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I fail to see any point in your reply.
* Heavy sarcasm here, by the way. Just wanted to put it up there at the start in case I lose my polemical potential later on.
That does not mean there are no good Christians. Or that all fascists are/were Christians. Or that all atheists are good people. We know that Mussolini was an atheist. But of the three fascists leaders, he was the only one to be. Franco was even a practicing Catholic!
So in sum, it means that belonging to Christianity does not make you moral and Christianity is not in itself a moral ideology. Because like many (all?) faiths, what is at the core of Christianity is obedience and worship, not moral. Moral is superfluous to religious practice.
I agree with your other points, but not necessarily this one.
Arguably, morals are essential to all faiths, and it is obedience and worship that is secondary. Some people misunderstand this, and that is what causes them to commit immoral acts while hiding behind the banner of their faith/obedience.
Many morals are universal - universal to being a civilized person. So they are universal to faiths and universal outside faith too. E.g we all know that murder is not right, and yet all types of people, religious and aethiests, so called intellectual geniuses and simpletons, advocate it in certain instances, sometimes on a massive scale. - that is clearly wrong and all kinds of people are guilty of that - it is not purely a crime of the religious. It is in fact a crime of humanity.
Actually no, it is not. Faiths sometimes add moral codes to their dogmas, or claim moral is inherent to them. It is not. For instance, Christianity is based salvation through Christ, whether you are moral or not is not irrelevant to this. You can be an evil man, as long as you repent and accept Christ as your savior, you are saved. The only unforgivable sin is disbelief, or not worshiping. Islamists think pretty much the same thing: blind obedience to a God and his Prophet is moral, even if it means imposing their view through violence, oppression and barbarism. The Ten Commandments Christians praise as highly moral have only three that actually are genuinely moral (do not murder, do not lie, do not steal). The others are at best questionable and should not be absolutes, some are downright amoral or totalitarian (the very first one for instance, or the one proscribing coveting).
The problem with many believers is that they confuse worship and moral, they actually think they are equivalent. But obedience, adoration, subservience to a God or its prophets or priests is not moral. It has nothing to do with it.
Fair points. You're correct.
I was thinking more about Hinduism and Buddhism for instance which do not suggest salvation by a higher power for immoral acts - rather one must live a moral life free of material desires to achieve Nirvana or Moksha - a form of endearing salvation.
I agree with you. Many religious believers do confuse worship and moral behaviour. The organized bodies do not help here but rather muddy the waters further.
Some help with definitions.
A practising catholic is by definition, one who holds church teaching to be true ie that church teaching carries a divine stamp, and that the magisterium (teaching authority) has sacramental competence to impart such teaching.
Otherwise, a baptised catholic is considered lapsed, even if they do attend mass, for whatever reason might be motivating them, ie polticial, social, who knows.
But if Franco, Hitler, Himmler, Irma the concentration camp guard, uphold church teaching to be true then yes, they are indeed practising catholics.
I think we all know what Nazi Germany was. But maybe their little invention, known as "Positive Christianity" isn't qute so well known.
It's a quaint little notion. Jesus, understandably, wasn't even a Jew in this brave new theology.
The poor Nazis had to deal with their Christian problem. Well over 90% of the country were nominally Christian. They couldn't very well put them all in camps, not when most were of good Aryan stock and could potentially be co-opted into the glorious new ideology.
So poof, we'll just merge the faith with Party Ideology, and good Nazis can also call themselves Christian.
Heil Hitler!
Rome and the Protestant Chuch were considered "negative Christianity"
It's all documented very neatly in this handy, easily serachable Wiki blurb.
In 1937, Hans Kerrl, the Nazi Minister for Church Affairs, explained "Positive Christianity" as not "dependent upon the Apostle's Creed", nor in "faith in Christ as the son of God", upon which Christianity relied, but rather, as being represented by the Nazi Party: "The Fuehrer is the herald of a new revelation", he said.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positive_Christianity
Goebbels himself, when the end was nigh, decried that if he could do it over, he would have rounded up the Catholics first and saved the Jews for later.
But please, isn't it appropriate to lay blame where blame honestly lies. ie on those actually doing the evil.
ISIS is responsible for the horrors they are perpetrating. Not the muslim faith. The muslim faith does have a long and honorable history and faith tradition.
ISIS is a murderous offshoot which need to be fought and with extreme prejudice by freedom loving people, as we stood up against the Nazis and to the Soviet threat during the Cold war.
Stalin and Soviet style Communism was responsible for that long reign of terrror. If Stalin was an antheist, that is not an indictiment of atheism. What is indictable is Stalin himself and Soviet Communism.
Catholics are catholics.
Protestants are protestants of whatever denomination they profess.
Nazi's are nazi's.
Commies are commies
Atheists are atheists.
Muslims are muslims of whatever sect they profess.
These groups, or in the case of atheists -indivuals- are what they define themselves to be.
But what we need be concerned with is actions. In a free society we tolerate diverse beliefs.
So @dragonpol's scripture quote is appropriate.
"By their fruits ye shall know them " Very appropos
"Actions speak louder than words", also works.
ie Nazis holed up in a basement, goosing themselves over Mein Kampf are really no harm to anyone.
but ISIS is sowing some very bad fruit these days, witness the murderous attack on Charlie Hebdo, and the various and sundry slaughters, beheadings, rapes and killings they have done in the name of their God, and yes they are religiously motivated, but its not an idictment of religion (belief and worship of God) but of their actions.
Evil is evil. Doesn't really matter what coaxes it out. It can be any number of factors.
Personally I believe evil plays to our vanities and thus corrupts us.
We are all vulnerable, maybe not on an ISIS scale, but to varying degrees.
So free peoples need to stand up to the ISIS threat, and with extreme prejudice, much the way we stood up to the Nazis and to the Soviet Communists during the Cold War, which also shed a lot of blood.
A tenet of Biblical Christianity is that man has both a depraved nature and a saved nature. The little devil and the litte angel are indeed perched on all our little shoulders.
Christianity asks that man embrace his saved nature.
In the meantime the depraved nature isn't going away.
Men and women of good will, be they theists or, of an undecided agnostic bent, will be battling the bad bunch till the end of time.
Actually peace and love and understanding is probably the answer, but the noble warrior, in this fallen world, has a role to play too.
One of the reasons I love James Bond. He fights the good fight and with style.
I know less about the tenants of Hinduism and Buddhism, and for some they are more Eastern philosophies than religions per se, but I would argue that meditation has fairly little to do with moral, although it is not antithetical to it, not the way worship often is. I still think Buddhists and Hinduists are mistaken about... well, the afterlife(ves), reincarnation, spirituality, etc. And they also have their share of fanatics and obscurantists.
Yes, the Eastern ideas are more philosophies. They are less dogmatic and less prescriptive in general, focusing on the individual and his/her relationship with the external environment - a way of life so to speak.
The meditation elements are not directly related to the moral elements. They are independent but connected. Meditation aims to calm the mind and offer mental clarity and strength of purpose - which if one's focus is correct, will help one to lead a more moral life. Meditation has scientific basis and is proven to work, as long as it's done properly (and as I said before, it's very difficult to do properly and takes a lot of concentration and practice - I have tried it).
The moral elements relate to how one lives one's life on earth - yes there is still the fear/consequence of being reincarnated as a lesser being if one does bad deeds (an unfortunate unprovable concept and part of their incorrect fear based doctrine/dogma), but also less emphasis on an omnipotent god that forgives your bad deeds. The concept essentially is that one is rewarded for good deeds and punished for bad deeds - what goes around comes around or each action produces an equal and opposite reaction so to speak. The latter is a scientific concept. I personally believe this approach can lead to better behaviour, since one has to be self-accountable on a daily basis - god will not necessarily forgive your bad deeds.
As I've said before, fanaticism is independent of religion. We have fanatics and obscurantists among all characters, including non-believers. That is again part of the human condition - the mind has a way of fooling itself, conveniently and expediently. Recent award winning studies have shown this. One has to be constantly mindful of self-delusion, irrespective of whether one is religious or not.
----
Thanks @timmer for the history lesson re: Nazism. I learned something here today. I agree with you - "evil" is part of the human condition and we have to be conscious and careful not to let it possess (forgive the pun) us. One should be judged by one's actions. I recall a very apt quote in Batman Begins: "It's Not Who You Are Underneath, But What You Do That Defines You."
Religion has always been a tough subject to moderate on a James Bond forum and we are happy to let everyone and anyone discuss the subject as they see fit. However it effects people in many different ways and as such we must respect peoples' opinions and especially their beliefs.
This thread for the most part has been very cordial and hopefully we can maintain that. We can't close a thread simply because one or two members don't agree with the attitude of others. But we would ask that everyone play fair, debate, discuss and even argue. But always we must remember that belief is important to many people and they must be respected for it.
I haven't read everything on here and won't try to suggest otherwise, but I have seen these threads come and go over the years, and they never end well. So, carry on for now, but we will watch it carefully and take appropriate action if we think it's necessary.
However, they should be able to discuss such beliefs rationally, and when such beliefs fail the test of plausibility and rationality, be called out on it.
Having said that, I am not in favour of insults against religion, or any insinuation that religion is the cause of all violence (it is not - that is as much a male problem as it is a religious one - it is as much a problem of the human condition as it is of religion), or anything that can be considered insulting/demeaning to someone's strongly held beliefs, including satire.
If one is to help people see some of the inconsistencies & contradictions inherent in religion, rational open debate and discussion is the way to do it. They can pull the wool over their eyes or stick their head in the sand, but they shouldn't be able to close their ears to intelligent dialogue imho.
I think many believers have a short fuse. Criticism is often seen as insulting while it is not. That said the work of a satirist is to mock, which is in itself a form of criticism and violence against it is a form of oppression. And for too many believers any kind of criticism or question is blasphemy.
Well, this thread so far has gone a long way in suggesting that all religious people are weak and less intellectual human beings who choose to believe only for convenience or fear of death, while every "rational" person never would believe such "nonsense". You wouldn't need a very short fuse to get offended by that...
I assume you're suggesting that murdering the offender or issuing a global Fatwa is not the appropriate way to handle being offended. I tend to agree on that. A good point.
Why 'must' they be?
Football is 'important' to me but I'm pretty sure if I went on the football thread and said it was my fervent belief Brendan Rodgers is doing a sterling (no pun intended) job and should be rewarded with a 10 year contract that you wouldn't feel the need to post this statement and I would be fair game for ridicule for holding such a ludicrous position contrary to all the evidence.
It's only religion that gets the privilege of this knee jerk defensive reaction, no doubt because it's clear to most right minded people that it's patently ludicrous but because of its protected status we are not allowed to laugh at it. Until we overcome this hurdle then what hope is there? There is a worrying difference between saying that people are entitled to hold any belief and stating that everyone else should be compelled to respect that belief, no matter how preposterous.
Curiously if your belief was that the earth is flat your right that said belief 'must be respected' evaporates pretty quickly. And let's not forget the Scientology thread a few weeks back - I don't recall any intervention that people must respect that particular religion. Some beliefs should be respected more than others it seems.
Fundamentally we all have differing views. Yet even the most staunch non believers probably give Christmas presents out, takes an Easter holiday and I'm sure if the woman they loved wanted a church wedding they would succumb without a second thought.
I didn't say it and I don't think anybody did. That said no religion has met their burden of proof. Starting with their central claim about the existence of God. It's not offensive to call them on that. Or to point out this lack of evidence to back up their claims. Or the amoral nature of many religious dogmas.
Sam Harris pointing out that other belief systems are NOT respected but belief systems that include a God are respected..go figure
(go to 2 1/2 mins if in a rush)
In the spirt of @benny, here's my attempt at respectful dialogue.
"Burden of proof" That's your burden of proof.
You demand natural world proof of something that makes a transcendent claim, spiritual claim, if that helps you understand better.
That make no sense. Thats not rational.
If there was a natural world proof of God's existence, then that God would just be another phenomenon of the natural world.
Reason and rational thought.
I'll quote John Henry Newman for you.
"The transcendant is not available to unaided human reason. Reason cannot approach something outside it's bounds"
That's lifted from one of his famous lectures to the University of Oxford on Faith and Reason.
There are 15 of them total, all intellecutally rigorous, and easily found
Also you don't understand the difference between the word "proof " and "evidence"
This has been explained to you in the past, I remember from the old boards.
ie Christians will tell you there is plenty of "evidence" for Gods existence.
Detectives gather and evaluate "evidence" in order to draw conclusions and build to a "proof", or as close as they can get.
==
Discovery of God, or any awareness or understanding of same is a spiritual exercise.
So you might wonder how does one even get to the stage, where one even ponders the notion of the spiritual?
The answer is actually simple. Our old friend @Keyvan007 spelled it out.
Anyone who remembers the old boards will remember him. He was quite active, especially when it came to his love of all things Elvis Presley.
Anyway, he was a pastor of some sort, well versed in scripture, and he did point this out to you back in the day, in your former identity as @everyman.
What he said, and he's 100% right, is that if you want to know God, you need to seek.
"seek and ye shall find"
If you seek God with humble heart, he does reveal. The how and the why and the when will vary from person to person.
If you don't seek you won't find.
Personally, I don't think so-called:"proof" of God discussions can bear any fruit, simply because the seeker and the non-seeker have very different frames of reference.
If you are genuinely interested in the why and how of spirituality, then consult someone off-board, in the flesh-and-blood world, or read a book or something, or get on the Google.
The seeker is happy to answer the questions of the non-seeker, if the non-seeker is genuinly interested in the answers.
Another great quote from Newman, which I'll paraphrase is "that it's as crazy to argue a man to faith as it is to torture him"
In otherwords, the seeker must come of his own free will. Something in his life must compell him to seek the divine.
But if one doesn't seek, who cares, we are all on our own little journeys.
Many seekers, are in fact former non-seekers.
Most famously probably, Saints Paul and Augustine, whom Mick Jagger references in his in his very well crafted Rolling Stones song, Saint of Me"
We are all on our own path. We all seek to some extent. We don't all seek the divine, which is fine. The humanist approach to life can bear fruit too. But what is fruit, is a subjective discussion.
As @benny said, how hard really is it to respect that board members might have different religious beliefs or non-beliefs?
You don't have to respect the actual beliefs, as @Wiz pointed out, but surely one can respect that in a world of close to 7 billion people, not to mention, all those who have come before, that human beings of all varied talents and skills, have and do hold diverse opinions as to the why of it all, and what it all means.
==I will get poltical. We need to champion free societies, in which we can all co-exist, where a diversity of belief or non-belief can be accomodated. We organize and we put things to a vote etc. No-one imposes their will.
When killing machines such as the Nazis or ISIS rear their ugly heads we fight back, in defence of our free societies.
The Charlie Hebdo crew and others, were effectively martyrs for free expression, whether one agrees with their editorial bent.
We need to preserve these freedoms, which means we need to keep the ISIS dogs at bay.
@ludivoco...says "Or the amoral nature of many religious dogmas."
There is an inherent arbitrary assumption in this statment which should be obvious.
You do this frequently, ie toss out your own opinions as ipso facto factoids.
The "amoral nature" you cite is in your humble opinion.
Those championing the religious doctrine you quibble with, if unconvinced by your arguments, might flip the statement on you, and suggest the reverse is true, and off you go on an debate as to what constitutes "right" morality,and if you really get into it, you'll be referencing the great Greek philosphers, learned theologians, and other and sundry persons, who have expounded long and loud on questions of morality.
Such is life, but we all have to co-exist. The alternative is Nazis or ISIS imposing their ideology and morality at point of gun. Submit or die.
Personally I think Fleming's James Bond credo, which is also consistent with Christianity, about not being preoccupied with death but being focused on the business of living, is the way to live.
We need to keep our feet on the ground and make the most of our talents. Ideally for the greater good. Pondering the greater mysteries too much can be a form of vanity too.
We are flesh and blood. We need to live and be productive and support each other.
We are all human. We are all flawed. We will all do "bad" things to some degree, but we muddle on.
Ultimately all things die, and from a Christian pov, our disembodied souls will face a "perfect" judgement, where we will see who we actually are.
All vanities and conceits that we could hide behind in our mortal lives are stripped bare.
Note a perfect judgement. Not vindictive or punishing, but rather perfect, and everything that implies.
A perfect divine reckoning, where we truly do reap what we sowed.
Or you can believe that we just die. There is no soul. And that's it.Or believe something else. Doesn't really matter. What will be, will be. We shall see.
In the meantime, there is no point in arguing over the superiority of one's beliefs.
Newman was right. The argument is futile.
We all exercise our free will and seek to the extent that we choose to.
But meantime we need live an co-exist.
Fleming expounded on this very Christian theme - the disposition of souls in Doctor No.
Bond openly wonders about the fate of both Dr. No and Quarrel- both dead.
He concludes that such a bad man, and such a good man, surely can't be going to the same place.
Fleming was a seeker. He may not have formally adopted any Christian faith, but he was a seeker. The seeker can be both religious or otherwise.
He pondered such mysteries as so many others do, of both religious or more uncertain agnostic bent.
I know the difference between proof and evidence, I remember the old debate in the old forum and then I may have expressed myself badly because in my mother tongue, proof and evidence are translated by the same word: preuve. But if I express myself poorly then it does not detract from the validity of my statement then and now: there are no rational reasons to think a God exists. And personal experience is no evidence. I find it ironic by the way that you claim to value evidence, accusing me of not knowing the meaning of it... yet you need to put evidence in quotation marks. If you cannot use reason to prove God's existence, do not expect me, or anyone, to accept your claim. If as you believe God exists but is "beyond" the natural world, whatever that means, and cannot be explained, proved, demonstrated... then he is pretty much irrelevant and he might as well not exist. Actually, is there a difference between an existent and an nonexistent god, in your world view?
And you make it sound like I was an atheist all my life. I was a good Catholic boy for more or less the first twenty years of my life. I became an atheist when I saw that my beliefs were not supported by evidence. Not about Jesus' divinity, not about the Virgin Birth, not about Jesus's resurrection, not about God's existence. We also know a number of Biblical claims have been debunked a long time ago: the whole story of the Genesis for instance, to pick up the most obvious choice. I would rather trust investigation and critical thinking than a "holy" book. So not finding God had nothing to do with not seeking it, but everything to do with getting more educated and exercising critical thinking.
Now, about the amoral nature of many religious dogmas, I mentioned many of them here, they can pretty much be summed up in this line: religious people, and religious authorities even more so often mistake worship and submission with moral. You have no better example than this in the very first commandment of the Decameron, where God asks for subservience and unconditional love. Or the atonement of sins by the death and resurrection of Jesus... And even if he had resurrected, which I don't believe for a second he did, that would not make this core tenant of Christianity moral. Nor is acting out of fear of punishment or desire for reward any moral. I try to be good because it is the right thing to do, to make in my modest ways this world a better place. Not to please some hypothetical (to put it kindly) God about some hypothetical rules I was meant to live by all my life.
I personally find it's helpful to see where all these various major religions have similarities, and where they differ.
They are all similar in that they assert that there is a god (or in some cases multiple gods, although in essence they boil down to one). They are also quite similar in the sense that guilt is a major part of their teachings - whether implied or explicit. One is made to feel guilt if certain things are not done/followed.
Where they differ is in their various narratives, consequences for non-compliance & descriptions of the unknown (i.e. the afterlife). Ironically, they converge in that a good afterlife is awaiting those who follow prescribed practices (whatever they may be within each respective religion) and a rather poor one awaits those who fail to comply.
I find it fascinating that various religions which are unrelated and which have not developed from one another have so many similarities at a fundamental level (i.e. the existence of a supreme being) and yet so many differences at a micro level (i.e. don't eat pork, eat kosher, don't eat beef etc. etc.).
My conclusion from the above observations are that belief in a higher power, and guilt are fundamental to the human condition.
----
Having said that, I have personally encountered many instances of people finding faith and being inspired or reborn after some trauma. Essentially, their lives were a wreck on the verge of collapse, and they then 'found' god and were healed. The personal experiences are all quite different but they are similar in that they asked for help and it was forthcoming - they now can 'see' as it were. This lends credence to @timmer's statements about 'seeking'. Keep in mind that I have seen this in people from different religions, not just Christianity.
I have also, interestingly, found people who do not belong to any religious practice/body also being 'inspired' as it were to great things and new beginnings. They too have hit rock bottom and then found a new start. They found it without 'god', but rather from 'within'.
My conclusions from the above observations are that it doesn't matter how one finds one's inspiration and strength (whether through religion or from within) but it's helpful to find it nonetheless. A purpose driven life focused on something larger than oneself and lived without malice is a goal worth striving to, irrespective of how one gets there. Perhaps that is in fact the ultimate goal for all of us.
Religion gives us a path to get to that goal, which is why it's so attractive to humankind. One can get there without religion, but it is a far lonelier path (and perhaps ultimately a more fulfilling one - who knows).
@benny I'm sure respects your respectful tone
@ludivoco. that's the best post I've read from you ever on such matter. I'm not being patronizing. It was interesting.
as for burden of proof. there is no burden as no one is trying to convince anyone of anything, or shouldn't be IMO.
Personally I don't care what people believe. I am more concerned about their actions.
I can be very respectful of agnostic beliefs. I only have to look at where I was 20 years ago or even 10 years ago.
I grew up Catholic too, but I filed it way at first opportunity, and went about the business of living, minus any interest in matters spirtual or otherwise weighty.
I eventually came back, after about 20 years maybe. I had reason to seek greater meaning. I revisited the faith of my upbringing and found it to be fullfilling. Appealed to both my reason and my sense of the spiritual realm.
I find scripture based Christian theology to be fascinating.
In fact I think Christianity perfectly explains why the world is the way it is, and ultimately what it all means. And historically I am hardly alone in that belief, but I wasn't always that way.
That's where my seeking took me. That simple.
But I am not naive to think we are all going to be on the same page, in terms of our seeking.
As Newman says, "it is as crazy to argue a person to faith as it is to torture'
It's not necessary anyway,in a civilized, free society to beat each over the head and debate the superiorty of one's world view.
We need co-exist.
As for the notion of God, its a given we are talking about the transcedent realm.
If one cannot even conceive of a reality beyond the reach of the 5 senses, then the discussion ends there, and thats fine, but mankind has always sought the spiritual.
We have an innate sense of our soul, that which gives us capacity to do both good and bad.
Theologian Newman maintains the transcendent realm,is not accessible via unaided human reason. How could it be otherwise?
If one reads either Newman or Thomas Aquinas, and surely others, they explain the limits of unaided human reason.
A knowing, or awareness of the divine requires spiritual exercises beyond the limits of unaided human reason.
One does need to seek, via spiritual exercises, and that can be as simple as just thinking about such things in a humble and honest way, and asking God, even with the qualifier, if you exist, for spiritual guidance.
Christianity is not an elitist faith. It is accessible to anyone of humble heart.
One does not need to be able to plough through learned scribblings of theologians.
But the theology exists and is intellectually rigourous and accessible to those who wish to delve.
Meantime, Christ, divinity, which is what Christianity is about, desires that all mankind seek the good with humble heart( and humble heart is key) and as they do, they have greater capacity to do the divine will, and the only reason divine will matters, which is a matter of Christian faith of course, is that the divine will is perfect, ie all loving, all merciful.
It is the divine will or desire, that we make our way back to the garden so to speak, or heaven.
The theology underpinning "evil," (and evil is a biblical term), is that evil has a spiritual scource, and that source plays to our fallen nature, plays to our vanities, in hope of reducing our capacity to do the divine will.
Most persons doing evil, large or small, are convinced they are actually doing good. The nature of evil is to play to our vanities, and deceive.
Whether one ascribes to the theology or not, there is no doubt, that all of us have capacity for both good and evil. That should be plainly evident.
Christianity explains the theological underpinnings for how that is, and asks that we embrace our saved nature, as opposed to our fallen nature.
It teaches that all humans have access to the "good." whether they are of faith or not. Christ walks with all of us. His saving graces are accessible to all. That is the teaching, but we do have free will.
We can reject our conscience, our better nature, and we all do it, everyday to some extent.
No-one can die in a perfect state of grace. We just do our best. The afterlife is essentially a processing and purifying of the soul. The condition of one's soul though is entirely related to what one sowed when alive.
A tenet of Catholic-Christianity is that Christ is present in the sacraments of the Church.
The sacraments are what define the Church. People participate in the sacrament of Sunday Eucharist via the mass and the other sacraments, so as to have greater capacity to do the divine will. That's really all thats going on, however one can delve deeper into the theology and the mysteries of sacred scripture, and spend a lifetime engaged in such activity, if that is truly your vocation.
Most of us though, need concern ourselves with our jobs, and the business of living and doing what we do.
A guy driving a plough though, that can't read, can derive as much spiritual nourishment from the mass, as the bishop that's thoroughly versed in scripture and who helps determine the liturgcial calender for the year.
As for scripture, it's God's covenant with man. Its sacred mysteries are revealed to anyone of humble heart.
Genesis, essentially translates to God created the universe, at least the creation part of it. The details don't matter. Its not meant to be a primer on how to construct your own universe. The universe is billions of years old, and its obviously not intended that it took 7 days to make. Rather it took what it took. Who knows, via science, we can reverse engineer and maybe figure it out.
But what is a day? Its one revolution of the earth. There was no such thing until the solar system existed anyway.
Genesis is meant to be revelatory, divine revelation, as all scripture is. It's not intended as historical or scientific tomes.
Man creates those himself, through application of those disciplines.
As for morality, we all like to form our own morality, and naturally we clash, which is what causes much of the strife in the world.
I think one of the best examinations of morality or man's quest for justice is Plato's Republic.
I read it in university and it stuck. Basically Socrates presides over a raucus discussion of what is justice. Various segments of society all throw their best arguments on the table.
Socrates, using the socratic method, shoots them all down.
In frustration, they demand that if he is so friggin smart, please do impart, what justice might be, to us lessers.
Happy to oblige, he goes on a long dissertation and again using the socratic method concludes that man can only be just, if he is all knowing, ergo justice is beyond mans reach.
But you don't need to read Plato to figure that out. The guy on the plough can come to that conclusion just from his own experience of the world.
Hence man's search for the all-knowing or God. It flows naturally from our innate sense of our own limitations as a species.
If there is universal good, a universal morality, a universal perfect justice, it flows from a transcendent all-knowing source.
What the nature of that source might be -assuming it even exists (but if it doesn't, as Plato tells us, then justice does not exist) - is what we seek, or maybe choose not to seek.
We muddle on. But again, this is only what I believe from a Christian perspective. I am not arguing or debating. I am just throwing it out there, seeing as this thread evolved into a faith or no-faith discussion.
I respect everyone's individual journeys including what ludovico penned above.
How could I not, when my own journey has taken me all over the place.
But again, faith and religion or non-faith or whatever is all very interesting,but I do think our main task in life, is to get off the keyboard and be productive in the world that surrounds us.
Again as Fleming said,via Bond, do not be pre-occupied with death, get on with the business of living and doing "good' as you understand it.
I don't have the exact Fleming Bond credo handy, but it exists. I just can't remember what book.