If you know what ought means, and what obligation entails, then you also must know that a "suggestion" is not the same thing."
What I said was:
"Thou shalt have no other Gods before me" is not truly an ethical precept but just a suggestion! How funny you are, Greg!"
DO YOU GET IT, YET?
"It was you who suggested that the concept was not Absolute but was subject to certain whims and caprice !! ;-) ---How deep can you dig?!
Who gets to make the rules; the majority?"
The most powerful have ultimate say. It is often the majority. But what is more important is the basis on which the rules are made. Is it based on 10,000 fools and clowns claiming imaginary TRUTH and AUTHORITY? Or is it based on a humble kneeling before the Universe of reason?
"Your ideas of what constitutes "the benefit (well-being) of the community (which means the individuals who compose the community)" is completely arbitrary."
It is NEVER arbitrary. It is based on magic, myth, might, or reason. And even in reason there is a crookedness that stinks up the entire universe...but stink is preferable to mindless freaks marching through villages with their machetes for their insane beliefs based on their own insufferable stupidity and their endless delusions.
"I described an amoral (from your perspective) scenario, that basically entailed "might is right". Thanks for agreeing with me."
Sorry. I DISAGREED with you if you were suggesting that "might is right" is rationally ethical. Universally rational ethics were introduced only with the founding of America (although certainly they were known of on a more parochial level since history has been recorded). Extremist ethical conundrums almost entirely involve emotional rather than rational values because all values begin with a desire. The fundamental desire of all people is to wish to continue as an alive creature. There are rare exceptions and in those rare cases responses may be different than expected. ALL value comes from belief. If it is rational ( I will die if I don't use a parachute) then rational behaviour will follow; if it is irrational (if I die I will have an eternal wedding feast with Jesus, or I will have virgins dozens of times a day or fresh water that will never ever ever end)...then capricious behaviour will follow.
"Why would they need to defeat tyranny; is tyranny objectively wrong if that tyranny is arrived at by a socially conscientious majority?"
Yes. Because being socially conscientious has nothing necessarily to do with being in touch with reality or with doing good. Christ, Greg! The Catholics...the Dominicans were "socially conscientious" :-) Do you think they were "good"! When they murdered through the Dark Ages of religious madness was it because they were reading short-hand off their little hearts! Don't make us laugh or cry, fellow!
"first you seem to grant moral equivalence to actions based on shirt color as if there were no issues involved. Talk about fashion wars! The shirts are not the issue!"
It is not the first time I have had to slow things down to frozen molasses for you! It has NOTHING to do with shirt colour, Greg!! (I can't believe you thought that shirt colour was anything other than a proxy for moral belief!).
The point has been hammered into your head over and over and over again: If the moral good is "written on all hearts" (by the Christian God since I am talking to you), then how can anyone pretend they would do good without a belief in THAT God (considering that the Christian God is just a minority opinion in the world...and considering that the world is in constant conflict over values)?
It does not matter the COLOUR of the uniform. Suck in some oxygen, Sport. It matters that different uniforms are worn to REPRESENT and to PROMULGATE different ethical beliefs. And this makes one side good and one side murderers, and this does not comport with the Absolute Morality which you claim is written on the hearts of all people. It seems to relate more to the relative opinions of Nation, Culture, and Country!
Of course, maybe you wish to RETRACT that this stuff is "written on their hearts"! Then you are left with the conclusion that the only thing keeping you from being every degree of inhuman is your belief in the Christian God. No other God will do because ONLY the Christian God (the new guy on the block!) has a basis for morality!
"Do you think the allies were murderers for standing up against Hitler?"
Well, that is an irrelevant question. But, no...I think we were killers (OBVIOUSLY). But murder implies doing wrong. Many people call us murderers (morality is relative as we keep seeing); but I call us defenders of human rights and freedoms. I don't think we did wrong for defending those values. Millions of people do--but I don't. So that answers your puerile question.
"Second you purposely misrepresent my position by saying that killing is written on the hearts of men when I said the knowledge of what is right and wrong is"
YOU ARE A LIAR.
I said:
"No. You said that people knew that wrong was wrong because it was "written on their heart". So tell me how a million people (with stuff written on their heart) can be "right", just because their uniform is one colour--while another million are "wrong" just because their uniform is another??"
Don't get stupid on me all over again.
So you said that the "knowledge of right and wrong" is written on the "hearts of men". I responded to that several times to point out the contradictions--but I have no problem with doing it again.
HOW LOGICAL is it to believe that 1,000,000 people wearing one uniform are ALL intentionally evil (even though it is written on their heart what is right) while every single individual of the 1,000,000 wearing the other uniform are all good---in spite of free moral choice??!!
Let me help you. According to you, the Christian God has written upon ALL hearts the knowledge of right and wrong? RIGHT? Well--how thick is the bloody handwriting? Muslims are blowing up little children from both sides and Israelis are killing hundreds per month in "collateral" damage. And you sit there giving me smug responses about uniform colours because you cannot get the point?????
Do you know what a child knows about what is "written on his heart" when some psychotic bastard straps a bomb on him?? So do you think that "God" considers it justice that when people try their very very very best to follow what is "written on their heart" by God, and when they are devout and pious 24 hours a day...that they should be tortured for eternity? If your parents tell you to pray Greg's way you live FOREVER! in a stupidity feast? And if you are born in some other country, you are doomed (except for caprice) to eternal torture?? Quite a RATIONAL system of ethics, all right. Of course, mindless social insects (and you are not there yet, Laddy) have no qualms about destroying wonderful life that is real to serve their imagination of what they will have when their guts are eaten by termites.
But as the saying goes: "God help the rich, the poor can beg."
"Idolatry is wrong precisely because men have enough knowledge about the true God to leave them without excuse."
There isn't one out of a ten-thousand people in the world who have ever read any of that shit. And there is not one out of a thousand Christians who have read 5% of that shit. So we are back to the idiot line of what is "written on the heart" of a few Christians here and there in the world. You are proving ABSOLUTE MORALITY by pointing out how subjective and relative it is?? Have a Scotch on the rocks for Christ's sake. |
