Morality: based on the Bible or our views?

So, I often see Christians basing what they believe to be "right" or "wrong" on their personal opinion or how it makes them "feel" rather than seeing what the Bible actually says about the matter. Why does that happen? Pride? Ignorance? Simple laziness?

 

Sure. To a point, all mankind has a conscience. For instance, most people would concede that stealing is "wrong." I'm talking more things like, let's say, drinking alcohol in moderation. Some Christians think that drinking any amount is sin for all Christians. It's just something that they "feel" is true, despite the fact the Bible actually indicates drinking alcohol to a certain point (the point before becoming drunk) is fine. In other words, they're basing their view of alcohol use being sin on their personal opinion rather than actual scripture. As Christians, we have no excuse for biblical ignorance. Most of us have access to the Bible.

 

I just find it weird that some people that call themselves Christian don't even actually bother to look at the Bible and they just make up their own rules about "right" and "wrong" or simply follow along with the customs of others.

 

Well, to be honest, I wish that's how God worked. It would make my life so much easier if He did. However, I've seen nothing to indicate God works that way.

 

Sure, but the problem is too many Christians want to use their mind APART from the Bible, rather than in conjunction with it, to figure out on their own what is "right" and what is "wrong."

 

I'm still trying to figure out how one can tell. Putting aside whether or not Christianity is true, there is a conundrum whereby there are a plurality of understandings of scripture, which has lead to a plurality of moralities. Further, there are both prohibitions and commands in scripture that flat out get ignored in these types of conversations. They're ignored because they are four-letter-wording horrifying. But they're in the bible. But they're ignored, or explained away.

So who's morality is based on their own views? Everyone's.

 

And this is why I'd encourage the original poster to resist the urge to look at this as black and white. In all my reading of the Bible, I have not found it to be a simple, straight forward, obviously internally consistent, instruction book on life. Intelligent, humble, and well meaning minds have spent lifetimes reading it, come to different understandings, and different moralities.

The stuff one man says is peripheral is absolutely *central* to someone else (and that someone else may not be a d-bag).

Best reconciliation I've come up with in life:
- if its selfless, and difficult, its probably the right thing to do.

 

In essence, God, if He really exists, and His expectations, if He truly is the one behind the writing and compiling of scripture, is an unknowable God and His desires on how we are to live are unknowable, too? That would have to be what you mean. If you believe my conclusion to be incorrect, please explain how, exactly, that is so.

Sure, I see things in the Bible that are hard to immediately understand. However, I've seen PLENTY of other things in scripture that are not difficult to grasp and really shouldn't even be up for "debate" or looked into deeper to see if there is a "different interpretation." Some of the things I've seen people try to "debate" has been downright pathetic.

Honestly, much of the time, though certainly not all of the time, the people that "debate" scripture do it merely because they don't personally like what the scripture says. In other words, it puts a cramp on their style. That's because it often forbids them from engaging in some kind of sinful activity that they personally engage in, or want to engage in, and that they see as enjoyable.

In their "debating" what the scripture "truly means," they wish and hope to somehow explain it away so that they then get the green light to continue in their activity and maybe also have others approve of it, or at least tolerate it, so they don't get flack about it anymore. Their "debating" has an obviously biased ulterior motive behind it. The motive is not to arrive at an objective truth. It's to display THEIR "truth."

 

Looks that way to me from years of reading scripture on the inside, then reading it again on the outside. A cursory read of scripture is one that appears to make the absolute morality of God unclear, especially when living in the 21st century. Unless you propose that *deeper* understanding of scripture tends to iron out all those details... in which case we're already talking about something that's hard to know and understand. If its hard to know and understand, then how can people *NOT* rely at least a little bit on their own understanding, rather than this supposed crystal clear scripture.

Plenty != all. There's plenty of moral clarity in the Quran too. But those grey areas could mean the difference between an eternity in rainbow icecream land, and an eternity of torture beyond your most horrendous nightmares. That you find the debates pathetic has nothing to do with the debate's legitimacy.

Let's illustrate where nearly all modern Westerners would rely on their OWN judgment of morality vs. scriptures.
Let's imagine a horrifying event in which your daughter is raped. Would you accept the requisite amount of silver so the rapist could then marry her?
But what if she was gang raped? Which rapist would be the husband, since the woman can only marry one?
Before you answer... remember to use scripture, not your own personal understanding of morality.

Also, when was the last time you heard of an American family stoning their daughter at the front door step for pre-marital sex (or being date raped while intoxicated?). NONE?! How could this be? Scripture is *SO* clear on that matter.

How do you know their motivations? And what makes you so confident you aren't doing exactly the same thing?

 

Well, when it comes to OT Law, people often get its 3 categories intermingled and use them however they wish to make their "point".

Which are:
1. Moral law (unchanged as it reflects the character of God who never changes -- what was wrong then is also wrong now such as theft, covetousness, perjury, etc.). Funnily enough, these laws are generally universal, and people who don't even know the OT scriptures have a built-in sense of these things being wrong and structuring their cultural and community legal codes around them. Gee, I wonder why? It's almost as if God created us all with a conscience to give us an understanding of basic morality as we are created in His image and charged with the task of furthering His kingdom upon the earth.
2. Civil law (only applied to Israel at the time and was issued to give judges a way to reach legal decisions in criminal cases)
3. Ceremonial law (points to Christ as the Messiah and provided a worship structure for Israel -- we now have Jesus as a concrete representation and need not observe those ceremonial things any longer)

The Levitical commands to stone people for various acts were an ancient civil law matter and have zero applicability for any of us.

Which means, to me, that whoever uses that verse in Lv 20 to condemn modern homosexuality lacks an understanding of systematic theology.

We observe the moral law of love, which Paul conveniently detailed for us in 1 Cor 13.

But, I reckon it's easier to use Lv 20 as a pocket mirror for random homosexuals, than it is to use 1 Cor 13 as a full-length mirror for oneself. 8)

[quote author=hisleast]Best reconciliation I've come up with in life:
- if its selfless, and difficult, its probably the right thing to do.[/quote]

Since the purpose of a moral code is to provide the framework for a healthy, functioning community, then selfishness is obviously a problem because the wants of one person can never supersede the needs of the community. So your reconciliation is not wrong.