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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: J_F_Shepard who wrote (171340)	8/14/2001 4:34:07 PM
From: Neocon	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 769667

I perceive myself as a self- aware being capable of choice. I am surer of that than of the evidence of my senses, which seem to me less reliable. I also perceive myself as circumstanced in a world which is not- me, since it is recalcitrant, and inherently limits my choices. My "empirical self" seems to be constructed out of the interaction between myself and the world, or experience. The primary locus of experience is my body, particularly the senses and the place where they are processed (the brain). I perceive my body as "belonging to me", but not me. That part of the "empirical self" which I perceive as being me is called the personality, and is the primary locus of interaction between myself and the world. I encounter beings with bodies, like mine, and interact with them. They appear to have personalities. Some of these personalities seem primitive and problematic, merely reactive rather than reflective, and so I enter into relationship with them ambiguously. Such are the higher order animals, especially those domesticated as pets, like cats and dogs. Some, though, are capable of speech, and clearly reflective, able to evaluate experience and make plans, much as I do. Given that they seem to have fully developed personalities with which I can enter into close relationship, I assume that they, like me, have "selves" underlying their empirical selves. I perceive all of us as persons. One of the characteristics of persons is that they seek to understand the world around them, limited by their resources. They also seek to devise ways of improving their lot through the application of whatever knowledge they have culled. But beyond that, they evaluate the world around them. They introduce ideas of beauty and goodness, and treat them as qualities one can discern in things, as important ways of ordering experience. In fact, attempting to discern value seems central to what it means to be a fully developed person. Our ideas of beauty and goodness arise from our affects, and the responses that we have to things. Certain things seem worthy of aesthetic contemplation, otherwise useless, and we call them beautiful. Certain things, or actions, seem worthy of admiration and praise, and we call them good. The perception of things as beautiful or good precedes choice and acculturation, and are spontaneous responses upon which acculturation and choice depend. We care about those things that arouse our admiration, whether aesthetic or moral, and feel called upon to cultivate them or defend them. Love arises from the sentiment of admiration, and those things we do not love directly, we love for the sake of something we value, as when we cherish keepsakes. Love seems to be as central to the development of a fully formed person as the urge to understand things.......

To: J_F_Shepard who wrote (171340)	8/14/2001 9:27:33 PM
From: American Spirit	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 769667

On souls. No one knows what it is. Or how to define it or where it comes from. Or even if it is anything more than higher consciousness and self awareness (ie a bigger brain). I am convinced animals with larger brains also have consciousness. And I am also sometimes amazed that some really dim humans (and thre are many of them) don't seem to have consciousness. Therefore does a smart dolphin have more of a "soul" than a dumb-bell person? And why worry about a microscopic fertilized human egg which will never become a human when we routinely allow tens of thousands of dolphins to be slaughtered every year? And what about lab monkeys undergoing vivisection without painkillers? It is very possible that the "soul" is just self-awareness which comes from higher consciousness and brain-power. An evolutionary advance. As for the afterlife and transmigration of souls, I had a near death experience with a vision of a "beyond" but it could have just been a chemical hallucination. My father almost died twice and though a devote Christian saw nothing except in one cases pornographic imagery. And he's never looked at porno in his life, nor would he. Mysteries upon mysteries. Morality is and should be an open subject, and very subjective. Freedom of speech and thuoght should equal freedom of morality. Let's face it, no one has the final word or answer. Politicians will generally bend with whatever society feels is moral, because personal morality and values do motivate voters. They represent our morality therefore. That is the imperfect beauty of democracy. But with all the mind-bending $100,000,000 political advertising budgets we lose some of our ability to see clearly or truthfully. It's almost impossible to see past some of this spin. What I feel these days is a moral war going on where a party beholden to conservative Christians is trying to dictate morality. This was the case prior to the 60's and if we're not careful it may escalate. I know even morally moderate Republicans are concerned. Shaming people into conforming to a single defined set of moral rules which are imperfect and self-serving is in my opinion in itself immoral. "We are right and you are wrong". Period. forget science. Forget the environment. Forget the poor. We are doing it this way and if you are against us you are a bad person. And the other party gets defensive and has to define a different morality or else. A contest to see which party can be most strict and moral, Meanwhile soft money is making them all corrupt tools of special interests, at least part of the time. Unfortunately this moral battle has been there all our lives and will remain there for the rest of our lives. That is why life can be so confusing. Just take the issue of sex, for instance. America is both the most sex-crazed and the most sexually-repressed nation at the same time. Then throw in the danger of AIDS as well as the unliklihood of catching AIDS from normal sex with a condom and it's even more confusing. The majority of people in this country especially the young are totally confused about sexuality. There is a mass schitzophrenia about the subject these days. We want it but we can't have it. We're bad if we want it but celibacy sucks, let's face it, as does frigidity and guilt. Rambling away, gotta go -