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Pastimes : Let's Talk About Our Feelings!!! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: epicure who wrote (74905)	2/22/2000 11:40:00 AM
From: jbe	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 108807

X, I don't disagree with you. My point was quite a different one, and had to do with much more humdrum situations. What I was saying -- or what I meant to say -- is that it doesn't matter whether you think values are absolute and handed down from on high because in practice like everyone else, you will be faced with ambiguous situations that will force you to treat values as relative -- to one another.

To: epicure who wrote (74905)	2/22/2000 1:52:00 PM
From: nihil	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 108807

I think progress is palpable and promising. The fact that you can say the things you do without some Ayatollah or Inquisitor killing you is progress. Certainly no woman could have questioned all religions the way you do without being killed for questioning one of them two hundred years ago. I would certainly have been burned as a heretic in any Christian country 500 years ago. I would have had the hemlock forced down my throat for corrupting the youth in the freest city in the world 2400 years ago. As long as speech is kept free, or can be made free, there is hope. The more outrageous the speech, the more necessary it is that it be free. How could we ever identify the truly terrible people who need to assassinated or imprisoned for their terrible acts (Kaszinski, bin Laden, Lenin, Adolf, Mao) unless they speak up and identify themselves. Ted was identified because of the similarity of his writing to words that his brother knew. Hitler told us almost exactly what he intended, as did Lenin. It is sad that we can read, but we cannot act. We should not imprison people for their words, but their words will tell us what acts we need to watch for. I am not pessimistic at all about the future of human freedom. I see all sects set against each, among which perhaps is the truth. Who ever knew Truth to be bested in a free and open encounter?