"As for doing what someone believes is right, you will be hard pressed to find a wide number of people guilty of despicable acts who disagreed with themselves while they were doing them, up to and including the most violent offenders."
That's not entirely true. People do things all the time, knowing full well that they are wrong. Usually they will try to justify the action to themselves, but not always. (Remember, I'm a teacher. I've lost count of the number of times in the last week when I've asked a student about such-and-such a thing they did and they said, "I don't know why I did it," and usually "I'm sorry. I know I shouldn't have done it.") It is entirely possible to live in an amoral state, where one doesn't think about the rightness or wrongness of one's actions at all. This is to be distinguished from someone who consciously thinks about two alternatives and chooses one because he believes it is the right thing to do. That's the example I was trying to give.
You know, Christians are held up (especially these days) as being very hard-line arbiters of right and wrong, unwilling to recognize extenuating circumstances or places where Biblical morality may no longer apply. And yet, I know very few Christians who would totally negate the possibility for forgiveness of sins based in ignorance of absolute morality as you have done.
I think that's the place where we fundamentally disagree. In my worldview, I don't have to judge history because that's God's job. I don't even have to judge modern people, other than to decide how to act myself and how to teach my students and children to act. Usually, judging them or refusing to forgive/excuse them is counterproductive to teaching them how to act better. "You didn't know, so you're not in trouble this time. However, you know now. Next time, I'll expect you to behave better." This is a standard line in my classroom, and my students respect it and learn from it.
This has been an interesting discussion, but I think we've come to the crux of our differences.
Re: Part 2
That's not entirely true. People do things all the time, knowing full well that they are wrong. Usually they will try to justify the action to themselves, but not always. (Remember, I'm a teacher. I've lost count of the number of times in the last week when I've asked a student about such-and-such a thing they did and they said, "I don't know why I did it," and usually "I'm sorry. I know I shouldn't have done it.") It is entirely possible to live in an amoral state, where one doesn't think about the rightness or wrongness of one's actions at all. This is to be distinguished from someone who consciously thinks about two alternatives and chooses one because he believes it is the right thing to do. That's the example I was trying to give.
You know, Christians are held up (especially these days) as being very hard-line arbiters of right and wrong, unwilling to recognize extenuating circumstances or places where Biblical morality may no longer apply. And yet, I know very few Christians who would totally negate the possibility for forgiveness of sins based in ignorance of absolute morality as you have done.
I think that's the place where we fundamentally disagree. In my worldview, I don't have to judge history because that's God's job. I don't even have to judge modern people, other than to decide how to act myself and how to teach my students and children to act. Usually, judging them or refusing to forgive/excuse them is counterproductive to teaching them how to act better. "You didn't know, so you're not in trouble this time. However, you know now. Next time, I'll expect you to behave better." This is a standard line in my classroom, and my students respect it and learn from it.
This has been an interesting discussion, but I think we've come to the crux of our differences.