern our own behavior and character.

Morality is some externally provided or mandated (cultural, religious or social) governance of behavior and character (useless, in my opinion, being merely “what the majority then and there happen to like and immorality is what they dislike”--Whitehead again). And as such all four kinds of questions of right-wrong (axiology, values, ethics, and moralities) have existed for mankind since we first stood upright (and likely, before that).

Yes, this is very hard core “value ethics” or normative ethics. The description of likes and dislikes (philosophical, sociological, psychological, and physiological) is only remotely related to axiology, values, and ethics (I would call it “meta-morality”). So I reject your premises.
 
Jane-Q said:
Short thought-experiment:
In golden-age Athens, city management shifted from citizen to citizen by lot.
radarmark, you are a member of the powerful Amalgi clan. But you are also a citizen of Athens, in good standing.
Your number has come up. You find yourself to be the key vote at a critical make-or-break moment in the citystate's history.
If you vote no, it will produce great social and economic benefit to the Amalgi clan.
If you vote yes, it will produce great social and economic benefit to the people of Athens, taken as a whole.
Which way do you vote?
Do you serve the interests of your clan? Or do you serve the interests of your citystate?
radarmark . . . how?

Do you answer to tribal values? Or to civilized ethics?
I think most people today would answer the latter. (If only because they are "supposed to." Though real-world pressures sometimes subvert that ideal.)
In most people's mind, bipartisan "ethics" ranks higher than partisan "values."
Click to expand...

Easy, one "goes beyond" one's family, one's tribe, one's city-state, one's nation, one's species as one progresses (see Rosenzweig and Kazantzakis).

I as I now would choose neither. I as was I then would choose the state over the clan.
 
Jane-Q said:
Long thought-experiment:
In the beginning was a swamp-desert called Eden.

This swamp-desert stretched beyond the horizon. For generations, all the land would be flooded. Then a sudden shift in climate and for generations the land would be parched, almost too hot to walk on.
Few people survived. But some clans, in the swamp years, developed boats and developed customs which helped them to survive pretty well in the swamp environment. But most of these innovators died out during the desert years. But other clans developed tools and value-systems which helped them to adequately survive in the desert. But most of these clans died out during the swampy years.

But there were surviving clans, sporadically located all over the map of Eden. Eventually, many of these surviving clans began to look skyward. Using wood and rock and woven vines and molded clay, each clan (without knowledge of others) began building pillars up from the land, far above the level of the swamp-water or heat of the desert floor. And they built a clay or wood platform atop these pillars, and lived there. And over many generations, each clan spread their platform laterally until it connected with other clans' platforms. And they called these interconnected platforms "Civilization" and developed laws and ethical systems about how different clans should interact with each other.

After many many generations, most of the platforms on the east side of the horizon had connected up with each other. The only other large platforms were beyond view to the west. The platform was far more comfortable than the swamp-desert below them, but many people began looking skyward once again. Wanting, not so much a "better" existence, than a "different" existence.
And these thoughts and desires created an energy forcefield well above the platform. This forcefield was even sturdier than the wood and clay platform. But it was only half-visible, and it looked unreal. It wavered from the light off the swamp or off the desert floor. And most people thought that what they were seeing was a water-reflection or a heat-mirage.

A handful of ladders headed up to this forcefield, far overhead. These ladders were barely visible. They, likewise wavered.
But some brave souls would test this ladder or that ladder.

On the China Platform, Kongzi put his right foot up upon the ladder's first rung, but he did not lift his other foot. Mozi lifted his left foot and put it upon the first rung, but he too did not lift his other foot. Laozi would put one foot up, take it down and put the other one up. But he did not entirely leave the solid platform behind, either. They each loved Civilization too much. Only Zhuangzi lifted one foot up to the first rung, then lifted his other foot to the second rung. Leaving the solid platform, leaving Civilization entirely behind.

On the Greek platform, Plato would lift his back foot up onto the first rung of the ladder. Aristotle would lift his front foot up. But neither would lift their remaining foot up to the second rung. They too stayed grounded, they too loved Civilization too much. Only Socrates hoisted himself entirely, first one foot then the other, entirely off the solid platform.
In Palestine, many of the Hebrew prophets stepped to the first rung. However, their back foot never left the platform.
St. Paul's did, though. Both feet. And Augustine after him. Followed by more and more individuals in Western Christendom, as the centuries passed. And they continued to climb rungs of the ladder, until many began to walk atop this forcefield high above Civilization.
Click to expand...


This does not pass the sanity check. First, there is no real thought experiment here. Second, Kongzi, Mozi, Laozi, and Zhuangzi do not play by your rules. It is not as easy as your Western Mind would have. Ditto with Socrates, Plato, Aristotle (and all the other important philosophers you leave out).

It is the individual who makes progress. It is the individual who crawls out of the muck and mire of hideously mistaken Western Philosophy, not some leader.

The issue is not great men or great ideas. The issue is who has raised themselves above the rising tide of simple materialism.
 
Jane-Q said:
What about Jesus of Galilee? What about Siddhartha Gautama?
(Needs more investigation.)
They may have made it all the way to the top. They may have made it no farther than one foot up on the ladder's first rung.

But most of us in the modern world now do spend some portion of our time atop this forcefield.
It is different than the platform. More abstract. But just another step up, in human development.
It is frequently complicated and nonlinear, way up there.
However, there is nothing mystical about it at all, nowadays. Pretty ordinary, actually. (Now that we each spend much of our days there.)

I am not certain that the creation of the Western notion of self is praiseworthy or of any ultimate value.
--radarmark.

Maybe. Or maybe not.
But it is what it is.
The western sense of self pointed us upward, to something other than "more Civilization."

The real question for me, radarmark, is what's next?


Jane.

Click to expand...


What about them? Or the Jains or the Cathari?

No real issue here. "More investigation" is not required. All that is required is an open heart.

The "steps up", as you put it, are merely overconimg the prejudices of self, familyh, clan, neighborhood, city-state, nation, and species.

I, for one, do not hink we do better now than we did in 1776 or 1146. Sorry.

What would "more civilization" mean? More pre-emptive war? More racism (like Shoah). I just do not think more education or more culture or more braniacs help us any at all. We need more heart.

On its own more civilization can cure more diseases, give us more technology, provide us more alternatives. But is that value in-and-of-itself? I am not convinced of it.

What is next? Just more progress by more individuals (not societies, or cultures, or religions).
 
Oh my society in the US has advanced dramatically in the past 50 years...

1963...pre civil rights, women's rights....dog fighting, cock fighting, tossing cats over lines and lighting them, the individual was king....no such thing as domestic abuse..that was disciplining your spouse or child...gays, children and adults with disabilities openly abused and basically sanctioned.

The last 50 years worldwide have been the most peaceful, least violent 50 years in all of recorded history...

Our advances of human and animal rights, and ecological environmental awarness have been exponentially greater than any time...the future is so bright we gotta wear shades.
 
I quite agree. I believe that it is a function of the shift in values and ethics of many individuals. There might be a "tipping point" function as well. That is as some percentage of the individuals become more informed about say, environmental ethics; it enables those straddling the fence to get on one side or the other.

I have not meant to be particularly dismissive or obtuse on these issues. I just see things a little differently.
 
I see it not as just individual or technological change but a pervasive societal and cultural progress as th percentage of nations that have a high percentage of folks climbing maslows hierarchy...

that and I am kickstarting my rose colored glasses venture
 
Technology (the green revolution, public health care, etc) empower many more individuals to get to the esteem level (going past physiological, safety, and belonging needs). Then the cultural-morality quadrant (see the Inglehart-Welzel Cultural Map) empowers them (via the interaction of self-expressional and secular-rational trends) up into actualization.

It is still up to the individual (primarily this is a function of the self-expressional axis) to make the leap upwards. The "tipping points" are the technological "boost" (a function of how much the powerful steal) and the secular-relational "boost" (a function of decreased religious dogma).

We are on same, "things are getting better when looking through rose colored glasses" page. I just emphacize the individual and you (it seems to me) the cultural. It is both.
 

Hi, radarmark.

I don't think you are hearing me:

I reject all "codes of conduct."
("Codes of conduct" look back to earlier stages in human affective development.)
Morality (instead) is a process, a transaction, one-person to one-person.
There is no societal mandate governing this behavior.
Each situation is unique. Each moral decision has no instinctual or cultural precedents.
No pre-defined "rights," no predefined "wrongs."
It is two persons (individuals) psychologically entering each other's private space.
And coming away from this intensified-moment . . . changed!​

We are not talking ontological values here ("swamp-desert") nor teleological ethics here ("civilization").
We are not talking "Moral Philosophy 101." No majority rule. No "right and wrong."

Just a decision a person makes. In the moment. Inside their-self . . . and between their-self and another-self.
Unmediated by genetics or by culture. Unmediated by "swampdesert" or by "civilization."

One person's self-created (individualized) forcefield linked to another person's self-created (individualized) forcefield.
(Where group-opinion ceases to matter.)
Just you . . . and the other person . . . (with every speck of the rest of nature and society be damned).

This, radarmark, is morality. (As far as I am concerned!)


Jane.

 
radarmark said:
We are on same, "things are getting better when looking through rose colored glasses" page. I just emphacize the individual and you (it seems to me) the cultural. It is both.
Click to expand...

I believe we are one...

which contains both...

we are individualized expressions....
 

Hi, Dream.

You obviously have not been to Law School.
There are realistically only two principles involved when deliberating the merits of a law case:

1. Logic.
2. Precedence.​

"Mercy" never enters into the equation (nor should it) until the punishment-phase.
This is true, I believe, even in Rabbinic law courts.

There is the Law, first and foremost. Then there is mercy.
Mercy is an entirely separate consideration.

All law codes have "good" (i.e. fairness) and "bad" (i.e. bigotry) in them.
(Today, "good" might include universal voting rights. "Bad" might include restrictions on who can or cannot marry each other.)
"Bad" laws usually have their roots in tribal values, a code of conduct based upon traditional values prevalent across a culture.
"Good" laws usually stem from the codifying of "public ethics," an enforced code of conduct that helps a multi-ethnic society to operate in a peaceful and orderly manner.

Frankly, I want to live in a society with "good" laws, based upon civilized ethics.
But, as I point out to radarmark, above:

Morality is not a "code of conduct."​

Actual morality is much more personal than that:
One-person to one-person "mercy." Or God to one-person "mercy." This would be the tipoff in the Hebrew Bible.
Hesed.
But the Hebrew word "hesed" (or "chesed," mercy) occurs only once in the entire book of Leviticus: Leviticus 20:17. And it is used, here, negatively to mean "disgrace" (undeserving of compassion).
"Hesed" (mercy), however, appears a full 30 times throughout the books of the prophets. (I can give you a list of verses if you like.)

Leviticus is principally concerned with Israelite religious rites (Temple practices, festivals, Sabbath), and all things "holy."

No animals with blemishes nor people with handicaps are allowed within sight of the Temple. A priest may not grieve the loss of a loved one (must not "muss their hair" nor "tear their clothes"). God's house must remain "pure" and free from all organic frailty. (Aaron's two sons were killed by Yahweh for ineptitude. Aaron was told to show no grief. He complied. Like Aaron, the Book of Leviticus is a cold fish.)

There is a lot of practical advice about farming and about publically getting along with neighbors. To make the economics of Israelite society operate smoothly. (Prosperity is pleasing to Leviticus's Yahweh, as is true with any patron-deity within the region.)

"Stoning," "death," "punishment," "being cut off from their people": these are the typical decrees from the Yahweh of Leviticus when people conduct themselves outside the prescribed societal norms (incest, rape, bestiality, sodomy, adultery, and far lesser "crimes"). "Pardon" occurs only in legally ambiguous circumstances, and necessitates that a "guilt offering" (sacrifice of a ram, typically) be brought to the Temple. A similarly mild verdict occurs from accidently handling "impure" things.

Law, today, is not that different: "death," "jail-time," a "fine," or hours of "public-service."
Here the judge has wiggle-room, in sentencing the guilty.
In Leviticus, Dream, I see no wiggle-room. It is all explicitly laid out. "Mandatory sentence."

I see no "wiggle room" (mercy) anywhere in codified ancient Jewish jurisprudence. Zero.
Not till maybe the Sanhedrin of the Sadducees and Pharisees. (Sadducees appealing only to the letter of the Law. With the Pharisees appealing to its spirit, to the more loosely defined "oral traditions" of the Law which were handed down over generations. Though the situation in the Sanhedrin probably proved a stalemate.)

Realistically? No genuine mercy till the later Rabbinic courts.


Jane.

 

Hi, radarmark.

Kongzi, Mozi, Laozi, and Zhuangzi . . .
The issue is not great men or great ideas.​

Who said I was talking about their ideas?
Screw their ideas!

It is the individual who makes progress.​

Wrong!
It is the individual interacting with other individuals . . . this is where the progress comes from!
You don't see that, you don't see progress.

(Individuals in solipsistic isolation? Baloney!)


Jane.

 
No it is really simple. Morality is some code or group effort. Ethics is individual. Nor do I believe in some (in my opinion) fictional "group progress" (was the progress shown by the behavior of Gandhiji a "group consciousness"?).

Is some group's morality greater than some individuals? Think of the Jefferson Bible (the wordfs of Jesus Christ only) versus all the anguish and horror muder perpetrated in his name (or the Qur'an verus what is done today in Muhammed's name).

While I agree that progress is a social notion (only a species or a culture or a nation or a tribe or a family progresses), the crux is not "the prople" or "opinion" (what I believe you are saying). It is the teaching of a woman or a man that is ethically superior to what came before.

While I believe that progress depends on face-to-face, mind-to-mind confrontation, I reject this as being an example of morality or a moral code. No, it is ethics, the philosophical saring and discussion of morals and values and right and wrong.

We are simply not using the words the same way.

Sorry.
 
Let me first posit some crucial assumptions: the universe exists outside of my self (either body or consciousness), that universe can be explained (to some degree of accuracy) with models (physical or mental), the best (most capable of being communicated) models consist of verbal phrases (which may or may not accurately reflect the nature of that reality), and the final arbitrator of the nexus created by these three elements (universe, model, phrases) is the individual mind.

The once “commonsense” notions of a flat earth, of a geocentric universe, of absolute time and space, and strict causality are rarely held as correct models or explanations. The notions were refuted (in some cases simply disproved) not by a vote or social consensus, but by one mind using better models which could be shared with other minds.

Okay, these examples are from hard science; however, religion, philosophy, politics, economics, or education can also provide examples. Elements are (by and large) no longer worshipped. Human sacrifice has (again, for the most part) been abandoned. The categories and elements (on the classic Grecian sense) no longer are the source of metaphysics. The Western urge for proof via deductive logic (and by extension, math) is relegated to the same philosophical dustbin that holds Aristotelian spontaneous generation as the cause of life. You get the idea.

One individual can be incorrect or inconsistent in their notions. So can entire society (Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia are pretty clear examples). In fact (at least in my opinion) there is no area of modeling (or thought or reflexion) where absolute truth or falsity, wrong or right exist. That is not to say we cannot get closer and closer (the progress from Platonic to Galilean to Newtonian to Einsteinian-Bohrian physics illustrates this pretty well).

If “true” has a value of 1 and “false” has a value of 0, the empirically meaningful phrases (saying something about the universe about us) lay somewhere in-between. Yes, there is some probability that the U.S. government was behind the 9-11 attacks… but that likelihood is extremely low. I have yet to hear or read one root cause analysis of the TWA Flight 900 alleged shoot down that holds water. But is it possible? I cannot absolutely prove otherwise, so it is possible; however the odds against it (in my head) are above a million-to-one.

Now I know someone will accuse this kind of thought as being “fuzzy” or “lazy” or “subjective”. So be it. I am a firm believer in intersubjective verifiability a la Wilber. Just as scientific postulates can be verified by repeated experimentation, subjective probabilities can be verified by repeated comparisons with those held by others. It works for subjective experiences of Sp!rit as well (this is the basis for Silent Meetings in Quakerism or Sesshin, group meditations at a Zen temple).

However, the final arbitrator of the correctness and coherence of intersubjective verifiability is, as pointed out in the first paragraph, is the individual mind. The nexus of many minds (via communication or observation or some other empirical form) is what forms a group or tribal or national or cultural “character” or “belief” or “truth” [SIC, it may be called this, but per paragraph four above, I hold this as an incorrect designation]. To a “true” a “truth” must always hold (everywhere and everywhen). Goedel’s Proof is one example. On the other had the early American “truths” of the moral correctness of involuntary servitude and slavery were clearly always false.

The next post will be a clear and concise delineation of the notions of “philosophy”, “axiology”, “values”, “morals”, “moral codes”, and “ethics” based on a rudimentary acquaintance with Western Philosophy, philology, and culture.
 
Elements are no longer worshipped...by that I infer air, water...and not the periodic table? and then there is matter and dark matter, but what does it matter? Black holes swallowng matter slamming it into a singularity and regurgitating off polar emmissions of xrays and light....faster than the speed of light? or only seemingly so?

Our best science of the day proton/netron/electron worlds smallest particles, beat out the atom as the smallest...which beat out bacteria....which we've now moved on to....and will find someday....

The whole valence thang of electrons is gone, no more pretty orbits...hell we got graded on that stuff....failed the class if we didn't answer correctly...WITH THE WRONG ANSWERS...wild isn't it?

And this was only 40 years ago...and folks expect books thousands of years old to stand the test of time....as literal fact?? Really?

Revel in it, roll in it, there is beauty in it. It can be contemplated, mumbled about, complicated, or simply absorbed for now...and now....and now....for you, for me...or not.
 
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