hockeyfan87 Posted August 7, 2012 Share Posted August 7, 2012 Well, technically, in a Westminster system, they didn't endorse Clark. Voters endorsed the local candidate, who then decided who would be best suited to lead the lower house as its lead (see: premier). Of course, if we wanted to talk electoral reform, that's a whole new can of worms. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sharpshooter Posted August 7, 2012 Author Share Posted August 7, 2012 What a ridiculous thread.... Why is this a big deal? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dajusta Posted August 7, 2012 Share Posted August 7, 2012 A person's belief and value structure can come from a number of different sources: -family upbringing -school and education -people we look up to -government and societal law -personal experience -etc etc Some of these things are hard nose tangible sources, whereas others are from the metaphysical world. Such as learning from the experience of love, sacrifice, hardship and so on. Do we all agree that many of us learn from, not just textbooks and rules, but also observing role models and personal experience? Even a well produced film or documentary can stir meaning that changes the values of a person. The product of who we are is a conglomeration of so many tangible and non-tangible means. I don't care how much you may disagree with this, but it is true. The belief in the supernatural and Bible scripture also falls into this category of non-tangible means of valid influence. I know you can't prove it with hard evidence and you can't test it with scientific precision, but it deserves as much weight as another non-tangible means of influence, such as a person learning from their parents. You trust your parents, you have faith in your parents, you look up to them, even if you can't use them as reference in the next Dawkins book. They are role models for children and are responsible for raising teenagers and emerging adults even if parents aren't systematically scrutinized by the United Nations. A lot of our values come from the home.. from the family. Through observation and quality time, we pick up almost everything that we feel. How we show compassion, how we hurt, and how we laugh. There are values we formulate from these sources. To reject non-tangible, seeming traditional, and seemingly unreasonable sources to influence our values and how we behave is like rejecting values we derive from our families. How is it possible we can say to another, you can't behave that way because family values isn't a valid source of information and values! For even further discussion, many families start with Biblical education as the core of their values, the core of their beliefs. The word "Family Values" is very synonymous with "Biblical Teaching". Whether or not you agree with it is irrelevant, it is the core beliefs. I don't know much about Christy Clark or exactly how she is bringing Christianity to get votes or actually standing firm in her beliefs, but I do not see anything wrong with someone leading our country by going back to the values he/she was brought up in, whether it be family values, academic education, or religious background (yes that includes Islam). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sharpshooter Posted August 7, 2012 Author Share Posted August 7, 2012 Dajusta, while I appreciate the time and at length post, you fail to understand that ALL the 'values, ethics, morals' that are contained in your Bible..... preceded it. Humans already knew this stuff long, long before some guy or guys wrote it down as if it was something new from a divine source. The only thing that was invented, and not for the first time either, was the divine source and creator of the Bible's purported values and ethics and morals. Looking through the Bible in fact, you see many immoral, unethical and non-family valued behaviour from your God, from your Jesus, (who are somehow the same God, but relatives as well) and from so many other 'holy' and 'wise' characters. This should confirm in the logical and rational part of your mind, that this book is a compendium of man-made rehashed stories. They're like the reboots of so many movies today. They're just re-telling and re-packaging moral stories that were universally known long before among the species around the world. This is just the recounting of those known things from one particular desert/regional tribe of people from a particular time. The source of most of our hard-wired 'ethics, values and morals' come through the evolution of our species, as a social species, as well as us individually within that social species. Almost all of the 'good' behaviour is programmed into us by way of natural selection and adaptation to our environment. The stories that we wrap around those inheritances is a rudimentary attempt at sourcing them long before we knew what the source was, in the same way that our species would make up stories about the sun and moon to explain their existence and relationship to us and each other. There are good stories in the Bible that can teach good lessons, for sure. I commend the Bible for them, and have always read the Bible as such....but at the end of the day, I can read many religious or philosophical books pronouncing the same ethics and moral lessons to learn from. The reason I can do that, is because those lessons are universal. The reason they're universal, is because they've been with our species of all races, cultures and religions, for a very very very long time. There's nothing supernatural or 'divine' about them. They're the product and the source of our species survival and existence up till now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dajusta Posted August 7, 2012 Share Posted August 7, 2012 Sharpshooter, so I need to clarify. What is the major point in rejecting the Bible as someone else's source of values? You reject the Bible as a source of values due to the content? (ideas that are being presented) or you reject the Bible as a source of values due to its authenticity? (meaning, "its a primitive bronze book written by insane people) For almost this entire thread, it seems that Bible haters jump back and forth, back and forth between criticizing content AND authenticity. It's quite absurd and illogical to do both, because if you have a problem with content, this dialogue assumes its authenticity as a premise. And contrary if there was a problem with authenticity, then the content is irrelevant. From your most recent post, it seems like a criticism to the content. That these morals and ethics actually existed before the Bible, and therefore we don't need the Bible to assert any moral truth to our lives. Though this is a valid assertion, it doesn't exactly respond to my point that a person can learn from this historic book and read values into it. Much like a person who watches James Cameron's Avatar and learns about the sanctity of culture.. while not watching Pochahontas or Dancing with Wolves to learn the same concept. So back to your original original topic. Is it okay for people to use the Bible as a source of their values? I believe yes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Slaytanic Wehrmacht Posted August 7, 2012 Share Posted August 7, 2012 And I believe no, it's perfectly acceptable to me (no matter how much I want to retch after saying this) for people to use the bible as a source of PERSONAL values...it's definitely NOT ok to allow those personal values to interfere in real-world issues including politics because there is always that chance that the person using the bible for their personal values will attempt to foist it upon those in the populace, a lot of whom could give a flying flirk what the bible stands for, about religion in general, or about the "morality" contained therein. In my opinion, people should have the choice whether or not to follow vague guidelines in order to live their lives...that is what "freedom of choice" is. You want to use the bible as a source of values for you and or your household, fine...but keep it to yourself, and out of any decisions you try to make publicly when it also involves others who don't believe the same as you do. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Slaytanic Wehrmacht Posted August 7, 2012 Share Posted August 7, 2012 Dajusta, while I appreciate the time and at length post, you fail to understand that ALL the 'values, ethics, morals' that are contained in your Bible..... preceded it. Humans already knew this stuff long, long before some guy or guys wrote it down as if it was something new from a divine source. The only thing that was invented, and not for the first time either, was the divine source and creator of the Bible's purported values and ethics and morals. Looking through the Bible in fact, you see many immoral, unethical and non-family valued behaviour from your God, from your Jesus, (who are somehow the same God, but relatives as well) and from so many other 'holy' and 'wise' characters. This should confirm in the logical and rational part of your mind, that this book is a compendium of man-made rehashed stories. They're like the reboots of so many movies today. They're just re-telling and re-packaging moral stories that were universally known long before among the species around the world. This is just the recounting of those known things from one particular desert/regional tribe of people from a particular time. The source of most of our hard-wired 'ethics, values and morals' come through the evolution of our species, as a social species, as well as us individually within that social species. Almost all of the 'good' behaviour is programmed into us by way of natural selection and adaptation to our environment. The stories that we wrap around those inheritances is a rudimentary attempt at sourcing them long before we knew what the source was, in the same way that our species would make up stories about the sun and moon to explain their existence and relationship to us and each other. There are good stories in the Bible that can teach good lessons, for sure. I commend the Bible for them, and have always read the Bible as such....but at the end of the day, I can read many religious or philosophical books pronouncing the same ethics and moral lessons to learn from. The reason I can do that, is because those lessons are universal. The reason they're universal, is because they've been with our species of all races, cultures and religions, for a very very very long time. There's nothing supernatural or 'divine' about them. They're the product and the source of our species survival and existence up till now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sharpshooter Posted August 7, 2012 Author Share Posted August 7, 2012 Sharpshooter, so I need to clarify. What is the major point in rejecting the Bible as someone else's source of values? You reject the Bible as a source of values due to the content? (ideas that are being presented) or you reject the Bible as a source of values due to its authenticity? (meaning, "its a primitive bronze book written by insane people) For almost this entire thread, it seems that Bible haters jump back and forth, back and forth between criticizing content AND authenticity. It's quite absurd and illogical to do both, because if you have a problem with content, this dialogue assumes its authenticity as a premise. And contrary if there was a problem with authenticity, then the content is irrelevant. From your most recent post, it seems like a criticism to the content. That these morals and ethics actually existed before the Bible, and therefore we don't need the Bible to assert any moral truth to our lives. Though this is a valid assertion, it doesn't exactly respond to my point that a person can learn from this historic book and read values into it. Much like a person who watches James Cameron's Avatar and learns about the sanctity of culture.. while not watching Pochahontas or Dancing with Wolves to learn the same concept. So back to your original original topic. Is it okay for people to use the Bible as a source of their values? I believe yes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dajusta Posted August 7, 2012 Share Posted August 7, 2012 And I believe no, it's perfectly acceptable to me (no matter how much I want to retch after saying this) for people to use the bible as a source of PERSONAL values...it's definitely NOT ok to allow those personal values to interfere in real-world issues including politics because there is always that chance that the person using the bible for their personal values will attempt to foist it upon those in the populace, a lot of whom could give a flying flirk what the bible stands for, about religion in general, or about the "morality" contained therein. In my opinion, people should have the choice whether or not to follow vague guidelines in order to live their lives...that is what "freedom of choice" is. You want to use the bible as a source of values for you and or your household, fine...but keep it to yourself, and out of any decisions you try to make publicly when it also involves others who don't believe the same as you do. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Slaytanic Wehrmacht Posted August 7, 2012 Share Posted August 7, 2012 The major point is that those values have been co-opted and corrupted by dogma to fit an individualistic justification that is then expected to be respected. To answer your last question....yes, it is ok, so long as it's a decision about yourself. You can base decisions that affect yourself from any source you wish. Basing decision on religious dogmatic values, over people who don't subscribe to the same interpreted 'evaluations' that arise out of another's particular dogma is in itself not ethical nor moral. That's why secular issues(such as pipelines) should be based on secular information, guided by the secular universal morality about what ensure the greatest about of 'good' for the most amount of people, while attempting to ensure the least amount of 'harm' to the least amount of people. That would be an example of just one moral and ethical valuation which is completely non-dogmatic and beholden to no one particular non-secular organization.....in order to make decisions as a representative leader of a large number of people, who come from various walks of life, cultures, and religions. If a leader starts making decision based on which religious 'team' they're on, then the fallout from that becomes, which team can get their guy and gal into power so that their team's version of the truth and what's right be enforced over all people's and teams. That's a slippery slope that we don't need. Relgion divides people and poisons everything. Edit - Oh and I don't think the people who wrote it were crazy.....I think they were smart, brilliant even in how they were able to use their writings in a manner to eventually control people and derive authority from. Nothing crazy about that, in an evil genius sort of way. I give them much credit. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Slaytanic Wehrmacht Posted August 7, 2012 Share Posted August 7, 2012 A political giant doesn't use Christian morals for the purpose of converting and shoving Jesus down everyone's throats.. but using scripture and biblical values to impact the tough decisions on how are we treating people, and how are we wisely using the money we have to benefit our society. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jester13 Posted August 7, 2012 Share Posted August 7, 2012 A person's belief and value structure can come from a number of different sources: -family upbringing -school and education -people we look up to -government and societal law -personal experience -etc etc Some of these things are hard nose tangible sources, whereas others are from the metaphysical world. Such as learning from the experience of love, sacrifice, hardship and so on. Do we all agree that many of us learn from, not just textbooks and rules, but also observing role models and personal experience? Even a well produced film or documentary can stir meaning that changes the values of a person. The product of who we are is a conglomeration of so many tangible and non-tangible means. I don't care how much you may disagree with this, but it is true. The belief in the supernatural and Bible scripture also falls into this category of non-tangible means of valid influence. I know you can't prove it with hard evidence and you can't test it with scientific precision, but it deserves as much weight as another non-tangible means of influence, such as a person learning from their parents. You trust your parents, you have faith in your parents, you look up to them, even if you can't use them as reference in the next Dawkins book. They are role models for children and are responsible for raising teenagers and emerging adults even if parents aren't systematically scrutinized by the United Nations. A lot of our values come from the home.. from the family. Through observation and quality time, we pick up almost everything that we feel. How we show compassion, how we hurt, and how we laugh. There are values we formulate from these sources. To reject non-tangible, seeming traditional, and seemingly unreasonable sources to influence our values and how we behave is like rejecting values we derive from our families. How is it possible we can say to another, you can't behave that way because family values isn't a valid source of information and values! For even further discussion, many families start with Biblical education as the core of their values, the core of their beliefs. The word "Family Values" is very synonymous with "Biblical Teaching". Whether or not you agree with it is irrelevant, it is the core beliefs. I don't know much about Christy Clark or exactly how she is bringing Christianity to get votes or actually standing firm in her beliefs, but I do not see anything wrong with someone leading our country by going back to the values he/she was brought up in, whether it be family values, academic education, or religious background (yes that includes Islam). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SukhKular Posted August 7, 2012 Share Posted August 7, 2012 How is using the Bible to make political decisions that affect millions of people any different that someone using the Koran (for example only) to wage war or commit terrorist type crimes. As long as the person doing it is a political figure who is currently in power. You can't. Freedom of religion is fine but I believe in cats and I'm the president, I shouldn't force everyone to buy cats right? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dajusta Posted August 7, 2012 Share Posted August 7, 2012 I am actually going to agree with this part to a point. But again, I will point to the "moral lessons" contained in the bible as not being original thoughts, nor the bible being the originator of morality...that is where I will disagree with you. While I will concede, as Sharp already has, that there are good lessons in the book, all it is is a rehashing of lessons that were already known prior to the writing of it...copy from one work and it's plagiarism...copy from two and it's research. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sharpshooter Posted August 7, 2012 Author Share Posted August 7, 2012 Okay let me summarize what your thoughts are: -is it okay for whoever to believe whatever they wish -it is not okay for their own values to come upon others -therefore it is not okay for a christian bible thumper to have her christian values invade her political authority since it is clearly a slippery slope for her to start converting others? I agree on all these points - surprising? - but only in the extreme case of someone actually wanting to force jesus onto another person. However, this is not the case. Christy Clark says, she uses the bible to help her with "tough decisions" right? How does the bible play into these decisions? Let's look at the pipline situation, as you brought up. I quote you Sharpshooter: "guided by the secular universal morality about what ensure the greatest about of 'good' for the most amount of people, while attempting to ensure the least amount of 'harm' to the least amount of people" This notion of "good" and "harm" is a possible area in which a tough decision requires Christy Clark to infer the Bible from. She needs to weigh what sacrifice people need to take in building a pipeline, and also the ramifications of those actions. Are they holistic and righteous ethics? Or are they selfish and for monetary gain? I believe Wall Street is littered with CEO's and CFO's who don't consider the consequences of their actions. A political giant doesn't use Christian morals for the purpose of converting and shoving Jesus down everyone's throats.. but using scripture and biblical values to impact the tough decisions on how are we treating people, and how are we wisely using the money we have to benefit our society. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Slaytanic Wehrmacht Posted August 7, 2012 Share Posted August 7, 2012 I've a good mind to start a Church of The Flash, and start carrying my old Flash comic books around door to door claiming Barry Allen to be the TRUE savior of the world. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dajusta Posted August 7, 2012 Share Posted August 7, 2012 The problem is that Christy is the Premier of British Columbia, thereby, putting her in quite a powerful position to make some very important decisions which effect millions of people. Sure if you want to talk about the values and morals in the bible let's do it, but what I propose to you is to ACTUALLY read the bible. You will learn how to be a good moral person... to all believers in your faith. To the non-believers, DIE! These are the type of 'words of wisdom' that spread hate and prejudice throughout the land... see the recent Wisconsin shooting for example. "Oh but wait, he was a neo-nazi and Hitler was an atheist" Wrong! Hitler was a Christian through and through. The point in all of this is that basing political decisions on the word of 'god' makes for poor governance. Check out Iran, Israel, the United States yada yada yada. And I whole-heartedly agree with some other posts on here: what would this discussion be like were Christy's faith Muslim rather than Christianity? Meez thinks the views of Christy's supporters in this thread would be very different. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Slaytanic Wehrmacht Posted August 7, 2012 Share Posted August 7, 2012 Awesome. Sounds like we agree. To go off-topic now is the area of "original idea". I agree that a large portion of the Christian Bible today is filled with morals that is pretty self discovered. Though something being "unoriginal" doesn't make detract its weight of wisdom. To shed more light on the Bible, it's more of a historical book, with poems, and prophetic language - not just book of the law. With that said - I believe there is originality in one part of the Bible. That is the life of a guy named Jesus. His morals and teachings put many other system of thought to shame. Like the Pharisees who do everything for themselves.. In my perspective, Republicans are the modern-day Pharisee. We can learn much from Jesus, a man who attacked the religion of it's day. He is someone truly original. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Slaytanic Wehrmacht Posted August 7, 2012 Share Posted August 7, 2012 I do read the Bible. I read it every day. I attended Bible College for 4 years and majored in the field Biblical Studies and minor'd in the field of Church Ministry. The words of the Old Testament can be harsh, though that is what Israel felt. They were being murdered and taken captive. Raped and plundered. They sought justice and God Almighty was the face of that. I know when reading words like "Kill all foreigners" it may be like wtf - but in essence they sought justice. Remember Koni 2012? What was the purpose and response? Bring down Koni! This is no different. I have studied, and continually study the Bible in light of its historical context, original language, and cultural background. Without these perspectives, we can easily think the Bible depicts a very hateful God, where truth be told, humanity is the hateful one. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dajusta Posted August 7, 2012 Share Posted August 7, 2012 I'm not suggesting that she's proselytizing in her use of the Bible. I'm suggesting that she can make whatever decision she wants, and then justify it because it was a religiously informed decision. A decision based on a religion that many people do not share and are concerned will come into play into their personal lives by the decision she makes. An example of this would be a 'meat-a-tarian' in charge of ordering a menu item for a group to eat that consists of one or two vegetarians. Will the decision be to order a meat item or a veggie item? Is/Are the vegetarian(s) right to hold some concern? Is it inappropriate for them to voice that concern, since the decision would have some real ramifications for them based on the person's vested interests and beliefs of what makes a 'good meal'? Should the person consult the entire menu and the people who are voicing their concerns or just his own butcher's guide and his own inclinations to help his decision making? There's nothing wrong with being a meat eater and if this person chooses to eat meat products for himself and his own family, that's his perrogative.....but is it moral and ethical to choose what he bases his meals on, and use that to feed vegetarians that are voicing their choice in not eating meat? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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