STU: Another well thought out and intelligent response, however, you are explaining moral standards by sticking in basic rules and standards of man....yet there are many people in this word who do not follow those basic standards....In addition, my question is really based on WHERE MAN came up with these basic standards??? If we are just some animal cells that became more evolved, we would be just another more intelligent species on earth correct? yet , unlike most of the animal world we don't steal or cheat to get our next meal....we don;t have sex with our sisters like the lions do, we ideally choose one mate to procreate with, not multiple, and ideally we do not kill our competition in a survival of the fittest.....where did we get these basic moral standards from? In regard to voices to a world leader, My god would never order the destruction or genocide of a group people...I do not follow the bible as and end all document that is not open to discussion...my god is the father of jesus and would never want harm tocome to anyone....Im glad you have 'Gilbert" to keep you company, my co pilot is god, and jesus christ...I rely on them for guidance and strength, and while you may feel it is silly I know that some day you will receive a strong message as we all do. peace
In a nutshell, Man came up with these standards through the use of his "reason", which other animals do not seem to posses. Laws/morality exist in the context of a society. If you were to live completely alone, there would be no need for laws/morals. However, a society gives man incredible advantages in every way. He is far more likely to survive and prosper in a society than as an individual. But then man is immediately forced to formulate a set of rules so that he can live with his fellow man in harmony, or all the advantages of living in a society can immediately vanish. A society with no rules is an anarchy which could actually lower the probability of survival. Therefore....man uses his reason, to come up with a set of rules, so that he can maximize the advantages a society provides while protecting the *individual* as much as possible. This is the nature of rights. Keeping this is mind it is fairly straightforward to start coming up with rules in a society you are just starting to build. For example: 1) Thou shalt not kill, unless in self defense, or in defense of the society. 2) Thou shalt have property rights.... which logically leads to... thou shalt not steal. (from the innocent ). You get an immediate explosion of rules, created such that a society exists which you and others would really enjoy living in. Im not being very technical in this post, and do not wish to launch a massive philosophical debate on every single little point. But this is exactly what our founding fathers went through, and every group which historically was the "Beginning" of any new society. Countless hours of debate on the "design" of the society. Its all very interesting and fun to discuss. All I have to say is, our founding fathers did one hell of a job! Bravo! I am happy to live in the society THEY designed, which feared allowing religion any dogmatic control over the people due to religions previous bloody history. If you really want a deep understanding of how laws of formed, from the very start, it could be fun to do the following little thought experiment. NEXT POST peace axeman
Let's start with the deist model for simplicity. God exists and created the universe and the earth. He then snaps his mythical fingers and 10 women and 10 men appear on the earth. He snaps his fingers again and they all speak perfect english There is nothing modern in the world yet, just nature. They must gather and hunt and fish to survive, and deal with one another. You are KORG, one of the males, and catch yourself a big juicy fish.... then BLORG comes over and decides that fish looks awfully good and just takes the fish from you. You both get into a big fight, and while your busy injuring yourselves, the women eat all your fish. Ha ha... Now your injured AND hungry, and cant hunt very well. Think your gonna do THAT again? Maybe you will come up with some *rules* to prevent that situation again in a way that everyone wins?? What rules would YOU immediately propose? You have the hots for Cindy..... you hook up with cindy and are pretty happy. The next day you walk around this big boulder, and right there before your very eyes is BLORG (that bastard again!) knocking da boots with Cindy against her will. Again... you get into a big fight and everything is a mess. What rules would YOU immediately propose? The group agrees to pass certain basic rules to keep everyone in harmony. But then BLORG continues to act the same and break all the rules causing chaos within the group. How would you deal with such an individual? What rules would YOU immediately propose? peace axeman
TM_Direct TM, If there is anything else other than standards of man, please advise what they are and where they would be found. If someone doesn't follow basic standards of man, whose or what standards do they follow? So far as the last few thousand years are concerned anyway, any standards for morallity said to be of a God's look very dubious indeed. Yes, it does seem that is correct. That apparently is what the human race is. More intelligent than other species. Able to construct concepts.... including morality !!! A concept itself and a place for man to 'come up' with some basic standards he/she calls morals. Aren't you projecting your understandings of today backward into pre history and assuming mankind has always acted this way. (having sex with sisters?? so you've never been to Tennessee? ok- so it's an old one) Most of the things you list are social constructs. They are not considered in general to be acceptable for reasons set down by societies (mankind itself). There is no rule other than mans rule which says incest is immoral. The way nature deals with such things is for species to become extinct if they are less able to survive. Mixing your genes with your own immediate family has shown to be unfavorable. A good example of how not to survive if spread over successive generations, and A very good reason to make it an "immoral" act....An example for you of where 'man came up with a basic moral standard' Glad to hear it, then he is definitely not the God of the bible and I bet your God is just like Gilbert, only Gilbert of course never proclaims himself to be anything other than what he is!!... oops.... but if your God IS the father of jesus then, that was the same one who said genocide was ok. Bit of a problem there I think.(I did say cherry picking not allowed). If you only pick the "good" morals, it's YOU who is setting the standards, not your "God". Getting off subject but I guess it was inevitable, why not switch to auto pilot it's safer. I kept receiving the strong messages too until I stopped taking "the tablets".
Stu: The God described by jesus was not in support of genocide adn as I have said, i believe that much of the old testament is a chronicle of stories. obviously the god who snapped his fingers and made the universe is a man made story...As you read the new testament, you will see where jesus differed greatly from previous teachings...he did not believe in murder in self defense as AXE pointed out...." if a person steals your cloak, give him coat as well"......Im not cherry picking and i think it is important to denote the differences in perspectives....an army ransacking a city and taking it for themselves in the old testament is using God as an excuse in my opinion....the god that Jesus speaks of would never condone or encourage this. AXE: saying that man was born with a certain set of 'rules' or moral standards is taking a shortcut......example: Lord of the flies..... somehwere along the line we learned these basic values and form of conduct....saying we are just born with them is simplistic IMHO.
I do not claim man is BORN with a certain set of rules or moral standards. In fact, I claim he is born with NONE. I am saying that man explicitly and intentionally CREATES these rules and morals as a way of creating a society which is highly beneficial to HIM, the individual. The lord of the flies is a perfect example of a society that was formed by a group of immature/young people. Didn't end up too great did it? But yet, it was functional to a point. Our founding fathers are NO different than the lord of the flies experiment, except for the BIG difference that they were well reasoned men with a lot of experience and history to ponder over. They simply did a far better job of creating the rules of our society than the kids on the island did when creating theirs. Compare the two societies and it is obvious who chose the better set of rules. Given any social set of rules, simply ask yourself, WHICH society would YOU rather live in? This is how I measure the success of a social "design". peace axeman
AXE: How can you say that with a strait face? The founding fathers did a better job??? Sure , if you were white and a male...Women and blacks were excluded from having rights to take part in the society in which they were a majority.....in fact, for population reasons i believe blacks only counted as a 2/3rd white man...i try to put everything into context but as they were writing these laws, ships full of slaves were pulling up on the eastern sea board.. On the otherhand, history is full of hypocrisy and injustice but if we are truly raised from the ocean as advanced single cell organisms.....how come we are the only ones who have this murder and stealing complex? ( at least some of us have it).
Of course they did a better job. Does our constitution say that blacks should only be counted as 2/3 a white man anywhere? Does our constitution state that women should have fewer rights anywhere? Of course it doesn't. The fact remains, that the constitution of the united states of america remains one of the greatest historical and powerful documents of all time. It simply took early america a while to fully swallow the implications of our constitution. You can't change people over night. They resist too much. As for murder/stealing complexes...not true. It's quite common in nature. We are not the only ones. Watch the discovery channel at little more often ;-) peace axeman
But in any event there is nothing to suggest Sen. Moynihan meant anything of the kind. stu _________________________________________ Then what did he mean? He didn't say up. _________________________________________ You may however care to consider that continuous reappraisal would allow for the practice of abortion to be halted too. stu _________________________________________ That well may happen but look where the pressure is coming from. ____________________________________________ why would an innocent baby be "more innocent" than a hard working, god fearing person who never did any harm to anyone or anything, but was persecuted because a clergyman or his agent wanted to teach people a lesson? stu ___________________________________________ I didn't realize that this was part of being a witch. _________________________________________ btw who were these 'opponents' of a witch...oh let me guess, would it be the christian church - or the Pope. Or maybe there was no opponent at all and the witch was nothing more than a convenient scapegoat?? stu _________________________________________ To the best of my knowledge and experience, at least today, the opponents of the witch are the people who have had a loved one or respected acquaintance cursed by a witch and then having that "cursed' person or usually a series of persons die from strange or unexpected causes. These people had no religious connections except a loose animism. I am sure they would appreciate your somewhat remote analysis. ________________________________________ Shall you never kill ever???.. stu ___________________________ My best understanding of the original command forbade the "shedding of innocent blood" by another man. If this is correct then it sheds a whole different light on killing, wars, etc. As in the garden example changing the original command to divert the argument is a very old tactic but not very honest. Since your anti God and anti christianity prejudices are so strong and absolutely deny any possibility of their validity. Your market analysis with that mindset would follow that for the market to go up is a possibility, for it to go sideways is a possibility, but it could never possibly go down because you just don't believe there is a possibility for that. _____________________________________________ Since the main purpose of all religion is to displace the meaning of what moral might be by emphatically declaring that ONLY itself can say what is good bad etc because they say morality comes from God. If morality was determinable by the word of some âAlmighty Godâ or Allah or such like, one would have thought morality should at the very least not be susceptible to interpretation, variation or change in its quality or nature. You could say it is immoral for any 'Almighty God' not to make it so. stu _________________________________________ At least in your mind. The purpose of Christianity is to worship and glorify God. We were created by Him for that purpose.
well we have to agree to disagree then because i think they are getting a free ride...as for discovery channel, i watch it constantly and notice some evil things in the animal world....from lions killing and eating cubs to chimps killing monkeys...humans have learned that this is wrong...we don't kill , we don;t date our sister ( at least outside of Arkansas ) we don't cheat, steal,lie ....and all im asking is why this happened? But i want to hear why lieing is bad, or stealing is bad ect...without citing mans rules...afterall, if you watch discovery, you would see the lions and hyenas in a constant battle of stealing prey...survival of the fittest.....why are humans different? The 'club' over the head example is only one side of the story...somewhere along the lin we were taught these principals....by who?