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Politics : Should God be replaced? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: epicure who wrote (1139)	9/28/2000 10:41:32 PM
From: Solon	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 28931

X the Unknown X the Unknown X the Unknown This is the new thing. Ya gotta be in the pentagram, though! Your vision is a good hearted one, but I don't think it is so simple. Merely believing that our perceptions and derived truths are relative, and therefore different, does not create a rationale for moral behaviour (or non injurious behaviour if you prefer). You may accept that my reality is relative, and you may know (or think you know) that yours is relative--but that does not have anything to do with how we treat one another. We may not even respect one another for sharing a common philosophical world view. One of my relative truths might be that you are part of an inferior race, and are not worthy of life. One of your relative truths might be that aggression should not be resisted. Where would that leave us? As I said, when it comes to understanding our own reality, we are not uncomfortable with a relative concept of existence. But when it comes to the axioms, premises, the relative beliefs of others--we are only happy to allow their relative perceptions so long as they have a correspondence to ours. After all, we did not develop our values out of thin air. We adopted them and internalized them, after much experiencing, thinking, and evaluating. But when the the beliefs of others do conflict with ours, there is only the appeal to God, reason, or pragmatism, as a means of reducing conflict (and if they don't include any of these as part of their relative guides to living, there will be no common basis for reducing the conflict). So, it is not enough that we pay homage to the relative thinking of others. We want to know that on critical issues of value, there is a sufficient correspondence, that our individual values and beliefs are not going to be trampled on by others--others that may think we are simply maggots on the face of the earth. You and I could live peacefully in the world because we both happen to have values that correspond closely enough to avoid serious conflict. We can respect those areas where our ideas are not congruent because respect is a value we arrived at from our relative journey after truth. Relative beliefs do not imply moral beliefs or moral behavior, nor do they imply the immoral. If we wish to test the morality of an individual or a society, we need to examine their ACTUAL beliefs, and measure them against certain standards (such as ours). Is there an absolute absolute? Can calculus ever work its way to zero? How about this: Lets pretend that the theory of entropy is essentially correct, and that in some faraway place, all energy dies out. Not a photon moves. All is stark; all is still. There is no time (I believe time is an illusion that derives from the illusion created by movement and change of position in particles. If an observer observed outside the whole universe of substance, he would not experience time). Is this an absolute reality? Can we agree that an outside observer looking in but unable to interact (and I know that is a contradiction because the light has already created an interaction inside), would be confident in saying that this was an absolute reality? What I am suggesting is that there is nothing intrinsically right or wrong with absolutism versus relativism. They are both equally capable of embracing ideas and behaviors that are immoral, dangerous, and abhorrent. They are both equally capable of embracing ideas that are ennobling, kind, and compassionate. Anarchy derives from a relative philosophy. Would it make a society desireable for living in? Well, possibly for the strong and powerful; Unlikely for the weak, unless the strong and powerful were also kind and wise. Not likely. These opinions are simply meant to further our journey and not to imply better or worse. I gotta run.