posted
I'm not entirely sure why you're bringing that up, scifibum. Destineer and I weren't talking about whether or not the justifications were really good enough, then or now, but whether it was odd, ironic, or hypocritical for someone who believed God commanded the death of civilians then to be critical of those killing civilians now without, they obviously believe, God's command.
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quote:I would be surprised to learn there wasn't some deeper principle of justification involved. One very easy to imagine would would be, "To help Israel." This would apply thousands of years ago, but most definitely wouldn't apply today, to Palestinians killing Israeli civilians.
Yeah, that's probably the idea. Good point. I guess you're right that I'm taking these ideas out of their proper context. I have a hard time comprehending a picture in which God favors one ethnic group over all others.
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posted
Well, the people who believe God commanded people to take over countries in the first place obvious have no problem with it.
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quote:Originally posted by Rakeesh: I'm not entirely sure why you're bringing that up, scifibum. Destineer and I weren't talking about whether or not the justifications were really good enough, then or now, but whether it was odd, ironic, or hypocritical for someone who believed God commanded the death of civilians then to be critical of those killing civilians now without, they obviously believe, God's command.
Yeah... I got that. I was trying to make the point that it would ALWAYS be odd for anyone to credit anyone else's claim of divine justification if they don't share the same religious beliefs. Everyone should be critical of that kind of reasoning, and anyone offering it should expect the reasoning to be rejected outright.
It's not hypocritical unless you expect others to accept your own claim of divine justification while denying theirs...and I don't see anyone doing that. They may be open about their reasons, but they don't act incredulous when people don't say "OK, well if God said so, then I guess I'll just let you do whatever you want."
(At least, I haven't seen any examples where it appears that someone who wants to kill for their God seems to expect others outside the same religious community to let it slide on principle. They either take it for granted that they'll be at war with anyone who dares, or they feel they have practical impunity.)
I think I'm agreeing with you actually - just trying another way to address this specifically:
quote:So what I'd like to see, from the orthodox Jewish critic of the Palestinians, is an explanation of why that same principle couldn't justify Palestinian suicide bombing.
...just saying "nothing could justify religiously motivated killing if you don't share the religion." If Destineer wants to know whether people, including Jews, recognize that the "same principle" is involved, then I'd say yes they recognize that, but are likely to insist that the principle is being misapplied in one or all cases, so it doesn't really matter.
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It's not hypocritical unless you expect others to accept your own claim of divine justification while denying theirs...and I don't see anyone doing that. They may be open about their reasons, but they don't act incredulous when people don't say "OK, well if God said so, then I guess I'll just let you do whatever you want."
Even if there were such a situation, it wouldn't be hypocrisy. There's only hypocrisy if you examine it from the outside looking in, and apply your own standards where all religious justifications are already equally suspect.
The people inside, the people you're looking at, probably don't think their religious justifications are suspect, but rather that theirs are divinely inspired, or commanded, or pick your word. So you could say to them, "Look at how dangerous this kind of thinking is, look at how many people it could apply to if we accepted it from you, and that's why we won't take that as sufficient justification." But you can't say, "You're being hypocritical for saying your religious claim is good but someone else's different religious claim isn't good."
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quote:But you can't say, "You're being hypocritical for saying your religious claim is good but someone else's different religious claim isn't good."
Not quite what I was getting at. This a completely hypothetical situation where I see some hypocrisy:
"My religion claim is good and you should therefore willingly allow it to take precedence over your own vital interests. However, your religious claim means nothing to me."
That doesn't really happen too often. People often try to run with a religious agenda over objections of others, but you don't see them going so far beyond the pale as to expect those others to just happily die in service to that agenda. So in practice, generally, there isn't that particular kind of hypocrisy.
Just perceiving a difference between the validity of your own religious claim and someone else's doesn't amount to the same sort of thing, and I agree it wouldn't be hypocrisy.
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quote:"My religion claim is good and you should therefore willingly allow it to take precedence over your own vital interests. However, your religious claim means nothing to me."
Where is the hypocrisy here, however slight? That's what I don't understand. In the (as you say, hypothetical) situation you're describing, the speaker doesn't view their claim as good because it's religious, thus making it equivalent to the second set of religious claims. The speaker views it as good because it is the right religious claim. It's only hypocritical to claim one's own beliefs as good justification but not someone else's beliefs as good justification if the justification lies only in the fact that they are the beliefs the person holds. Does that make sense? I'm having difficulty thinking of a good way to say it.
quote:Just perceiving a difference between the validity of your own religious claim and someone else's doesn't amount to the same sort of thing, and I agree it wouldn't be hypocrisy.
Anyway, I see when we look at the more real-world issue that brought up this discussion, we do agree. Lemme also make clear that I don't at all agree with, "My religious belief is justified because my religion is right; yours isn't because yours are wrong," and think it's a pretty uncivilized way of thinking, not to mention quite dangerous.
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posted
Shouldn't the basis of any valid system of morality include the belief that it applies equally to all people, regardless of race, country, apperance, beliefs, etc?
Any moral rules which allow one social/religious/ethnic group to do whatever they like to another group are, by default, immoral.
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posted
It's hypocritical to expect OTHERS to listen to your claim, but to ignore another claim that has exactly the same evidence supporting it as your claim does. It's not necessarily hypocritical for YOU to believe your claim is right and their claim is wrong, but if you can't provide a metric for a not-currently-believers to judge between good and bad beliefs, it's hypocritical to expect them to follow some but not all faith-based claims.
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posted
Who said it shouldn't? I was only ever rejecting the notion that there is hypocrisy in claiming justification for past civilian deaths at the command of God and not accepting claimed justification of modern deaths not commanded (it is believed by the hypothetical Jews we're discussing) by God.
quote:Any moral rules which allow one social/religious/ethnic group to do whatever they like to another group are, by default, immoral.
I can't speak to a Jewish reading of their own scriptures, but I am pretty sure this is not what actually happened, even back on the way to Israel.
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quote:Originally posted by Rakeesh: I can't speak to a Jewish reading of their own scriptures, but I am pretty sure this is not what actually happened, even back on the way to Israel.
I'm not going to put words into anyone's mouth, but I've read what Joshua, for just one example, did to the people he fought, and I'm fairly certain that nobody would think it's OK for their enemies to do that to them.
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quote:I'm not going to put words into anyone's mouth, but I've read what Joshua, for just one example, did to the people he fought, and I'm fairly certain that nobody would think it's OK for their enemies to do that to them.
I was objecting to your characterization of what happened as a set of moral rules which allowed the Jews to do 'whatever they liked' to another group. I wasn't objecting to your description of events, but to their motivation and to the way those stories are told today.
quote:I'm not going to put words into anyone's mouth, but I've read what Joshua, for just one example, did to the people he fought, and I'm fairly certain that nobody would think it's OK for their enemies to do that to them.
Is this somehow relevant to the discussion we were having?
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quote:Originally posted by MightyCow: Shouldn't the basis of any valid system of morality include the belief that it applies equally to all people, regardless of race, country, apperance, beliefs, etc?
Any moral rules which allow one social/religious/ethnic group to do whatever they like to another group are, by default, immoral.
When defining a moral system a lot of work goes into who is covered by it - e.g. who are the 'moral agents' or 'persons'. For example, in the abortion debate a contentious point is whether or not the foetus is a person. It's a tough question. If 'consciousness' is the criterion for personhood, then, clearly, our behavior towards many animals is highly immoral. If rationality is the criterion, then this removes protections from the severely mentally handicapped, patients in comas and newborns.
To your examples - I have a hard time understanding why traits such as race, religion etc should have any bearing on one's personhood. However, if I believed a given sub-population were God's Chosen, then I'm not sure that it's invalid to give them a higher degree of personhood.
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posted
For the purpose of the discussion at hand, Lisa, and presumably other Jews view Israel as theirs by right of God giving it to them. Many Muslims also view it as theirs because their God gave it to them.
Some of the Palestinians today seem to think it's acceptable to target civilians, children, and non-combatants in their quest to "reclaim their land."
If you read the Old Testement, the Israelites frequently engaged in the same type of warfare against their enemies.
I find it absurd to claim that a behavior that is reprehensible when used against you is perfectly acceptable for you to use, simply because your God told you that it's OK.
Anyone can say that to justify their behavior, and obviously they do.
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