The Bible, whatever it’s other flaws or virtues, is undeniably an impressive compendium of entertaining stories. Of course, it can be tough slogging to read the whole thing from start to finish, suffused as it is with miscellaneous begats and exhortations against the eating of shellfish.
Fortunately, you can now get your Bible stories in easily-digestible comic form, from Holy Bibble. Cannan and Lucas have set themselves the task of rewriting the entire bible as humorous sequential art. Admittedly, some poetic license is occasionally taken with the material — I’m pretty sure there was no trip to Japan in the original Scriptures. But all of the stories are based on real Bible narratives, and you do learn a lot by reading them.
For example, we’ve all heard the story of Lot and his wife. Yahweh had decided to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah for their various sinful activities. Lot, being virtuous, was given advance warning, and fled with his wife and two daughters. But his wife couldn’t resist looking back one last time, and was turned into a pillar of salt. God works in mysterious ways.
But the afterstory is so much more interesting. Lot and his daughters apparently thought they were completely alone, and there was some question as to how the family line would be able to continue. The women decided to take matters into their own hands — they got their father drunk and raped him in order to get themselves pregnant. The scheme worked, and they eventually gave birth to sons who fathered the Moabites and the Ammonites, two rival tribes to Israel.
The unwitting seductions actually happened on two successive nights, so one may question whether Lot shouldn’t have figured out what was going on. On the other hand, his daughters may have had some issues, as Lot had previously offered them up to a rampaging mob of Sodomites. At least, that’s what I gather from the comics; but apparently it’s all in the book.
Cain’s trip to Japan, though — pretty sure they made that up.
Update: David Plotz at Slate blogs the Bible!
Belizean says:
You’re quite right that Aristotle (and his approximate contemporaries) got it all wrong to a large extent because he did not do experiments (well, he did observe). But your argument that Christian equality made all the difference does not explain the facts: Why did it take over one thousand years for Christian equality to kick in?
I don’t agree with Belizean, but even if I did, isn’t the real point that the idea of God is, you know, a complete fantasy? And if this is true, then we made up the morals that go along with religion, and can make up any other way of living we like (without the silly worship part) if we want.
Belizean says:
“If you confine your system to your personal morality and act on it, you will be killed or imprisoned if that morality differs substantively from the norms of your society.”
If you had thought about what I said you would have seen that the idea of conversation is to establish that norm.
“If you attempt to spread your system into the society at large, you will find that this is impossible to accomplish without a religion to transmit it to present and future generations.”
The norm, having been established by conversations, doesn’ need a superfluous (and highly conservative) channel.
“They took seriously the ideas of secular moralists — Nietzsche in the case of Hitler, Marx in the case of the others.”
If you had thought about what I said you would have seen that they weren’t using secular morals, they were constrained and active proponents of political and religious value systems. Marx is the inventor of the communist idea, an essentially religious belief system.
“you don’t mind if I call you Torby Baby do you?”
Of course I do, and that is your intention. I guess pointing out that one must tolerate a persons view but respect the person was too true for you. So here I think you actually thought about what I said. Good!
“you go right ahead and form a community of literal ethical relativists.”
If you had thought about what I said you would have seen that I proposed the exact opposite of isolated literal relativism. We use conversation to established as much of a normed morality we need. And don’t forget that there will be laws et cetera that is enforcing morality too. Murder, rape and theft will always be immoral in secular societies, however relative our personal norms become.
Look, Belizean, we will not agree on this. Mark says it well, it is really about making up other ways of living without the silly worship and superstition. Nothing more.
Has anyone who’s actually read Nietzsche and studied history been able to support the assertion that the Nazi’s got anything at all from his philosophy? From what I’ve seen, the only connection they had to him was the same distorting connection they had to various crank theories that they twisted into propaganda.
PK,
It didn’t. It took a thousand years for large scale civilization to restart. On the small scale, it’s generally acknowledged that, as early as the 11th century, the standard of living of a medieval townsman exceeded that of a Roman plebian of the first century. And invention proceeded [see the last paragraph of post #49] at an increasing rate that well exceeded that of ancient times.
What the middle ages lacked relative to the ancients was the centralization of power necessary to foster the large scale organization that we call civilization. Recall that power was divided among numerous feudal lords. It wasn’t until these began to coalesce into larger kingdoms that law and its enforcement became sufficiently uniform and predictable to create the social environment that nourished the Renaissance.
Mark,
The real point is not about God or other supernatural fantasies. It is this: civilization cannot long exist in the absence of a supporting religion.
This religion does not have to have deities (e.g. Buddhism, Confucianism) or even supernatural components.
This religion does have to suppress natural selfishness in mass populations in order to permit the large-scale cooperation that defines civilization.
When 3-year-old little Johnny asks you why he can’t shoplift, you must
A) Tell him the truth. “Actually, Johnny shoplifting — like murder, rape, and other so-called crimes — will fulfill your desires. Hence, they are rational activities. The trick, however, is not to get caught. That’s quite easy in many circumstances, especially if you’re clever about it. It’s also a good idea to encourage everyone else to be law abiding. This increases your opportunities for crime.
B) Attempt to reason with him and ultimately discover that the truth is on his side.
C) Tell him that following certain rules is just a tradition, like eggs for breakfast or wearing trousers — and hope that he never considers behaving untraditionally for the rest of his life.
D) Suppress his natural selfishness (i.e. his natural criminality) using the well tested method of instilling in him one of your civilization’s religions.
Can you make up any morals you’d like? Sure. But virtually all members of the infinite set of conceivable morals are incompatible with civilization. Even if you’ve devised a system of morals that supports civilization, you’ll still need a means of getting people to internalize it. [What civilized people don’t tend to realize is that their ability to, for example, walk into an electronics store teaming with stuff they’d like to have and not feel the slightest temptation to shoplift is completely unnatural. Barbarians aren’t like that.]
Your method of internalization would have to a) suppress the desires detrimental to civilization, b) encourage those that support it, c) be effective on massive populations, millions of whose members are literally morons, and d) continue to be effective on future generations. In other words, it would have to perform the functions of a religion — for it would, in fact, be one.
I would just like to announce to everyone, that if I hear someone say the “f” word, I, a moral relativist, believe that in that case, it is okay to kill him or her in order to prevent other people from saying this horrific word. That person has absolutely no right to think ill of me or think I am wrong, or feel upset as I attempt to attack him or her, for all systems of morals are equally valid, according to moral relativism.
Thank you.
Andrew says:
“That person has absolutely no right to think ill of me or think I am wrong, or feel upset as I attempt to attack him or her, for all systems of morals are equally valid, according to moral relativism.”
You are confusing a nonmoral person with a moral one. Morality is a system of principles and judgments shared by communities.
Sorry about the double posting, my browsers view got momentarily confused by something.
I would just like to announce to everyone that, in my country, we have all decided that it is just to kill all baby girls. Therefore, you have absolutely no right to think ill of us, or think we are wrong, or think that this is immoral, for all systems of morals are equally valid, according to moral relativism.
Thank you.
“Therefore, you have absolutely no right to think ill of us, or think we are wrong, or think that this is immoral, for all systems of morals are equally valid, according to moral relativism.”
That’s more like it. Now you have to explain why your society is suddenly doing something that no previous society has done and why the remaining societies doesn’t think it is atrocious. Note that this is where the conversation part comes in – you are supposed to be aware of common morality. Your country isn’t.
Our society is suddenly doing this because we have decided that that is what we want to have done. It’s the will of the people.
I’m not saying the remaining societies don’t think it’s atrocious. They can think it is atrocious, but they have no right to tell us that we are wrong, and they have no right to impose their morality on us, for all systems of morality are equally valid. Who cares about the morality of other countries. Their morality isn’t right for us anyway.
There are (at least) two sides to morality: natural and cultural.
The natural side to morality deals with the pragmatics of having a (large) social group functioning well. An example of a natural moral rule is not killing people in your own community (this does not necessarily include abortion, or indeed killing people in other communities). Killing (or aborting) all, most, or many female babies cannot be a good rule in this context for the simple reason that it disrupts the social fabric in the long run. You cannot really apply moral relativism to this.
The cultural side to morality is evolved through the history of a society, with its religion(s), arts, science, etc. Female circumcision would be a good example of a cultural moral rule. If you take up the position that no society is inherently better than any other (putting aside your natural preference to your own society), then you have to adopt moral relativism to the cultural side of morality.
Of course, these two categories are extremes, and there are undoubtedly many moral rules that are a combination of natural and cultural morality.
P.K. – Well said – I hand it to you!
PK,
Nice try. But a moral relativist would merely say that “having a (large) social group functioning well” (however you define “well”) is just another moral choice, one no better or worse that any other. So moral relativism can be, and in fact has been, applied to your “natural” morality.
You are on the right track, though. The way you circumvent a moral relativist’s position is exactly how you deal with a medical relativist, who holds that all treatments are equally valid. In evaluating the merits of medical treatments we exclude from the discussion, those who have not accepted the proposition that the purpose of treatment is to maximally increase the patient’s health.
Similarly, in evaluating the merits of moral rules we exclude from the discussion, those who have not accepted the proposition that the purpose of morality is to maximally increase a society’s capacity for long term survival.
Thus limiting the circle of discourse — a step necessary in virtually all human endeavors, especially physics — eliminates relativism. Within this circle one can, then, without equivocation state that Western medical treatments are superior to those of African tribalists. And, similarly, Western morality is superior to that, say, of Palestinian society.
Andrew wrote:
I would just like to announce to everyone, that if I hear someone say the “f” word, I, a moral relativist, believe that in that case, it is okay to kill him or her in order to prevent other people from saying this horrific word. That person has absolutely no right to think ill of me or think I am wrong, or feel upset as I attempt to attack him or her, for all systems of morals are equally valid, according to moral relativism.
Andrew:
Your second sentence contradicts your first, as follows:
As you are a moral relativist, you can have no moral objection to my shooting you like a mad dog, on moral grounds.
-Arun
What civilized people don’t tend to realize is that their ability to, for example, walk into an electronics store teaming with stuff they’d like to have and not feel the slightest temptation to shoplift is completely unnatural. Barbarians aren’t like that.
Are you making up things out of thin cloth? Which study of Barbarians establishes your proposition? In any case, the web (unreliable of course) says that “Shoplifting is America’s #1 property crime, 1 in 11 people shoplift.”
(e.g., http://www.shopliftingprevention.org/TheIssue.htm and
http://www.shopliftingprevention.org/WhatNASPOffers/NRC.htm )
Show me “barbarians”, who have a shoplifting rate of more than 1 in 11.
🙂
Arun,
Let me rephrase my statement in a manner that might clarify it for you (and others who might be literal minded).
A person who has been conditioned from birth to obey the law (i.e. a civilized person), feels less temptation to violate it than one who has not been so conditioned (i.e. a barbarian).
You may
A. Tentatively judge this to be true.
B. Tentatively judge this to be false.
C. Make no judgment until a relevant study has been performed.
If you tend to opt for “C”, when presented with such statements, I have another statement for you: “You will feel much better sending me a check for $10,000, than you would keeping the money for yourself.”
Andrew,
You continue to insist that any morality is acceptable. That is the same as saying you have no morals. Instead what is meant is that no morals are absolute or ‘true’.
Since PZ has just had this discussion on Pharyngula ( http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2006/05/rabbi_avi_shafran.php ) and says it so much better, I will quote him.
“At a guess, it’s that good parenting brought me up to value the stability and prosperity of a civil society, and to appreciate the rewards of good behavior. It’s also the possession of empathy, and a recognition that other human beings value their lives and well-being as much as I do mine, so that harming my neighbor or seeing him in distress pains me. None of these genuine motivations for moral behavior require the imposition of a higher authority. In fact, we tend to think that people who would harm others were it not for an artificial restriction by a watchful authority to have a lesser sense of morality.”
“Not going on murderous rampages seems to enhance one’s chances at reproducing and surviving, so sure, utilitarianism seems to be promoting some things that are good. But he’s right in one thing: biology is not a moral imperative. Morality is more of an emergent property of social systems. The fact that we evolved doesn’t dictate our social behavior, nor does it assign a ranking value on certain classes of behavior. We do that.”
Do you see the difference? There is no absolute true dictate. Yet not all morals are ranked the same.
As an aside, perhaps you can insist on a new sort of society, that suddenly starts to let people murder, torture, steal and have slaves.
Yet no such society exists, though some are secular. What differ is severity of punishment et cetera. I have a hard time understand how you envision this society not getting problems with the rest of the world, having people flee en masse, or not being subjected to civil unrest or revolutions.
Belizean,
First you were talking of societies, inducing behaviors in mass populations. and so on. Now you’re changing the goal-posts – you’re talking of individuals (a person who was conditioned to follow the law, versus a person who was not conditioned to follow the law.)
Anyway, by your own definitions and that of the National Anti-Shoplifting Foundation, one in eleven Americans has had insufficient conditioning. Does that make one in eleven Americans a barbarian or (per your earlier posts) does that make America a barbarian society?
Regarding sending you a $10,000 check, do you have any study that proves it makes such contributors feel a lot better?
No change of goal posts. Behaviors are induced in mass populations by conditioning of its individual members.
Yes.
Not quite. The barbarians I had in mind were people who were never condition to obey laws, as opposed to the case you’re describing — people on whom the conditioning failed.
No. Median criminality in America, as in most stable socities, is quite low. The criminality that exists results from two simple facts. 1)Conditioning is not uniformly applied to all indivduals. 2) Even if it were uniformly applied, it would not be uniformly effective because individuals are not identical, nor are their circumstances.
Belizean, I’m disappointed that you use the cheap rhetorical trick of constructing a straw man. There are many versions of moral relativism with varying sophistication. The one I outlined above is one example.
which happens not to fare well under the most rudimentary criticism.