Christian Morality Derivation of Principles Copyright © 2004 by Gary Novak Preface. Life is made up of a fabric called reality. Realities are configurations. Morality is sustaining life, and sin is destroying life. For these reasons, methods of properly handling realities create the starting point of morality. Truth is of course the proper method of handling realities. Christ said, "If you live according to my teaching, you are truly my disciples; then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free" (John 8:31,32). Truth frees because it is the size of the universe and the fabric of the universe. It moves a person from the subjectively created forces of sin and into the objective universe which defines and creates life. There are a lot of reasons for not accepting the above facts. They are all sin; and they all destroy life including the perpetrators. Sin might seem so necessary, but necessity does not change its results. It destroys life including the perpetrators. These truisms apply to spiritual and material life. Christ used very few words to describe the essence of morality and life. The meaning of his words is usually not recognized, as demonstrated by the use of any number of other sources of information and allowing them to contradict the valuable truth that he taught. Therefore, the approach here is to explain what Christ taught in terms of modern knowledge. There are two basic approaches to religion. One is to learn from the lessons of life while using the teachings of enlightened persons as a guide. The other is revelation. Supposedly, absurdities are fact because of revelation. There is no such revelation. Minds do not work that way. Knowledge does not exist without understanding. Understanding is acquired through study of all surrounding realities. Even if something is revealed to visionaries, it cannot be communicated apart from the process of reason which links it to all other objective truth and knowledge. The correct approach to religion is to explain relationships, so fact can be determined on the basis of consistent relationships between realities. The test of truth is consistent relationships. The meaning of these concepts is systematically developed here. Introduction. It is usually for the wrong reasons that Christians consider Christ to be God. Generally, his rising from the dead or performing miracles is the reason. Any number of persons make such claims, and the nonbelievers deny that such stories are true. The most significant result Christ produced is super-human wisdom and communication in describing the most important basics of morality and spiritual life. No one else attempted anything comparable, and no other words are comparable. No one ever communicates as effectively as Christ. He used parables and examples of life including his own to clarify and stabilize abstract principles while developing the most important and basic points only. His purpose was to add rationality to religion by relating to evidence through the lessons of life. The quality and purpose of his words allow them to be evaluated on the basis of evidence. Objective evidence is important, because there has been very little of it in religion, even in modern times. Instead, interpretations of scriptures are allowed to contradict common-sense knowledge that people acquire from the lessons of life. There is a high tendency, particularly among fundamentalists, to assume God is above rationality and objectivity. They claim morality is arbitrated by God rather than determined objectively. The lessons of life, however, show that people of all backgrounds and concerns find an objective basis for morality. An example is the "self-evident and inalienable" rights referred to in the US Constitution. Victims of injustice find that sin is wrong regardless of any rationalizations. A very important point being contradicted by fundamentalists or conservatives in religion is that their opposition to objectivity destroys the ability to distinguish between God and satan. Only objective reality tells the difference. The same is true of all moral principles. Without objective evaluation, the difference between correct and incorrect cannot be determined. Supposedly, there is no question about who God is and what he says. Not so. Humans know nothing about God apart from the objective evidence in the lessons of life. Without a very close study of objective evidence, God and morality are constructs which rationalize corruption. I take an objective approach to religion because I was trained in science. When I apply the best standards of scientific rationality to religion, I find that Christ is in a category of his own for super-human rationality, objectivity, knowledge and wisdom. Scientists are devious fools by comparison. Even the supposedly inspired humans and prophets do not produce anything comparable to Christ's words. I find evidence of Christ's rationality in the fact that Christians created the modern concept of science. Certainly, circumstances and geography had something to do with it. Western Europe is where industrialization was born as an inseparable twin with science. But there is also a mind frame required to create the modern scientific method. There needs to be standards and purposes including a love for truth and hate for falseness. Christ said, "The reason I was born, the reason why I came into the world, is to testify to the truth (John 18:37). The scientific method also needs the sense of objectivity that Christ created. Looking, seeking and finding was the approach to life that he taught. He stated this purpose directly ("the one who seeks finds" Mat 7:8), and it is inherent in his teaching method of using evidence including analogies, parables and examples of his life for instructional purposes. He referred to himself as the teacher (Mat 23:10) and said knowledge must be built upon knowledge (Mat 13:12). Objectivity is best understood in terms of its opposite. Sin destroys objectivity and replaces it with subjectivity due to the intent of creating injustices through domination. Objectivity breaks the bonds by recreating relationships to the universe. Truth sets people free (John 8:32) by allowing the universe to be the objective determiner of reality in place of subjective dominators. Christ spoke almost as if he were conducting a scientific study of a subject. He did so by going through the evidence for points which he made. He said, if a sheep can be pulled out of a pit on the Sabbath, why cannot a human be healed on the Sabbath (Mat 12:9-12). When asked if believers (Jews) should pay tax to Caesar, he used a coin with Caesar's head on it and said to give to Caesar what is Caesar's (Mat 22:15-22). Even though a laboratory is not visible, the use of evidence to create rationality based on objectivity is the same standard. Life is the laboratory Christ used for teaching morality. Christ attacked superstitions using evidence and logic as the basis, just as scientists attempt to do. An example is his speaking against the use of rituals to purify food. He explained that corruption originates in the mind, not in the food (Mark 7:1-23). Even the inspired and moral prophets such as Isaiah and Jeremiah could not approach the subject as Christ did. They could not teach basic principles; they could only generalize with superficialities. The reason is because they could not undertake the task which Christ had of defining the subject of morality. It needed to be done by Christ, with all of the surrounding circumstances and developed realities. Most persons, within Christianity and out, fail to recognize Christ's purpose of deriving the subject of morality. Usually, Christ is relegated to a mystical role as the messiah, while the words of humans are given as much or more significance as Christ's words. It's stunning that anyone could equate Paul's promotion of a pagan ritual based on sacrifice with Christ's moral teaching, let alone reverse everything Christ taught on that basis; but fundamentalists in Christianity do exactly that. It is also stunning that atheists and nonChristians could see nothing of relevance in Christ's teaching regardless of who they thought he was. No one on planet earth has produced words of comparable significance. Bits and pieces of moralizing are found in all religions, but they are scattered quips which disappear in an ocean of falsehoods, because no one could rise to the level of teaching the subject of morality as a purpose in itself. In fact, nowhere else is teaching or producing morality considered to be the most important purpose. In Hindu and Buddhist religions, morality is at best secondary to the purpose of achieving higher spiritual states. As such, the subject of morality is not developed systematically. The Moslems have a concern about right living, but their approach is a variety of disciplines, not a derivation of the basic principles of morality. This subject is clarified by the underlying reason why morality is the central concern of Christ's. The universe continually undergoes cycles of deteriorating into sin and being purified. To overcome sin, material life is needed as a method of stabilizing realities, because life is created by and defined by realities, and morality is a relationship to realities. After sin is overcome, material life is too problematic and is abandoned until needed again to overcome sin. Christ approached the subject of morality as the entire concern of human life, because overcoming sin is the primary purpose of material life. Fundamentalist Christians subconsciously assume that God created material life as an end in itself. They might say they do so consciously, but they do not significantly evaluate the purpose of material life beyond some glib slogans about sharing his love with humans or something similar. With the subconscious assumption that material life is an end in itself, they are on a quest to restore God's order in the world. Christ clearly described the limited purposes and corruptness of material life, but fundamentalists read so little of what Christ said, replacing it with Paul's writing, that they seem to not notice the contradictions between their assumptions and Christ's teaching. Whether the four Gospels are really the words of Christ is another question which creates a persistent counterargument to Christ's teaching, since the Gospels were written some time after Christ's death. From the perspective which this book attempts to convey, this question is almost irrelevant, because the words themselves are in a category of their own in terms of super-human wisdom and effectiveness of communication. If Joe Dokes produced them, the meaning is still the same. And then authorship only has the secondary significance of who the source of such words might be. Of course God speaking is highly significant. But rationality is not making a guess at whether God is speaking to determine the significance of words; it is determining the significance of words as the evidence of whether God is speaking. This logic is the difference between the subjective and objective approach to religion. Christ demanded the objective approach. He said, if people can judge the portents of the weather, why can they not judge the signs of the times and determine what justice is (Luke 12:54-57). Religion is supposed to be evaluated as objectively as the weather. But all of this is wiped out with another gimmick. The nihilists only want one thing from Christianity—a personal savior. To do a rational analysis is some sort of corruption, because the religion is all about a personal savior. Why then did Christ teach? The nihilists use endless words which are not rational trying to convince someone of something, while they pretend that religion is supposed to be above logic and rationality. They sometimes say that common sense is a corruption, because God's words are above common sense. Rationality and objectivity are part of the super-human wisdom of Christ's. Christ continuously referred to his teaching as being the words of life (John 8:12). To the Samaritan woman at the well, he said, "But whoever drinks the water I give him will never be thirsty; no, the water I give shall become a fountain within him, leaping up to provide eternal life" (John 4:14). Evaluating the super-human wisdom of Christ's words and comparing them to alternatives is the purpose of this book.