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

To: Greg or e who wrote (29889)	9/27/2001 1:47:47 PM
From: epicure	Respond to of 82486

Everyone, even atheists and agnostics, likes to talk about what is "good" and what is "evil". Of course most athiests and agnostics realize that what they mean is "what I think is evil" or "what my society thinks is evil". So when Gould uses good and evil, I would suspect that he doesn't mean absolutely evil- he means what he feels is evil given who he is and how he was raised. Just as when he says sublime, he means, how I react to certain things that make me feel wonderful, based on who I am and how I was raised. What is sublime to Mr. Gould, would probably not be sublime to OBL. Just as what Mr. Gould would think was good, MR. Bin Ladin would not. All these things I think Mr. Gould can probably keep in his mind, and yet he can still use the words good and evil and sublime, even given their non-cosmic importance to him. I am sure it is hard to understand how people who are not religious can still spot evil- as most of use can, simply because it isn't a rational way to live. And equally troublesome must be the fact that some very very devout people (like OBL) can do unspeakably horrible things, and yet be very very sure, they are very very devout, and in thick with God. It's a funny old world.

To: Greg or e who wrote (29889)	9/27/2001 2:11:32 PM
From: Poet	Respond to of 82486

Poet responded to it by attacking me personally Tsk tsk

To: Greg or e who wrote (29889)	9/27/2001 6:38:21 PM
From: St_Bill	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 82486

Two things: I'm not sure why, if there is no God, it should therefore follow that there is no good or evil. I don't get the logic here. Some would argue, myself included, that morality is necessarily independent of religion. One compelling argument here is that if God is in charge of morality and God can do whatever he wants, morality is thereby a matter of God's mood or whim and becomes arbitrary. So If morality is not arbitrary, then God himself is bound by its rules. This of course is a brief look at an old and ongoing argument. I think that it is possible to be and do good (as well as to be and do evil) God or no. Secondly, with all due respect to your views about Christianity, you seem to suggest that all that don't believe as you do about the existence, death and ressurection of Christ are therefore hopeless. I have a hard time with that. We began our discussions, sort of, with my admitting and your agreeing (?) that no one has a direct pipeline to God. Most of the religions teach that we poor mortals could never pretend to know the mind of God. Any such pretension would be blasphemy. I find in this an offer, more or less overt, of tolerance and hope for other paths? Are Muslims, Jews, Buddhists and Hindus hopeless? I mean no disrespect. This is the problem with religion that I am becoming more interested in with each passing day. Can't there be more than one effective path to God? Couldn't God be complex enough to allow for the possibility that Jews and Christians (for example) are both right? This I guess presents us poor, barely rational mortals with certain difficulties. But perhaps those difficulties ought to embraced as one embraces faith, no easy task by itself. God ought to be given the benefit of the doubt, in a manner of speaking, as we ought to doubt our own understanding of what God, in the end, really has in mind. What does religious tolerance mean? 1] I'm right, your wrong and doomed but I won't kill you, God will let you know what you're in for later. 2] I think I'm right, I don't agree with you, but maybe you're right and I'm wrong or we're both right. God's complicated. 3] Full blown religious relativism: Whatever you believe about God is true, just because you believe it. Same goes for me, even though we disagree. But then what if your God is telling you to persecute with great prejudice all those that don't believe as you? Hmm. This I find a good question: Are there limits to religious tolerance?