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

To: Dayuhan who wrote (78438)	4/18/2000 6:03:00 PM
From: Bill	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 108807

Bull. It is you who has no idea, no underpinning, not even a reference for your flawed ideas. Yesterday we had a brief exchange on Nietzsche, Dante and Comte. I see that you chose not to weigh in on any of it. Jeez, all your pontificating and you can't come up with a single reference, not even a mention of the famed Vienna Circle? I would have figured if you were as smart as you think you are that you would have at least thrown out Carnap's logical positivism to defend your flawed position. But no, the best you can come up with is a toss at the Old Testament that somehow made you feel superior. Well, good for you. I wish you well in your ignorant bliss.

To: Dayuhan who wrote (78438)	4/18/2000 6:18:00 PM
From: one_less	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 108807

I am not speaking for e-Bill but as a believer, I would venture the "source of morality" to be also the source of religion. Not one to the other. This is key because, it is possible to invent a religion and then assign a moral system to it. This would be very close to your way of looking at things since you see people getting caught up in a society and assigning the moral system that most accommodates their situation. I think you agreed that an idea can stand alone as an abstract. If we are saying that morality is an abstract idea that people put to use in defining systems of right and wrong then, you believe that human beings create it as it suits their needs. I believe human beings through meditation, prayer, scriptural study, and/or via a messenger can discover the moral system that human beings need to use in order to be successful as human beings. So, we both end up with a needs based system that has at least a referent in abstract ideas.

To: Dayuhan who wrote (78438)	4/18/2000 7:23:00 PM
From: Ish	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 108807

<<Perhaps you could return to the issue that was under discussion for long enough to explain why you think that religion is the source of morality? All you have managed so far is an oblique reference to the old testament, one of the most extravagant celebrations of amoral behaviour ever concocted by the human hand. >> Hidden in between Genesis and Malachi there is a little thing called the Ten Commandments. Don't steal from your neighbor, hump his wife or kill him stuff. Not a bad starting point, ethics wise that is.

To: Dayuhan who wrote (78438)	4/19/2000 12:55:00 AM
From: Neocon	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 108807

In one sense, I think, morality is the source of religion, not the other way around. I agree with Kant (with revision) that we believe in God in order to vindicate the moral order, which transparently is not perfected in this life, but may be under Divine Judgment, in the end. However, from an anthropological perspective, it seems likelier that morality grew up with religion. Just as in the case of the Hebrews fleeing Egypt, what we would call moral rules were intertwined with obviously cultic rules meant to purify, elevate, and set apart. When St. Paul spoke of the law written on the heart of the Gentiles, he was making a distinction between morality and cultic regimen, but it was a distinction late in coming, and not immediately evident to many of our ancestors. It is all part of the lore of the tribe, how to honor ancestors, worship gods, appease potentially malevolent spirits, and generally align the tribe with the cosmic order. Morality is what is left once one makes a distinction between practices special to the tribe and common to men, but it remains a question of fulfilling the larger purposes of our humanity........