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

To: Greg or e who wrote (17371)	5/5/2004 8:17:47 PM
From: Solon	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 28931

"It's too bad you seem to have lost any sense of humor" On the contrary...I find your struggles hilarious! "It follows because the fact that you would be willing to use force against another shows that you don't really believe morality is only relative" There are two possibilities here: 1). You are incredibly dense, 2). You pretend to be incredibly dense. I am not about to weigh in on the probability of either, but I will be sure to keep my response in point form. If you are still bewildered and continue to make statements which embarrass you, then I may honorably wash my hands of the matter. If The Nazis had the same values America had, then an argument could be made for Absolute values. But clearly they had different values, so for you to say that challenging different values is agreement with those values is just to expose that you are a little boy when it comes to a sensible discussion. The reason I am (under certain circumstances) willing to use force against another is precisely because there ARE others who value differently than I. The treatment of others is based on opinions. Opinions are colored by irrationality, self-interest, subjective perspective, cultural bias, social indoctrination, mystical thinking, emotional defects, errors of fact, and so forth. Hence, all over the world one finds that morality is relative--as being informed by all these prejudicial factors. This is recognized and acknowledged by all people with even a smidgeon of intellectual honesty. There are those who say" "So what? I believe in such and such a God. I believe in these or those Holy books. I believe this and that and blah, blah, blah. Doesn't my relative, subjective, and minority belief make morality Absolute?" But then the guy in the other uniform says the same thing and adds spit on top of it. So much for trying to impose mystical imagination upon an imaginative mystic! The empirical evidence is very clear that ALL morality is concerned with self interest, personal opinion, and social and religious dogma. You can pretend that your "different" morality is Absolute, but all the rest of society sees is that your opinions are "different" (i.e. relative). So your claims are more than false: They are absurd and they are arrogant. Claims of magic and fantasy all wilt before other claims of magic and fantasy. If you wish to claim that pigs fly you must exhibit a flying pig. You have not done so, nor will you. "That is.. how you say in America.. CRAP!" No, it isn't. Your statement is bogus. Without feeling there would be no basis whatsoever for morality. The reason it matters how people treat one another is that treatment makes a "feeling" difference. A machine does not "care" whether it has one knob or 50. A machine has no feelings, so nothing matters to it. People are emotional as well as thinking creatures. The final goal of material concerns is to nourish the emotional values of feeling happy and avoiding pain and suffering. Of course this is one of the reasons that even objective moral values are relative in practice and experience. We cannot meaningfully discuss morality without addressing the overwhelming fact that people feel…and all that we do concerns the goal of meeting desires. "Morality is a child of the heart and the intellect." "You can't destroy all ground of knowing save reason and then just throw emotion in there to save you from the consequence of reason" What a bizarre statement! Is it supposed to mean something?! ""You wish to add an emotional dimension to human interaction—but this invention adds nothing to truth.."" It guides relative morality. And it does not need to be “added”. Where were you born? On another planet? "How is "Heart" any more than a value judgment?" It isn't. Value judgments are opinions. Opinions are based on thought and feeling. Human thought has purpose and the purpose is connected with survival and the quality of life (i.e. feeling). "then you say you are willing to invade another sovereign nation and impose your value judgments on them" No. I didn’t say that. I said I would be willing to invade a sovereign nation under certain circumstances. I would also be willing to invade your home under certain circumstances. But it would not have to do with my imposing values upon you. Rather it would involve standing up for my own values. "So when Bush does it then it's bad but for you; being so much more refined and wise, it would be OK." Your off-topic smart-alecky comments are telling. I haven't said anything about Bush. Your comment is gratuitous nonsense and relates to nothing we are discussing. I said that there were circumstances under which my moral principles allow me to attack (or support attacking) another country. I never said I was refined or wise. I simply said what I said. But thank you for you opinion. "Natural Law at that time stemmed directly from Natural Theology. That's a fact." That is NOT a fact. Natural Law (in ethics) means that the nature of moral behavior rationally entails certain objective principles that exist independently of Government or culture but answer only to rationality. The Declaration relies heavily on the philosophy of John Locke who believed that rights were grounded in a lawful universe and comprehended through human reason. It is true that Locke was a nominal deist but that is extraneous to our discussion. One need not suppose that Mother Nature and Human Nature were created in order that one supposes that rationally consistent relationships may obtain. I have already indicated that I am not fully in agreement with any natural law arguments. I am comfortable with Spinoza who saw all Nature (reality) as God, but not a God who can be either more or less than simply what is. Human Nature is not homogeneous, nor is it fully realized in any direction. I am, however, somewhat sympathetic to the wish to place humanity on a rational basis (while recognizing how self interest always modifies "reason"). I have indicated that I thought the use of "Creator" in the Declaration was pragmatic and the avoidance of "Creator" in the Constitution was wise. I also pointed out that referencing Creator or Thor or Zeus or Yahweh on any parchment is not evidence of any kind. Indeed, thousands of "Gods" have been imagined and thousands have been written about. As I said before...if you wish to contend that pigs fly, you must exhibit the pig. Until then...watch for flying goats from all your many Absolutist mystics wearing the other uniforms. All that we see indicates that morality is relative. The very opposition of all the “Absolutists” to one another and their murderous certainty is simply more evidence that they know less than nothing; but they live in a world of illusion--a world where the rest of us are forced to babysit them and acknowledge their illusions. Personally, I wish I could put every one of you nuts on a spaceship and send you to the moon or somewhere. I would be willing to cover the food and clothing for life for one of you. Absolutists have no respect for the thoughts or the feelings of others (how could they?). They can only IMPOSE. They can never dialogue or share. They blunt the progress of humanity and they mire us in the scum and mud of cocky mysticism and swaggering superiority. How much more superior can one be than to assert that those in disagreement DESERVE to be tortured for eternity? Now how is humanity to survive such arrogance, such cruelty, and such immense stupidity?

To: Greg or e who wrote (17371)	5/5/2004 9:00:05 PM
From: Solon	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 28931

I suppose I should explain the Nazi "morality" to you--since you have broached it. Luther was one of the most influential religious leaders in history. He was also a racist, a neurotic, and a fool. His racist diatribes against the Jews (based on the bible) created a social hatred of these "inferior" sub-humans. This (Absolutist) hatred permeated the political arena and was adopted by Hitler and company as factual (the bible don't lie!). It resulted in the murder of a Nation of people. Oh well...you just can't beat Absolute morality. How telling that Absolutism and Certainty always fall to the megalomaniacs, the terrified, and the INSANE.