Friday, July 16, 2010

Bauer Reviews “In the Land of Believers”


http://www.dennyburk.com/susan-wise-bauer/
Interesting quote:


...we have to remind ourselves of the ever-present tendency in all of us to judge morality by emotion. The most frequent reason I hear people supporting same-sex marriage is that they know some gay couples or individuals. Empathy is a noble human quality but right or wrong does not depend on who is doing the action or on how I feel about those people, just as judging an action wrong should not depend on disliking someone. This might seem obvious to a right thinking person but I have encountered many well-educated people who do not (or cannot?) make the distinction.


From Dr. Kenneth Howell who is involved in an interesting imbroglio. I do disagree with his final statements about how we make moral conclusions, though.

Matt Kaufman wrote on this story:

And finally, there's something affirming even about the tactics of Howell's assailants. Their eagerness not to refute him, but to silence him, is a reminder of how much the darkness hates the light. Is that how people secure in their convictions act?



New Comment
Nathan:

Oh, I wholeheartedly agree. But the crux was not that there is emotion involved, but too many times it is used to establish one's position (that’s the main point). While this does go on both sides, the first place to start in a morality discussion is God’s word. On this issue, it does speak clearly. Just because those homosexuals I know are really nice people doesn’t change what He says on it. More importantly, just because more people accept it as OK doesn’t make it OK, either (I think, you know that).

Coupled with that, though, we do have to realize that our model is still Christ. Which means we really do call sin sin, yet we don’t avoid contact, simply pointing fingers and yelling (that is one thing that Kelly and others rightly identify).

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