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Politics : Sharks in the Septic Tank -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: thames_sider who wrote (10445)	4/4/2001 8:04:17 PM
From: The Philosopher	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 82486

I don't know that much about Buddhism, but certainly it considers itself a religion. While literally atheist means lack of belief in God, I think more broadly it means lack of belief in religion. I don't think many if any Buddhists would consider themselves atheists, though I could be wrong. And while Buddhism may not have a belief in a God as westeners use the term, it does seem to have a belief in a Creator. And Nirvana seems to be an eternal, deathless state, which is a condition usually associated only with divinity. (One of the dividing lines between mortals and gods generally has been mortality vs. immortality). Question for you. Do you believe that - maybe only in Western civilisation, if you choose - we are more morally aware, more ethical, more conscious of our place and role in the world than peoples in previous centuries? If you do not, how and why are we less advanced? But if you do believe that we have improved on our predecessors, why would we feel compelled to follow their beliefs? Whew! Well, I try not to be one of those on SI that duck the hard questions. I do think that we are in certain ways more morally aware, more conscious of our place and role in the world (I'm ducking the more ethical, that's a harder issue!). If only because we can draw on the past and see the mistakes the past made. But why should that change eternal truths? I don't feel compelled to follow all the beliefs of my predecessors -- I don't, for example, believe that women should be subservient to men, despite contemporary books to the contrary which would return us back 2,000 plus years. But nor do I discard truths just because time has passed. I still read Plato, for example, and find a great deal of truth and wisdom in him. The point is that we can CHOOSE to follow good beliefs from the past and reject bad ones, like slavery, X notwithstanding. Just because time has passed and we have become more morally aware does NOT mean that the truths of the past are invalidated. Sometimes the more wisdom we gain, the more we realize how wise our predecessors were. So far no government founded since 1789 has, IMO, improved on our Constitution. Why do we still cling to that old belief? Because it is still true. Why do we still cling to a belief in the duality of marriage, rejecting multiple marriage? Because it is still the best way to live and raise children. In fact, in this matter we're startign to turn back toward the past; our new awareness of a more open morality has proved to be very bad for children, and we're seeing more and more that the stability of two parent nuclear families is the healthiest way for children to be raised. Not all change is progress.