quote:I'm sure we all understand that there have been plenty of dorks out there who have cheerfully scientifically 'proved' that racism and/or slavery was right and proper.
Yes, and generally they've used very bad science to do so; you don't need to appeal to any axioms to disprove this, you just have to look at the methodology.
quote:The point of that little exercise is that at some point you have to appeal to something that doesn't exist. You can't use terms like 'better' or 'worse' in the context of a value system without appealing to something that doesn't exist.
I don't see the relevance. You asserted an ideology where personal happiness is the only good; I pointed out that this can lead you into situations where personal happiness is actually minimised. I'm quite ok with holding up happiness as the thing to be maximised; I part company when you state that objective truth is not valuable in that quest.
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Considering the way the Vikings of Iceland preserved their sagas, why, I'll take them over your monks any day, thanks.
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No one has said that objective truth isn't valuable in this quest. I'm only saying that you can't make an argument as something being better or worse for human beings without appealing to something that doesn't provably exist, which I believe was the core of your argument as to what was wrong with religion.
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How do you define virtue? How do you select rational thought over other candidates for best virtue? Why are you selecting a best virtue in the first place?
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Also, I never said that happiness was the only important principle. It was just the principle that I used to illustrate my point.
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Then I must say you did so very clumsily; I have no faintest idea any more what your point was. Could you please be a little more explicit?
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What I want to know is why you feel the need to constantly attack people for their beliefs. You think religion is awful, we all get that. So why enter every single thread about religion and turn it into a "KOM bashes religion" thread? You're not convincing anybody. If anything, your antagonism alienates you from the people that might be receptive to the substance of your arguments. Tom enters most religious threads and more or less says the same substance as you do. He just does it without being mean. Do you just enjoy irritating people?
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quote:Huh. I would say kindness and patience are much more virtuous than rational thought.
Rational thought produces kindness and patience, and in fact produces the concept of them as virtues in the first place; their existence is completely dependent upon rationality. The assumption that rationality is unemotional -- and unconcerned with emotion -- has done a great deal of damage to a great number of societies.
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It was clear to me. The implication of Storm's syllogism is that to conclude (as KoM has) that the only worthy activity of humanity is that which is based on rationality, is itself the application of a value judgment -- namely that rationality is more betterer than other modes of thought and inquiry. (And in fact, universally more betterer.)
The justification for such a value judgment itself resides (necessarily) in a belief system outside rationality itself.
KoM believes that "basing decisions on untrue beliefs is a bad thing." Even if you don't change that to "basing value systems on uncertain beliefs is sometimes a bad thing" (which is a more defensible critique of organized religion, IMO), it's still just something KoM believes.
Or so I interpreted Storm.
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It may produce the concept of them as virtues, but it doesn't produce them. I've seen ducks being kind before, and people with mental handicaps are often the least rational and most loving people around. KoM claims that he is more rational than all of us who are religious, but he hasn't an ounce of kindness or patience that I've seen. Maybe he's only like this online, but all his rationality hasn't gotten him what really matters to me.
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quote: Then I must say you did so very clumsily; I have no faintest idea any more what your point was. Could you please be a little more explicit?
No, it was pretty clear.
In any case, now you're being a jerk. I refuse to converse with you in this thread any longer until you apologize.
I tried.
I must say, I don't see what I said to produce this effect. What did you want me to apologise for? But certainly, if you don't want to talk anymore, nobody is forcing you. Have a nice day.
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I would argue that he often IS, depending on what his actual goals are. Most people are, in their moments of weakness, and these moments of irrational behavior are among our worst. And even when we ARE being rational, sometimes we lack the ability to properly evaluate the results of our actions.
quote:I've seen ducks being kind before, and people with mental handicaps are often the least rational and most loving people around.
I would argue that intention is at least as important as effect when determining "quantities" of kindness. I also think you're confusing forethought with rationality.
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quote:Originally posted by John Van Pelt: It was clear to me. The implication of Storm's syllogism is that to conclude (as KoM has) that the only worthy activity of humanity is that which is based on rationality, is itself the application of a value judgment -- namely that rationality is more betterer than other modes of thought and inquiry. (And in fact, universally more betterer.)
The justification for such a value judgment itself resides (necessarily) in a belief system outside rationality itself.
KoM believes that "basing decisions on untrue beliefs is a bad thing." Even if you don't change that to "basing value systems on uncertain beliefs is sometimes a bad thing" (which is a more defensible critique of organized religion, IMO), it's still just something KoM believes.
Or so I interpreted Storm.
Ok; put like that, it makes sense. I must say I don't see how you got it from Storm's post about happiness, but never mind. Now then, I have two responses to this. The first is that having the maximum accurate information to base decisions on being a good thing doesn't really need to be defended, because we all believe this.
The second is that I don't object to axioms in matters of morality. I'm quite all right with people saying "It would be good if everybody was happy", without backing it up with experimental proof. Again, this is not exactly a controversial matter. But this is not what religions do. Religions make claims of fact based on the same kind of faith; and that's where I part company. To claim 'X exists' (where X can be a god, an electron, or a distant star, as you choose), without being able to produce some kind of proof, interferes with the pursuit of your moral values, because it introduces false data to bias your judgement. Whatever your value system is, there is some course of action that will support it best; introducing unreliable data lessens your chance of choosing that course.
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quote:I would argue that intention is at least as important as effect when determining "quantities" of kindness. I also think you're confusing forethought with rationality.
I don't follow. Can you explain what you mean by this and how it relates to what I said?
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I dispute, for example, that ducks can be "kind" as we mean the word; that the mentally handicapped are arational; and that people who are arational can be "kind" in the way people are, as opposed to the way ducks are.
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Good post, KoM, you identify one of my biggest problems with faith. Trying to do good can cause harm when you're merely uninformed; when you base the notion of good on something that you can't prove, things can become really, really dangerous.
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Well, how would you define kindness? To me, it's giving someone else what they need, especially in a gentle way, even if it means you don't get what you need right away (or at all).
The kind duck I saw stayed in the road to help its mate to the side, even though she was badly injured and couldn't move. He stayed with her, risking his own life. Maybe he didn't know he was risking his life; I think he did know, though, because he obviously knew she needed to get out of the road. He was pretty distraught.
If that's not kindness, what is?
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Are you defining kindness as self-sacrifice? Because there are all kinds of rational arguments for altruism.
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I should also point out that I've -- in previous conversations on similar topics on this board -- made it clear that I consider certain levels of subconscious thought to also be "rational," like "instinct" and "reflex" and the like. I believe "gut feelings" are in many cases the mind's attempt to express the result of a complicated and incomprehensible variety of variables, and believe that they can often be more reliable than full-scale analyses when dealing with complex or time-critical data.
But there's a caveat: I believe these kind of gut feelings are really only more accurate than conscious logic when they are exercised by someone who is already an expert in the field being considered. I don't think a random amateur is normally capable of internalizing the wide array of inputs necessary to produce an accurate "reading," so a gut feeling from someone uninformed is almost always worse than a reasoned analysis on the same topic from the same person.
In other words, we're not short-cutting rationality; we're narrowing focus to certain trained pathways.
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quote:but he hasn't an ounce of kindness or patience that I've seen
Well, one could argue that KoM's debates are themselves acts of kindness.
2 KoM 3:9 - KoM is kind and longsuffering to us, not willing that any should perish in ignorance, but that all should come to enlightenment.
Although, I do questions KoM's motives here. Based on his debating style, it seems he is more interested in trying to make non-theists feel good about themselves, a virtual pat on the back, so to speak, than he is in trying to actually convert anyone to atheism. If anything, he is only making theists more resolved to hold on to their beliefs than ever before.
In any case, I do usually enjoy the alternative perspective that he brings to the discussion. Sometimes I even laugh to myself when I should probably be offended.
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quote:Originally posted by Brinestone: Well, how would you define kindness? To me, it's giving someone else what they need, especially in a gentle way, even if it means you don't get what you need right away (or at all).
My problem with this is the motivation for acting "kindly". If it's based on religion/faith, it can be to "save" the person, to "enlighten" that person, etc, all of which to me aren't based on something you can prove/disprove. Therefor saying that your actions are good is based on nothing verifiable by me and I can't be sure some of your future actions won't be in fact bad for me.
On the other hand, if you start from the axiom that being alive and free to do things is better than being dead, I can easily verify if your actions are good or not. Intentionally causing someone's death while saying you had "good intentions" for them will never sit right with me.
I'm talking specifically about something I posted on Mike's forum about an exorcism performed on a schizophrenic girl that took place in Romania. The girl died after three days of being tied to a cross. They gaged her from time to time and she head a pulmonary condition that was aggravated by this and led to her death. There are still people out there saying that what was done was the right thing, not taking into account the medical expertise. She was "saved". Well, you can't prove that, but you can prove that her medical problems and the "treatment" that was inflicted on her led to her death. Ignorance played a huge part in this, but so did belief in something that could not be proved.
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quote:The first is that having the maximum accurate information to base decisions on being a good thing doesn't really need to be defended, because we all believe this.
Well, I think that's highly debatable. There may be certain kinds of decisions where it is better to have the maximum sensitivity to notions of goodness. There may be situations where the pursuit of maximum accurate data damages the decision, by delaying it, or, more likely, constraining the decision unproductively and limiting the role of imagination. There may be situations where an outside observer can see what is logically best for another, but that other is incapable of seeing it. To follow the observer's advice, they must act on faith.
[[I realize that 'goodness,' 'imagination,' and 'faith' (especially broadly construed) are not, to you, the same demons as is organized religion.]
Nor, even if one accepts your statement at face value, is basing decisions on facts probably the only good thing, which is how I often read your responses to 'religious-leaning' posters here. It is as if any departure from strict scientific constructionism (a) discounts everything the person has to offer and (b) compels you to try to get them to admit that their ideas are worthless.
quote:Religions make claims of fact based on the same kind of faith; and that's where I part company.
I think religions do far more than this, and that much of what they (sometimes) do -- foster community, strengthen family, give hope, encourage insight into a life of values as compared to a life of possessions -- is more a reflection of religion as social institution than as assertor-of-myth-as-fact.
That aside, what do you say to the idea that what you are calling 'facts' (as asserted by religions), such as the existence of (a) god, are tacitly meant to be understood as, let's say, 'religious facts'?
(I'm asking this as a thought experiment -- I don't know a specific religion that would accept this definition.)
In other words, in this ontology, you might ask me what I believe, and I might reply, "universally? it's bad to hurt people. Religiously? I believe god carved stone tablets that said 'Thou shalt not kill.'"
And you reply, "You believe that falsity? It's basing decisions on bad facts like that...."
And I interrupt, "No, no. It's not a fact. It's a religious belief. It's outside any notion of what can be considered a true fact or not, rationally, scientifically, or otherwise. Since you can't now claim it falls into the category of 'false facts', nor can you claim that it is subject to your arguments that bad decisions come from such false facts."
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JVP: Have not read the whole thread since my post, but I feel that I have to respond to your last post.
The notion that there are "facts" and then there are "religious facts" is pretty strange, but I could not explain nearly as well as Douglas Adams could :
quote: Well, it’s a rather corny story. As a teenager I was a committed Christian. It was in my background. I used to work for the school chapel in fact. Then one day when I was about eighteen I was walking down the street when I heard a street evangelist and, dutifully, stopped to listen. As I listened it began to be borne in on me that he was talking complete nonsense, and that I had better have a bit of a think about it.
I’ve put that a bit glibly. When I say I realized he was talking nonsense, what I mean is this. In the years I’d spent learning History, Physics, Latin, Math, I’d learnt (the hard way) something about standards of argument, standards of proof, standards of logic, etc. In fact we had just been learning how to spot the different types of logical fallacy, and it suddenly became apparent to me that these standards simply didn’t seem to apply in religious matters. In religious education we were asked to listen respectfully to arguments which, if they had been put forward in support of a view of, say, why the Corn Laws came to be abolished when they were, would have been laughed at as silly and childish and - in terms of logic and proof -just plain wrong. Why was this?
Well, in history, even though the understanding of events, of cause and effect, is a matter of interpretation, and even though interpretation is in many ways a matter of opinion, nevertheless those opinions and interpretations are honed to within an inch of their lives in the withering crossfire of argument and counterargument, and those that are still standing are then subjected to a whole new round of challenges of fact and logic from the next generation of historians - and so on. All opinions are not equal. Some are a very great more robust, sophisticated and well supported in logic and argument than others.
So, I was already familiar with and (I’m afraid) accepting of, the view that you couldn’t apply the logic of physics to religion, that they were dealing with different types of ‘truth’. (I now think this is baloney, but to continue...) What astonished me, however, was the realization that the arguments in favor of religious ideas were so feeble and silly next to the robust arguments of something as interpretative and opinionated as history. In fact they were embarrassingly childish. They were never subject to the kind of outright challenge which was the normal stock in trade of any other area of intellectual endeavor whatsoever. Why not? Because they wouldn’t stand up to it. So I became an Agnostic. And I thought and thought and thought. But I just did not have enough to go on, so I didn’t really come to any resolution. I was extremely doubtful about the idea of god, but I just didn’t know enough about anything to have a good working model of any other explanation for, well, life, the universe and everything to put in its place. But I kept at it, and I kept reading and I kept thinking. Sometime around my early thirties I stumbled upon evolutionary biology, particularly in the form of Richard Dawkins’s books The Selfish Gene and then The Blind Watchmaker and suddenly (on, I think the second reading of The Selfish Gene) it all fell into place. It was a concept of such stunning simplicity, but it gave rise, naturally, to all of the infinite and baffling complexity of life. The awe it inspired in me made the awe that people talk about in respect of religious experience seem, frankly, silly beside it. I'd take the awe of understanding over the awe of ignorance any day.
Its a bit longish, but since its particularly relevant and congruent with my thoughts on the matter, enjoy Posts: 7593 | Registered: Sep 2006
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Word games. I won't play them. Either you believe that a god exists, or you don't. Make up your mind.
quote:There may be certain kinds of decisions where it is better to have the maximum sensitivity to notions of goodness. There may be situations where the pursuit of maximum accurate data damages the decision, by delaying it, or, more likely, constraining the decision unproductively and limiting the role of imagination.
Yes, yes, I should have added "subject to the constraints of practicality". I notice you don't argue for any case where introducing actual falsehoods make decisions better.
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quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson: I'd take a different angle on that one, KoM, which is that the "secular" states cited are "secular" only in one sense: that they did not worship a "God."
But theism is not a formal requirement for religion, and I'd argue that Leninist Russia and Nazi Germany had at their hearts the same sort of dangerous certainty that cripples many religious states.
In my opinion, that's the enemy, and it's not religion: it's Certainty, particularly certainty regardless of evidence. The idea that something is so because you SAY it's so, and that you can make it so everywhere by forcing other people to stop saying otherwise, is the enemy of rational thought.
And rational thought is just about the closest thing we have to actual virtue anywhere on this planet.
++
Bravo. The only thing I would add to that is that the "secular" states under Mao and Stalin simply attempted to replace religion with a cult of personality. But anyone that is familar with the level of devotion/faith that the Red Book and the daily rituals of praising/asking forgiveness from Mao of that era required, would hardly call it anything *but* religion.
Or to put it a different way, simply because atheism may have been present in Soviet Russia does not mean atheism is fundamentally a bad idea anymore than vodka is a bad idea because Stalin drank it.
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quote:Because there are all kinds of rational arguments for altruism.
That's true, but ultimately they rely on the irrational* idea that it is better for an individual to work for the betterment of the society/family/culture/nation than for his own sake.
*This is not, in the lives of individuals, something that is done for a rational reason. It could be argued that people are really doing it for rational reasons, but I prefer to take them at their word if they suggest that it is something other than pure rationality which motivates them.
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quote:That's true, but ultimately they rely on the irrational* idea that it is better for an individual to work for the betterment of the society/family/culture/nation than for his own sake.
If you grant biological imperative as an environmental reality, this is easily dismissed. And even if you don't, if you grant the concept of "betterment" as an axiomatic reality, the idea of "enlightened self-interest" is a basic derivative.
Philosophy has long since answered the question of why people should be nice to each other even if there's no God. It can't answer the question of whether someone should be nice in every situation, but that's mainly due to diagnostic difficulties related to our own lack of omniscience. Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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I grant that biological imperatives are a reason for me to have an instinct to do something. I do not grant that biological imperatives are what actually make me do that thing, except for the most basic survival characteristics (eating, drinking, sleeping, etc.).
I know there are many reasons why people, biologically, might tend towards 'enlightened self-interest'. I don't think, on a purely individual level, that either biology or philosophy has 'answered' the question, "Why shouldn't I be motivated by plain old self-interest?"
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quote:I don't think, on a purely individual level, that either biology or philosophy has 'answered' the question, "Why shouldn't I be motivated by plain old self-interest?"
I would argue, again, that providing a specific answer for a specific individual in a specific situation -- "why shouldn't I decide based on the most immediate self-interest in this case" -- is impossible, barring actual omniscience. We can say why you should usually keep other concerns in mind, but indeed I agree that neither biology nor philosophy can absolutely address any specific decision without first perfectly knowing the results of that decision.
Philosophy can say "you should generally be nice to people;" game theory can give you "cooperation usually pays dividends, up until the very end." And so forth. But indeed the belief that society itself is more valuable than you, a specific individual, is pretty much unprovable -- as I think the evidence regularly demonstrates.
This does not mean that the religious approach -- "you shouldn't do X, even if our society Y won't prevent you and no one is around to catch you, because our all-seeing god will notice and punish you in the afterlife" -- is necessarily superior, as it merely defers the perceived consequence beyond an unprovable horizon. (The other commonly-cited option, "you should do X because it's what our god wants," is no better an appeal to authority than "you should do X because mommy says so," and is in many ways worse.)
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quote:That's true, but ultimately they rely on the irrational idea that it is better for an individual to work for the betterment of the society/family/culture/nation than for his own sake.
Did no one watch A Beautiful Mind? There's a whole area of game theory that shows - not just rationally, but mathematically - that working for the betterment for groups like that is often better for the individual.
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Either you believe that a god exists, or you don't. Make up your mind.
No.
After spending all this time explaining why no one should accept the existence of an unproven god -- and I'm not disagreeing -- why should I accept the nonexistence of one, just on your say-so?
Sorry, agnosticism is the only rational direction, as far as I'm concerned. You're just asking me to trade one dogma for another. No thanks.
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quote:Originally posted by MrSquicky: Did no one watch A Beautiful Mind? There's a whole area of game theory that shows - not just rationally, but mathematically - that working for the betterment for groups like that is often better for the individual.
I love that movie. However, its presentation of game theory (both as a general theory and the specific aspects it attempted to simplify) is rather dreadful.
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quote:Originally posted by Chris Bridges: Either you believe that a god exists, or you don't. Make up your mind.
No.
After spending all this time explaining why no one should accept the existence of an unproven god -- and I'm not disagreeing -- why should I accept the nonexistence of one, just on your say-so?
Sorry, agnosticism is the only rational direction, as far as I'm concerned. You're just asking me to trade one dogma for another. No thanks.
Hum. I would suggest that you re-read the post I was responding to; you seem to be taking my words rather out of their context, there. JVP was essentially suggesting that 'God exists' is not a claim of fact, and should not be treated as such.
But in any case, I also think you are parsing my sentence wrongly. I did not say "Either you believe that a god exists, or you believe that a god does not exist'. That would indeed exclude the middle ground of agnosticism. But I suspect you would agree that agnosticism is not an active belief in god. If you believe in a god, then you're not agnostic, no? So my actual sentence, "Either you believe that a god exists, or you do not believe that a god exists', includes agnosticism in the second branch. Please note, order does matter :
I do not believe X exists != I believe X does not exist.
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I tend to believe that all of the positive things that flow from religion can be attained just as effectively by other means. On the other hand, religion is particularly good at bringing about the negative things which sometimes result.
There are other a few other social institutions which can cause as many and as severe negative results as the ones religions can, but not many.
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quote:I love that movie. However, its presentation of game theory (both as a general theory and the specific aspects it attempted to simplify) is rather dreadful.
Yeah, that was more of a facetious remark. But game theory contains several situations, including Nash Equilibria, that contradict Rakeesh's remark.
edit: And you know, I thought they did a good job with the picking up the hot chick scene. It illustrated the concept, mostly, in a way people could easily understand, especially moderately attractive women.
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quote:I tend to believe that all of the positive things that flow from religion can be attained just as effectively by other means.
As critical of religion as I am, I'm still unconvinced of this. In fact, one of the hobbies/thought experiments I've been working on over the years involves coming up with something that might effectively replace religion for certain functions.
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quote: Bravo. The only thing I would add to that is that the "secular" states under Mao and Stalin simply attempted to replace religion with a cult of personality. But anyone that is familar with the level of devotion/faith that the Red Book and the daily rituals of praising/asking forgiveness from Mao of that era required, would hardly call it anything *but* religion.
Yes, absolutely. However, I firmly believe almost all forms of state nationalism themselves are a form of religion with a god, or ideal, that is worshipped with attendant rituals.
It often amuses me to pass by churches that have these massive flagpoles that dwarf the crosses out front....
quote: Or to put it a different way, simply because atheism may have been present in Soviet Russia does not mean atheism is fundamentally a bad idea anymore than vodka is a bad idea because Stalin drank it.
quote:I would argue that, while rationality is preferable to faith for some questions and in some spheres, that there is something more to human existance/experience that cannot be addressed except through faith.
I would ask you to prove it.
There lies the problem. It cannot be proven. There are many truths that require a degree of faith to understand, and the existence of such truths is one of them. You cannot completely prove the need for faith through pure logic; it must be observed and understood. If a person insists on denying it, he or she will never be forced to accept it, even though it is true.
However, there is one very fundamental logical proof that points to the need for faith: radical skepticism. By logic, every proposition must be justified by another proposition. And that means, without faith in some original propositions, we have an infinite progression of propositions that can never be ultimately be justified. In short, through reason alone we can't know anything. This suggests that either we don't know anything at all, or we need faith. However, most people conveniently ignore this line of reasoning, on the assumption that we MUST know something through logic. Often they will simply assert that there are things we can observe rationally, forgetting that the value of anything we observe depends on faith in the accuracy of our observational powers, or vaguely suggesting that that sort of faith is somehow to be considered logical reasoning when other sorts of faith are not. It is rather easy to assume only reason is needed when you can redefine reason to include not only reasoning itself, but also whatever assumptions you feel are reasonable.
Because of that, I think it is difficult to "prove" to someone that there is a need for faith in addition to reason, if they will only accept reasoning as proof and are intent on rejecting faith. I think it is something that normally must be seen for oneself.
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quote:And that means, without faith in some original propositions, we have an infinite progression of propositions that can never be ultimately be justified.
So your argument boils down to this: since we require axioms to discuss logic, faith is an essential component of observation?
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does anyone seem to care that everything that has been brought up in this thread is circumstancial and quite dependant on todays majority rule and popular opinion vs singular opinions and personal philosophical ideas. Thus the thread is fairly moot.
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quote:everything that has been brought up in this thread is circumstancial and quite dependant on todays majority rule and popular opinion vs singular opinions and personal philosophical ideas.
I have absolutely no idea what you're trying to say, here. Please elaborate...?
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In my more cynical moods, I am convinced that we would not have achieved the level of technology and society that we have without religion, if only because a large percentage of humans cannot be convinced to act on anything other than their personal desires without a celestial carrot-and-stick hanging over them. Even then, it's a struggle.
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To be honest, I also thought this could be a very interesting thread. Why does a thread that started with the question what is wrong with religion end up in some fuzzy discussion about proof? I really don't see the relevance of this topic. Religion exists, and now that is exists, I think the question is to judge whether it contributes to the good of all or whether it doesn't.
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I don't agree, inasmuch as purity of intent, or truthiness, is irrelevant to what is done, and I agree with Ginette that debating the trueness of religion ignores what 'religion' actually is in this world.
In any case, that discussion has been done on Hatrack, and to some degree in this thread quite a bit. I was actually looking for KoM to give me a detailed, logical analysis of where he stood and why he thought what he thought. I leave it to the forum to decide how well he rose to the challenge of the thread.
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CB: This is probably true. Religion probably was essential for early man to co-exist in tribal communities. It would be difficult to communicate enlightened self-interest and game theory to Homo erectus to even early Homo sapiens. However, simply because religion was a useful stepping stone does not mean that it needs to be maintained. Computers probably would not have been developed without type-writers, but we don't need type-writers anymore.
Pharmaceutical companies sometimes go to isolated communities to find tribal herbal medicines, not because the superstition around them is correct but because the superstition has encoded a plausible (for the time) reason why the herbal remedy works. We can now analyse the active ingredient and create the remedy without the superstition. The supersition encodes useful biological knowledge and created the framework needed for a less developed culture to keep it around.
Similarly, religion encodes useful behaviours, not because the myths of the religion are correct, but because the myths give a reason for people to keep the behaviours around even if they do not understand why the behaviours are useful.
However, it is time to separate the useful behaviours from the surrounding myths, because the surrounding myths inevitably cause conflict in a modern multi-religion world.
Posts: 7593 | Registered: Sep 2006
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quote:everything that has been brought up in this thread is circumstancial and quite dependant on todays majority rule and popular opinion vs singular opinions and personal philosophical ideas.
I have absolutely no idea what you're trying to say, here. Please elaborate...?
Firstly, you asked a person what there beliefs were then a debate insued about whether his view was right or wrong. Views are not something taht can be disputed simply because it is outside onself and limeted to the scope of the person expressing them. Secondly morals, ethics, right and wrong depend greatly on the time and culture of the person commiting the acts taht are judged as such. Then these acts are held against what the ever-changing majority thought is on this. ex. slavery in the south not considered morally wrong by much of the southern people. After the civil war slavery being wrong is the majority thought and is basically forced on people who do not agree with the idea. They went from being right (in their eyes) to wrong (the majority public) in a very short time.
Posts: 467 | Registered: Nov 2005
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