Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

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

To: Lane3 who wrote (71020)	7/28/2003 11:58:41 AM
From: one_less	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 82486

"Everything is fine about that sentence except the word, absolute. I really think the problem in this discussion is that word. If you mean ideal or abstraction or my word, touchstone, then say that." I have done so repeatedly. The word absolute connotes something to some of you that has a rub. The rub is not of my making. "The absolute moral teaching is to "be kind to others." I don't buy that example. There are societies that don't teach that. Uday and Qusay weren't taught that, for example." We don't really know what they were taught. But clearly when captives are raped, tortured, and murdered by them, we would not conclude that their behavior is "sensible" or that; if they were taught that it is ok to behave this way, the teaching was sensible and ideally "good." Examples are always going to be situational. Situations are always going to be subject to view point, subjective. I am not arguing that subjective view points are ideal, absolute, touchstones. I am arguing that subjective view points reference the ideal. I thought you and I had agreement on that.

To: Lane3 who wrote (71020)	7/28/2003 6:40:50 PM
From: The Philosopher	Respond to of 82486

'"The absolute moral teaching is to "be kind to others."' I don't buy that example I agree with you. Was reading the new translation of the Jewish Bible last night, and I would say that "be kind to others" is about as far from the moral teaching of the Torah as it is possible to get. The Israelites weren't kind to anybody but themselves, and often not that when people were seen to be disobeying the dictates of God. They conquered peoples after peoples, slaughtering all the population. They stoned their own who violated the commandments of God, even when those people hadn't hurt any other people ("just" taken things during the sacking of the city that God had said should be dedicated to His priests), and on and on. Be kind doesn't cut it. And, of course, God implicitly approved of slave holding. Hardly constitutes being kind.