Well, this took a bit of time to get to, but here we are. Marechal's very own topic.
Well you see now, it's not that we are opposed to scientific change. That's great stuff. I don't happen to be much of a science person, but one of my friends, who is also Lutheran, is a science geek. Science is good.
UNLESS it crosses the bounds of acceptable, ethical conduct. Stem cell research based on aborted fetuses, for example. Sure, the possible scientific benefits may be potentially great, but the cost in human life is too high. This, of course, requiring one to consider human life's beginning at conception. For those interested, there's lots of science out there on when the fetus can first move or think, etc.
Ignoring stem cells and aborted fetuses and such (I'm for choice, really, as opposed to straightjacketing, but that's really besides the point), we point directly to Evolution, the modern Theory of. We've been over that, been over the age of the earth and such, dinosaurs, etc, etc. There's a very lengthy thread on Tonto about the issue, even.
And I believe the word you want is "moral" as opposed to "ethical." I made the distinction before, I think. Again avoiding abortion, since I don't particularly care to open that particular can of worms.
Taking a step back into the general argument, the Lutheran Church, for example, is not based on "blind faith." I'd be happy to quote from the various articles of doctrine, one of which is that there can be no ... and forgetting the exact wording, but here goes "no disagreement between science and Scriptures" ... or something to that affect.
That misses my point entirely, I think. If we define "faith" as a belief in something that cannot necessarily be proven, then "blind faith" would be the extreme of that, where the one with the faith never actually questions that faith, never ponders WHY that faith exists, even in the face of the most withering criticisms. Back In the Day, a lot of these sorts of people got to be saints. More of the same randomly slaughtered a city full of Muslims and Jews during the Crusades. More of the same got rather explosive careers as suicide bombers and the like. As it's the last we're living with, I consider the last very dangerous. Thus you'll see me advocating a healthy dose of skepticism about everything. Up to and including church doctrine, which correct me if I'm wrong is how Luther got started in the first place, and up to and including $HOLY_BOOK. Blind faith isn't necessarily a property of a religion by itself, though faith is, but certainly a lot of the, oh, unwashed masses are prone to it. There's always been a certain intellectual elite to all religions. I happen to think they're wrong, but I admire what they do. I also happen to think that science is less prone to this, because it encourages skepticism. You can compare the difference to something like a cherryfunk debate on AOKH. He dominates for a reason, Marechal.
And yeah, leaving science to go free without constraints is ... tempting the unknown--for the lack of a better way to explain this. And yeah, hell, you're a movie type person... I'm sure you've seen plenty of movies demonstrating where man and science go ... too far. Eh?
Indeed, I even pointed out a few in my last post. Where I draw the line is attempting to impose a religious moral code, and remember what I said about inability to change, here, because, and this is key, societal ethics change over time, and one ought to keep up with that. We've had this discussion, too, about why we're not all Edwardian gentlemen.
As to the Inquisition, I keep bringing it up because it's one of the most brutal, most ugly episodes that I can think of about religion. It's what jumps to mind first thing. I could've used other things, since various stripes of Protestantism have their own little demons - witch hunts, oppression of the Jews (and Catholics, and each other, for that matter). I've mentioned Islam's little follies. I brought up Aztec religion once. If I could think of something particularly awful that the Buddhists or the Taoists or whoever did, I'd bring them up, too.
And ultimately, I bring up the Inquisition time and time again because it is the antithesis of everything I believe in. I know that under that regime, I would be destined for a period of torture and pain ending in my becoming a rabbit BBQ. You might say that I've a particular interest in the effects of the coupling of religion and state. More often than not, the effects aren't particularly nice, as typified by things like the Inquisition. You could even say that that particular study has made me a tad afraid of religion, and given me a desire to keep it as powerless as I possibly can. Which is nothing against the individuals, mind you.
Posted by Dwip at July 23, 2003 5:29 PMHistory shows again and again how nature points out the follies of man.
Go, go Dwipzilla.
Posted by: Whir at July 24, 2003 8:43 AMCan I go back to something you said earlier?
"To that, I say that morality can be replaced with ethics - and there is a subtle distinction, in that morality is what our religion tells us is right, while ethics is what we tell ourselves is right."
But "being an ethical person" just means following whatever rules you set up for yourself. Your rules could be "It is wrong to kill animals, because they're innocent and cute, but humans are bad, so it is all right to kill them indiscriminately," because you believed that was right, but as long as you followed those rules, you could call yourself an ethical person, and you'd be telling the truth. So there's nothing intrinsicly (sp?) good about just following an ethical code.
Morality, we note, doesn't necessarily come from religion, though it usually does. Morality comes from the idea that there is an absolute standard of right and wrong, and that thus one code of ethics can be judged "better" or "worse" than another code of ethics.
Posted by: Regina at July 25, 2003 6:02 AMWell, yes. You are in fact correct.
But. The way I see the world is in shades of grey, and not absolutes. Morality can accomodate that to a point, but then...no, I think. Or perhaps I've had too much exposure to simple-thinking hicks. In any case, it seems to me that a code of ethics fits this better, not to mention that said ethics are, for lack of a better word, adaptable, changable. Once you write down something like the Ten Commandments, that's pretty much it.
Now, on an individual level, the distinction is...important, but not earthshatteringly so. It's the societal level that I really care about, always care about. And the choice of the two by which we choose to base our laws on, that's pretty critical, too.
In the end, it comes down to the collective ethical codes of society to create the laws. This, it seems to me, more often than not, works, especially in a democratic society. Most modern first world nations are proof of that. Sometimes it goes way off base, witness Nazi Germany or Stalin's USSR, but most of the time, it provides for a functional society.
OTOH, morality-based religious law seems to me to lead to a lot of trouble. Intolerance being the main thing. People get caught up enough in the morality that it becomes overly repressive.
Not sure if that made a lot of sense, but there it is.
Posted by: Dwip at July 25, 2003 9:11 PMBut some shades of gray are lighter than others.
That was your enigmatic statement for the day. ;)
Posted by: Regina at July 27, 2003 7:42 AMYes. ;)
Posted by: Dwip at July 27, 2003 3:47 PMNo, seriously, here's what I was getting at: Do you think there's even a possibility of absolute right and absolute wrong? Or is one society 'better' than other by virtue of how many people it keeps fed, sheltered, clothed, etc?
Posted by: Regina at July 28, 2003 6:39 AMOff the top of my head, no, I can't think of an absolute on either end. Certainly I would think that a society is a "better" society if it kept it's people fed and the like - that's one of the functions of society in the first place, a pooling of resources to better provide for everyone in it in some form or another. That and mutual defense, as well as law and order, but. That doesn't necessarily have to do with "right" and "wrong" but instead with the totally different nature of well-run societies.
The delimma is this. Killing is either right, or it is wrong. What about defensive warfare? What if, to conjure a fairly rediculous scenario, you were faced with somebody like Osama bin Laden, and the ONLY way to stop him is to kill him? It's morally wrong, mind you. But letting him off the hook is going to lead to bad bad stuff.
Or...*snatches random issue out of hat* adultry. Morally wrong, right? Say you're happily married. Been so for 15 years or whatever, you and the SO love each other to pieces. You both like to have the odd threesome on occasion, which you could probably define as adultry fairly easily. Nobody's getting hurt here, mind. You're all having fun. So who really cares?
The list, of course, goes on. I haven't got a list of the Ten Commandments here, or I'd go through a couple more, but you get my point, I hope.
Posted by: Dwip at July 28, 2003 3:02 PMAnd yknow, a may be proving what I said to Simmy about big long complicated conversations wrong. Oh well. :P
Posted by: Dwip at July 28, 2003 3:04 PM