A truly positive effect of the Bible is that it pretty much sets out the 'do-don't do' rules that people have worked out over millennia.
A truly negative effect of Hegel/Marx doctirine is that there is no basis for the Bible, and, as a result, individuals decide for each and every oneself what is right and wrong. And that is easily a rationalized corruption of right and wrong.
1. " When morality became privatized, the questions “what is right” became “what is right for me.” Feelings... became the arbiters of behavior. Rather than traditional taboos, only religiously based moral judgment was deemed taboo. The harm caused to abandoned spouses or children by adultery or desertion- harm that can be objectively documented in rates of ill health, depression, educational underachievement, criminal behavior- was all but ignored, while damage done to people’s feelings by condemnation of their adultery or desertion was considered unforgiveable."
"The World Turned Upside Down," Melanie Phillips, chapter 14
a. If there is no God, there is no good or evil; people are still left to our reason, our subjective opinion and our cultural experience. Feelings matter more than truth. 'What is right' takes a backseat to 'what is right for me.'
b. What atheists who speak in terms of good and evil have done is appropriated religious dialogue for themselves. They have kidnapped our way of speaking and said what was rooted in God doesn't need God any longer.
http://www.colorado.edu/philosophy/wes/debate.html
c. Even in the 19th century, as religious conviction waned, the warnings were there. Ivan Karamazov, in “The Brothers Karamazov,” exclaimed ‘if God does not exist, then everything is permitted.’
2. Classical liberalism, the optimistic doctrine that gave us liberty, democracy, progress, was a moral project. It held that human society could always better itself by encouraging the good and diminishing the bad. It rested, therefore, on a very clear understanding that there was a higher cause than self-realization: that there were such things as right and wrong and that the former should be preferred over the latter. But the belief that autonomous individuals had the right to make subjective judgment about what was right for them in pursuit of their unchallengeable entitlement to happiness destroyed that understanding. Progressives interpreted liberty as license, thus destroying the moral rules that make freedom a virtue."
Phillips, Op.Cit.
3. While the Judeo-Christian society labels actions as ‘good’ or ‘evil,’ due to morality and/or self-control, the Left sees the results as due to material inequality, i.e., violent crime due to poverty. .For the Left, the battle is not between good and evil....it is between rich and poor.The result for Liberals is that equality trumps morality.....and everything else!
The Left has been far more interested in fighting material inequality than tyranny, which is why Lenin, Mao, Pol Pot, Ho Chi Minh, Castro, etc., tend to have the support of Leftists around the world.
Dennis Prager
4. A distinguishing characteristic of Liberals and Leftists is an aversion to recognizing or acknowledging evil and its permutations, i.e., communism. On another level, it explains the Left’s dislike for capitalism, a system that produces winners and losers, a painful fact that the Left would rather not see.
a. Michael Moore tells CNN's Anderson Cooper that capitalism “is an evil system set up to benefit the few at the expense of the many…. "So, what system do you want?" Anderson Cooper asked Moore. "Well there's no system right now that exists. We're going to create that system.” Michael Moore We re Going To Replace Capitalism As We Know It RealClearPolitics
5. If there's no God - making ourselves the source of ethics for everybody, or declaring that nobody can be the source of ethics for anybody, and therefore morality is, again, purely subjective. Abortion may be legal, and a woman’s right….but this doesn’t it is ethically right.
The Greeks believed in a version of same in which they placed deformed babies on the hillside. The reason I use the Greek example of ugly children is not because we do it today, but because they had reason on their side. Reason supports a lot of things, as for example, a very liberal position on abortion. If there is no God, "Love your neighbor as yourself" is just a good idea. That's why it is written, incidentally, in Leviticus, "Love your neighbor as yourself, I am God." I, God, tell you to be decent to other people.
Dennis Prager, a lecture.
The Left is content to fight imaginary evil, such as carbon emissions and second hand smoke.
A truly negative effect of Hegel/Marx doctirine is that there is no basis for the Bible, and, as a result, individuals decide for each and every oneself what is right and wrong. And that is easily a rationalized corruption of right and wrong.
1. " When morality became privatized, the questions “what is right” became “what is right for me.” Feelings... became the arbiters of behavior. Rather than traditional taboos, only religiously based moral judgment was deemed taboo. The harm caused to abandoned spouses or children by adultery or desertion- harm that can be objectively documented in rates of ill health, depression, educational underachievement, criminal behavior- was all but ignored, while damage done to people’s feelings by condemnation of their adultery or desertion was considered unforgiveable."
"The World Turned Upside Down," Melanie Phillips, chapter 14
a. If there is no God, there is no good or evil; people are still left to our reason, our subjective opinion and our cultural experience. Feelings matter more than truth. 'What is right' takes a backseat to 'what is right for me.'
b. What atheists who speak in terms of good and evil have done is appropriated religious dialogue for themselves. They have kidnapped our way of speaking and said what was rooted in God doesn't need God any longer.
http://www.colorado.edu/philosophy/wes/debate.html
c. Even in the 19th century, as religious conviction waned, the warnings were there. Ivan Karamazov, in “The Brothers Karamazov,” exclaimed ‘if God does not exist, then everything is permitted.’
2. Classical liberalism, the optimistic doctrine that gave us liberty, democracy, progress, was a moral project. It held that human society could always better itself by encouraging the good and diminishing the bad. It rested, therefore, on a very clear understanding that there was a higher cause than self-realization: that there were such things as right and wrong and that the former should be preferred over the latter. But the belief that autonomous individuals had the right to make subjective judgment about what was right for them in pursuit of their unchallengeable entitlement to happiness destroyed that understanding. Progressives interpreted liberty as license, thus destroying the moral rules that make freedom a virtue."
Phillips, Op.Cit.
3. While the Judeo-Christian society labels actions as ‘good’ or ‘evil,’ due to morality and/or self-control, the Left sees the results as due to material inequality, i.e., violent crime due to poverty. .For the Left, the battle is not between good and evil....it is between rich and poor.The result for Liberals is that equality trumps morality.....and everything else!
The Left has been far more interested in fighting material inequality than tyranny, which is why Lenin, Mao, Pol Pot, Ho Chi Minh, Castro, etc., tend to have the support of Leftists around the world.
Dennis Prager
4. A distinguishing characteristic of Liberals and Leftists is an aversion to recognizing or acknowledging evil and its permutations, i.e., communism. On another level, it explains the Left’s dislike for capitalism, a system that produces winners and losers, a painful fact that the Left would rather not see.
a. Michael Moore tells CNN's Anderson Cooper that capitalism “is an evil system set up to benefit the few at the expense of the many…. "So, what system do you want?" Anderson Cooper asked Moore. "Well there's no system right now that exists. We're going to create that system.” Michael Moore We re Going To Replace Capitalism As We Know It RealClearPolitics
5. If there's no God - making ourselves the source of ethics for everybody, or declaring that nobody can be the source of ethics for anybody, and therefore morality is, again, purely subjective. Abortion may be legal, and a woman’s right….but this doesn’t it is ethically right.
The Greeks believed in a version of same in which they placed deformed babies on the hillside. The reason I use the Greek example of ugly children is not because we do it today, but because they had reason on their side. Reason supports a lot of things, as for example, a very liberal position on abortion. If there is no God, "Love your neighbor as yourself" is just a good idea. That's why it is written, incidentally, in Leviticus, "Love your neighbor as yourself, I am God." I, God, tell you to be decent to other people.
Dennis Prager, a lecture.
The Left is content to fight imaginary evil, such as carbon emissions and second hand smoke.
