Why Our Children Don’T Think There Are Moral Facts

[AZMike]

And what happens to that code when social varieties over-ride the moral code established by God?  After all the 12 sons of Jacob (Israel) were from 2 wives and their handmaidens.  Makes a mess out of our modern moral code of today.  Jacob had 13 kids from 2 wives and 2 adulterous affairs according to today's moral code.  

 

If God gave us this code, why is it mankind changes it to fit their agenda?

 

Good thing hypocrisy isn't one of the 10 Commandments.....

 

If we had to use two words to describe God's shaping of man's morality, it would be "Baby Steps." I suspect He realized that His creations don't do well if the change that is demanded is too drastically different.

 

God allowed israel, "Out of the hardness of its people's hearts" to have slaves, to have kings, to practice polygamy, etc. - just like all the neighbors they wanted to emulate did. But He forbade many of the things they wanted to emulate (like Canaanite infanticide) and placed restrictions on other practices to moderate them beyond anything their neighbors observed, and gradually brought His chosen people along to a higher state of moral observance (even as they repeatedly erred, were chastened, reformed, then committed the same old mistakes again). By the time of Jesus, the Jews no longer practiced polygamy or slavery. 

 

This is recurrent theme throughout the Old and New Testaments.

Edited May 8, 2015 by AZMike

[Stosh]

I guess we're just reading two different books.  

[CalicoPenn]

Ok, Pack. You asked for it. In Euclidean geometry, we take it as truth that the sum of the interior angles of a triangle is 180. Under Einstein's Theory of Relativity, the interior angle of a triangle composed of three rays of light do not, in general, add up to 180 due to gravity. And no, I can't actually explain the physics behind that. I flunked high school chemistry because every time the teacher tried to explain mols to me, I couldn't stop thinking about moles since I'm far more interested in the biological sciences than in chemistry and physics.

 

Oh, and yes, the moon is moving but the point is that no matter how much it moves, the distance between the moon and the earth will still be the same measurement no matter where in the universe you are.

[DuctTape]

The fourth parallel postulate, from which the sum of a triangles angles is 180 is proven was needed as euclid could not prove parallelism without it. We now understand the problem more clearly with what is referred to as non-euclidean geometry, that which is planar. Parallelism (and the interior angle theorem) are not true for example in a geometry which exists in a curved space. Think of the surface of a sphere as a non-euclidean geometry, the fourth parallel postulate, as well as much of euclidean geometry fails to hold true. In fact one could argue that the geometric "facts" are relative to the geometry in which they exist. In a highly complex curved universe, (which may be the result of gravity, or gravity is a result of the curvature), we would exist in a non-euclidean existence. over very small distances the curvatures are nit noticeable, so euclidean geometry works as a good enough approximation. Just like when we walk a straight line on a map for 100 mmeters on the surface of the earth. Airplanes use great circles for the shortest distance in the spherical geometry.

[packsaddle]

Calico,

Yeah, I get that but your argument amounts to a constraint on the system in that it is restricted to a narrow set of boundary conditions. We apply constraints like that all the time. Within the system it still works the same way. By the way, that was a nice twist on uniformitarianism that you mentioned at the end. I'll try to remember that.

[DuctTape]

Correction to my post. Parallelism was Eucluds 5th postulate.

[Peregrinator]

And...I suspect that the Pythagorean Theorem is still just as valid today as it was in the time of Pythagoras

Yes, but the Pythagorean Theorem holds in Euclidean geometry, not non-Euclidean. In fact, if one takes the first four Euclidean axioms and assumes the Pythagorean Theorem, one can derive the Fifth Postulate.

[Peregrinator]

Whoops, sorry, didn't mean to jump on the bandwagon 

[Peregrinator]

In Euclidean geometry, we take it as truth that the sum of the interior angles of a triangle is 180. Under Einstein's Theory of Relativity, the interior angle of a triangle composed of three rays of light do not, in general, add up to 180 due to gravity.

Let's take something simpler. The sum of the interior angles of a triangle drawn on the surface of a sphere (a "spherical triangle") won't necessarily be 180 degrees. It can be as much as 540 degrees. As an experiment you can take a ball and draw a triangle on it.

[DuctTape]

Yes, but the Pythagorean Theorem holds in Euclidean geometry, not non-Euclidean. In fact, if one takes the first four Euclidean axioms and assumes the Pythagorean Theorem, one can derive the Fifth Postulate.

Yes, but then one has just added a different 5th postulate, the pythg thm.

[DuctTape]

Let's take something simpler. The sum of the interior angles of a triangle drawn on the surface of a sphere (a "spherical triangle") won't necessarily be 180 degrees. It can be as much as 540 degrees. As an experiment you can take a ball and draw a triangle on it.

And the triangle itself isnt a "real triangle" in euclidean space. It is often referred to as an Euler triangle. I always loved geometry.

[packsaddle]

See, isn't this so much better as a discussion?

No one is being threatened. No one's ox is being gored. It's not pitting one opinion against another but instead, just expanding different ways to look at things.

Edited May 8, 2015 by packsaddle

[Stosh]

See, isn't this so much better as a discussion?

No one is being threatened. No one's ox is being gored. It's not pitting one opinion against another but instead, just expanding different ways to look at things.

 

Yep, totally irrelevant and has nothing to do with Scouting.  My kinda thread.  

[Peregrinator]

Yes, but then one has just added a different 5th postulate, the pythg thm.

Right

 

Interestingly, the fact that the surface of a sphere is non-Euclidean is why we can't just use the Pythagorean Theorem to calculate the distance between two points on Earth, given the latitude and longitude of each. Of course we can get a good approximation if the points aren't too far apart.

[MattR]

Back out of the weeds... and trying to play nice.

 

If we had to use two words to describe God's shaping of man's morality, it would be "Baby Steps."

Here's one word: Exegesis. I think it's a fascinating subject.

 

I've noticed in this thread that examples of moral facts are all things people shouldn't do. That's very un scout like considering we're always trying to encourage scouts to do the right thing rather than punish them for doing the wrong thing. The idea of human dignity is one idea in the Bible (and probably all other religion's basic tenets) that has passed the test of time and been elevated, via exegesis, to the point where it can trump most other rules in the Bible.