General

[Christian Nelson]

I guess in my mind, I typically like to see what a person claims to believe, and I expect them to adhere to it.

TO me that is the bigger ill, the fact that most tend to say they believe in something, or someone, then when you ask about specific parts of that same something or someone, and you find they don't actually believe it at all, or follow it at all, it seems to me inconsistant at best.

kinda like the time you see someone who says they are vegan (because they hate cruelty to animals) Kick a puppy while eating some ribs..

I find it nice and convenient to have a book available i can read up on thier beliefs, and see if I like it or not, and to see if I am dealing with a genuine person or not. If I can't chekc for myself, I am left at thier mercy if they change thier mind, I cannot know, since they'll just change it, and say they never said the other.

[John Satclaire]

Originally Posted by Christian Nelson

what else would you propose for them to use as an authority to end the line of questioning? In other words, if you cannot use a precedent, or unchanging (even semi unchanging) set of rules, what keeps you from just making it up as you go along, to suit your whim of the moment?

Originally Posted by Christian Nelson

Right and wrong have definitions for most people.

I disagree: most people feel they know the difference, and can call out any given set of facts as one or the other. But they couldn't define for you why they feel that way if you put a gun to their head and told them their life depended on a well-reasoned answer (not that that approach would provoke dispassionate thinking generally).

Originally Posted by Christian Nelson

I guess I don't understand what the problem is with someone who believes what is written in a book using that same book to describe what the ideal they believe should be.

I'm not saying that those who propose the ethical norms by which society should forcefully rule its members should not justify those norms by reasoning that logically leads back to some core set of widely-held, abet irrational, beliefs. And I'm certainly not saying that that justification or those foundational irrational beliefs shouldn't be codified; quite the opposite on both counts.

While facts can inform our decisions, they cannot compel them. You need an "ought" statement, somewhere along the line, to make a decision. That "ought," assuming it pretends to some moral authority beyond superior force, ought to justify itself based on the most broadly accepted beliefs of those to be compelled. My problem with the various religion-based ethical systems I've studied--Christianity; Judiasim; and, to a lesser extent, Islam--is that they look to texts that are far, far too conclusory.

"Thou shalt not kill," for example, is not much of a justification for, or even a codification of, a widely-held belief. It's the beginning of the discussion: why is killing bad; is it always, in all factual contexts, bad; how bad is it; what should the consequences of killing be and why; etc etc etc.

Admittedly, no matter how far back you want to go, every human rule comes down to a simple statement of irrational belief, usually backed by an implied or express threat of force to defend that irrational belief: "thou shalt (not)... Or Else." But when I get a mere cite to scripture instead of a well-reasoned justification based on more generally accepted ethical principles, I find that insufficient. If I lived in a theocracy, where scripture enjoyed the status of the Constitution, I would (assuming I agreed with that system) find a bare textual citation authoritative. Instead, I prefer a long, reasoned explanation from the specific "this ought to be the way this narrow realm of our existance is run" to more general principles upon which all involved can agree (killing without apparent necessity of preserving life, limb, or property, or without provocation that genuinely overrides the self-control of the killer is wrong because life is the single most precious thing a mortal being has and etc etc etc).

[agentSmith]

Originally Posted by stevedavidson

you don't seem to be able to 'handle the truth'.

but you do like Chandler, so you can't be all that bad.

(I've got the rights to his works btw - letting other people write in his universe and reprints...)

I meant what I said. I don't 'believe' anything in the blind faith sense of the word. I can use the word conversationally - I believe this lightbulb is a working one - but that's as far as it goes.

I have no problem separating 'belief' based on the best evidence so far - with the full knowledge that new information can change that belief - and belief based on faith - conviction based on no evidence.

The preponderance of the evidence examined thus far - the overwhelming amount of data - supports the theory that we, the universe and everything in it came about as a result of natural laws and, once we sufficiently understand the mechanisms behind it, will not require a resort to supernatural explanations.

I'm sorry if the reality bothers you, but sometimes you have to say 'the emporer has no clothes'; religious believers have been tolerated and deferred to for far too long and my personal BELIEF is that we would all be much better off without it.

Once again, the tone of this post would make you seem to be a logical sensible guy, but that's because I busted you, now you've wiped that hit and run for a safer bunker.

Two quotes for you before I run off to work:

"Denial is not just a river in Egypt."
I have no idea who said that

"Milord, it seems perhaps thou dost protest too strenuously"
Stephen Brust's the Pheonix guards

AB Chandler has some great things between the lines about doing the right thing because it's the right thing to do. Whether it's maggie or Sonya or the Faraway Quest, he does what he can to steer the right course. A good character and I hope the folks who take charge of his universe treat it with more respect than you do religion or your fellow man.

We all get carried away sometimes, whether it's Hillary ducking sniper fire, or you posting as the anti-christ. Just don't do it, don't give in. Reread your posts, edit them, take the time to bother because they represent you to the rest of the world. They may go over the heads of the midgets you seem to expect out here, but us taller folks in the back get hit right in the face with the inconsistencies between Stevedavidson circa page 4 and the guy we see on page 11. Maybe I'm a poor excuse for a genius, but they don't seem like the same guy, suggesting that one of them is a character you are playing, whether you will admit or even realize it.

Thanks for offering to feel sorry if your rationalizations bothered me, but that won't be necessary. NONE of this bothers me. I don't dislike you, I think you're no more delusional than the average and your offense wasn't really so heinous, self deception is as forgiveable as any mistake can be. It's simply a debate. Not a very complicated one, but still a debate.

Rob

[John Satclaire]

Originally Posted by Christian Nelson

I guess in my mind, I typically like to see what a person claims to believe, and I expect them to adhere to it.

TO me that is the bigger ill, the fact that most tend to say they believe in something, or someone, then when you ask about specific parts of that same something or someone, and you find they don't actually believe it at all, or follow it at all, it seems to me inconsistant at best.

As personally distasteful as I find hypocrites, their inability or unwillingness to "practice what they preach" has no particular relevance to the "rightness" or "wrongness" of what they've advocated. I suppose one could argue that if the supporter of X as a value is unwilling or unable to themselves adhere to X, then that undercuts somewhat the chances of X really being a value.

But in the end, everything that hypocrisy really tells me is about the messenger, and not about the message.

[Christian Nelson]

(killing without apparent necessity of preserving life, limb, or property, or without provocation that genuinely overrides the self-control of the killer is wrong because life is the single most precious thing a mortal being has and etc etc etc).

Well, that one in particular is fairly easily solved by using the original texts, which say more like thou shalt not murder, which is different, than thou shalt not kill.

Further reading of the same bible, different book will give you a famous Beatles song, To every thing there is a season..... A time to kill a time to die , time for peace, war, etc..

So, with a reasonable approach to the scripture, one can find a rational message. It is typically when people pick and choose to suit thier purposes that things seem to go awry. Granted, there are some difficult ideas, and things in there, that I will admit that there is not an easy way of understanding them.

I do whole heartedly concur with the idea of not wishing to have the use of force implemented in religeous practice.

Hypocracy absolutely is the measure of the person, not neccisarily the measure of the moral they espouse. That is why I like to be able to read for myself the belief a given individual espouses, and justification for why they think things ought to be a certain way. If I have no place for them to refer me to, how am I to know if they are scrupulous enough to keep even their own values?

You see, without that, you have only what they say, and your memory of what they've said in the past (I've learned not to trust my own memory very well, documentation is key) so I find people justifying thier belief system with a document I can get my hands on to read for myself to be valuable in deciding whether to trust this person.

What do you think of the "self evident truths" in the constitution?

In my mind certain things like the ablility to defend one's self and property seem naturally to be expected in a good society. for example.

Yet, they don't really point to any real thing other than that they hold it to be self evident that our creator (such as he is) has endowed us with inalienable rights.

They don't point to any source of this as proof, and simply claim that it should be obvious to anyone thinking about this subject..

The problem with that line of thinking is, that it isn't so obvious, since this nation was one of the first to recognize these self evident truths, after roughly 6,000 confirmed years of civilization.

Don't get me wrong, I totally concur with the constitutional rights, but I just wanted to throw an example out there of a value system as a sample to see what you mean by wanting to hear a reason why x is right, and y is wrong..

My answer for right and wrong is my gut (the inner one, not my intestine) simply tells me so, and the bible pretty much channels it in the same direction.

Kinda like when Jesus said, to love the lord with all you heart, all your mind, and all your strength, and love your neighbor as yourself, upon these two hang all the laws and the prophets.

Even the ten commandments has the same formula, the first few are having to do with how you treat God, the rest on how you treat others.

For me, it is easier to know how to treat others, basicly like Jesus said, the way I would like to be treated, to put others first, help people out, and so forth.

The harder part, the part that I need the bible for moreso is how to treat God.

Now, if you don't neccisarily care as much about how you treat or act towards God, I can see how the bible may not be as usefull, but I guess I just have a hard time quantifying the whole thing, maybe I am not understanding what you mean by pointing to a holy book for justification.

Is my inner most feeling of percieved right and wrong explenation any better?

I guess I don't think it is, so really is there any way to explain it that is valid to you?

[John Satclaire]

Originally Posted by Christian Nelson

thou shalt not murder, which is different, than thou shalt not kill.

Different, but not much less conclusory. Defining murder is no mean task: take a glance through the history of criminal law should you doubt that.

Originally Posted by Christian Nelson

So, with a reasonable approach to the scripture, one can find a rational message.

Ah, excellent! All you need to do is point me to a concise, objective definition of what constitutes a "reasonable" approach, so I'll know when I'm taking one, and we'll be all set.

Originally Posted by Christian Nelson

I do whole heartedly concur with the idea of not wishing to have the use of force implemented in religeous practice.

You've misread me: behind every law is some set of irrational beliefs, backed up by a host of men with guns. While ethics, religious and otherwise, have a broader application than societal governance... we live in a free society. The only time ethics constrains our free will is when it is implemented by force, under guise of law. So, I consider this narrow type of ethics and the justification thereof to be the most interesting for discussion.

Originally Posted by Christian Nelson

That is why I like to be able to read for myself the belief a given individual espouses, and justification for why they think things ought to be a certain way.

As I've said, I find those books to be long on generalized statements of Ought (beliefs such as thou shalt not murder) and very, very short on the justification for why things ought to be that way. Which you get to below, so I'll skip there.

Originally Posted by Christian Nelson

What do you think of the "self evident truths" in the constitution?

In my mind certain things like the ablility to defend one's self and property seem naturally to be expected in a good society. for example.

Yet, they don't really point to any real thing other than that they hold it to be self evident that our creator (such as he is) has endowed us with inalienable rights.

And because we, as a society, have elevated that text to the status of Authoritative Statement of Beliefs... it need not justify itself. Before they wrote the Bill of Rights, there was a great deal argument about why the things they ultimately codified were Good Things. In these debates, the principle of free speech (for example) was defended on numerous grounds, both utilitarian (it is good to have free speech because it, in net, causes other good things to happen and/or prevents bad things from happening) and deontological (free speech is good in and of itself, regardless of what it causes). It is this sort of debate that I think necessary before we enshrine any given "ought" statement as desirable, much less as law. But what sort of debate is this, and how is it ultimately different from what you feel in your gut, you seem to ask:

Originally Posted by Christian Nelson

see what you mean by wanting to hear a reason why x is right, and y is wrong..

Is my inner most feeling of percieved right and wrong explenation any better?

I guess I don't think it is, so really is there any way to explain it that is valid to you?

Ultimately, I want to hear an answer to "why" every time an ought statement is offered to justify an ethical norm... until we reach common ground on a (probably very broad) core irrational, unjustified belief (or, more likely, several of them). If I can rationally work backwards, using those accepted unjustified belief(s) as my granted premises, and arrive at your narrow ethical norm... then I consider it justified. An example may be useful:

You should be locked up, because killing a man who was stealing your Vector is wrong. (note that I do not actually agree with that statement, but we can work with it as a hypothetical)

Why?

Because that's murder and murder is always wrong. (I'm omitting the legal definitions of murder from our purely ethical discussion)

Why?

Because killing a human being without a very good reason is wrong.

Why do you say I killed him without a very good reason: the S.O.B. was taking my VECTOR!

But your Vector isn't a good enough reason to kill him; his life is worth more than your Vector.

Why is it worth more than my Vector? You do know they don't make them anymore; it may not be replaceable!

But human life is unique and very valuable. Even if you lose a Vector, that's not a reason to kill him and so you're a murderer.

Well, I won't make you explain why his life is necessarily more valuable than my irreplaceable property. But he didn't need the Vector (unless he was HellsGate, then I concede he had an insatiable need for the Vector), so he chose to take what he knew was not his. Isn't that choice bad and couldn't that be a good enough reason to kill him?

No, because even if he does bad things he still doesn't deserve to die for it.

Really? What if he broke into my home at night with a knife to steal my Vector... that's bad, and I know I could kill him then, and it wouldn't be murder. So why is one thing bad enough to kill him and another not bad enough to prevent my being a murderer?

Now you're getting away from the point. If he's in your home at night with a knife, it doesn't matter whether he's taking your Vector or just borrowing a cup of sugar.

Ok, so it sounds like unless he's threating my life I should not kill him, because life is the most precious thing we mortals have, without which nothing else is worth a warm cup of spit. I can agree with that basic premise!

Thank God. Now go come up with a proof that demonstrates why, if you accept that life if the most precious thing a mortal has, killing a man for stealing your Vector is murder. I'm tired of explaining the blindingly obvious to you and am going to sleep.

This is an amusing, though not very illustrative, example. It isn't very illustrative because there's really not many steps involved: we all share (except for me, who thinks it perfectly moral to kill someone who steals my Vector--that's just mean, and I believe in punishing on voluntary malice more than on what harm was ultimately inflicted... and I really like Vectors) a core, though fundamentally irrational, belief that human life is almost uniquely valuable. If you want a trickier example, with a lot more steps between "you ought" and a shared core belief justifying that statement consider the following exchange:

You ought to be locked up for murder because you shot a man (who had a knife and was in your house at night for purposes totally unknown to you) in the back of the head with your .45 when you had the drop on him from a good eight feet away, and you didn't even have the decency to let him know you were there and ask him nicely to surrender.

[Christian Nelson]

So, what you are saying is, that there is no right or wrong, essentially moral reletivism.

That a person who is articulate, and can argue well will give you more reason to believe his approach to right and wrong, simply because he can put a good argument to whatever he proposes.

Have you ever read Mien Kampf? It's been years, I mainly recall being astounded as to how reasonable, and logical He seems, and how he had me almost convinced that what he wanted to do was the right thing. This scared the crap out of me, knowing he was one of history's most evil men, yet he put forth a compelling argument, the German people overwhelmingly were convinced of his virtue, and they perpetuated a Holocaust because he was a man who was able to articulate evil in a compelling, and reasonable way.

To me, a person should be on guard against such things, that somethings are so beyond the pale, you don't need to debate the fact that it is evil.

To me, this is what it means to be self evident, that there is no need to argue it, you just know. All that debate can do, is confuse the weaker minded to follow even an evil plot, since reason can cloud concience.

In other words, you go to a prison, and everybody there is either innocent because of the circumstances, or they didn't do it. Denial and rationalization both work to convince people to do things they know to be wrong. Rationalization is the more dangerous of the two, and the more common, because a person can convince themselves that they can do pretty much anything given the right argument. To them, this seems so reasonable. We are best at fooling ourselves, and after fooling ourselves, we are more easily able to fool others.

The true believer is the hardest to combat, th guy who real does think he is the re-incarnated messiah.

Think about The people who followed these crazed lunatic cult leaders. What would dirve a man to castrate himself, and give his wife to some other guy? What possible compulsion would drive a man to go against his most basic programming? That of procreating and defending his territory? Reason, with reasoning, you can justify any act you want.

[stevedavidson]

Agentsmith,

Its the same person from one post to the next.

The fact that you refuse to believe (there's that word again) what I say is not my problem.

Busted me how? You can yell 'he's hit, he's hit' all you want, but that doesn't make it reality.

[DeTrevni]

Well, to be perfectly honest, Steve, I've found quite the irony in your posts. You called all of the religious stupid, idiotic and condescending, thinking they're right, and you're wrong. "Thinking they're right, and you're wrong."

Isn't that basically what you're doing? You seem to think you're right, and they're wrong, and this is no different from what you were griping about.

It may be that I didn't get any sleep last night, but it seems to me you are everything you hate...

[John Satclaire]

Originally Posted by Christian Nelson

So, what you are saying is, that there is no right or wrong, essentially moral reletivism.

I am and I am not saying there is no right or wrong; it is very much the case in one way and very much not the case in another. Morals, being based on ought statements, are necessarily "relative" in the strict sense of the term: they are never logically compelled by a set of facts alone. Science can tell man the way things are (facts), but man ultimately has to make a decision to act or not act. The decision is informed (hopefully) by the facts, but is made by some belief that cannot be justified by any other statement than "that's how I feel about it."

Say science works out to a certainity (and informs me ahead of time) that if I wake up tomorrow promptly at 6:00 a.m. my decision to get out of bed will cause 5,338 people in Manila to die in a rather nasty storm; but that if I hit the snooze button once, my arising at 6:35 a.m. will spare the 5,338 souls in Manila while causing 7,891 to perish in an earthquake in California. Assume further that I am given the facts of all of those lives: I know everything they have ever done, and can make some guesses about what they each might do if they got to live.

At this point I know a great deal about the "is" of the situation, but none of those facts can logically suggest whether I should get up on time, sleep in, of just take a whole bottle of sleeping pills tonight and dodge the issue entirely. It will always be a fact (or a set of them) coupled with some irrational valuation: those 7,891 in California are all America hating hippies, so I'll sleep in; the man who is well on his way to inventing cold fusion lives in Manila and I own rather a lot of ExxonMobile stock, so I'll wake up on time.

If you won't concede that in the end, all of our choices and values are based on the same thing--a subjective, irrational feeling that cannot be logically justified--then you either cannot or will not think rationally and there's not much point having a conversation with you.

Of course, the logical relativism of morality isn't the end of the matter: the vast bulk of humanity will tell you there's a big difference between someone who believes that killing those he or she believes are threatening the bodily integrity of self or others is moral, and someone who believes that killing those he or she thinks are contributing to the national obesity epidemic is moral. And there's a reason for that, which (given the vast breadth of human experience compared to the narrowness of any given religious doctrine) is based on some very generalized core irrational feelings that most "normal" human beings share. I just like the conversation to procede from an exploration of what those shared beliefs are, rather than an exploration of how a narrow subset of humanity has tried to codify those irrational norms (religion).