The Greatest Commandment

Discuss arguments for existence of God and faith in general. Any aspect of any orientation toward religion/spirituality, as long as it is based upon a positive open to other people attitude.

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The Pixie
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Re: The Greatest Commandment

Post by The Pixie » Mon Mar 06, 2017 8:14 am

Jim B. wrote:There are all kinds of moral truths. If loving God to the utmost of one's ability is the highest moral good for humans, it doesn't necessarily mean that failing to do so would be the greatest moral evil. Otherwise, loving God with only 99.9999% of my heart soul and mind would be the greatest moral evil. Not murdering isn't that great of a moral good even though murder is a great moral evil. The relationship isn't always perfectly symmetrical.
That does not make sense. Clearly failing by 1% would be worse than failing by 0.0001%, so the latter cannot be the greatest moral act.

The question is whether failing by 100%, not loving God at all, is the most immoral act. The Bible indicates it is.

If you say no, then would you still say that not loving God is immoral, just not the most immoral?

The Pixie
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Re: The Greatest Commandment

Post by The Pixie » Mon Mar 06, 2017 8:26 am

met wrote:The point in context is prob'ly about covenant, no?
Oh, right. The usual Christian cherry-picking. Morality is whatever it says in the Bible as long as Christianity has decided it wants to keep it.
In the ancient Jewish context, Law is more importantly a social binding than an way for an individual to redemption by keeping Law to try to "be good". So the convo with the Pharisee is about "how to be one of the people who know and uphold the Law" - i.e. being one of those who are in the covenant of Moses with God - rather than setting up rationalistic and individualistic "moral standards" for personal behavior in a modern Western sense.....
Yes, I am familiar with how Christianity rationalises ignoring the morality of the Bible. We'll have the "thou shalt not murder", because we don't want to be murdered, but we do want to eat prawns and lobsters, so obviously shellfish are only an abomination to God when Jews eat them, right?

So the first command, about loving God, that was only for the Jews?
In this sense, what's implied is that the inner quality of "loving God best" might be the premiere thing that could put someone in that group? (And it might be read as part of Christ's general internalization and intensification of concepts of "Law" throughout the Synoptics - "behold the Kingdom is at hand", "if your eye offends you, pluck it out", & so on....)
So loving God was not meant as a moral instruction, but just a means to an end? I can see how that would work, but if you throw out this command, what morality do you have besides the Golden Rule? I appreciate the Golden Rule is enough, but now your moral code is no different to mine and all claims of an objective standard disappear (which most Christians claim; perhaps you do not).

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Metacrock
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Re: The Greatest Commandment

Post by Metacrock » Mon Mar 06, 2017 11:23 am

The Pixie wrote:
Metacrock wrote:I told you i was going to post on that on Monday. Let me ask you a question before I try to answer your question. Is it really hard for you see why God would be the most important thing and why the source of all things would be the highest thing to value?

If you can't understand such an obvious idea how can you understand my answer?
I had not read that you intend to pot when I started this thread.

What is difficult for me to understand is why valuing the source of all things would be a moral obligation. Hopefully that will be fully addressed.

moral is defined by the good What is good is moral what is moral is good, The source of all things is the good, That's where good comes from.
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Re: The Greatest Commandment

Post by Metacrock » Mon Mar 06, 2017 11:51 am

px:
Oh, right. The usual Christian cherry-picking. Morality is whatever it says in the Bible as long as Christianity has decided it wants to keep it.
it says it in the bible because God revealed it. Jesus made the statement since he is incarnate logos we can just consider his words revelation. As with the Euthephro dilemma we can assume the good is synonymous with God's nature. So love is the good, The good is based upon love.

Pixie the reason I did not do a post on this on cadre is because it's too basic. you are just trying to work up knit picks and making it way more complex then it has to be,. this is like really basic.

the command is just way of saying put God first, that's what you need to know,
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Re: The Greatest Commandment

Post by Jim B. » Mon Mar 06, 2017 6:32 pm

The Pixie wrote: That does not make sense. Clearly failing by 1% would be worse than failing by 0.0001%, so the latter cannot be the greatest moral act.
Then you're applying your Biblical moral absolutism selectively. If a commandment reads "You shall do X with all of your heart mind and soul," then failing to do that would be a violation of that commandment. According to your absolutism, if I don't love my neighbor as I love myself, that's a greater moral evil than murdering my neighbor.
The Pixie wrote:
If you say no, then would you still say that not loving God is immoral, just not the most immoral?
No, I wouldn't. A person might lack the mental or emotional capacity for loving God, for instance.

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