according to the bible God gave His moral Law (The Ten Commandments) Are they relevant today, and how, It would be great to have your mature opinions.

Thanks Mark

Thanks for your answer, but I must point out that Paul only followed Christ and added nothing and yes without relationship with God the Law can only force us into behavior instead of freedom, which is true revolution. so that which was ment to free us can in-fact bind us.

Good observation.

Mark

Paul broke with the Jews which is something Jesus never did, going against dietary laws and circumcision, which are forms unlikely to find any support in Roman society...He also broke with Jesus and James, and the early Christians in respect to works, and it was in this respect that he forced an opening that the whole of protestantism fell out of... The Muslims have it more correct in saying we will be judged by our works... What works came to mean to Christianity was money... That too, is false since a rich church, as in the time of Jesus, equals a poor, and so, a demoralized people... But the idea is still correct, for what a person labors at his spirit will follow, and if that is in the service of mankind, in the name of God, then his happiness on this earth and salvation in the next is assured...

Thank you Fido for your reply,

The Bible does talk about judgement by works in both Paul's Epistles and James, and I agree The "church" (used loosely) is ultimately greedy and goes against the teachings of Christ and The Commandments of which He stood. So can a church (at least for the most part) that as obviously detracted from its commission be brought back into line. What do you think?
I look forward to hearing your opinion.

Tanks Mark

according to the bible God gave His moral Law (The Ten Commandments) Are they relevant today, and how, It would be great to have your mature opinions. Thanks Mark

There are of course several versions of the commandments but in general:

The prohibitions against murder, stealing and bearing false witness are codified in law in most countries.

Respect for your mother and father and avoiding adultery are part of the social code in most countries.

I know of no laws against coveting and "we covet what we see and regard as desirable" is somewhat universal behavior and a fundamental principle of advertising.

The remaining commandments no other god, no idols, taking the lords name in vain, and keeping the sabbath. Not really codified in law in the western world anyway, and fairly routinely ignored or disregarded I would say.

So 3 are enforced by law, 2 by social custom (arguably), and the rest?
About a .300 batting average.

The best thing, ultimately, for Catholicism was Protestantism and I say ultimately after Protestantism killed Catholic Humanism, and then the religious wars.. No... they can never be brought around... Old forms are taken over, corrupted, and after take more life out of the people than they give back...People find that they cannot support their churches, and that is why in the city so many die, or become storefront operations... Too much over head and underhand...

Hello,

From a modern legal stand point I understand, but how about morally, are they something that a person or persons (community) can build there life upon and so add to society and make their circles a better place.

Thank you for your reply.

---------- Post added 05-18-2010 at 09:17 AM ----------




I have found (in my experience) that within "the church" there is The Church, a core of believers which hold near to the fundamentals of Christianity, these Churches are few and far between granted but non the less there. In your opinion do you think these churches also will become corrupted or do you think these churches under the right circumstances could rise and give to the community as originally planed.

Mark

The reason I left my church is that i was too much the hypocrite to deal with all the others...Every Church is a comunity, and as a Catholic I often heard the words: the community of Christ...But some of it was so pitiful... People coming in from different poor countries begging money with the same pitiful stories Like the children who could not eat except on their day to eat...Then they would forbid birth control, and hand out medicine like Candy to keep even more people alive amid filth, poverty, and disease... Treat the result, and never treat the cause should be their motto...They are the cause... And I agree that within every church there is a core of believers who are often, truly Christian, who can forgive themselves for forgiving others...

Just as with any form, any social form, the personalities show up too; the nob bobbers and sycophants...Politics in plenty can always be found, conservatism, and reaction are everywhere... And that politics exhausts the Christian spirit...I know; it exhausted mine... I just started working on my own to do good...I bought and sent clothes to the Native Americans... And the government helped...It was good for my taxes, but a strain on my marriage... I am done with NAHA for now... Sorry one little two little three little indians... You are going to have to freeze as long as there is a chance I won't have to sleep alone...

Thank you for a truthful answer,

It is true that when we look at "the church" in the big picture we see absolute pharisaic, plank in the eye, do as i say not as i do money grabbing people who disregard the laws and commandments that would adhere them to the one who gave them. but what about personally, can these commandments reform "the man" unhypocritically and transform him for the better, depending on your perception of better that is.

All forms serve a certain purpose...Laws, codes, morals serve a certain purpose of stability, or setting a standard of judgement... But law, especially the later law was all form, and people used that to their advantage over their neighbors and became parasites upon their community... It was not Babylon that destroyed or the Romans that destroyed that old time religion, but the people of that age who made of it a hollow shell... If you make a law you produce at the same instant a law breaker...You give to those so inclined an object upon which to express their individuality, and an impediment to their improvement compared to their equals...It is not law that sets people apart, but people use the law for their own ends, and so divide their whole societies...It is as inevitable as it is natural...The solution is some knowledge of forms, formal consciousness, so that a form that has been perverted can be reformed, or replaced entely... It would be hard to improve upon thhe ten commandments, and yet it is not to difficult to find in humans the cause of their failure... We have to follow them by choice, by consent, and without that, any law is as good or bad as any others..

according to the bible God gave His moral Law (The Ten Commandments) Are they relevant today, and how, It would be great to have your mature opinions.

Thanks Mark

Yes they are still relevant today. Theyre also universalizable without contradiction. So they work pretty well in my moral system (or should I say Kant's Deontological ethics). :a-ok:

Thank-you fido
good answer, so would you suggest that the commandments were instated to show the community there depravity and wrong doings so to make them wake up to themselves in righteousness, although in the whole this did not happen as intended. Indeed if the individual applied the commandments to himself which would show him his own nature don't you think revolution could happen in himself rather than a community?

Nice to meet you.

Kant's ethics are good and in my opinion W D Ross not so.

right is right, wrong is wrong

a lier is a lier, and a thief a thief.

and yes I do agree they are relevant today.

Thank-you

Mark.

Yes they are still relevant today. Theyre also universalizable without contradiction. So they work pretty well in my moral system (or should I say Kant's Deontological ethics). :a-ok:

What you say could only be true if a society were a society... So long as people look at others outside of their native groups as prey, there will be no universal morality... One person's evil is another person's good, and as an American, I live in a land stolen from a native population that was hunted almost to extinction, robbed of their rights, livelyhoods, and land; and we do the same around the world, at the same time that we consider ourselves most moral... The Jews kill the Arabs and the Arabs kill the Jews, and each side is most moral in its own eyes and correctly so since morality is community... But if the Jews had to be told how to treat others within their community as the Ten Commandments do, it gives you a sense of how difficult the problem is, because every person from the best to the least can look at their brothers labor, goods, women, and wealth and want it for nothing... Immorality is not the natural state of human kind, but in our natural state we were poor and surrounded by enemies, and that is the condition that produced moral people, willing to share, needing of love, and desparate for defense...Your pat answers get us no closer to a moral person... Creating the conditions under which moral people are created is the goal, and to look at morality only as behavior does not get us there...

The reason philosophy has failed to teach morality is that it did not understand morality and, the science that grew out of philosophy has created wealth, and it is the apple of discord... For the wealthy there will never be enough wealth, and poverty amid wealth is an insufferable indignity, as well as an injury and injustice... So there are no moral men not members of moral socieities, and none of our societies are particularly moral, and many are anything but... Demoralized people, even when themselves poor, will justify the exploitation of people poorer yet, and the environment too, without restraint... Far from being sympathetic, they are pathetic, and in justifying injustice for others, they justify the injustice they suffer...We might offer the cure of democracy as a remedy for political injustice, but we must first create a moral person for no person unable to practice self control and morality is capable of democracy.

Quit trying to conceive of morality as a problem of individuals... The ten commandments talks to a whole community because the moral community produces the moral man...

Now wait a second, the first four of the ten commandments , no other gods, lords name in vain, building of idols, remember the sabbath day are only relevant to religious monotheism, some would argue they are not moral instructions at all but the dictates of an insecure and jealous deity.

The rest of the commandments can be seen as moral instructives and relevant in the modern age but are also found throughout historical societies and thus the last six commandments may be seen not as the source but as the result of innate human moral sentiment.