Lets see 'crap ' like' transcendent values ,
Here are 10 of those values
Here are 10 of those values.
No. 1: There is one God. That God is the God introduced to the world by the Hebrew Bible — the source of one universal morality
This is an assertion. Not a value or redeeming quality.
No. 2: The Hebrew Bible (the only Bible Jesus knew and which he frequently cited) introduced the most revolutionary moral idea in history: that there are objective moral truths just as there are mathematical and scientific truths. Without God as the source of moral standards, there is no moral truth; there are only moral opinions.
This is nonsense and suggests that people who don't believe in God can't make moral judgments. Which is silly.
No. 3: Because there are moral truths, good and evil are the same for all people.
There are many humans agree on and many we don't.
I don't agree that you should say, stone your unruly child to death, or own human beings as property, and yet the Bible condones those things.
I think slavery is immoral. Whomever wrote the Bible doesn't seem to agree with me.
No. 4: God — not man, not government, not popular opinion, not a democratic vote — is the source of our rights. All men “are endowed (SET ITAL) by their Creator (END ITAL) with certain unalienable Rights,” declares the American Declaration of Independence.
Except that is exactly how we enumerate our rights - via democratic vote, government legislation, etc.
The Bill of Rights, for instance. Where does the Bible have a timeless and universal bill of rights?
No. 5: The human being is “created in the image of God.” Therefore, each human life is precious. Therefore, race is of no significance since we are all created in God’s image, and God has no race.
This implies that human life is only "precious" if it's created in the image of something else that is also "precious?"
No. 6: The world is based on a divine order, meaning divinely ordained distinctions. Among these divine distinctions are God and man, man and woman, human and animal, good and evil, nature and God, and the holy and the profane.
This is just an assertion that I've seen zero evidence for.
No. 7: Man is not basically good. Christians speak of “original sin” in referring to man’s sinful nature; Jews cite God Himself in Genesis: “The will of man’s heart is evil from his youth” (Genesis 8:21). They are not identical beliefs, but they are both worlds apart from the naive Enlightenment belief that man is basically good. And they come to the same conclusion: we need God-based rules to keep us from our natural inclination to do evil.
This is definitely not a redeeming quality or a value worth valuing, in my opinion since it diminishes us and lays blame and responsibility upon us for something that had absolutely nothing to do with us. In fact, I think this is an extremely harmful and destructive view of humanity. Assuming people are all just evil to the core is a terrible way to carry on with life.
The last statement is just an assertion, not in evidence. And in fact, I'd say the evidence indicates the opposite, given that nonbelievers are perfectly capable of weighing out moral decisions without the need to invoke any gods. I can figure out on my own that slavery is immoral, despite the fact that the God of the Bible condones it.
I have ZERO inclination to "do evil." None whatsoever. This is an extremely harmful view of humanity, if you ask me. Walking around imagining everyone is evil and wanting to commit evil acts. I don't want to live in such a suspicious and paranoid world as that.
Not sure at all what is "redeeming" about telling human beings they're evil from the get-go. (Which is a demonstrably false assertion anyway.)
My dad went to his grave believing he was a terrible, irredeemable person and that bugs me to this day. This stuff is harmful to peoples' mental health.
No. 8: Therefore, we must not follow our hearts. Both religious Jews and Christians are keenly aware of how morally dangerous it is to be led by our emotions. Those who reject Judeo-Christian values are far more likely to follow and promote the advice, “Follow your heart.”
This is again, just an assertion, not in evidence.
Not a value.
Not a redeeming quality.
Just a judgy Karen-type statement.
Also it makes zero sense. Hearts pump blood. And they have very little to do with the emotion processing centres in our brains.
No. 9: God gave us the Ten Commandments — the core of Judeo-Christian values. Therefore, to apply but one of the Ten Commandments to our morally confused secular age, you must “Honor your father and mother” even if they voted for someone you loathe — meaning, at the least, remain in contact with them and do not dare deprive them of the right to be in contact with their grandchildren.
The first four Commandments are just God's ego talking. There's nothing in there about values or morality.
And the rest of them are pretty lame, if you ask me.
How about "Thou shalt not harm children." Or "Thou shalt not own human beings as property." Or something more useful than, honour your mother and father and don't covet your neighbours oxen and wife.
No. 10: Human beings have free will. In the secular world, there is no free will because all human behavior is attributed to biology and environment. Only a religious worldview, because it posits the existence of a divine soul — something independent of biology and environment — allows for free will.
Except that's just an assertion you can't demonstrate.
There is another important aspect to the term “Judeo-Christian.” The two religions need each other. Without the Old Testament, there is no New Testament. Virtually every Christian moral principle derives from the Hebrew Bible — not only the 10 Judeo-Christian values enumerated here, but such basic moral principles as “Love your neighbor as yourself (Leviticus 19:18), “Love the Lord your God with all your heart …” (Deuteronomy 6:5), and “Love the stranger” (Deuteronomy 10:19).
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"Love your neighbour as yourself" only works if your neighbour is a decent person and not a criminal. I'm not going to love Hitler as I would love myself, for example. That would be a giant mistake that would get a bunch of people killed.
I'll have to remember this the next time I quote the Old Testament and the Christian I'm talking to says "why are you quoting that, it's the Old Testament!"
Exercising morality requires that we weigh out the consequences of our actions in regards to how they affect us and others around us.
Following orders from on high isn't an exercise in morality. Rather, it's an exercise in "Might makes right and do what you're told."