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Tue 18 Jul, 2006 10:16 am
I was just thinking about this today. Where do convictions come from? Most people seem to think it comes from religion. I don't think so though. Don't we all have things we think are right and wrong? Don't we all feel bad sometimes if we do something we think is wrong? So where do convictions come from if not from religion? How is it we go about deciding what's right and wrong?
"So where do convictions come from if not from religion? How is it we go about deciding what's right and wrong?"
From our perception of society and how we want others to treat us. We do as we wish to be done to. It's a matter of self-preservation.
Re: Convictions...
hephzibah wrote:I was just thinking about this today. Where do convictions come from? Most people seem to think it comes from religion. I don't think so though. Don't we all have things we think are right and wrong? Don't we all feel bad sometimes if we do something we think is wrong? So where do convictions come from if not from religion? How is it we go about deciding what's right and wrong?
This is actually very close to the central theme of the Edenic rebellion
I read somewhere that in some cultures babies born with birth defects are killed without hesitation.
Does anyone know anything about this?
If this is factual information; how does one decide what a "defect" is?
How would such "conviction" clash heads with some of our own rules and accepted moral behavior?
Who is "right" and who is "wrong"?
How do we arrive at such decision?
Re: Convictions...
neologist wrote:hephzibah wrote:I was just thinking about this today. Where do convictions come from? Most people seem to think it comes from religion. I don't think so though. Don't we all have things we think are right and wrong? Don't we all feel bad sometimes if we do something we think is wrong? So where do convictions come from if not from religion? How is it we go about deciding what's right and wrong?
This is actually very close to the central theme of the Edenic rebellion
Would you care to expand on that neo? I'd like it if you did.
At the risk of further embarrassing Frank:
Paul made this interesting comment in Romans 2:14,15: "For whenever people of the nations that do not have law do by nature the things of the law, these people, although not having law, are a law to themselves. 15 They are the very ones who demonstrate the matter of the law to be written in their hearts, while their conscience is bearing witness with them and, between their own thoughts, they are being accused or even excused."
Conscience plays an important part in how we decide right and wrong. Adam and Eve were created with perfect conscience; they knew intuitively that it would be wrong to steal, etc.. In other words, they had perfect convictions. But, can you see where simply having a perfectly ingrained conscience would lead to a race of Robots? Where would moral choice come from? What about free will?
So God placed the tree in Eden. By avoiding the tree, Adam and Eve would be showing by their actions that they accepted God's sovereignty. By eating of it they showed their rejection and the desire to overrule their conscience. Our conscience is no longer perfect and cannot be trusted as our final authority. Now that we know about what is good and what is bad, we are left to make all moral decisions by ourselves.
From the looks of it, the human race has not done a very good job.
I'd say it's a good thing God promised to remedy the situation in Genesis chapter 3.
Re: Convictions...
hephzibah wrote:So where do convictions come from if not from religion?
Why would morality necessarily be based upon religion?
neologist wrote:
Paul made this interesting comment in Romans 2:14,15: "For whenever people of the nations that do not have law do by nature the things of the law, these people, although not having law, are a law to themselves. 15 They are the very ones who demonstrate the matter of the law to be written in their hearts, while their conscience is bearing witness with them and, between their own thoughts, they are being accused or even excused."
Conscience plays an important part in how we decide right and wrong. Adam and Eve were created with perfect conscience; they knew intuitively that it would be wrong to steal, etc.. In other words, they had perfect convictions.
but neo, if we go back one more verse,
Quote:13(For not the hearers of the law are just before God, but the doers of the law shall be justified.
14For when the Gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, these, having not the law, are a law unto themselves:
sounds to me like "the law" means Biblical law, such as the 10 commandments: thus, the phrase, "when the Gentiles, which have not the law." the Romans whom Paul addressed certainly had Roman law, though they were Gentiles. wherever a Gentile's laws coincide with Biblical law, Paul's observation that the law comes from nature or conscience would apply, but when a Gentile law contradicts the Biblical or addresses issues not addressed in the Bible, i'm not *convinced* that Paul's assertion applies.
How could it be that a Gentile law would conflict with conscience?
neologist wrote:How could it be that a Gentile law would conflict with conscience?
when there's a moral dilemma? in China, for instance, the one-child policy at least encourages, if not requires, abortion when a woman who already has a child becomes pregnant. i don't know if traditional Chinese medicine had abortion procedures, but some ancient cultures did, if this line from the Hippocratic oath is reliable:
Quote:Nor will I give a woman a pessary to procure abortion.
yitwail wrote:neologist wrote:How could it be that a Gentile law would conflict with conscience?
when there's a moral dilemma? in China, for instance, the one-child policy at least encourages, if not requires, abortion when a woman who already has a child becomes pregnant. i don't know if traditional Chinese medicine had abortion procedures, but some ancient cultures did, if this line from the Hippocratic oath is reliable:
Quote:Nor will I give a woman a pessary to procure abortion.
OK, but what we are agreeing to here is that our conscience currently is flawed to the point where, by itself, it is not able to give us moral direction. This missing component is a result of the Edenic rebellion. (See sig)
neo wrote:OK, but what we are agreeing to here is that our conscience currently is flawed to the point where, by itself, it is not able to give us moral direction. This missing component is a result of the Edenic rebellion.
Curiously I find this to be true.
Before the attaining of wisdom man's existence was in the oneness, because the self had not yet been born. His reason was animal reason; a state of incoherent dream with no link between emotion and action.
In a way the self is a rebellion against the understanding that everything exists as a whole. The self categorizes, divides and fractures in order to obtain understanding. It is, by it's very nature incapable of understanding the true concept of Everything.
The true concept of everything might require an understanding of the nature of time and causality which we are in no position to observe. All we can do is operate in the concrete reality of our three dimensional and time unidirectional experience.
This is why the bible is often so difficult for intellectuals to comprehend. It was not written as a scientific treatise, but as an explanation of why we have evil, what God plans to do about it and how we might make escape for ourselves. And genius is mercifully not required for understanding.
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