[ScottMayo]

I think we can encapsulate it into four words:

Friend, ...Foe,... Family, or Food,...  

That is how we make moral decisions.

Most of them, yes. Of course, declaring someone a foe - which too often means giving in to a kind of hate - would need to be considered very, very carefully. And declaring someone a foe is a conscious decision most of the time, in modern society, wouldn't you agree?

But what about kicking the dog? Or is that "family"?

This has happened since the dawn of man and even before.  Some of it is even animalistic trickle down.

At that level, it probably almost all is. Amygaldas happen. In fact this stuff is so hardwired in I'd question whether it's even interesting in a discussion of morality. It's more like the raw material you build a system of morality of.

You still owe me some explanation of this inifinity thing you have such faith in, by the way. Don't suspect for a moment I'm going to let that go.  

[Aether Audio]

Tyson,

However, the fact that someone enjoys inflicting violence on to other living creatures ...

...But until and unless they start inflicting harm on humans, they are not engaging in immoral behavior.

Where the hell is PETA when you need them.!!!  (see...extremists do have their purpose) Try telling that to your local "Animal Cruelty Society (let alone your wife, kids or mother).  They can even arrest you for that - just watch "Animal Planet" sometime.  The last time I checked, the premiss of all law was one of "morality."  You know, don't kill, steal, lie, etc.  They have laws based on all those "moral" principles.  

The courts very often judge, not based on whether or not a person committed a certain act or not, but rather on their "intent" at the time they committed it.  One form of intent leads to manslaughter, the other murder.  If intent and morality were not linked then all punishment would be the same for a given act.  If you should be put to death for raping and killing a child, you should be put to death for accidently snapping the neck of your buddy in a drunken fist-fight.  Intent is irrelevent.  They guy's dead - now you will be too.  Don't tell me you didn't mean it.

I'll bet if you take a survey, most people, regardless of any religious professions, would say that harming an animal for fun is immoral.  If those folks weren't in the majority then there wouldn't be enough support for a law to make such actions punishable - let alone hire full time "animal cops."  I'll bet most of those same folks eat hamburgers and hot dogs too.  They understand the difference.

I, along with them say hurting an animal just for some twisted form of personal pleasure - is immoral.  We've even passed laws to enforce our "opinion" on the matter.  Either we're all mixed up and don't know the difference between basic morality and just some sense of "touchy feely" desire to be nice to little creatures, or you're dancing near the edge of "La-La-Land."  Squash a nasty bug? You bet - he might bite me or get into my cereal box.  Tear the wings off flies - that's just a little sick and a tad bit immoral.

The fact is, intent defines morality.  That is the basis of all law and is accepted fact throughout courts around the world.  If your argument holds any merit, it is mostly in your mind alone.  That's where "thinking to much" can lead you.  Right down a dead end street.  Sorry.

I'm not touching the rest of the arguments that are going back and forth here, but this one was so obviously wrong to me that I had to comment on it.  I'm not trying to beat you up over it though.  I just felt somebody had to inject a little basic sanity to the discussion to steer it back on course.  I'll shut up now and go back to my hole.

-Bob

[John Casler]

You still owe me some explanation of this inifinity thing you have such faith in, by the way. Don't suspect for a moment I'm going to let that go.  

Infinity is the "real estate" of the the Universe and beyond which runs in both directions from any postition (meaning out and in)

Eternity is the same concept except relative to time specifically from any point in time.

And by the way, I don't have "faith" in infinity.  I simply ponder its possibilities and have to assume its exisitance, because it seems plausible based on things I see from this position.

There may be other "planes" and "dimensions" that too could be, but their descriptions and aspects are only ponderable on a small scale, with my tools.

[ScottMayo]

So is kicking the puppy ok, or not?  

Sure it's OK..

Well... ok. I guess I have a limited number of things to say about that.

1) I hope you have no pets.
2) If you ever engage in these activities - and I always assume that any act someone says is morally permissible, is one they can and would do without any compunction, there's no reason they wouldn't since it isn't wrong - don't do them here in the 'states, because cruelty to animals is illegal most everywhere here.
3) As much as this sounds like an attack instead of a concern, I'm going to say it anyway: this suggests a lack of empathy so profound as to be worrying. I suspect most people here would see something wrong with inflicting contextless pain on a dog. That you don't, marks a significant difference between you and most everyone I know. Not precisely everyone: I have an autistic son and I have some idea what a lack of empathy can look like. I'm not stupid enough (or bold enough) to try to extrapolate between this lack of empathy and a difficulty in apprehending God in the world. I just don't know you well enough to leap to those kinds of wild conclusions. But something definitely seems amiss here.

I don't think anything I was going to say is going to connect, given the narrow definition of morality you employ. I can see why Lewis wouldn't seem compelling to you, either: he talks about fundamental beliefs in ethics shared by most people (he starts out with fairness, if I remember right) and as that's not usually rooted in whether humans live or die, it probably seemed of limited application.

I am pleased, though, that my line of questions got to this point so quickly.

[John Casler]

Of course, declaring someone a foe - which too often means giving in to a kind of hate - would need to be considered very, very carefully. And declaring someone a foe is a conscious decision most of the time, in modern society, wouldn't you agree?

But what about kicking the dog? Or is that "family"?

A foe can be declared, or instantaneous, depending on cirumstances.

Generally they are a threat to you, your family, or your territory or possessions, but in the case of religion and ideology, they can be threats to that as well.

One of the scariest thoughts to me, is the person, sect or society who feels that they have the right or duty to slay all who do not "beleive" as they do, or find they have the right to do so, in the name of an "imaginary" diety.  Look around, the Old Testament has spawned such.

As far as the dog, yes a dog can become part of your family and those who "kick" animals for the sheer enjoyment of inflicting pain are perceived as "threats" by civilized society.

At that level, it probably almost all is. Amygaldas happen. In fact this stuff is so hardwired in I'd question whether it's even interesting in a discussion of morality. It's more like the raw material you build a system of morality of.

I can only assume your "morality" destination is that morality is in some way "seeded", or created, by the "higher power".

I think it is a progressive extension of the 4 F's.  They exisited before man created the Christian God (IMHO)

Who or what is Amygaldas?

[ScottMayo]

ScottMayo wrote:
I can only assume your "morality" destination is that morality is in some way "seeded", or created, by the "higher power".

It certainly is now. When I was starting out, thinking seriously about what was right and wrong for the first time, I assumed things that didn't cause pain to others were automatically ok. But that falls apart pretty fast. A doctor may have to inflict pain to cure a disease, but that doesn't make him evil. But withholding a painful truth from someone out of niceness, might turn out to be very wrong indeed. I realised I was working with too narrow a scope.

So eventually I wandered into Utilitarianism, which is where most rationalists try to go. It's a really good system on the surface, mostly; unfortunately, it supports slavery, torture and murder in far too many situations. It also tends to stick you on unknown consequences: if you need to make a decision now but the consequences won't sort out for two hundred years, Utilitarianism would wait 200 years and then decide if you were evil or good. That's not very helpful today. It's where Consequentialism in general goes awry. A *lot* of very simple decisions have unknownable long-term effect; chaos theory applies to a lot of things. Utilitarianism, I realised, was pretty, but useless as a guide.

When I became a Christian, I worked out that we're not asked to be strict Consequentialists anyway, since we so often lack the information needed to make that work. God, on the other hand, *does* have the information available to make Consequentialism work. That was something of a relief. I could continue to try to make good decisions, but if I got it wrong - and everyone does - it was a forgivable and even correctable state of affairs.

Who or what is Amygaldas?

A typo: should have been amagdyla. It's the entire basis of your morality, apparently. Makes me wonder what the rest of your brain is for.    It's the part of the brain that deals with fear, strangers, trust and a lot of other things that you claim wholly subsume morality. It makes me wonder if you think people with this part of the brain in dysfunction are automatically immoral. Not everyone is wired with a typical reaction to your 4 f's....

Who or what is infiniy?

[Tyson]

*sigh* I knew comming out with a hard line would lead to misunderstanding.  Let me clarify a bit so you people don't think I'm some kind of monster.  Let me soften my stance a bit to allow this chain of reasoning - human life is the standard of value, and the ultimate value.  I will not soften that stance.  But what I will allow is that as living creatures we do value life in general, and human life in particular.  Let me see if I can place this on a continuum for illlustrative purposes (I'm not going to deal with motivation at this moment, but will get to it in a bit):

Randomly smashing a rock
No moral condemnation from anyone, no one really cares.  After all, the rock is not alive, so who cares?

Killing grass (mowing your lawn)
Vast majority view this as morally neutral, although you are in fact killing something for strictly vanity purposes (to make the yard look nice).

killing insects or spiders
Now you are killing mobile species, but most people have little or no empathy with insects or spiders, so no moral condemnation.

killing fish
more concern from people about killing a fish, particularly if you are not going to be eating the fish.

killing a pig
More empathy as you are now killing a mammal, but since it's probably for food purposes, it is still condoned by most.

Killing a cow or chicken
Same category as the pig.  

killing a puppy, kitten, etc
Lots and lots more empathy and moral condemnation for harming these creatures because they are domesticated and seem so much more human than cows, chickens, pigs, fish, or insects.

killing chimps or apes
Lots of moral outrage and condemnation for killing these animals.  Obviously much more human than any other species.

killing humans
The most moral outrage and condemnation possible for people who do this.

So, as you can see, as we get closer and closer to ourselves in the species ladder, the more and more empathy we feel for the recipients of the violence, and the more we are likely to condemn the perpetrators as "wrong" or "evil".  

But, don't you see, we still are using the unspoken assumption of human life as the de facto standard.  The closer a life form is to us, the more empathy we feel.  But we feel stronger empaty PRECISELY because we identify with it more than we do with others.

Now, where you draw that line of moral vs. immoral when it comes to taking life is going to vary.  My assertion is that it is only the taking of human life that is really immoral, and the rest is anthropomorphism (projecting human-ness on to animals).

Now, to address intent, it goes without saying that it has a strong bearing on whether an action is judged moral or immoral.  Whether I was carelessly speeding in my car and hit/killed someone by accident is a very different thing than seeing someone in the road and mowing them down on purpose.  One is an accident (possibly due to negligence, ie speeding), the other is murder.  On the other hand, same situation but replace the human with a cat.  We might think the person that plows over the cat on purpose is "mean" and might have some psychological issues, but we won't be calling out for the death penalty like we would if he plowed over a 5 year old kid.  On some level, we recognize that cats aren't really on the same level as people.  

You are of course free to disagree with me, but if you do, I'd really like to see a compelling case made for the evil-ness of killing a cat or a spider.  And calling something "nasty" (ie, a "nasty bug") is certainly not a compelling case.  And neither is saying "most people" feel one way or another - whether society accepts, abhors, compels, or condones certain behaviors is absolutely and completely irrelevant.  For example, in some cultures, killing and eating dogs is perfectly acceptable, in others it's considered barbaric.  So, falling back on the "society deems it is immoral" is absolutely meaningless.

And Scott, I do in fact feel a lot of empathy toward my fellow man, but much less so toward other species.  Regardless, my feeling or not feeling of empathy has absolutely zero to do with whether my argument is correct or not.  I will note however, that you have engaged (knowingly or not) in a subtle form or argumentum ad vercundiam, which means you did not address my argument directly, but rather engaged in an attach on my character.  I'm not saying you did it conciously, but I will note that I responded point by point to your objections to my argument, and you did not, you simply said that I lack empathy on a "concerning" scale.

To address Lewis a bit more, he commits a fallacy I see all the time and it drives me to distraction.  He starts with a higher level idea (fairness in your example) and then extrapolates from there.  This is completely the wrong tract.  Instead of simply observing that humans have a sense of fairness and asking "why"?, he simply takes a very complex and high level idea like fairness and uses it to extrapolate to god (ie, since nothing in nature outside of man engages in any form of "fairness", then the concept of fairness must be of a godly origin).  But that's a WHOLE 'NOTHER tangent altogether, and I'd rather just stick with the debate on morality for now......

[ScottMayo]

[quote="Tyson]I will note however, that you have engaged (knowingly or not) in a subtle form or argumentum ad vercundiam, which means you did not address my argument directly, but rather engaged in an attach on my character. I'm not saying you did it conciously, but I will note that I responded point by point to your objections to my argument, and you did not, you simply said that I lack empathy on a "concerning" scale. [/quote]

Attack, my ass. You're flat out worrying me, and I don't see a reason why I shouldn't admit it. Anyone who doesn't see a moral issue in causing pain in puppies for fun, is operating from a position that I just don't feel I can debate with. I get too wrapped up in wondering if I should be suggesting counseling or something, and that is absolutely not a viable place to conduct debate from, so I'm doing the intellectually honest thing and bowing out. Feel free to consider this a failing of mine, not yours. In 30 years of arguing points with people, I've never actually come across anyone who held your view.

[John Casler]

A typo: should have been amagdyla.  

Thank goodness, I thought you were starting to "Type in Tongues"

Not everyone is wired with a typical reaction to your 4 f's....

That is of no consequnce and no argument, for not everyone is wired for everything, but enough from the early day were, and I would wager "most" still are.

Remember, there are still many peoples, who do not beleive, yet have very good moral codes and behavoir (in fact many better than the factions you speak of)

But...None the less, the 4 F's preceded the intellectual creation of God, and the foundational behavior was there well before any biblical morality codes were written or disseminated.

Who or what is infiniy?

I AM typing in tongues

[ScottMayo]

Remember, there are still many peoples, who do not beleive, yet have very good moral codes and behavoir (in fact many better than the factions you speak of)

But...None the less, the 4 F's preceded the intellectual creation of God...

"Intellectual creation of God". You're prone to making flat assertions of opinion, as if they were facts that you could support. Like "infinity". It's not very compelling. Yes, your opinion's been noted, but is there any reason why you believe this? Or are you that especially annoying kind of evangelist that goes around pounding his book of beliefs (which in your case, sadly, seems to be on the level of the Passover Plot), and saying what the truth is, but never saying why anyone should believe you? I see far too much of that from folk in my own religion, I sure don't want more of it from yours.

Still waiting to hear what this Infinity thing you believe in is all about. I think I see why you haven't tried to answer: the reality is, you have no idea. You're just throwing empty connotation words around and hoping heck they sound as good to others as they do to you. It might impress some folk, but I've had to learn some bits of critical thinking over the years, and I don't buy it. Your faith, as described so far, looks like it puts mine to shame, in terms of believing without evidence. At least I could point to an empty tomb and discuss why I think certain historic accounts about it hold up - you get to disagree with the current knowledge of physics. I don't envy you your supposedly "realist" position.

As for Christians ("the factions that I speak of" presumably means that, though I haven't spoken of them - are you thinking of someone else?) that behave like jerks, yes, I've noticed that. With a world population of a billion plus calling themselves Christians, some of them, statistically, are going to be total jerks. Of course, I see atheist jerks, Moslem jerks and trekkie jerks, too, and if you want to start trying to compare numbers and behaviours... well, I see a lot of Christian groups down in New Orleans helping out, because they want to, and have some empathy for people's pain; but last I heard the atheists weren't so well represented. And that, my friend, has been a steady pattern for the last two thousand years. So if you want to make unsupported and snide comments about the behaviours of groups, just keep it coming. It really showcases where you are speaking from.

[doug s.]

tyson’s list is interesting, imo, even if i disagree w/it.  everyone has their different level of comfort w/the second-nature act of killing.  cutting grass is not killing it, imo – it’s more like a human being cutting their hair.  pulling out dandelions, on the other hand, is different.  but most folks have no issues weeding their yard or garden.  in fact, the biological definition of a weed is a plant that human beings find to be a nuisance.  this in itself i find fascinating.

killing bugs also has a different response in me than it does in  tyson.  i have no hesitancy in killing flies or mosquitoes – these insects i find to threaten my existence.  i will kill them inside or outside, where ever i find them.  i avoid killing most all other insects, tho.  if i find them inside, i either leave them alone, or try to catch them & release them outside.  i do not feel threatened by them – i think they may even be able to help me – so i let them be.  

i am a meat eater, so i obviously can deal with killing animals for food.  i really feel no choice here – even if i didn’t eat meat, i would be killing plants to survive.  i *do* wonder about it, tho – pigs, for example, are even smarter than dogs, likely smarter than cats.

i used to catch mice in my house in live traps, then release them a half mile down the road.  but, this never worked; they always seemed to get back inside.  so, i bit the bullet & started using traps that would instantly kill them.  this worked - they wouldn't come back.  much as i hate to do this, i feel that doing otherwise would put my family at risk, so i do it.

tyson's issue about kicking dogs, it seems to me, is that he is overly ethnocentric about human beings' place on this planet.  a lot of human beings overstate their worth compared to our other fellow earthly inhabitants, imo.  while i don't know where to draw the line, i believe that many many other creatures we know about, have feelings, emotions, know "right from wrong", etc.  certainly not in the same way we humans do, but who is to judge that something is not worthwhile, just cuz it doesn't measure up to *our* standards?  kicking a dog for no reason is totally immoral, imo, in *any* rational human being's standard.  to believe otherwise shows either moral depravity, or complete ignorance as to the value of life on a universal spectrum.

all this is contrasted with the fact that, as i have said before, *all* creatures, large & small, by their very nature, must cause the death of other species, in order to survive.  this dichotomy is what i find fascinating, & where & how one draws the line as to when it is good or not, gets at the crux of life-force issues, whatever they may be.

so, while i certainly believe in a supernatural force, it is *not* good *or* evil in the traditional moral sense, imo.  it is unknowable.  to think that by following jesus or {insert favorite religious icon here}, or jesus' teachings, you can get to a pleasant afterlife, is sheer folly.  these belief systems are human creations, designed to control people for others' ends, by appealing to base ignorance & fear of the unknown.

doug s.

[ScottMayo]

so, while i certainly believe in a supernatural force, it is *not* good *or* evil in the traditional moral sense, imo. it is unknowable.

If it's really just a blind, thoughtless "force", supernatural or otherwise, then it might be interesting from a scientific perspective (gravity certainly is), but there's not much point in getting "religious" about it.  Forces happen.

If you mean a force with something like will or consciousness, then you're in the interesting position of claiming to believe in morality yourself (you object to kicking dogs and use worlds like 'depraved'), but then claiming that this other consciousness doesn't have a moral compass. Conscious beings, with the exception of the odd nihilist (and they lie) all seem to believe something positive about morality, so why would this other Consciousness be different?

It's especially odd because you go on to say that it's unknownable -and if you don't know about it, what on earth gives you the insight to decide it has no conception of good and evil?

I mean if this Other Consciousness is considerably less sentient than we are, you could maybe make that case. But I don't think you're proposing it's the Perfect Gnat.

to think that by following jesus or {insert favorite religious icon here}, or jesus' teachings, you can get to a pleasant afterlife, is sheer folly. these belief systems are human creations, designed to control people for others' ends, by appealing to base ignorance & fear of the unknown.

You're confusing what something IS, with what it can be used for. This is equivalent to me saying that Cars Are Just Murder Instruments, and going on to complain about all the people they kill. Yes, people die by being run over by cars, but that's hardly the whole story on cars; in fact it's not even most of the story. How a car is used depends very much on who is at the wheel and why; an ambulence, for example, is different than a drunk in a stolen SUV.

At any rate, "designed to control people" implies thast some group of people did the designing, and I'm wondering who that would be in Christianity's case. Jesus? The apsotles? What's your evidence for this claim? Because it's a serious claim and you're painting a very large group of people as evil, scheming conspiracists. I mean, wow, how many people were on that grassy knoll, anyway?

Since people keep missing it, let me point out the obvious flaw in appealing to the behaviour of groups as a philosophical condemnation technique, which is everyone's favorite attack on (at least!) Christianity. It turns out that if you take any group with a population and a history that aren't trivially small, you find it has members who have done some horrific things. Applies to Buddhists, bankers and even Quakers, as nifty as they were. It's possible to conclude from this that people are sometimes a big problem, and indeed most systems of thought acknowledge that. It's alot more difficult to establish that some groups are worse than others without quoting some hard statistics - which, oddly, no one ever, ever does. Gee, I wonder why.

Another way of looking at this is to point out that many of us here are Americans. America invaded Iraq. It may (or may not) have been a good idea at the time, but a lot of people have severe moral objections to it all now - most especially people who aren't Americans. Do you like being categorized as immoral because you're American? Before you protest "I didn't do it!" too loudly, let me also ask if you pay federal taxes. Oh, you did? Still feel like asserting that you don't "support" the invasion of Iraq? Because I've got a shiny nickel that says that you, an American tax payer, can definitely be shown to have supported the war - in a tangible, explicit and financial fashion. "You scummy American bastard, death's too good for you and let's burn the Constutition as a hate document, which it clearly is because look at what America did!" Does that argument make sense to you?

Funny how the Bad Guy is never My Group - or when it is My Group, it's never My Part of My Group. It's always Them, never Us. I find there's an important lesson in that.

[Tyson]

Remember, I don't just advocate kicking puppies, but killing and eating them too.

If you don't want to address my points because of your concerns about my character, I will simply bow out of the conversation.  Maybe you could recommend a good shrink to help me out with my puppy kicking problem

[John Casler]

 I see far too much of that from folk in my own religion, I sure don't want more of it from yours.
  ..

Still waiting to hear what this Infinity thing you believe in is all about. I think I see why you haven't tried to answer: the reality is, you have no idea. You're just throwing empty connotation words around and hoping heck they sound as good to others as they do to you. It might impress some folk

Sheeeesh

What's with the "sensitivity".  Obviously in discussions of this type we agree to disagree.  

I'm not posting to attack you or make you mad.  While I don't beleive your position is accurate, I certainly respect the fact that you hold it, and choose not to denigrate you for doing so.

My explanations will no doubt fall on deaf ears since we have different perspectives, but my intentions again are not to inflame you.

Sorry if that was the case.  To me, it is simply a discussion.

[doug s.]

so, while i certainly believe in a supernatural force, it is *not* good *or* evil in the traditional moral sense, imo. it is unknowable.  

If it's really just a blind, thoughtless "force", supernatural or otherwise, then it might be interesting from a scientific perspective (gravity certainly is), but there's not much point in getting "religious" about it. Forces happen.

i never said it is blind.  i yust said it is unknowable.  traditional good-evil analysis doesn’t fit, imo, due to the fact that one must kill or be killed in order to survive.

If you mean a force with something like will or consciousness, then you're in the interesting position of claiming to believe in morality yourself (you object to kicking dogs and use worlds like 'depraved'), but then claiming that this other consciousness doesn't have a moral compass. Conscious beings, with the exception of the odd nihilist (and they lie) all seem to believe something positive about morality, so why would this other Consciousness be different?

one’s morality comes from within, not from without, imo.  i never said that this “force” does not have a moral compass.  it’s yust that we are in no position to know what it is.

It's especially odd because you go on to say that it's unknownable -and if you don't know about it, what on earth gives you the insight to decide it has no conception of good and evil?

I mean if this Other Consciousness is considerably less sentient than we are, you could maybe make that case. But I don't think you're proposing it's the Perfect Gnat.

again – we are in no position to know *what* its conception of good/evil is.  if it happens to be modeled on the traditional religious concept of good/evil, then this is strictly a coincidence, imo.

to think that by following jesus or {insert favorite religious icon here}, or jesus' teachings, you can get to a pleasant afterlife, is sheer folly. these belief systems are human creations, designed to control people for others' ends, by appealing to base ignorance & fear of the unknown.

You're confusing what something IS, with what it can be used for. This is equivalent to me saying that Cars Are Just Murder Instruments, and going on to complain about all the people they kill. Yes, people die by being run over by cars, but that's hardly the whole story on cars; in fact it's not even most of the story. How a car is used depends very much on who is at the wheel and why; an ambulence, for example, is different than a drunk in a stolen SUV.

sorry, i disagree – cars are transportation devices that have a percentage of folks that get killed using them.  yust as a certain percentage of people get killed from structures that they build which fall on them, or from vaccines which protect most folk from disease, but kill a few, etc...  organized religion, on the other hand, is designed to control – that’s what it *is*, and that’s its primary function – what it is used for.  its method is always the same – fear of death and/or the unknown.

At any rate, "designed to control people" implies thast some group of people did the designing, and I'm wondering who that would be in Christianity's case. Jesus? The apsotles? What's your evidence for this claim? Because it's a serious claim and you're painting a very large group of people as evil, scheming conspiracists. I mean, wow, how many people were on that grassy knoll, anyway?

i am not sure it is a conscious effort to control that gets religious groups started, at least not at first.  especially in the early days of civilization - when organized religions took root, when scientific knowledge was nowhere near what it is today, people’s fear of the unknown was strong enough to bond themselves together.  in the early days of civilization, societies of  >100 people were quite rare.  it is only in relatively recent times, geologically speaking, that human beings have grouped themselves into the enormous cities that we see today.  even a small city of 100,000 is enormous for a human being, biologically speaking.  this is where & when large organized religions were able to take root, & where control became more of a driving force, imo.  

i think all religions have this control issue to a greater or lesser degree.  the fact that muslims believe all others will go to hell regardless of their morality if they do not believe in the word of allah.  the fact that christians believe the same thing – yust substitute jesus for allah.

christians, tho, are the worst when it comes to misuse of control, imo.  the main reason for this is because of proselytizing.  missionaries do a great disservice trying to convince people that their way of life will condemn them to eternity in hell because they do not know jesus.

Since people keep missing it, let me point out the obvious flaw in appealing to the behaviour of groups as a philosophical condemnation technique, which is everyone's favorite attack on (at least!) Christianity. It turns out that if you take any group with a population and a history that aren't trivially small, you find it has members who have done some horrific things. Applies to Buddhists, bankers and even Quakers, as nifty as they were. It's possible to conclude from this that people are sometimes a big problem, and indeed most systems of thought acknowledge that. It's alot more difficult to establish that some groups are worse than others without quoting some hard statistics - which, oddly, no one ever, ever does. Gee, I wonder why.

this is not a flaw at all, imo.  it’s yust stating the obvious:  organized groups of people have issues sometimes.  (usually?).  especially when there are too many of them.  the control issue becomes more unhealthy when a group becomes overpopulated – biological safety mechanism i guess.  mebbe part of that “supreme force” that i wonder about?  is overpopulation a cancer on a population, much in the same way cancer is growth of cells gone out of control in our bodies?  what huge creature are we a small cell of?  hmmm...

it also shows the folly of organized religion:  as long as it involves larger groups of people, they will try to control.  by definition, if your religious group is the *true path*, then others are wrong.  and folk don't take kindly to being told they are wrong, especially when they think *they* are right, & *you* are wrong.  look at all the trouble spots in the world today.  are any *not* based on religious differences?  even *within* religious groups, people fight – protestant against catholic, sunni against shi’ite, ad infinitum, ad nauseum.

Another way of looking at this is to point out that many of us here are Americans. America invaded Iraq. It may (or may not) have been a good idea at the time, but a lot of people have severe moral objections to it all now - most especially people who aren't Americans. Do you like being categorized as immoral because you're American? Before you protest "I didn't do it!" too loudly, let me also ask if you pay federal taxes. Oh, you did? Still feel like asserting that you don't "support" the invasion of Iraq? Because I've got a shiny nickel that says that you, an American tax payer, can definitely be shown to have supported the war - in a tangible, explicit and financial fashion. "You scummy American bastard, death's too good for you and let's burn the Constutition as a hate document, which it clearly is because look at what America did!" Does that argument make sense to you?

attacking iraq *was* wrong – anyone who was not greedy or stupid knew it long before we attacked.  america *is* immoral.  i am embarrased, not proud to be american.  an intellectual cretin, masquarading under the guise or religious morals, tries (and succeeds) to con this country into believing that only another holy war against the muslim infidels will make this god-fearing christian nation safe again.  when he doesn’t give a rat’s a** about morals, only is concerned about keeping his military-industrial-complex & oil buddies fat & happy.  no other argument about iraq makes any sense, so i suggest not bringing it up again.  unless you wanna use it as another argument how religion only screws thing up far worse than it helps.

Funny how the Bad Guy is never My Group - or when it is My Group, it's never My Part of My Group. It's always Them, never Us. I find there's an important lesson in that.

wrong again – it *IS*us.  i *KNOW* this lesson – do *you*?  

doug s.

[doug s.]

Remember, I don't just advocate kicking puppies, but killing and eating them too.

If you don't want to address my points because of your concerns about my character, I will simply bow out of the conversation.  Maybe you could recommend a good shrink to help me out with my puppy kicking problem

killing & eating puppies is ok.  yust don't kick them.  

doug s.

[ScottMayo]

(reposted with changes)

[Aether Audio]

Dear Arrogant & Self Absorbed,

Thank the Christian God and his only begotten Son, Jesus Christ- that a man of such moral strength, courage and resolve as George W. Bush won the election!  It helps me sleep at night to know that the Christian Church in America is still strong and rose to the task of seeing to it that we weren't governed by a liberal wack-o that bases his decisions on opinion polls.  George W.'s decision to liberate Iraq and the freedom loving people therein from the strangle-hold of the evil tyrant Saddam, was a noble and just cause.  Hopefully, one day soon, they wiil be able to enjoy the same freedoms we take for granted.  You know, the trivial ones like Freedom of Speech!

PS.  I don't see a single thing to argue about in that!

Signed,
Greedy & Stupid
 

[ScottMayo]

one’s morality comes from within, not from without, imo.

I'm glad that's just your opinion. It would be depressing if you proved it. Moral anarchy hasn't proven to be all that appealing in practice, and I'd hate to think it really was the Only True Way, as you claim.

i never said that this “force” does not have a moral compass. it’s yust that we are in no position to know what it is.

I'm sorry - you repeatedly make claims about something you refer to as "unknowable". If it is unknowable, then you don't know about it, and therefore you can't make any claims about it, like whether or not it has a sense of right and wrong or whether it can communicate that to us. If it's unknownable, talking about it is pointless. Even trying to describe what it does or doesn't have and does or doesn't do, would be madness.

I'm not playing a semantic word game - this simple logic I'm referring to. You can't make apposite statements about the truely unknown, and yet you keep doing it, and I don't even think you noticed that you're doing it.

Anyway, I've experienced this thing you call an "unknown force". To me it is not entirely unknown. I'm sad to hear that your milage has, to date, varied. Maybe that will change.

Anyway: since you've decided that this "force" has something like will or consciousness (or at least you haven't denied it yet), I'm going to use Entity instead of force. Calling something that can think, a mere "force", strikes me as pointlessly impolite.

it’s yust that we are in no position to know what it is.

Maybe not. But what if it told us?

Of course you won't know if it has or hasn't told us anything, because you've decided a priori (which is Latin for "a Really Really Bad Philosophical Approach to Learning Things") that anyone who claims to know anything about this, is really just part of the Global Religious Conspiracy To Dominate You, and must automaticaly be distrusted and rejected.

I mean, how do you know that every author that ever lived, on any subject, isn't likewise trying to subvert you in some way? I mean, sure, here on AudioCircle I could understand that view. I'd like to sell you some speakers - you need *some* truth in your life, after all - and I'd cheerfully write stuff that would "subvert" you into considering a purchase. Like how accurate these speakers sound, how good the imaging is, how nice it is to be able to *hear* the music... you know, mind-twisting, fear-mongering subversions like that. But we all know that I'm part of the Global Music Conspiracy and the speakers must therefore be bad, right?

(This is sardonic irony, by the way. I mention this because I used it in my last post, and you apparently decided I was serious.)

At any rate, keeping your fingers stuck in your ears and jumping up and down and shouting "I claim that you have never tried to communicate with me" is a very, very odd stance to take. Especially with a supernatural Entity. And that's what you apprear to be doing.

At any rate, "designed to control people" implies thast some group of people did the designing, and I'm wondering who that would be in Christianity's case. Jesus? The apsotles? What's your evidence for this claim? Because it's a serious claim and you're painting a very large group of people as evil, scheming conspiracists. I mean, wow, how many people were on that grassy knoll, anyway?

i am not sure it is a conscious effort to control that gets religious groups started,

For pity's sake, which is it? On the one hand you say religion is *designed* to provide control, on the other you say you don't know. Everything is "imo" with you, and even then it is inconsistant. This isn't discussion, this is you preaching *opinions* on a topic without a shred of evidence, and those opinions are about "unknowable" beings and conspiracy theories about historical events.

I wish you luck in your search, if you're on one. As a parting suggestion, try taking your fingers out of your ears and listening to what other people have experienced and learned. I don't care of you start with Buddah or Jesus or Donald Duck - *anything* is a better start than this paranoid and universal "they're out to control me" mythology you've bought into.

[ScottMayo]

Sheeeesh

What's with the "sensitivity".  Obviously in discussions of this type we agree to disagree.  

I'm not posting to attack you or make you mad.  While I don't beleive your position is accurate, I certainly respect the fact that you hold it, and choose not to denigrate you for doing so.

My explanations will no doubt fall on deaf ears since we have different perspectives, but my intentions again are not to inflame you.

Sorry if that was the case.  To me, it is simply a discussion.

I'm not in the least bit angry. I am frustrated, but that's a different thing.

And I'll say again (without rancor) that I believe you've fallen into the habit of using connotation words without really being able to explain what you mean by them - which would be fine if we were talking about something unimportant. Since the topic's a little more serious than the weather (though that's a serious topic, these days) are, I reserve the right to dope-slap you.  

My last debate was with a Ph.D. in philosophy. She and I were about 90% in agreement (except she was an atheist), and we still traded plenty of no-holds-barred dope-slaps back and forth. I figure they are good for the soul...