The three major monotheistic religions all have holy books that date to a minimum of 1400 years ago. This makes the relevance of these supposed Divine rules somewhat suspect.
A Jewish cartoon that I enjoy reading has an interesting take on Jewish bioethics, including links under the cartoon to discussions of same. Among some of the articles that I find problematic is the discussion of genetic material from non-kosher animals being kosher (in the sense that the products from these genetic unions could be considered kosher). Sounds like obeying the letter of the divine law, rather than the intent.
The means of making divine laws relevant to today seem to fall into two categories: God spoke in terms people at the time would understand, so we need to update certain things based on what we know they knew; and God’s law is eternal, so whatever He said then still applies, we just need to figure out how.
Incidentally, I ran across this a while ago: an answer to the question how do Muslims in space pray? Hypothetical at the time it was written, it may soon need to be put to practical application.
What are other science fictional (hopefully someday science factional) problems various religions might face? A Jain encounters non-carbon-based life (how do you know if it’s alive in order to avoid killing it)? The Ender’s Game series tackled how to preach Jesus to non-Earthlings (he died for all, just happened to be human). Shinto managed to roll with the obvious humanity of the emperor. Clearly, religious faith is strong enough to withstand space travel (or measly moon colonies). But, speculation is fun!
9 responses so far ↓
1 Jonathan // Jan 26, 2007 at 8:02 pm
Hmmm…
The best way I’ve heard is it explained is that the spirit of the law is what is permanent, the manifestation of the law is a product of the times and the culture.
So 4000+ year old laws given to the Jewish nation happened to be highly symbolic (cleanliness laws), probably because symbol played an important part in the religious life of near-eastern culture at the time. God just meets people where they are and what they are familiar with. With the advent of the New Testament, Jesus proclaimed that he did not come to abolish the law, but uphold it completely, and then went on to describe on the Sermon on the Mount that the manifestation of law is not enough - but adherence to the spirit of the law is what is important. You can follow the Jewish law to the tee and still be wicked - so there must be something more - the spirit of it. Some laws come very close to the spirit of them, others are more symbolic (such as not wearing garments of 2 different kinds of cloth)
So in this sense, the ‘law’ being spiritual, is timeless and cross-cultural and time-independent. It’s late, and I don’t think that made any sense.
2 Miko // Jan 27, 2007 at 8:19 am
no, it made a lot of sense. I agree that the spirit of the law is more important than the letter (most Christians are okay with eating cheeseburgers and ham alike). Is it possible to obey the spirit while disobeying the letter (when you speed because your wife’s going into labor)?
3 Jonathan // Jan 27, 2007 at 12:17 pm
Heck yeah!
From a biblical perspective: David, before he was king and running from Saul, went into the tabernacle and ate from the table of shobread (A very bad thing to do) But he and his men were starving, and they needed food very badly. Jesus ran into this issue with the Pharisees all the time, especially over the particulars of how to not do ‘work’ on the Sabbath day of rest, which he apparently did all the time. He ended up saying that the sabbath law was made for the people, not people for the law. That’s kind of an area for deep thinking there - not only that we should seek to follow the spirit of the law, but that the law was based on our needs and our design - to help us. The sabbath was created so people could rest, because we are limited people that need downtime. People came first, the law came second to help us live the best way we can according to how we are designed. Another interesting thing to note is even though we might be perfect in following the manifestation of the law, it is impossible to perfectly follow the spirit of it.
Nowadays, the Christian is completely free of the manifestation of the Old Testament law (even the ten commandments) - they are free to follow the spirit of the law in whatever manifestation they see fit in their situation, time, place, and culture. Thus ushers in situational ethics - a complicated area of gray where no one person seems to agree on what manifestation of the spirit of a law is ok and what is not.
I’ve known many famous Christian scholars saying the lying in any way, even to save lives, is wrong. This means that Christians harboring Jews during the holocaust in Germany were sinning when they would tell the gestapo that they were not. Stealing in any way is wrong - Jean Valjean in Le Mis was wrong to steal bread to help the starving. But understanding the spirit of the law helps make these situations easier. Some people have forfeit the right to be told the truth about certain things. The value of a person’s life is more important then another person’s ownership of a piece of bread.
You’ve mentioned in the past about Aristotle’s thinking in these areas. From a biblical perspective, the spirit of the law is derived from the character of God himself - which gives the spirit of the law the ultimate authority. To know God is to know the spirit of the law. To read about the law (in the Old Testament) causes you learn more about what God is like. You are simply acting as God would act if he were in your shoes.
Where does Aristotle say ethics/morality come from? (I’m not talking about mores) I haven’t read up to him yet - I’m still on Socrates and the Stoics.
4 Miko // Jan 27, 2007 at 4:00 pm
Did anyone read the articles that the site I linked to linked to? (I know that’s a lot of levels of linkage, but there are some interesting Jewish philosophical takes on recent issues.) One guy posited that contemporary Jews still follow dietary laws because doing so reminds them, even at the most mundane times, that they are Jews [also that these laws may have been intended to make association with gentiles more difficult]. Have any Mormons run into this? I thought of it in the sense of offering tea to people in my home: it wouldn’t have occurred to me (before I met John) that some people wouldn’t drink caffiene. In this day/country, it is pretty easy to follow the more obvious of Jewish dietary laws (no cheeseburgers, no ham, no shrimp) even in someone else’s home or a restaurant. But what about Mormon dietary laws (of which I know few)? Caffiene is so much a part of our society that it must be hard to avoid at times.
Jonathan (#3): I like the sentiment of the law for the people. That sense makes Christians helping Jews during the Holocaust in a much better place (ethically). I also like the sentiment of giving up rights to certain things, like knowing the truth. Ethical aboslutes are iffy for me; if taking human life is always wrong, what moral choice can there be when you see a bus about to hit someone (and pushing that person out of the way would cause you to die)? None. But if situation ethics are taken into account (or, better, Aristotelean! :-D), both actions, though both result in the death of one human, could be ethical.
Aristotle says that people act ethically because they want to be happy (happiness is an end in itself) and that, no matter what sort of person they are, they are not truly happy unless they act ethically. I don’t know if he rejects the idea of the gods as anything more than (historical, ethical, social) stories, but I recall that he did. In any case, the first part of his Nichomachean Ethics, is a struggle to find out what motivates people and, ultimately, an assertion that happiness in this life is that toward which all people strive.
5 Elise // Jan 27, 2007 at 11:45 pm
I don’t think Mormon dietary laws are meant to isolate them from….gentiles, for lack of a better word. I noted a Mormon coworker at our work Christmas party (open bar, lots of craziness) always had a glass of clear sparkling liquid (sprite or sparkling water?) garnished with a lime. I’m 99.9% sure there wasn’t any grey goose in there, but no one would have know the difference. He wasn’t drinking because he doesn’t believe in altering his body or giving up his ability to choose, two things which drinking is capable of doing. I think Mormon dietary laws are really meant to keep people healthy. If they sometimes isolate, it is because the individual chooses to do so - i.e., an LDS friend of mine goes to a coffee shop with her coworkers all the time and gets herbal tea or spiced cider, no one pays attention or even realizes anything is out of the ordinary. Others may make a big stink about not going to a coffee shop at all - “avoid the appearance of evil” - and that is what isolates them. Not the fact that they aren’t drinking caffiene.
Sorry if I’m on a tangent….but….the letter of the law can be so much more comfortable than the spirit of the law. The letter gives very little room for choice - if always choosing “A” is the answer to ethics, and you always choose “A”, then you are ethical. No need to question yourself or your choice, as long as it was “A”. But if there are exceptions to choosing “A”, things start to get gray. And a little more uncomfortable. There is more room for making a mistake, more room for second guessing yourself.
My favorite sci-fi but maybe almost sci-fact is cloning. Do human clones have souls? Are human clones savable? If they don’t have souls, do they have any sense of right and wrong? If they don’t have a sense of right and wrong, can they sin? Hmmmm….
6 Miko // Jan 28, 2007 at 9:29 am
if they have any sense of right & wrong do they necessarily have souls…?
yeah, one of my sisters is obsessed with that one…she called it “scandal”, tho, not “evil”.
7 John // Jan 29, 2007 at 10:52 pm
Elise, my impression is that LDS dietary restrictions are as much about social separation as they are about health. I’ve been in many situations where my not drinking alcohol or coffee has marked me as a Mormon. The difference is especially strong in Japan, where almost everyone drinks green tea, and the caffeine is so low (>3mg, compared with 45mg for a can of diet coke) that you have to use ‘against my religion’ rather than ‘health’ when you explain why you’re turning down your host’s generosity.
8 Megan // Feb 2, 2007 at 12:33 pm
RE: green tea in Japan I was always sad that it’s impolite to use “tastes like crap” as an excuse, which is what I use most of the time in my life if I dont’ feel like getting into an hour long tanget on momonism. I don’t *like* the taste of tea, iced tea, green tea, or coffee. Blech.
9 John Remy // Feb 2, 2007 at 2:56 pm
I’m curious, Megan–did you ever drink mugicha? Most of my American companions came to love it over the course of a couple of hot summers (I grew up drinking it and loved it).
If you don’t mind my asking, what took you to Japan? As LDS missionaries we didn’t mind so much getting into hour long tangents about Mormonism.
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