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RE: MODERN = GOOD, OLD = BAD
I have no idea what objectivity is and what objectivity is not. How would I know? Well, I think I know how. But that is a long story that is ongoing. The list of objective principles may fill all the space in the university. It may be infinite with no end from the perspective of limited life and limited brains. If you have to start with one, you begin with love. So, objective principle number one is love. That is the root. That is the core. You begin with that common ground, that foundation, that root, that pillar, that rock.
How can you believe in "love" as a "core-moral-principle" and support war?
How can you believe in "love" as a "core-moral-principle" and support deportation of immigrants?
Who said I support war? Are you trying to put words in my mouth? So, you believe in no ownership? So, I should steal whatever you have. Because it is not yours. If I go onto your land, your house, your car, apartment, etc, whatever you got, then you better not deport me as an immigrant on your land, based on your logic. What is war? What is self-defense? So, you hate war? So, you are a pacifist?
I'm not the one who claimed "love" is my primary moral AXIOM.
That was you.
I'm just trying to figure out if the rest of your moral intuition is coherent.
What is your axiom? If it is not love, then what else is there? Again, when I say love, I may be defining love differently than you are. That means we might not be on the same page. My definition for love may include whatever your moral axiom may include. But you may not like my word choice. You may use different words, different definitions to words. But it can be possible that we are talking about the same things. But you might get stuck on certain words. You may not like certain words, perhaps. It is important to look at what a person might be trying to say at the heart of the matter.
The point is that "love thine enemy" is COUNTER-INSTINCTIVE and leads to inevitable and logical PACIFISM.
Like GANDHI. PACIFISM seemed to work out pretty well in the struggle to overthrow the Brits.
Christians love to claim there are exceptions to "love thine enemy", but THEY AREN'T SCRIPTURAL.
Jesus never says, "love thine enemy, I mean, unless they're trying to hurt you in some way, then beat the Schmidt out of them..."
How would know? The Bible was not written in English. You are taking things out of context like Disney did to Star Wars.
I see. Are you suggesting that you can't be a Christian unless you know ancient Hebrew and Aramaic and Greek?
Reading the translations is not sufficient?
Grace Through Faith
A person becomes a Christian by saying to God, "I'm not perfect. I'm not immortal. I'm just a human. Help me. Save me. Give me a new heart." Ephesians 2:8-9 talks about that. Two main components to salvation, soteriology, to being saved. First, grace. Second, faith. A Christian does not work to become saved. You get saved and you do good works. These are two different things.
Definitions
What does it mean to be a Christian? Does the Bible define what it means to be a Christian? The answer is that the Bible talks about salvation and about fellowship. Now, these two things are conflated. But these two things are not the same thing. But many people confuse the one for the other. So, we can talk about what it means to be saved. That is one thing. And we can talk about how a person can live a better life which might apply to Christians. But living a better life applies to non-Christians as well. So, the Bible has some good advice for all people regardless of if they are Christians or not. The Bible has proverbs, wisdom, eternal principles.
Understanding The Bible
The better you understand the Bible, the better you can understand the advice inside of it. So, it is better to understand world history. It is good to read other writings from those times. Because there are cultural, historical, etc, gaps between us and those people from those places from those times to some extent. So, many things in the Bible were not really written to us, to people now. The Bible was written a long time ago to people of those times. Yes, some argue that the Bible can be for us. But not to us.