02-08-2005, 11:31 PM | #161 | ||
Elf Lord
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Will you pray, with me, that God will show you which religion he is to be found in and that you will encounter him?
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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." |
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02-09-2005, 01:23 AM | #162 | ||||
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 Ã¥ â„¢ 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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02-09-2005, 05:03 AM | #163 |
the Shrike
Join Date: Mar 2002
Location: San Francisco, CA <3
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[small aside]I LOVE FATHER TED!!![/small aside]
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"Binary solo! 0000001! 00000011! 0000001! 00000011!" ~ The Humans are Dead, Flight of the Conchords |
02-09-2005, 06:12 AM | #164 | |
The Intermittent One
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02-09-2005, 12:18 PM | #165 | |
Elven Warrior
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I am an atheist; yet I consider myself a very strongly ethical person. I often consider myself a more ethical person than those who just read their ethic out of a book. My ethical perspective is very different from the one of religious people, not just in what is right or wrong, but in the way in which I consider the concept of "wrong". I might for instance reverse my judgement on occasion (which is a "no, no, no" for religion, as far as I understand it) |
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02-09-2005, 11:15 PM | #166 |
Elf Lord
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Your ethics are completely self-derived, TWFM? Your morals also? How can you be sure that you haven't picked up ideas outside yourself? And, if you are so assured, what makes your system superior to all others, particularly those with a longer history than yours, or more adherents?
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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 Last edited by inked : 02-09-2005 at 11:16 PM. |
02-09-2005, 11:42 PM | #167 | |||
Elven Warrior
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If instead what you are asking is how can I be sure that it is not indeed the holy gost or the the devil who speak through my mouth, then I will tell you that I can't be sure, but that (given that I don't believe in them) I don't belive so. What is unique about my ethical view is that I scrutinized all of it to the best of my ability by using my brain; I don't exect this scrutiny to be final and I see it as perfectly possible that I will change some of my positions (albeit I expect that this will happen very rearly) Quote:
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Last edited by The Wizard from Milan : 02-10-2005 at 12:38 AM. |
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02-10-2005, 12:04 PM | #168 | |
Elf Lord
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Thanks for your answers. You have an assembled ethics and morality which is selected by you from among a roster of choices you say. That puts you in the position of being above all systems and in judgment of them. What, pray tell, is the basis for your judgments amongst them? I do not deny that you use your brain in the process, nor do I question that it is the best you have met in your life, granting that brains transplants are not possible and you have only the one like everyone else! Exactly what examples of your contention that ideas have been proven wrong? As stated I do not know if you refer to ethics, morals, scientific paradigms, or theories of social structure. I am particularly interested in the examples that you say exist for ethics or morals.
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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 |
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02-10-2005, 01:09 PM | #169 | ||
Elven Warrior
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Examples of previous ethical norms that are now considered morally-wrong are: 1) women and minors are not humans 2) natives of south america are not humans 3) if one of two brothers dies married and childless, the other brother must make the woman pregnant 4) prostituted should be killed by stoning ... |
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02-10-2005, 02:45 PM | #170 |
Quasi Evil
Join Date: Jan 2003
Location: Maryland, US
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and dont forget gays should never be allowed to marry. oh wait... sorry... Im getting ahead of myself.
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"People's political beliefs don't stem from the factual information they've acquired. Far more the facts people choose to believe are the product of their political beliefs." "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." |
02-10-2005, 03:13 PM | #171 | |
The Intermittent One
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02-10-2005, 05:49 PM | #172 |
Elf Lord
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TWFM,
Which feeling? and does it change with the feeling? horny? hungry? sad? happy? indigestion? anxiety? happiness? fear? As to your second series: the status of women and children in society have changed as society has chosen to emphasize their persons, but the change is alsways towards the ideal of personhood with legal rights and responsibilities; it is in fact the self-existent morality to which this appeal was made and on the basis of it that the changes were argued. The moral status did not change. The treatment of those persons did in response to the moral argument. natives of Africa and South America and North America, too, not to leave out the Polynesians and all non-Westerners, but it was the argument from self-existent morals that changed the societal perceptions. the morality of what I take you mean by the Levirite law was that the man's family was responsible for the welfare of the widow and her long term care, which involved children to provide for her care, and also a duty to preserve the dead man's line of inheritance; this is clearly a moral duty to provide for extended family and one mode of its fulfilment. That particular social practice has been laid aside, true, but not the moral duty to accomplish the goals at which it was aimed. So we have a change in mode, not meaning, wouldn't you say? as to prostitutes being killed by stoning, check your recent European history in regard to Islam, I think you will still be assured of its practice within European borders. On the other hand, you most likely mean the Western practice has discontinued that punishment, but that is a change of means; prostitutes are still regulated by law, though the practice is unhealthy both before and since AIDS/HIV (and the long list of STD's). But in Western civilization one would say that the appeal to the higher morality was that the practice did not deserve death by violence (apart form the johns, of course) and so the practice stopped by an appeal to a higher understanding of morality. In each of these cases we do not have a change of morality but a shift in emphasis of existing morality to justify altered socieal norms. So, where are the "new" moral values you allege?
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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 |
02-10-2005, 10:03 PM | #173 | |||
Elven Warrior
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I won't do that because I see that as a waste of time; if you want to believe that I don't do it because I would be ultimately unable to, you are free to (wrongly) believe so Quote:
Ok, I now deliberately choose 3 of my most controversial examples to answer your question of examples of my ("new", as you call them) moral values: 1. if a person desires to die, he or she should be free to choose no matter what 2. many acts of giving birth are unethical. Choosing not to have babies is often an ethically superior choice to having babies. Although, it is difficult to draw the line precisely, if everybody shared my ethic I doubt there would be any overpopulation problem in the planet 3. cantinuation of the race or extinction of humanity has no moral implications Last edited by The Wizard from Milan : 02-10-2005 at 10:12 PM. |
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02-10-2005, 11:47 PM | #174 |
Elf Lord
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TWFM,
If at any moment I happen to feel vindictive from a surfeit of Italian food and indigestion, and, in that moment of feeling, happen to be so cross with someone as to strike and injure them permanently or kill them, is that wrong or right on your showing of ethics? and Why? Given your logic above, variation from self-derived ethics on the basis of feeling would appear justified.
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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 |
02-11-2005, 12:35 AM | #175 | |||
Elven Warrior
Join Date: Jan 2005
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I might be extremely angry with person X and might insult him or her, my feeling of anger in the moment are not what I call "my true feelings". My true feelings are what I use when I am pondering what is fair. Quote:
I am not proposing my ethic as absolute-god-like-immutable, I am proposing it as best-so-far |
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02-11-2005, 12:50 AM | #176 |
Elf Lord
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Then describe the "what is fair" by which you judge your own system.
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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 |
02-11-2005, 01:10 AM | #177 | |
Half-Elven Princess of Rabbit Trails and Harp-Wielding Administrator (beware the Rubber Chicken of Doom!)
Join Date: Sep 2002
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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 Ã¥ â„¢ 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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02-11-2005, 01:12 AM | #178 | |
Elven Warrior
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I feel (and here I am using "feel" in a different way) that I have already answered that question Last edited by The Wizard from Milan : 02-11-2005 at 02:40 AM. |
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02-11-2005, 10:13 AM | #179 |
Elf Lord
Join Date: Oct 2004
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TWFM,
If you had made yourself clear, I would not have asked for explanation. As it stands, you assert the validity of your selection of ethical/moral ideas on the basis of your feeling and sense of fair. I think it reasonable that you address those concepts. On the other hand, if they mean what you have said, that they have no basis save in your brain. Following brownjenkins line of reasoning, we now have the brownjenkins standards, the lizra standards, and the TWFM standards. I am at a loss to comprehend how three sets of deterministically arrived chemical structures have evolved systems of ethics/morals and how they inter-relate or even that they should. Enlighten me.
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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 |
02-11-2005, 11:58 AM | #180 | |
Elven Warrior
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Personally, I don't think it is possible for anyone to understand what I say from your standpoit, you have to shed your mental schemes and look closer to what I have written |
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