Blackburn Vs Greek

Many people believe that ethics are completely determined by religion (Blackburn page 10). However, Blackburn disagrees with this belief. During the nineteenth century, in western cultures, more people began to stray away from traditional religious beliefs (Blackburn page 10). Many philosophers believed that with the loss of religion also came the loss of ethics Blackburn page 10. Dostoevsky asked “If god is dead, everything is permitted? (Blackburn page 10). Blackburn’s answer to this question would be no, as Blackburn states “If all is right, then the death of God is far from being a threat to ethics. It is a necessary clearing of the ground, on the way to revealing ethics for what it really is” (Blackburn page 19). One example of Blackburn’s belief against biblical …show more content…
Blackburn then uses examples from the New Testament to again discredit biblical divine command theories: he states that even though the New Testament is supposed to be more ethical than the Old Testament, it still has many flaws. He uses Jesus preachings as examples - Jesus makes racist remarks “It is not meet to take the children’s bread, and cast it to dogs” (Blackburn page 12). Jesus also states that mental illness is caused by possession by devils “Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell?” (Blackburn page 13). Blackburn argues that Christian apologists will defend the New and Old Testaments, just as Muslim apologists will defend the negative attitudes towards women and infidels Blackburn page 14. Blackburn is showing that even religious people are looking at their own religion and trying to justify and interpret the text’s moral standards; this verifies that ethics cannot come entirely from religion if morals are assessed “to even our best religious traditions” (Blackburn page