Re: The puzzle of Adam

In a message dated 12/9/2004 12:47:03 PM Eastern Standard Time, "Rich Blinne" <e-lists@blinne.org> writes:
>Dave wrote:
>Morality is not determinable empirically.
>rich:
>Let's talk about that. I think the measure of morality in a
>society CAN be determined empirically. If you're talking
>Biblical morality, consider Genesis 9:7 which reads, ";you must be fruitful and increase..." If we take that Biblical injunction at face value, then the measure of our morality is a measure of our birth rates. Since our birth rates are dropping and the cultural elite are importing immigrants to fill our vacant niches, then I suggest it is easy to measure morality by considering our willingness to replace ourselves with children.
Another measure of morality is the prevalence of STDs in the
Christian population which demonstrates our adherence to what
are essentially "purity" laws in Leviticus.

Rich B:
Such a posteriori reasoning is really broken. There is a reason why casuistry is used to determine morality. Namely, there must be an a priori component that must be applied to the situation.
You empirically derive from Scripture what the principle is but in the end you need to discover the first principles and apply them to the contemporary situation. What you don't do is
arbitrarily apply the commands found in Scripture. For example, when Abraham tried to be fruitful with Hagar, that was described as being wrong. Why? Because the first principle is not maximizing the number of humans but faith and covenant blessing.

rich:
Hagar was a slave girl. It is Abraham who sends Eliezer back to Haraan to find him a wife among his kinsmen and establishes the practice which Jacob will follow. NOTHING is more important in the OT than blood, nothing.

rich:
>Why don't these "measurables" occur to you? Why might you think they are invalid?

rich b:
The measurables are fine if what is being measured is correct.
If you take an eisegetic approach to the Bible like the gnostics and mystics did, then you end up being like the string theorists mentioned above. In the end, the morality being proposed ends up being arbitrary like the over 10^300 different possibilities for vacuum energy. We must make contact with Scripture like the string theorists need to make contact with the experiments. What the opinion of Jewish mystics is all well and good but is not at all relevant to the issue at hand. We still don't know what God's morality is. Rather, all we know is their opinion.

rich:
We are not talking mysticism now or of putting things in the Bible. We are taking them out. Find me one place in the Bible where God says it is OK to limit births. Everything in the Bible is geared toward community survival.
Leviticus 18 is God's morality, first principles.
Don't you find it interesting that the Jewish settlements in Palestinian territory have some of the highest birth rates in the world? That Israel has more fertility clinics than any nation on earth? They seem to know the OTs first principles.
Their behavioral response to those principles is anything but arbitrary. There is nothing arbitrary about the morality in the OT.
rich
Received on Thu Dec 9 18:27:23 2004