[cwoolfe]

This is the natural consequence of killing God, as Nietzsche observed. Without an objective basis, there's no objective truth about what's valuable, right, or good. But we desperately want to be right, so we ignore what God says is right and invent our own version.

"For, being ignorant of the righteousness of God, and seeking to establish their own, they did not submit to God's righteousness." - The apostle Paul's letter to Rome. (ESV Bible, Romans 10:4)

The good news: "Jesus Christ has already accomplished the purpose for which the law was given. As a result, all who believe in him are made right with God." (NLT Bible, Romans 10:5)

Seriously look at this guy. He opposes the self-righteous religious people, powerfully helps people in need, has zero pride, was so humble he was willing to die for a crime he didn't even commit. Not even good guy Greg would go that far. Bible says what I have to do to be right is just point to Jesus and agree that he's a better man than I'll ever be.

[dang]

Please don't take HN threads into generic religious arguments. They lead to religious flamewars, which are particularly bad threads for HN.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

[kirse]

Please don't take HN threads into generic religious arguments. They lead to religious flamewars

Or they don't, as demonstrated by the results of this thread. Further, where was your commentary on this large thread then? Is there some sort of distinction between "spiritual" and "religious" that HN commenters are not aware of?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29700445

Your selective enforcement of a non-existent rule in the guidelines regarding religious discussions makes me question if you just don't personally like the content above. Of course any conversation about "righteousness" will likely delve straight into morality, philosophy, religion, etc.

Maybe you ought to take the HN guidelines into account and "Assume good faith" on behalf of the parent commenter who was contributing directly in line with the topic of the posted article

>> Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith.

[dang]

> Or they don't, as demonstrated by the results of this thread

In the general case, they certainly do, and we have to moderate for the general case.

[jimbokun]

Also:

“Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?"

https://biblehub.com/matthew/7-3.htm

Avoiding self righteousness was very central to Jesus teachings.

[welshwelsh]

But was there ever an objective basis? No two believers could ever agree on what God wants, even back when Jesus was alive. Because God is nothing but an invention of man, what God thinks is merely a reflection of what each individual person thinks.

Even if you go off a text like the Bible, there is no objective interpretation of what it means.

>has zero pride, was so humble

Jesus literally claimed to be the son of God. That's about as arrogant as you can get.

[jimbokun]

> That's about as arrogant as you can get.

Unless he actually was.

[kirse]

But was there ever an objective basis?

People certainly behave in ways that reflects there is an objective basis to be reached - they argue about correctness of perspectives, attempt to reduce complex formulas to the simple, have entire reasoning + discovery systems (science) designed to reach the truth, etc.

I have yet to meet someone who truly dogfoods their own supposed beliefs on a "relative morality". You'll often find those people claiming all truth is relative, but are equally willing to argue ad-infinitum on whether they think you're right or wrong on a certain topic.

[calebm]

I actually believe Jesus came to show us that we are all one with God. When people said he was blaspheming, his response was not "I'm a one-of-a-kind god/man combo"... instead, he said: "“Is it not written in your Law, I said, you are gods’? If he called them gods to whom the word of God came—and Scripture cannot be broken—"

For some reason, churches don't seem to talk about this.

I am, and so are you.

[jonnycomputer]

>Jesus literally claimed to be the son of God. That's about as arrogant as you can get.

If it were in fact true, then it would only be stating a fact, one that the people listening might need to know.

I'm not religious, but I think that your comment fails the test of charitability.

[xibalba]

Of course, belief in "God" also requires the belief in the supernatural and random acts of magic. In other words, the opposite of science and rationality. Belief in "God"/Jesus Christ (as a supernatural being) is not "objective", in itself, since there isn't any empirical evidence (funny how the claims of witnessing supernatural events have steadily declined as the ability to easily capture and widely share information has increased).

[jimbokun]

Yes but hopefully you can still appreciate much of the wisdom of Jesus' teachings even if you disagree about the theology.

[MaxfordAndSons]

Not trying to wade into theological debates, but I feel compelled to defend Nietzsche from this common misrepresentation of his work: he did not, in fact, think that the "death of god" was a bad thing because it actually removed an "objective basis" for peoples value systems - to him there had never been such a basis. He did see a potential danger that those who had previously been inured to religious value systems would fall into nihilism upon losing them, but he also saw it as the opportunity it was to seek out new and better value systems, perhaps even grounded in reality rather than mysticism.

[aaroninsf]

Let me fix that for you:

Seriously, look at this character. Within the context of the stories told about him, he opposed... <snip>