01-25-2005, 03:25 PM | #1121 | |
Advocatus Diaboli
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that said, it may be time for the next contestant... i think the "why's" for me have been made pretty clear... maybe too clear
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01-25-2005, 04:14 PM | #1122 |
Elf Lord
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Well, if you are departing the hot-seat, thanks for your time and answers, brownjenkins.
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Inked "Aslan is not a tame lion." CSL/LWW "The new school [acts] as if it required...courage to say a blasphemy. There is only one thing that requires real courage to say, and that is a truism." GK Chesterton "And there is always the danger of allowing people to suppose that our modern times are so wholly unlike any other times that the fundamental facts about man's nature have wholly changed with changing circumstances." Dorothy L. Sayers, 1 Sept. 1941 |
01-25-2005, 04:23 PM | #1123 | ||
Half-Elven Princess of Rabbit Trails and Harp-Wielding Administrator (beware the Rubber Chicken of Doom!)
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. I should be doing the laundry, but this is MUCH more fun! Ñá ë?* óú éä ïöü Öñ É Þ ð ß ® ç å ™ æ ♪ ?* "How lovely are Thy dwelling places, O Lord of hosts! ... For a day in Thy courts is better than a thousand outside." (from Psalm 84) * * * God rocks! Entmoot : Veni, vidi, velcro - I came, I saw, I got hooked! Ego numquam pronunciare mendacium, sed ego sum homo indomitus! Run the earth and watch the sky ... Auta i lómë! Aurë entuluva! |
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01-25-2005, 04:57 PM | #1124 | |
Advocatus Diaboli
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Your reality, sir, is lies and balderdash and I'm delighted to say that I have no grasp of it whatsoever. |
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01-25-2005, 07:28 PM | #1125 |
Half-Elven Princess of Rabbit Trails and Harp-Wielding Administrator (beware the Rubber Chicken of Doom!)
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Gosh, ya know, I just wish I could hear some ... I don't know, I guess just some outrage from you over things like that ... it just seems so cold ...
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. I should be doing the laundry, but this is MUCH more fun! Ñá ë?* óú éä ïöü Öñ É Þ ð ß ® ç å ™ æ ♪ ?* "How lovely are Thy dwelling places, O Lord of hosts! ... For a day in Thy courts is better than a thousand outside." (from Psalm 84) * * * God rocks! Entmoot : Veni, vidi, velcro - I came, I saw, I got hooked! Ego numquam pronunciare mendacium, sed ego sum homo indomitus! Run the earth and watch the sky ... Auta i lómë! Aurë entuluva! |
01-26-2005, 11:48 AM | #1126 | |
Advocatus Diaboli
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i certainly would be about my friends or family remember, just 'cause i say things are relative and people do things, "evil" things, for reasons, does NOT mean they are "okay"... you may oppose "evil" for biblical reasons, but i oppose it just as strongly for reasons concerning society and humanity... and my own well-being i've argued for capital punishment in other threads... not because of the existance of some iconic absolute called "evil"... or to punish those who do wrong 'cause they "deserve it"... but for the more practical reasons, like the fact that once a person has killed, chances are good he will kill again and we do not have the ability to reliably predict whether or not this individual can be rehabilitated that said, we are also all ruled by our emotions that sometimes trump reason... if someone did something to my child, i'd probably kill 'em, irregardless of the consequences to myself or my family... much like the mother who stands by her son even if he is a convicted murderer... close ties are one more thing that effects "relative morality"
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Your reality, sir, is lies and balderdash and I'm delighted to say that I have no grasp of it whatsoever. |
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01-26-2005, 12:22 PM | #1127 |
Elf Lord
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brownjenkins,
"Close ties" do not trump or change morality! They are judged within the same context of morality. The mother of the murderer in your example may support her child in faithfulness to her maternal love, in denial of his/her true actions, in agape to change that child's sense of self-assessment and seeking for repentance and reformation. Her emotional responses are indeed facts about her, but the morality of the response is not judged on the emotion but the appropriate response in terms of morality. In short, emotions are responses; actions performed in response to emotion are still judged by moral standards. That component of response can be taken into account within the legal system in the sense of intention (cf. killing another human can be intentional and premeditated, intentional but unpremeditated, accidental but forseeable, truly accidental, etc., in the case of the accused). It is also a scale that is applied in the moral valuation in an analogous fashion. Hence, the concept of deserved or retributive justice, as opposed to revenge motifs. The underlying morality is used to assess the perpetrator and the individuals responding to the perpetrator (the victim's family, the perpetrator's family, the society and its laws and their validity and applicability, etc.).
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Inked "Aslan is not a tame lion." CSL/LWW "The new school [acts] as if it required...courage to say a blasphemy. There is only one thing that requires real courage to say, and that is a truism." GK Chesterton "And there is always the danger of allowing people to suppose that our modern times are so wholly unlike any other times that the fundamental facts about man's nature have wholly changed with changing circumstances." Dorothy L. Sayers, 1 Sept. 1941 |
01-26-2005, 06:03 PM | #1128 | ||
Elven Warrior
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I don't think they mean by "not getting comfortable" that they seek turmoil. I know this isn't at all a good comparison but I sometimes think of it as being a bit like when I am drawing or painting. If I settle for something less-than-perfect, I'll never know how much closer I could get. I wouldn't call it seeking turmoil if I tried to do better. After all, it's not as if there are very comfortable people in this world anyway. Life itself is not easier for someone who is "comfortable". I would say that a person (A Christian, especially) who feels comfortable with how things are going is a lazy person. People really only know how wrong they are when turn around and try to do right. (whatever that means) Here I am rambling, again. I think I need to finish reading the rest of the thread before I start butting in again. Quote:
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"Always forgive your enemies - nothing annoys them so much." ~Oscar Wilde "Don't tell lies you can't keep." ~My little sister... Last edited by jellyfishannah : 01-26-2005 at 06:05 PM. |
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01-26-2005, 06:18 PM | #1129 |
Domesticated Swing Babe
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I'm old, I like comfort...what can I say! I paid my dues as a searching youth, awash in inner turmoil ....looking back on it now, it just seems like a big exercise in exageration!
"People really only know how wrong they are when turn around and try to do right. (whatever that means)" .....That is a bit of a puzzler ....Why would you try to do right..if you are wrong?! Chicken or egg?
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Happy Atheist Go Democrats! Last edited by Lizra : 01-26-2005 at 06:19 PM. |
01-26-2005, 06:20 PM | #1130 | |
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"Always forgive your enemies - nothing annoys them so much." ~Oscar Wilde "Don't tell lies you can't keep." ~My little sister... |
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01-27-2005, 02:12 AM | #1131 | |
Half-Elven Princess of Rabbit Trails and Harp-Wielding Administrator (beware the Rubber Chicken of Doom!)
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Brownie, I"m not interested in ONLY talking about what you believe in your head, but also what you believe in your heart. Why is murder so bad? Because it disrupts society, or ... because it friggin' kills a beautiful amazing wonderful human being!! What does your heart say about that? (no, do NOT think of the ridiculous line in the ROTK movie, when Aragorn asks Gandy if he thinks Frodo is still alive, and says, "What does your heart tell you?" and Gandy gets this contemplative look and you hear weird scifi music and then he comes back to the present and says, "Why, how stupid I was to wonder if he was alive or not! All I had to do is use my magic powers! Stupid me, I forgot! Of course he's alive!" MAJOR ) What is your heart reaction to murder?
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. I should be doing the laundry, but this is MUCH more fun! Ñá ë?* óú éä ïöü Öñ É Þ ð ß ® ç å ™ æ ♪ ?* "How lovely are Thy dwelling places, O Lord of hosts! ... For a day in Thy courts is better than a thousand outside." (from Psalm 84) * * * God rocks! Entmoot : Veni, vidi, velcro - I came, I saw, I got hooked! Ego numquam pronunciare mendacium, sed ego sum homo indomitus! Run the earth and watch the sky ... Auta i lómë! Aurë entuluva! |
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01-27-2005, 02:33 PM | #1132 | |
Advocatus Diaboli
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do you think it is a coincidence that the ones we tend to love the most are the ones we tend to need and relate to the most? a few years back i had two cats (one of which i still have), each about two years old at the time... ernie (orange) and bert (black)... yep, the kid's named 'em one night ernie was acting kind of funny, so i planned to take him to the vet in the morning... the next day he was gone and no one remembered letting him out... late that night i found him in the basement behind the oil burner dead... it turns out he had a urinary infection, which can kill cats very quickly the interesting thing was that all that day, and for quite a while afterwards, bert had suddenly become very friendly... he was not a mean cat, but not the kind who liked to be picked up or held... now he was i think it may have been a kind of reach for emotional support on the part of bert... a connection he had developed from living with ernie for so long... and also a reaction that would probably have not manifested itself if bert had just happened to come across some random cat dead alongside the road humans are the same (since i believe that we are just a different kind of animal... not an entirely different thing), while we can discuss ideals and absolutes, reality is much more fluid... we often judge people by how well we know them... and it doesn't even have to be as extreme as murder... you would give the benefit of doubt to someone you knew well and liked, where you might not give it to a complete stranger... the old, "he would never do that" syndrome how closely we relate to people has a huge impact on how we judge them morally... i think anyone who claims they don't let things like race, religion or just plain friendship cloud their "moral judgement" of a person is fooling themselves
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01-27-2005, 04:26 PM | #1133 |
Elf Lord
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If morals are societally driven, how do you define murder, brownjenkins? To drag up the Nazis again, since they legalized the eradication of the "defective" Germans and practiced mass killing techniques on them (before the use for 'non-Aryans'), was that murder under your definition? or exculpable terminations by societal definition?
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Inked "Aslan is not a tame lion." CSL/LWW "The new school [acts] as if it required...courage to say a blasphemy. There is only one thing that requires real courage to say, and that is a truism." GK Chesterton "And there is always the danger of allowing people to suppose that our modern times are so wholly unlike any other times that the fundamental facts about man's nature have wholly changed with changing circumstances." Dorothy L. Sayers, 1 Sept. 1941 |
01-27-2005, 04:59 PM | #1134 | |
Advocatus Diaboli
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any mass-murdering that does not involve self-defense, from the crusades to nazi germany, is ultimately a bad thing for the society that practices it... and for those individuals who are a part of that society nazi germany is a good example of how morals are relative... due to the circumstances of the era, a charismatic leader was able to convince a large population that eradication of the "defective" was ok... but, much like absolute ideals, this assumption was not based upon the "real world", what was good for society in the long-term... it was based upon the beliefs of a single individual (or small group of individuals) guided by nothing more than their own self-interest... it doomed that society to eventual destruction from those it wronged this is why all absolutes must be questioned... we have no problem questioning the ones like the above that are obviously terribly derranged... we have a lot harder time questioning the ones that have worked for a very long time and seem to be good in most, if not all, cases
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Your reality, sir, is lies and balderdash and I'm delighted to say that I have no grasp of it whatsoever. |
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01-28-2005, 02:51 AM | #1135 | ||
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. I should be doing the laundry, but this is MUCH more fun! Ñá ë?* óú éä ïöü Öñ É Þ ð ß ® ç å ™ æ ♪ ?* "How lovely are Thy dwelling places, O Lord of hosts! ... For a day in Thy courts is better than a thousand outside." (from Psalm 84) * * * God rocks! Entmoot : Veni, vidi, velcro - I came, I saw, I got hooked! Ego numquam pronunciare mendacium, sed ego sum homo indomitus! Run the earth and watch the sky ... Auta i lómë! Aurë entuluva! |
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01-28-2005, 02:54 AM | #1136 | |
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Is your theory: "The good guys always win in the end"?
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If the world has indeed, as I have said, been built of sorrow, it has been built by the hands of love, because in no other way could the soul of man, for whom the world was made, reach the full stature of its perfection. ~Oscar Wilde, written from prison Oscar Wilde's last words: "Either the wallpaper goes, or I do." Last edited by Lief Erikson : 01-28-2005 at 02:58 AM. |
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01-28-2005, 09:38 AM | #1137 | ||
Advocatus Diaboli
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Your reality, sir, is lies and balderdash and I'm delighted to say that I have no grasp of it whatsoever. |
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01-28-2005, 09:52 AM | #1138 | |||
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"I can add some more, if you'd like it. Calling your Chief Names, Wishing to Punch his Pimply Face, and Thinking you Shirriffs look a lot of Tom-fools." - Sam Gamgee, p. 340, Return of the King Quote:
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01-28-2005, 10:39 AM | #1139 | |
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Beer + Pizza = N'uff said Happy to be here The HACBR has been alerted to my postings…..Hobbits Against Constant Beer References Beer is living proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy. --Ben Franklin I want my Mooter T-Shirt! |
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01-28-2005, 11:33 AM | #1140 | |
Advocatus Diaboli
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i think we've seen this changing throughout history... the balance of survival and peaceful interaction with those that we share this planet with... 300 years ago, survival involved "conquering" other societies... until fairly recently, with advances in food production, etc... one group's suvival might very well depend upon the destruction of another's... this is not so much the case in today's world... and may not be the case at all another 300 years in the future back to absolutes... some christians take "thou shalt not kill" literally... i.e. killing is never okay, and taking a human life is solely up to god... i'd think that most take the modified, "killing is okay when self-defense is involved"... which is basically the same as saying that killing is okay if your own society's survival and prosperity depends on it one could call this an absolute, at least in today's world... the problem is, "self-defense" has such a wide and variable definition that it renders the "absolute" undefinable... it would be hard to hold a tribal society of 6000 years ago who killed a neighboring society over a limited resource like food during times of famine to the same moral scale as a situation like saddam's iraq when it invaded kuwait for basically monetary gain well beyond what was needed to keep iraq's society alive by the same token, many see our current invasion of iraq necessary to contain a future threat, even though innocents will (not may) die in the process... i.e. it is morally justified... i don't want to argue that point in this thread... but, suffice it to say, there are also many people who do not think it is justified "self-defense" is completely relative... so, effectively, "it is okay to kill if in self-defense" is also relative... there is no absolute
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Your reality, sir, is lies and balderdash and I'm delighted to say that I have no grasp of it whatsoever. |
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