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StrawberryJam
Guest
Bad things, terrible things have happened within the framework of laws, supernaturaly inspired or otherwise.
In a world where no one believes in moral truth, is rape and murder for personal pleasure more likely to occur?
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Equites_Christi
Guest
Yes but thank heavens we are in an enlightened age where we have shook off the shackles of silly superstitions like “moral truths”.
So, since we do not think we have to offer children as a blood sacrifice, what moral truths should we cling to, and why?
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StrawberryJam
Guest
Children are being offered up everday to ascience beliefs, why should they cling to it?
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grannymh
Guest
Can’t really answer your question regarding a moral truth, right and wrong
However, I do know an universal truth. It is – The human person is worthy of profound respect.
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ALotLessThumb
Guest
Rape (in the original and sexual sense of the word) happens more frequently in a morally relative world but objective morality [not Christian morality per say- a generic ethical system that sets up a general moral disposition, let’s use Stoicism] there are incidents where the rape would be justified or unnoticeable because of the set characters of the people would be blind to the act.
As for murder, murder (as in the deliberate and direct taking of another human life in a “crime of passion”) would occur less and less and since most murders derive from “crime of passion” and require a set and intimate character setting; murder, overall, would be less likely to happen.
Conversely however, the value of another life would dramatically decline and you are more likely to see a democratization of “king poisonings” or position killings due to a lessening of scruples. A dramatic rise in this aspect would not cover the breadth of “passion killings” though.
As for murder, murder (as in the deliberate and direct taking of another human life in a “crime of passion”) would occur less and less and since most murders derive from “crime of passion” and require a set and intimate character setting; murder, overall, would be less likely to happen.
Conversely however, the value of another life would dramatically decline and you are more likely to see a democratization of “king poisonings” or position killings due to a lessening of scruples. A dramatic rise in this aspect would not cover the breadth of “passion killings” though.
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StrawberryJam
Guest
Agreed
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ALotLessThumb
Guest
Without revelation and grace, is human respect really known or a universal explainable?
It’s a lot harder to deduce than you would think.
It’s a lot harder to deduce than you would think.
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StrawberryJam
Guest
Really?Without revelation and grace, is human respect really known or a universal explainable?
It’s a lot harder to deduce than you would think.
Were your born to rape pillage and murder without being told not to do so?
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ALotLessThumb
Guest
Forgive me my dyslexia; that last sentence was pretty bad and my sentances may be a little funny no matter how much I revise them.
The short answer is yes: we are born with concupiscence or the memetic drive to imitate the desires of others and in doing so we learn to refine and conceal the ways we rape, pillage and murder- except we are told precisely how to get away with it.
But we are talking of two different aspects right now. Rape, pillage and murder do not exhaust all signs of disrespect for human lif. It is not self-evident that humans are to be respected. Self-evident being the sense that we can rely on our natural faculties to reason this universal before (or despite) any divine revelation. Of the three signs of human disrespect you’ve posted, all of them can either be found or legally concealed in the ethics and mores of communities throughout history. And human respect as an a priori “imperative” is impossible to reason. We are all slaves to one another and our passions and at one point or another we are treated as such with little regard, revealing the clandestine aspect of human respect and dignity that has to be supernaturally received…start with Saint Paul’s Letter to the Philippians…
Philippians 2 tells us that Christ had the shape of God who took on the shape of man and that shape was that of a slave. Human beings are slaves. That is what evolutionary biology teaechs us, we are slaves to others in our relationships and our own gardens of desire. We set up ethical systems that claim universility but, in practice, only cover the few who adhere to the ethics espoused.
Neither do all religions makes same claims for dignity of persons qua persons. Hinduism beleves that “Brahman is Atman,” that a person’s “self” is identical to the universal essence of the cosmos. Buddhism, with its doctrine of anatta says that the self has no ultimate reality. The respect of a heretic, or an outside member, is always up for debate and in tough times, they will be sacrificed or scapegoated.
Of course, you have the Kantian Man who claims human dignity and respect on reason and in nature and the ethical imperative not to use others as a means to an end. But I don’t think there is much grounding for Kant and that ultimately, what he takes to be revealed by nature (the dignity of man) is a byproduct of living on top of 1700+ years of Christian teaching, reasoning, revelation and grace.
A whole lot of grace clothes us slaves in our modern toil to the point we come across as Emperors. But the reality is, we are still fairly lowly.
And it is not self-evident at all, that we dserve respect.
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MindOverMatter2
Guest
Granny, that the human person is worthy of profound respect is a moral truth. Moral truth, ontologically speaking begins first with the fact that existence has objective moral value; or rather its nature is as such that it has a value which people discover or do not discover or do not care about. Our knowledge of the true moral value of a human person is meaningless without the recognition that a persons life has intrinsic and objective moral value; and that they obtain this value according to the type of nature they have in reference to the ultimate nature of reality.
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grannymh
Guest
Some different ideas to answer your question – Without revelation and grace, is human respect really known or a universal explainable?Without revelation and grace, is human respect really known or a universal explainable?
It’s a lot harder to deduce than you would think.
Profound respect for the human person can come from a simple idea such as human beings are the top of the food chain. In other words, we can sense the need for respecting humanity by looking at its status which is peerless in creation. However, as my Irish grandmother would say, “comparisons are odorous.” But, because of our own intellective abilities, we can see the “whole” of a person instead of just comparing running abilities with a cheetah.
I did not imply that the human person automatically “gets” profound respect. I said that the human person is “worthy” of profound respect. Worthy because of who we are. This “worthiness” becomes an universal because the human population is still one unit despite the various “races or ethnic groups” within it. As someone famous once said – we all put on our pants one leg at a time.
This kind of knowledge (observation of both others and self) regarding respect for humans can be known without divine revelation and grace. Humans are an objective reality simply because they exist and not because of what they believe. Deducing that the human person is worthy of profound respect can be relatively easy.
It is also conceivable that one can deduce by observation that there is something immaterial about human nature as in the phrase – human nature is both spirit and matter. This does not imply immediate knowledge of the concept of a spiritual eternal soul directly created by a transcendent, personal, pure spirit known as God. But simple observation can lead one to the perception of God.
What revelation and grace do is to answer our deep questions about human life. What are we? Where did we come from? Where are we going? How do we get there? What is our relationship to the Supreme Creator? Does God really love us? and so on.
While respect for the human person can be known on a natural basis, it is far better to understand that the worth of a human being comes from God.
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