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The God reference is perhaps a canard here. (If you think ${religion} provides a useful moral framework, you haven't read enough about ${religion}.) IIRC each

• protomyth 11y ago
  Depending on who does the interpretation of Matthew 25:27, Christians might get a pass. I've read quite enough about my religion and it does provide a moral framework. I also believe in the principles in the US Constitution, but I see the section on slavery and realize it concept best banished to the dustbin of history[1]. The Bible was not only a religious text, but a historical and instructional. It had sections on how to treat slaves, which I ignore. I also have no need to go outside the city and bury my poop[2]. Inspired words are sadly not perfect words. 1) although given some stats, it might be more prevalent now in number (not %) than when that document was written 2) Deuteronomy 23:13
  • Jedd 11y ago
    Acknowledging this is a potentially very touchy subject, and definitely veering way off topic ... I'd still like to ask: If you're selecting which bits of a text to adopt, and interpreting other bits, why do you need the text (which contains things you obviously disagree with) as a 'basis of a moral framework'? Is there anything in your particular preferred version of the text that unambiguously allows the reader flexibility to pick and choose which bits they will agree with (my understanding is that this isn't the case - but my knowledge is not deep in this area).
    • protomyth 11y ago
      Yeah, a bit out of topic and I'm not a Biblical scholar or a learned man. Just another sinner trying to be a good person. Church elders have long sermons on how a religion changes with new discoveries, I just go with the flow and keep the theme. That said, I'll try. Its not so much selecting, as knowing that the context has changed in thousands of years. Burying your poop and what hand to use eating were important things back then, but only really practical on a survival show now. I have plumbing and good soap. How to treat slaves is not something the modern world should care about. Its not about disagreeing with the text, its understanding that whole free will and gaining dominion over it all sometimes discards the old conditions by freeing people. Its was a survival manual after all too. "Thou shalt not murder" and "Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor" are not something that loses their context. They speak to how to treat others and don't lose any meaning with era. Our changes to the world have not changed such fundamental truths. We are still humans and some things are eternal. The parables are still good lessons.
      • Jedd 11y ago
        Thank you for your thoughtful response. At the risk of sounding churlish, however, I think you dodged my question : ) I know that I should not murder, and that I should not buy / keep slaves. Yet I don't need to refer to a text that agrees with my position on the former, but is (at best) ambiguous on the latter. (The precise mechanism by which I've come to know both things are bad is not something I can conveniently answer, before you ask. Quoting K-Pax may be necessary.) My question was if you have the necessary innate / internal / nascent / instinctive understanding to know slavery is bad (as one example) then what's the point of using a text that advocates slavery as the basis of a moral framework?
        • protomyth 11y ago
          Well, I tried, as I said I'm not a scholar but a student. > I've come to know both things are bad is not something I can conveniently answer, before you ask Yet, you ask me the reason I use a text that is the basis of my church's beliefs that were taught to me to show those are bad. I don't think its instinctive to know its bad or else it would have not been such an institution in the first place. To be fair to the Bible, it doesn't advocate slavery, but it does have commands on how to treat slaves including freeing them. I guess there is a pragmatism in lessening the horror when its not ingrained to end it outright.
    • benjohnson 11y ago
      This is a very good question. As a Lutheran, we don't receive the Bible and make of it what we will as interpretation of the Bible is done by the church and involves a lot of tradition - we have vast libraries filled with the writings of the early church and other doctors of the church. My own woefully incomplete study materials occupies 12 cubits of shelf space - That's 5.4 meters for you modern types. :) The body of knowledge is so vast for example that at one point economics was considered a small subset of theology.
    • moftz 11y ago
      He also states his belief in the principles of the US Constitution, a document that has been heavily edited using amendments. We do not follow the original copy anymore as we have progressed and found different ways to run the country. Additionally, like any text, we can interpret the document differently depending on the bias of who is reading it. The second of three commas in the 2nd amendment makes the amendment have different meanings on who you ask. Pro-gun says the comma seperates the right of the militia and the right to bear arms. Anti-gun says the comma doesn't mean anything and only the militia have a right to bear arms. The whole idea of the New Testament which is what Christians follow, is supposed to be an amendment to the Old Testament. The only issue is that there is no copy of the Old Testament with the repealed parts striked out. One could argue that the Old Testament is the book of law but the New Testament is the guidebook on how to follow the law, whats ok to break and whats not. Very rarely do we have situations in life where we have absolute laws and absolute consequences. Marijuana is federally illegal but legal in certain states. Speeding can get you anywhere from a warning to a hefty ticket depending on how the cop feels about you. You can hem and haw about how Christians don't follow the Bible to the letter but it really doesn't matter. Everything progresses (and regresses) over time, changing from the original intended meaning to the new interpreted meaning and maybe back again.
• jtome 11y ago
  I don't think this is entirely correct, I think there might be some disagreement in Islam as to whether interest is actually forbidden
  • mjbraun 11y ago
    Having worked on getting a Sharia-compliant investment fund set up a few years back, what I recall is that interest ("riba") is specifically forbidden. However, there are structures that can provide the same cash flows as interest but aren't technically interest: example, instead of paying interest on a 30-year mortgage, you just buy the property from the lender in installments over 30 years, etc.
    • azth 11y ago
      Unfortunately, some of these so called Shariah-compliant transactions are not really. There is heavy debate around them, and as they say, the devil is in the detail. For instance, my biggest issue with the scheme you mentioned is that, why would a third party come and buy the property and resell it back to you if they did not have an incentive (i.e. they have a buyer already lined up)? And can the contract be conditional that you have to agree that they sell it to you after they buy it? How is the profit rate set? Etc. There are other schemes which seem permissible (e.g. a group of people agree to buy a house, then they find a renter and split up the rent between them. This way, the risk is spread across everyone, not just the one who owes the loan. The renter can then decide to buy shares of the house along the way). Of course, there need to be scholars who review this since there are small things that can render the agreement non-Shariah compliant.
  • azth 11y ago
    There is zero disagreement that interest (and more generally, "riba") is forbidden. Just a couple of references (there are way more): From the Quran: * http://quran.com/2/275 http://quran.com/2/275 * http://quran.com/4/161 http://quran.com/4/161 From the Hadith: * The Prophet, Peace be upon him, said: "There will certainly come a time for mankind when everyone will take riba and if he does not do so, its dust will reach him." * The Prophet, Peace be upon him, cursed the receiver and the payer of interest, the one who records it and the two witnesses to the transaction and said: "They are all alike [in guilt]."
• Jedd 11y ago
  I think that asserting that it's a 'matter of interpretation' is a cop-out. Although perhaps comparably cop-outedly I get most of my information on such topics from the writings of John Ralston Saul (who coincidentally popped up a few weeks ago on HN's front page). Quoting from the his book The Doubter's Companion: "Bankers -- Pillars of society who are going to hell if there is a God and He has been accurately quoted. "All three Western religions have always forbidden the collection of interest on loans. When Samuel Johnson defined the banker in the eighteenth century his status was clear: "One that trafficks in money." Their venal sin of usury continues to sit high on lists of scriptural wrongdoing, which raises the question of why bankers -- the money-market sort excluded -- tend to be frequent church-goers. " ... "The clearest situation for bankers would be if God didn't exist. They would then be morally home-free and could go to church in a more relaxed frame of mind." Anyway, I return to my earlier point that dwelling upon these chaps' alleged, or at least erstwhile, belief in a deity is at best an annoying irrelevancy.
• a8da6b0c91d 11y ago
  Prohibition on charging interest makes perfect sense in a zero growth economy. Economic growth was effectively zero per capita for almost all of human history before the industrial revolution. Wealth amassed from charging interest in a zero growth economy represents transfer of wealth, not capital formation. Likewise, sabbath keeping rules make perfect sense in such an economy. No, you can't work a lot of extra hours more than we're all willing to work and amass extra wealth for yourself. The net result of that is you taking a bigger piece of the economic pie. The longer work really doesn't grow the pie, which was essentially limited by the agricultural productivity of the land.
  • azth 11y ago
    It also makes sense today. Look at how the rich are becoming richer, and the poor are becoming poorer. Practices such as interest are making the issue worse and worse. This is not sustainable. A big point of banning interest is that one can just sit on his money, while making more money; without really incurring any risk. One can get wealth from other means, which contribute to the society, while incurring risk on the money owners part. This is key.
  • Mz 11y ago
    Funny, I never interpreted rules about not working on the Sabbath that way. I always saw them as rooted in the wisdom that you need recovery time, you need to rest regularly. IIRC, during The French Revolution, they tried a 10 day work week just to try to distance themselves from the old ways. It did not work. People need a day off about once every 7 days when they are working physically hard and for long hours at their jobs. They suffer burn out and collapse when they don't take time off to recover.
• wpietri 11y ago
  I'm an atheist, but I think plenty of religions provide useful moral frameworks. As Huston Smith said, "Religion gives spirituality historical traction." Coming up with a complete moral code from scratch is very hard work. I've learned a lot from reading about moral codes that have been worked out by many thoughtful people over the centuries, work that has been preserved because it happened in a religious context. That said, one way I measure various religions is the extent to which their followers perform the inductive reasoning that takes them from the individual bits of the moral code to a well-developed moral sense.