Saturday, May 06, 2006
Conceptions of Morality
On the Yahoo site, RhymingBlue posted a link to an interesting thesis and provided these excerpts:
"[T]he Conservative Laestadian movement was born in the middle of the social transformation of the Finnish society in the end of the nineteenth century: the technical innovations gave push to the industrialization process which led to the emergence of new jobs. This societal change was interpreted by some Evangelical Lutherans to have a negative influence on the Finnish values and they tried to maintain the endorsement of "good values" by creating revivalist movements that attempted to call the values of the old society back to life. These values were regarded to be essentially religious but when observed from a broader point of view, it can be noticed that they are exactly the same as the values endorsed by the traditional Finnish agrarian society." -pp. 100-101
"The Conservative Laestadian community is very tight also because their ideology emphasizes the unique and special status of their community in the eyes of God, like the Jews or the Amishes. For this reason the boundary between the in- and out group is strong, the membership identity is explicit and the phenomenon of marginal community identity is rare. (Haavio, 1964, 73.)" -p. 102
"[T]he moral judgment of the Laestadians is not based on rational reasoning, or "logic", but instead on faith. ... However, the
Laestadians are well aware of the fact that by using rational reasoning as an approach for making moral judgments one can end up with moral conclusions that are different from theirs." -p. 194
"[In case you hadn't heard of God's word, would the contraceptive pills be still wrong?] - I would have a totally different opinion of everything. Because if a person doesn't have a faith, he uses in everything his own brains and with the brains, you know where you go when you use only your brains." p. 195
"The fact that God's word determines the state of affairs of the whole world is also manifested in the Laestadians' idea that a human being does not have the responsibility to help, as far as the worldly injustices such as the poverty of the developing countries, are concerned." p. 195
"[Prescription-free contraceptive pills, other countries; What do you think about introducing prescription-free contraceptive pills in the developing countries?] - I understand fully what they are doing and they have that overpopulation, stop. But God reigns and we don't have to take care of it in that way. [Does the overpopulation have a reason?] - Yes, he knows what he is doing. I don't have to care about it." p. 196
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