T
- Status
T
tonyrey
Guest
:thumbsup:Which is precisely what is happening in secular societies like the UK where families are falling apart, abortions abounding and social injustice increasing to such an extent that children are now going to school without breakfast.
T
ThinkingSapien
Guest
I think that may be descriptive of the world that we live in now. People are free to make moral judgments for themselves, but “society” also applies punishments to non-conformers. Punishments range from what may look like innocuous reactions (dirty look or disassociation, thinking less of a person) to some rather stiff penalties (injury and death) and some in between (temporary imprisonment, fines, so on). Not that I’m promoting “might makes right”, but that seems to be an interactive element in the shaping of society.
It seems that which ever group can tolerate (or avoid) the punishments of the other groups while dishing out punishments of their own ends up being the one to make a decision on a moral disagreement (for USA take the abolition of slavery, civil rights movement, or the 18th amendment as examples).
B
Bradski
Guest
We keep getting this comment. Which goes to the heart of the original question which was posed in a thread precursor to this. The answer seems to be readily accepted (except by some diehards), so what is the requirement for continued discussion on the matter?
I’m absolutely positive it does for some people. It seems that you are one of those people. But it is not required by a large majority of the people living on this planet. And to be specific, it is not required by me either. Now, if you want to say it makes you a better person, then that’s a whole different ball game. We’d need to ask: ‘better than whom’. An atheist perhaps?
I’m not really sure that a patronising tone is better than a condescending one. And you are making a common mistake in any case by grouping atheists under any criteria other than a lack of belief in deities. It would be like me saying that ‘All Christians are NOT idiots’, when it is plain to see that some of them clearly are. As there are idiotic atheists.
The church’s view of morality has changed through the ages. And I hope that you are not suggesting that the church invented morality in the first instance. Even Aquinas went back to the classical philosophers such as Aristotle who believed that tradition and custom in regard to morality should be open to human reason.
In regard to pedastry, do you know the minimum age accepted by the church for having sex? I’m not too sure about Vikings and I’m not too sure about Saxon duels (?) but the Normans might have had something to do with curbing their enthusiasm for it. And it might not be a good idea to use witches and hot implements as an example of good church behaviour.
I’m sure he was a nice guy. It appears so from what I’ve read. And he said a lot of sensible things. But the majority of people around the world have no interest in Him at all. They have other people to whom they turn for guidance in regards to how they should live their lives.
You’ll find that when you make sweeping statements like that, someone like me will invariably ask: How many other systems have you actually tried?
Lightning flash, crash of thunder. Deep, booming laughter, rising to maniacal shrieking (sorry, PR. There must be a great gif there but I can’t get them to work at the moment).
And when you write something like that, people tend to spend less time listening to what you say and more time looking for and pointing out the (many) errors in your own composition.
I’ll trust you on this. Downloaded and will start it tonight.
B
Bradski
Guest
Do you know many Hindus that believe in God?
I think that that’s a little more reasonable. But I think we need to take it that short step forward and suggest that you wouldn’t do it at all. Not in a blue fit. Not ever. Not if the King of Kings appeared before you Himself and commanded it. Because, apart from you never being able to be sure if wasn’t, I dunno, a demon, the devil, a bad trip, a neurological disorder or something similar, you’d think to yourself: He can’t be telling me to do this because…well, because it’s wrong. And God wouldn’t tell me to do something wrong.
And there we have a problem. Because what you are actually saying is that He wouldn’t command you to do something that YOU thought was wrong. And you are then imposing your idea of right and wrong on God.
But that is what society actually comprises. That is, people like you who do agree as to what is acceptable or not. It’s almost the definition of a society. It’s not a collection of individuals who do whatever they please.
You yourself have decided to obey the rules of the society in which you live so that you become a part of that society. If you didn’t, then you’d become a social outcast and you’d be back to living in ‘a state of nature’.
P
PRmerger
Guest
This is true.
But what I am talking about is moral obligation and authority.
Why should society have any say about what I believe to be moral or not? What authority can they have over me?
Answer: absolutely none. Society is no one except people who are like me, and as such, they have absolutely no authority over me to tell me what I am obligated to do.
P
PRmerger
Guest
It’s not required by you to be a moral person.
But belief in an Absolute Lawgiver is indeed required for you to stop evil being perpetrated by another. Else, in a dialogue with a person whose morals are different from yours, the only thing you can appeal to is, “Well, different strokes for different folks.”
That is a completely otiose model for stopping evil from prevailing.
P
PRmerger
Guest
Do nice guys claim to be God when they are not actually divine?
That doesn’t sound very nicey to me.
You can’t get them to work? Why the heck not?
J
jonathan_hili
Guest
Yes, they are being punished differently, since parole would be an alleviation of punishment of some sort. But if Person B has demonstrated no change in prison and shows still clear intention of killing women because of his hatred towards them, don’t think this intention should be taken account of if the issue of parole came up? Wouldn’t you be negligent if you knew he intended, that is, had the intention, of still killing (even though he was not actually guilty of killing more than just one person) because of his grave misogyny but let him free anyway?
Of course, I’m not denying that. All I’m saying is that you can’t make a blanket statement like you did.
A couple of points here: (i) the Church was in a sense tied to the State, so often for political reasons open and public preaching of heresy could result in execution because it was also seen as a capital civil crime, and (ii) there were grave mistakes made by people in the Church, sometimes because of this historical situation (like the Reformation) and sometimes because of stupidity and wickedness.
But there certainly is a life-and-death threat today, perhaps not here in the West, but in many countries in Africa and the Middle East.
But even granting this, people don’t just believe or disbelieve something because of the fear of death - I mean, Bruno proves that. If you are going to use that kind of argument, it’s hard to substantiate that anyone really genuinely believes anything. I mean, why couldn’t academics be atheists or agnostics because a fervent belief in Christianity could mean less promotion? I mean, it’s certainly a possibility. I just don’t like that kind of argument.
Do you have something to back this up? What about philosophers? Scientists are not really trained to think philosophically. “They are as materialistic as the rest of us” - you mean, you?
sigh Who is claiming that the witnesses are unspecified? Firstly, have you read the New Testament and early Church Fathers: they name people by name,
Secondly, with regards to other miracles, there are lots of websites dedicated to them, some official, some not, that list all the documentation, medical reports, etc. For example:
en.lourdes-france.org/deepen/cures-and-miracles?goto_centre=ru&contexte=en&id=491&id_rubrique=491
As for not being substantiated by experts…Sheesh, Tyrion, have you actually looked into the matter or are just spouting this off? Of course they’ve been substantiated by experts. Look at the evidence. Look, for example, at the Lanciano evidence (which is remarkable), or else the latest evidence for the Shroud, or the Lourdes miracles, or the Fatima miracle, when about 70,000 people witnessed an inexplicable event at the precise moment when some children said it would happen.
Look it up.
Again, evidently something you haven’t researched. Read the book Interview With An Exorcist. There is also a lot of documentation out there evidencing the reality of demon possession.
As for epistemological methods, they are pretty straight forward. Asking questions, listening to what people say, and thinking about them with an open mind.
J
jonathan_hili
Guest
The natural moral law isn’t about a list of do’s and don’ts: it is reasoned reflection on what it means to be human and to be a fulfilled human being. It doesn’t mean that everyone will recognise the moral law but that it can be recognised.
There are some things that are just a given, for instance, cowardice is bad, justice is good, self-sacrifice is good, etc. These moral evaluations don’t change in any society. As for practices such as cannibalism, you need to be careful in understanding what is going on. People aren’t cannibals for the sake of it or because they hate human beings but for some ritualistic or other (often reasonable, to some degree) reason.
As for wanton killing, show me one society that thought that killing innocent human beings was morally good or okay? Wanton killers are recognised as being wanton killers, not just pillars of society.
Anyway, if what you say is true about morality, then you can’t say there’s a problem of evil - since there’s no such thing. Come on Tyrion, that’s nonsense. If you genuinely believed that, why would you be complaining about people being burnt at the stake, lack of freedom of thought, etc. as if these were authentically and truly good things?
B
Bradski
Guest
So if I see a young girl being beaten then I require a belief in an Absolute Lawgiver before I step in to help?
My natural empathy for the suffering of the girl wouldn’t come into it? Neither would my not unreasonable feeling that this mustn’t happen because my daughter may be the next girl who gets beaten? Or my sense of shame if someone saw me crossing the sreet to avoid getting into trouble? Or my sense of justice that this type of act should not go unpunished?
The usual response to anyone stating that these feelings are entirely natural and, in fact, a requirement for living in a stable society, is that they stem from God anyway. Skip society and a few thousand years of civilisation and go immediately to Goddidit. Do not pass Go and do not collect $200. It’s beginning to become the standard reponse to any secular motives that are reasonably presented as a basis for morality.
The argument is starting to become:
I can act morally without a god.
No you can’t.
Here’s an example to show otherwise.
Ah, that’s just God acting through you.
Tony even thinks that Hindus act morally because of God! I mean, after a statement like that (and it has even caused me to use an exclamation mark for the first time in months), what else to do except throw the coffee dregs into the fire, kick out the dying embers and ride off.
P
PRmerger
Guest
No. As I said, and you have acknowledged, you as an atheist can discern right from wrong without ever appealing to a god.
However, when you sit down with the perpetrator to tell him, “Listen, dude, you can’t go around beating people up!”
He’s going to respond, quite validly, if he knows you’re an atheist: “Why the heck not? I don’t think it’s wrong.”
Now, you can appeal to a legal recourse: “But it’s illegal!”
And that would prompt this response from anyone who doesn’t give a whit about beating people up:
And then you would have to say, “I guess you’re right. You have to listen to your conscience.”
B
Bradski
Guest
I can’t see a reason to disagree with any of that. And yes, there are cultural, political and religious differences everywhere (and everywhen). But the basics, as you listed, are common and are a requirement for civilisation itself. This is the reason I’d like to think that I’d step in to help the girl in the example above. But almost everyone, whether they had a belief or not or whether they believed in this god or that one, would feel the same.
B
Bradski
Guest
That’s not what you stated. You said I’d need a belief in a Law Giver to ‘stop evil being perpetrated by another’. And that’s not correct.
We’ve done this before. I am entitled to tell him he’s wrong and Jonathon also gave the reason why I am entitled to tell him it’s wrong.
So I can, as you have agreed above, as an atheist, recognise that things like:
Because these are the results of, again as Jonathan said, ‘a reasoned reflection’. So if I can do this and we both agree that what I decide is correct (‘you as an atheist can discern right from wrong without ever appealing to a god), then I am at liberty to point out to the guy that if he thinks it’s right (and most people in this situation don’t think that – they feel a certain remorse after the fact), then he is in fact wrong.
The vast majority of people would agree with us. So if there are still people who go around beating up young girls, then we punish them. Hence the Rule of Law which you must as opposed to Natural Law which you should.
And a totally random test gif to boot.
T
ThinkingSapien
Guest
It sounds more like what is being described is “Antisocial Personality Disorder”(ASPD) (DSM-IV diagnosis 301.7). Unfortunately the only consensus I’ve found on treatment in medical papers on the disorder is that it’s hard to deal with and a lot of examples of treatments that don’t work. The religious disposition of some one trying to reach such a person doesn’t seem to matter.Especially if one with ASPD is engaged in self-apotheosis (aka autotheist). Antipsychotic medications some times help in treating such a person.
J
jonathan_hili
Guest
Sure, and I’m not denying there are differences in socio-historical perceptions of moral values. However, there is a great amount of agreement too and this is quite astounding. Oftentimes, I find, there actually is very little disagreement.
For instance, take cannibalism. Some societies are or were cannibalistic and this might seem morally repugnant to us. “Ah! How can there be a natural moral law then if this culture is cannibalistic? They obviously don’t recognise any universal law.” But you need to examine their practice: what does their cannibalism mean? I bet it isn’t a result of hatred for humanity or a desire to destroy human beings willy nilly. The ones I studied in anthropology class looked at wives consuming their husband’s bodies on death as a way of keeping their spirit close to them, or otherwise eating your enemy to take his spirit/powers. Often cannibalism is ritualistic rather than moralistic.
Also, Bradski, I get the example you gave above. Your natural empathy would prompt you to step in and help a girl being beaten. But from what I can see, the problem is this: what if someone didn’t have any empathy (they couldn’t care less for the girl), or they were misogynists, or hated the girl for some reason? They then wouldn’t step in to help her. Yet wouldn’t we agree that they should help her and if they don’t, they are morally culpable?
P
PRmerger
Guest
Heh.
Until you’ve done a complete history and physical on this person, (in addition to your piece of paper that gives you the credentials to diagnose) arm-chair psychiatry is as valuable as the screen upon which you read this.
B
Bradski
Guest
I find it difficult to argue against cannibalism. And I think that you do as well. At least as far as the ritualism is concerned. Morally repugnant? How so? Where is the natural law against it? We don’t have far to go to find religious rituals that mimic it. ‘For this is my body…’. I’m really not sure why it’s a taboo.
J
jonathan_hili
Guest
I agree, it is difficult, especially if you are not killing an innocent person to eat them, or else, if it is does as a result of starvation, etc.
I think it’s a general repugnance that all mammals seem to have (at least, I think), as you don’t see other mammals each other. Also, I think it has something to do with what a human body is to a person. In fact, that might go both ways - because you could argue for cannibalism by saying that you are eating the person so that they are with you. The Eucharist does have some kind of imagery like that, but it’s not really cannibalism (as it is only Christ spiritually that is consumed, not his physical flesh).
P
PRmerger
Guest
- Status