I am just wondering how one could have correct practice when there is no such thing as correct? When what is appropriate, insofar as a course of living is concerned, is not defined, how can we live appropriately? How do you know that you are obeying what is right with respect to the God, a god, or any god? Or how can you know if you are even suppose to obey if there is no knowledge of such a god?

I am just wondering how a person can follow a standard of good without a standard? Any clarification would be greatly appreciated.

Brian, I need a little clarification about your question. Often what happens in discussions is that we think we are answering a question but we've misintepreted the question thus the answer is invalid before we even get started. I think your question implies some things that would invalidate my answer.

Are you implying that a person could not love his neighbor unless someone has told him that he should love his neighbor and articulated a reward and punishment structure outside of the actual results?

It seems pretty straight forward to me. A person would do what "persons" do in any evaluation. You make observations about actions and results then compare those results to your desired outcome (goals). You ask, did the actions trigger results that are in line with our objectives? You might even at times evaluate the goals.

Our ancient religions tell symbolic stories that transfer centuries of this cycle of act, evaluate, change, act, evaluate, change, etc. Over time, formulea for behavior are set into mythic metaphors to help the next generations from having to spend their whole life investigating before they start getting the desired results. Religion (mythology, practice, etc) was created to effeciently teach people what our ancestors had to learn by trail and error.

The interesting thing is that they all came up with the same underlying principle. "Love your neighbor as yourself." Their ancient stories tell us that this gets the results that we will want if what we want is community, peace, and justice.

Loving God and obeying him (maybe this is your orthodoxy?) is a "means" to the "end" which is loving neighbor and living in peace, harmony, and justice. It works and I would NOT suggest that people stop loving God as long as it produces the correct desired goal. If it doesn't work then I suggest people should rethink their findings and run some more tests.

Minor orthodoxy and orthopraxy changes are the results of changing actions based on evaluation of results. New data based on new experiments of result in new changes. Major reformation, however, are usually the result of evaluating the larger goals which result in larger systematic changes.

So for your question "how a person can follow a standard of good without a standard?" : My answer is" You can't follow a standard without a standard. That is obvious so I'm not sure what you are "really" asking.

My question to you is: Is your desired outcome to produces lives that meet a particular standard of action or is your outcome to produce the results of community, peace, and justice?

How you responded demonstrates a great deal, however it may not be the same deal that I am discussing. I will make one assumption that I will define which may make things clear. That assumption is this--- what you believe is what you DO, not what you SAY. I hope that is as clear as it can be in a blog. That whatever you believe the exact moment prior to your action is what elicits an action. So that if you say that you aren't afraid of the big bad wolf, and then run when the wolf comes, it shows that you truly believed that the wolf was fearsome, regardless of what you said.

In the same way we are to judge a tree by its fruit. And the fruit is the state of the tree and nothing more and nothing less.

So that my question is how can one do what is correct when they don't know that their way isn't necessarily correct?

And I don't mean my personal definition of correctness. And I don't mean what you personally believe to be correctness.

I want you to stop thinking about your religion and mine for a minute and see the question at hand, if that is not to offensive for me to ask that. I do mean that with all respect possible. I just want you to think about what I am asking.

If one says that some way is MORE correct than another way, say loving your neighbor is MORE correct than hating them. How does this person know that one way is closer to, or MORE correct than, another? I mean is it individually defined, or is defined by some standard?

I know that you say loving your neighbor is essentially your standard for what is goodness. By goodness I mean the totality of what is good. Or perhaps the essence of what is good.

So then would you say that you have set your standard of what is truly good to be the love of man? Is this your stance?

Brian, First I didn't say that "loving your neighbor is essentially your(my) standard for what is goodness" as you say I did. I know it is difficult via this impersonal format, but please take care when restating another's opion.

I said (check above), "The interesting thing is that they all came up with the same underlying principle."

Principle or theme or in this case our "goal".

You are trying to fit the word "standard" in there because that seems to help you support some argument.

Second, you said: "If one says that some way is MORE correct than another way, say loving your neighbor is MORE correct than hating them. How does this person know that one way is closer to, or MORE correct than, another?".

As I stated before, you would compare the results to the desired outcome (goal) and see which one produced the desired results. That is how I would interpret the tree/fruit story.

Your last question was: "So then would you say that you have set your standard of what is truly good to be the love of man? Is this your stance?"

No, that is not what I would say and No, that is not my stance. My answer is the same as before. I would say the underlying goal of religion is community, peace, and justice. Jesus called this goal "the Kingdom of God". I'm in support of that goal and therefore I'm in support of ideas that make that goal a relatity.

Is that also your goal or do you have other goals?

A "standard" would be a some guideline or method or possibly a measuring device used as means to measure something or judge something against it's goal. In my opinion religions are mistaken when they confuse the guidelines with the goal. Belief is a tool that is often used to help produce good results. I have no problem with that as long as the tool doesn't become the goal or become counter productive.

Thank you, that is exactly what I wanted to know. I am sorry that I had to make some jumps, but I wanted in some concise manner what you are claiming. This clarifies considerably what you are saying. I will try and write back soon. Thanks again.

Danutz, I like getting everything straight before I go on, I believe you said

"No, that is not what I would say and No, that is not my stance. My answer is the same as before. I would say the underlying goal of religion is community, peace, and justice. Jesus called this goal "the Kingdom of God". I'm in support of that goal and therefore I'm in support of ideas that make that goal a relatity."

I suppose this to mean that you support this notion of community, peace, justice for mankind are positive goals for a society, and feel free to correct me on this supposition.

If this is the case, I am wondering why you say these are good things? Some argue for factions, war, and tyranny. Why can't these people be right?

If you say these negatives don't work, what do you mean? The world has been in a state of almost perpetual war and humans are still around. War works right?

We can't say "peace works better", 1. because we don't really know what longlasting peace is like 2. saying one thing works better than another is aiming for a goal. But if peace is the ultimate goal, we can't say peace is better because it is peace. It simply assumes its own worth.

And isn't that where we end up? Because if peace works better than some other society, and someone asks "why is peace better?" (and since peace is the goal) we must respond peace is better because it is peace.

This same argument follows for all the other goals as well.

Brian, I can't follow your thoughts here. It seems you are trying to turn the conversation into something silly. If that is your goal then I think you succeeded.

I guess you want to say that we can't know if peace is better than not having peace. Do you really expect a response to something so ridiculous?

We should make that decision the same way we make any decision. We should evaluate all the information we have and weigh it against our goals. In this case that would be:

1. all our own experiences of peace v. conflict
2. history of past choices by others
3. faith traditions (mythological history) that have revealed the experiences and wisdom of our ancestors

Do you somehow feel that you can't evaluate information and make a decision based on your goals?

This is really getting silly. I'll need some help understaning your goal.

My goal is complicated because I think that understanding ones own outlook on life is not so easy. Because what one says is not always what they believe. So that when I am trying to determine the standards of what one defines to be good I have to go through a great deal of rhetoric just to get at the point.

And, yes, I do mean standards in that these are what we measure goodness by, things like peace,love, justice, and whatever things we think of in positive terms. We tend to think of peace as an ultimate good and thus a standard. We ask ourselves, did we achieve more peace today? Or did we achieve a better world today? And thus they are standards.

My goal is to show that we cannot measure the standard by itself in order to determine its own goodness. When we ask the question why peace?, but we have no truth to look to, only to peace itself as it is the standard, then we have a philosophical problem.

The goodness of peace cannot be self defined. I would even propose that if a religion was created at all it wasn't to promote peace, but rather to have some principle to answer the question, "why peace at all?"

I hope this clarifies what I am saying. I know that it got confusing, it is hard to be brief and exhaustive.

I'm still at a loss trying to follow you. It seems you are dancing around a point that you want to make but you are not stating it. I assume that point is some divine standard, maybe? No need for tricks, just state your purpose if that is it. Eventually you'll need to do it.

I'm not sure where you are going with the "peace is a standard" line of thinking. I can see peace as an objective and I can also see the word as a verb in that it can be the action you take. But I don't see how it is a standard. It is something you do (living peacefully) or something you hope to accomplish (the absence of conflict). How is that a standard?

You said "I would even propose that if a religion was created at all it wasn't to promote peace, but rather to have some principle to answer the question, 'why peace at all?'"

If we want to understand why religions were created then we are likely to find the answers in studying early pagan mythology. These are the seeds of all religions. Joseph Campbell has probably done more to shine light on ancient mythology than anyone I can think of. His work is really good. He did an extended interview with Bill Moyers back in the 80's that is marvelous.

It isn't hard to see how ancient pagan myths developed around the acts of everyday life like rituals for harvesting crops which encouraged solid work ethics and teamwork or how the development of hygiene and better communal living were introduced into things like the 10 commandments and the Old Testament laws. It seems pretty obvious that the reasons for these myths and rituals were to aid in communal life (i.e. community, peace, justice, health, happiness, prosperity). These values are encoded into the myths of every civilization that existed. It isn’t really hard to see. It only becomes complicated when you try to literalize myths and rituals or introduce some divine power into the reasoning, then you miss their intended purposes.

I don't intend to make a positive claim towards any divine standard, or at least that hasn't been by aim since my first comment. I am just aiming at the fact that peace, community, or justice cannot be both the aim, the way, and the reason for the aim as well. Well, logically at least.

That's my point. My point has been to question. And where I am going shouldn't determine your answer. My trajectory doesn't validate or invalidate the ideas at hand.

You said earlier," A "standard" would be a some guideline or method or possibly a measuring device used as means to measure something or judge something against it's goal."

Then you said, "I can see peace as an objective and I can also see the word as a verb in that it can be the action you take. But I don't see how it is a standard. It is something you do (living peacefully) or something you hope to accomplish (the absence of conflict). How is that a standard?"

If peace is a verb and something you do, (i.e. a method) and at the same time something you hope to accomplish (i.e. a goal) how is this not confusing? This is the whole of my questioning.

Because peace seems to be something that you do and are guided by (namely when one asks themselves whether or not their actions will eliminate or propigate peace) meanwhile it is the goal, how can I not be confused by this notion? Does this make sense? or is it still shrouded? I am trying as hard as I can not to shroud it.

LOL. language is tough!!

I think you credited me for words that I used but I was quoting YOU when I said it, and then you disagreed with me which was actually YOU!

We basically butchered this topic and each others words. I don't see where it is going to accomplish much at this point. Thanks for the conversation or whatever that was.

I'm too sloppy a writer to be able to discuss things at that level via this medium.

I had an epiphany! I think. I am asking this simple question to you. I didn't ask it simply, and that is my fault, but here it goes.

Does religion aim after what is good?
According to religion is what is good equal peace, community, justice?
and Does peace, community, justice equal good?

After your response to this we don't have to say any more.

A = B is a little to cut and dry for something like "good" and "peace and justice". I'm not sure it would be valuable to create a formula like that. My entire argument about current problems with religion revolve around making hard formulas around soft ideas.

I can't speak for "religion" because I've not studied or experience all religions. But I can say that all the information which I've processed to this point would lead me to conclude that the heart of religion is community, peace and justice.

As an example I will give you this story by Rabbi Hillel who was a key Jewish scholar near the end of the 1st century BC. Many think Jesus' techings are a derivitive of his.

A certain pagan came to scoff at the Torah, first to the home of Shammai, then to the home of Hillel. He said, "Teach me the Torah while I am standing on one foot." Shammai, sensing his true intention, had him thrown out forthwith.

When the individual came to the home of Hillel with the same request, Hillel responded. "No problem! The main idea of the Torah is 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' Everything else is commentary. Now, if you're really interested, go and study the commentary." So impressed with Hillel's response, according to Jewish Tradition, was the visitor, that he took Hillel up on his instructions, began to study the Torah seriously, and became a Jew.

Well I believe I see your response as formulated by your principles is fairly clear now. Any refutation I may have probably should not take place on a blog. So I greatly appreciate you sharing your perspective of belief. It has been an interesting dialogue.