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1. Reason or Morality....Which one should guide society?
Either our ability to use logic and reason, or obedience to the morality forged in the crucible of millennia of human interactions and experience?
I know....both would be nice. But, with secularism in the ascendancy, the cultural battle rarely allows for compromise.
2. Begin with the tools involved: The human mind may be worshiped, but it cannot be trusted. That is why we codify laws.
Eugene Debs said Even if I could, I would not lead you into the Promised Land, because if I could lead you in, someone else could lead you out.
a. Demagoguery is the attempt to convince the people that they can be led into the Promised Land. America would be better if the electorate would notice the similarities between Lose Weight Without Dieting, and Hope.
3. The Bible is the wisdom of the West. It is from the precepts of the Bible that the legal systems of the West have been developed- systems, worked out over millennia, for dealing with inequality, with injustice, with greed, reducible t that which Christians call the Golden Rule, and the Jews had propounded as That which is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor.
It is these rules and laws which form a framework which allows the individual foreknowledge of that which is permitted and that which is forbidden.
a. This is the great contribution of our Judeo-Christian foundation to Western civilization. The principles of justice are laid down in the Torah and the Gospels, and implemented through human actions memorialized in judicial codes.
David Mamet, "The Secret Knowledge."
4. Since the 18th century Enlightenment, many Westerners have made the mistake of believing that reason can exist separate from civilization, and that enlightened necessitates a repudiation of religion.
a. In the Middle Ages, people were irrational and superstitious and ignorant, and went around killing each other in religious wars. The view developed that disapproval of these characteristics and events meant embracing of an anti-religion viewpoint, and then progress, liberty and happiness must follow!
b. 'The Enlightenment' has been given many differing definitions but it was, at its broadest, a philosophical movement of the eighteenth century which stressed human reasoning over blind faith or obedience and was thus in contrast with much of the religious and political order of the day, while also encouraging 'scientific' thinking.\
5. And events that came from the Enlightenment resulted in 'throwing the baby out with the bathwater.' While the Enlightenment may be seen as a reaction to the abuses of clerical authority, it must be remembered that the biblical imprecation that all humanity was equal, having been fashioned in the image of God, provided the template for liberty.
But did said 'enlightenment' actually oppose " blind faith or obedience"? Or did it simple superimpose a different object of genuflection?
a. Voltaire claimed that the infamy was not just the Catholic Church, but phrase refers to abuses to the people by royalty and the clergy that Voltaire saw around him. Christianity itself, he cried "écrasez l'infâme," or "crush the infamous."
b. Unlike France, thinkers in Britain and America embraced religion as an amalgamation with social virture, in the former and political liberty, in the latter.
c. The French invested reason with the same dogmatic status as religion, creating a secular reflection of the Catholic Church.
Reason, or nature, or the general will, became the civil religion. Thus authoritarianism was there from the time of the French Revolution.
d. The philosopher Condorcet believed that the application of mathematics and statistics to social policy would result in general happiness, truth and virtue.
e. Henri de Saint-Simon, the articulator of socialism, argued for the supremacy of the sciences over religion, and predicted that, like religious, secular propaganda would employ artists and poets.
f. His collaborator, Auguste Comte, also saw the need for a secular religion, a scientific materialism, which contends that the only reality is what can be detected and measured by human senses of sight, hearing, touch, taste, and smell. His authoritarian thinking shapes todays liberals doctrinaire insistence that science has the explanation for all things.
Breitbart, "Righteous Indignation."
So....where, then, is the great change, the great difference between the bending of the knee to what we call God, or the bending of the knee to the god called reason?
And, is the world better due to this change?
A world in hundreds of shade of gray and seen in black and white is magicial/childish thinking. Let's for a moment consider the use of the Atomic Bomb by President Truman. What would be the moral judgment, thou shall not kill?
It has been said the had Ghandi lie before a German Panzer and not a British Tank he would have become flat as a pancake. What PC leaves out of this long and tedious rant is pragmatism.
3. The Bible is the wisdom of the West. It is from the precepts of the Bible that the legal systems of the West have been developed- systems, worked out over millennia, for dealing with inequality, with injustice, with greed, reducible t that which Christians call the Golden Rule, and the Jews had propounded as That which is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor.
It is these rules and laws which form a framework which allows the individual foreknowledge of that which is permitted and that which is forbidden.
I can begin it....
1. The rule of ecumenical niceness dont fight, share toys, take turns .and never, ever be judgmental. Every culture and all behaviors are equal!
Why do these two seem to contradict?
As for reason vs. religion: I like the old saying: "who are you going to believe, me or your lying eyes?"
War is murder on a Grand Scale. We murdered Nazi's and Japanese because they were murderers......................
Was it wrong to destroy and murder much of Germany to stop their murders of the Jews and the other countries in the region.
The bible has verses were force and killing are justified. WWII being a prime example.
I'm not trying to say war is never justified or necessary. But if I decide to slaughter a few people because they piss me off, I'm going to swing for it. But if some guy in a silly hat tells me to go slaughter some folks I've never even met because it's God's will or he's the king and I should respect his authority, then it's totally cool to kill folks by the bushel because, well it just is.
On your own = crime
Because the state tells you to = authorized
we can get into debates on the nature of state power at this point, but really it comes down to state monopolies on violence, which is a whole other discussion.
Germany, aka the Nazi's authorized, the slaughter of humanity itself. It was not only immoral it was pure Evil.
In the military you are not required to follow orders IF they are against the rules of War and Conduct. If told to slaughter a village full of women and children via an order from a wacked commander you may very well refuse to follow the unlawful order. Even if the immediate chain of command tells you to do so. If the higher command is also orders the same then you are in between a rock and a hard place.
At that point, what are you willing to risk to maintain your Religion and/or Morals. At that point I'd be willing to die in defense of that belief.
With one "real nice person" in charge to make sure it's all implemented fairly of course.Secular worship could use some codification. It's pretty hard to be a secularist with some guidelines. They could call them the Ten Ideas or something.
That was very clever, dillo.....the 10 Secular Commandments.....
I can begin it....
1. The rule of ecumenical niceness dont fight, share toys, take turns .and never, ever be judgmental. Every culture and all behaviors are equal!
2. There are no unalienable rights, only those allowed by government....
3......
I'm not trying to say war is never justified or necessary. But if I decide to slaughter a few people because they piss me off, I'm going to swing for it. But if some guy in a silly hat tells me to go slaughter some folks I've never even met because it's God's will or he's the king and I should respect his authority, then it's totally cool to kill folks by the bushel because, well it just is.
On your own = crime
Because the state tells you to = authorized
we can get into debates on the nature of state power at this point, but really it comes down to state monopolies on violence, which is a whole other discussion.
Germany, aka the Nazi's authorized, the slaughter of humanity itself. It was not only immoral it was pure Evil.
In the military you are not required to follow orders IF they are against the rules of War and Conduct. If told to slaughter a village full of women and children via an order from a wacked commander you may very well refuse to follow the unlawful order. Even if the immediate chain of command tells you to do so. If the higher command is also orders the same then you are in between a rock and a hard place.
At that point, what are you willing to risk to maintain your Religion and/or Morals. At that point I'd be willing to die in defense of that belief.
That's the moral case for not killing. What is the rational case ?
*or murdering for the sake of the pedantics
I'm not trying to say war is never justified or necessary. But if I decide to slaughter a few people because they piss me off, I'm going to swing for it. But if some guy in a silly hat tells me to go slaughter some folks I've never even met because it's God's will or he's the king and I should respect his authority, then it's totally cool to kill folks by the bushel because, well it just is.
On your own = crime
Because the state tells you to = authorized
we can get into debates on the nature of state power at this point, but really it comes down to state monopolies on violence, which is a whole other discussion.
Germany, aka the Nazi's authorized, the slaughter of humanity itself. It was not only immoral it was pure Evil.
In the military you are not required to follow orders IF they are against the rules of War and Conduct. If told to slaughter a village full of women and children via an order from a wacked commander you may very well refuse to follow the unlawful order. Even if the immediate chain of command tells you to do so. If the higher command is also orders the same then you are in between a rock and a hard place.
At that point, what are you willing to risk to maintain your Religion and/or Morals. At that point I'd be willing to die in defense of that belief.
The Bible is also chockfull of orders from God for someone to go in and slaughter everyone, including children, in a given area. Why is it wrong for me to commit genocide if I decide to do it on my own but if I'm given orders from on high it's perfectly kosher?
Germany, aka the Nazi's authorized, the slaughter of humanity itself. It was not only immoral it was pure Evil.
In the military you are not required to follow orders IF they are against the rules of War and Conduct. If told to slaughter a village full of women and children via an order from a wacked commander you may very well refuse to follow the unlawful order. Even if the immediate chain of command tells you to do so. If the higher command is also orders the same then you are in between a rock and a hard place.
At that point, what are you willing to risk to maintain your Religion and/or Morals. At that point I'd be willing to die in defense of that belief.
That's the moral case for not killing. What is the rational case ?
*or murdering for the sake of the pedantics
What I believe is rational may not conform to what is rational to another person. Morality, Reason, and Rationality are weaved together.
Perhaps if your looking for the rational of slaughtering the whole village you might look to the Turks and the tactics of the Ottoman Empire. The slaughtered whole villages as a message to all villages of what would happen if they decided to rebel against the Ottoman Empire.
Indian cultures also had a rational for it. Killing everyone thus ending the enemy forever.
1. Reason or Morality....Which one should guide society?
Either our ability to use logic and reason, or obedience to the morality forged in the crucible of millennia of human interactions and experience?
I know....both would be nice. But, with secularism in the ascendancy, the cultural battle rarely allows for compromise.
2. Begin with the tools involved: The human mind may be worshiped, but it cannot be trusted. That is why we codify laws.
Eugene Debs said Even if I could, I would not lead you into the Promised Land, because if I could lead you in, someone else could lead you out.
a. Demagoguery is the attempt to convince the people that they can be led into the Promised Land. America would be better if the electorate would notice the similarities between Lose Weight Without Dieting, and Hope.
3. The Bible is the wisdom of the West. It is from the precepts of the Bible that the legal systems of the West have been developed- systems, worked out over millennia, for dealing with inequality, with injustice, with greed, reducible t that which Christians call the Golden Rule, and the Jews had propounded as That which is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor.
It is these rules and laws which form a framework which allows the individual foreknowledge of that which is permitted and that which is forbidden.
a. This is the great contribution of our Judeo-Christian foundation to Western civilization. The principles of justice are laid down in the Torah and the Gospels, and implemented through human actions memorialized in judicial codes.
David Mamet, "The Secret Knowledge."
4. Since the 18th century Enlightenment, many Westerners have made the mistake of believing that reason can exist separate from civilization, and that enlightened necessitates a repudiation of religion.
a. In the Middle Ages, people were irrational and superstitious and ignorant, and went around killing each other in religious wars. The view developed that disapproval of these characteristics and events meant embracing of an anti-religion viewpoint, and then progress, liberty and happiness must follow!
b. 'The Enlightenment' has been given many differing definitions but it was, at its broadest, a philosophical movement of the eighteenth century which stressed human reasoning over blind faith or obedience and was thus in contrast with much of the religious and political order of the day, while also encouraging 'scientific' thinking.\
5. And events that came from the Enlightenment resulted in 'throwing the baby out with the bathwater.' While the Enlightenment may be seen as a reaction to the abuses of clerical authority, it must be remembered that the biblical imprecation that all humanity was equal, having been fashioned in the image of God, provided the template for liberty.
But did said 'enlightenment' actually oppose " blind faith or obedience"? Or did it simple superimpose a different object of genuflection?
a. Voltaire claimed that the infamy was not just the Catholic Church, but phrase refers to abuses to the people by royalty and the clergy that Voltaire saw around him. Christianity itself, he cried "écrasez l'infâme," or "crush the infamous."
b. Unlike France, thinkers in Britain and America embraced religion as an amalgamation with social virture, in the former and political liberty, in the latter.
c. The French invested reason with the same dogmatic status as religion, creating a secular reflection of the Catholic Church.
Reason, or nature, or the general will, became the civil religion. Thus authoritarianism was there from the time of the French Revolution.
d. The philosopher Condorcet believed that the application of mathematics and statistics to social policy would result in general happiness, truth and virtue.
e. Henri de Saint-Simon, the articulator of socialism, argued for the supremacy of the sciences over religion, and predicted that, like religious, secular propaganda would employ artists and poets.
f. His collaborator, Auguste Comte, also saw the need for a secular religion, a scientific materialism, which contends that the only reality is what can be detected and measured by human senses of sight, hearing, touch, taste, and smell. His authoritarian thinking shapes todays liberals doctrinaire insistence that science has the explanation for all things.
Breitbart, "Righteous Indignation."
So....where, then, is the great change, the great difference between the bending of the knee to what we call God, or the bending of the knee to the god called reason?
And, is the world better due to this change?
A world in hundreds of shade of gray and seen in black and white is magicial/childish thinking. Let's for a moment consider the use of the Atomic Bomb by President Truman. What would be the moral judgment, thou shall not kill?
It has been said the had Ghandi lie before a German Panzer and not a British Tank he would have become flat as a pancake. What PC leaves out of this long and tedious rant is pragmatism.
That's the moral case for not killing. What is the rational case ?
*or murdering for the sake of the pedantics
What I believe is rational may not conform to what is rational to another person. Morality, Reason, and Rationality are weaved together.
Perhaps if your looking for the rational of slaughtering the whole village you might look to the Turks and the tactics of the Ottoman Empire. The slaughtered whole villages as a message to all villages of what would happen if they decided to rebel against the Ottoman Empire.
Indian cultures also had a rational for it. Killing everyone thus ending the enemy forever.
no---what is the rationale for NOT killing.
What I believe is rational may not conform to what is rational to another person. Morality, Reason, and Rationality are weaved together.
Perhaps if your looking for the rational of slaughtering the whole village you might look to the Turks and the tactics of the Ottoman Empire. The slaughtered whole villages as a message to all villages of what would happen if they decided to rebel against the Ottoman Empire.
Indian cultures also had a rational for it. Killing everyone thus ending the enemy forever.
no---what is the rationale for NOT killing.
Again, rationale is part of Reason and Morals..........They are one in the same to me. If I feel I'd go to hell if I did so would I have a rationale based on religion...........
no---what is the rationale for NOT killing.
Again, rationale is part of Reason and Morals..........They are one in the same to me. If I feel I'd go to hell if I did so would I have a rationale based on religion...........
ok--- then an atheist rationale for laws prohibiting murder
That's the moral case for not killing. What is the rational case ?
*or murdering for the sake of the pedantics
What I believe is rational may not conform to what is rational to another person. Morality, Reason, and Rationality are weaved together.
Perhaps if your looking for the rational of slaughtering the whole village you might look to the Turks and the tactics of the Ottoman Empire. The slaughtered whole villages as a message to all villages of what would happen if they decided to rebel against the Ottoman Empire.
Indian cultures also had a rational for it. Killing everyone thus ending the enemy forever.
no---what is the rationale for NOT killing.
Not kill, murder. Thou shalt not murder.
If God or a king tells you to kill, then by all means kill as many as you can because it's totally justified or something because, well it just is.
anyone else wanna give it a shot ?
What I believe is rational may not conform to what is rational to another person. Morality, Reason, and Rationality are weaved together.
Perhaps if your looking for the rational of slaughtering the whole village you might look to the Turks and the tactics of the Ottoman Empire. The slaughtered whole villages as a message to all villages of what would happen if they decided to rebel against the Ottoman Empire.
Indian cultures also had a rational for it. Killing everyone thus ending the enemy forever.
no---what is the rationale for NOT killing.
1. Genesis 9:6 prescribed the death penalty for murder when it said that if a man shed the blood of another man, by man must his blood be shed. The only law repeated in all five of the books of the old testament.
2. Exodus 21:12-14
Leviticus 24:17 and 21
Numbers 35:16-18 and Numbers 35:31
Deuteronomy 19:11-13
What I believe is rational may not conform to what is rational to another person. Morality, Reason, and Rationality are weaved together.
Perhaps if your looking for the rational of slaughtering the whole village you might look to the Turks and the tactics of the Ottoman Empire. The slaughtered whole villages as a message to all villages of what would happen if they decided to rebel against the Ottoman Empire.
Indian cultures also had a rational for it. Killing everyone thus ending the enemy forever.
no---what is the rationale for NOT killing.
1. Genesis 9:6 prescribed the death penalty for murder when it said that if a man shed the blood of another man, by man must his blood be shed. The only law repeated in all five of the books of the old testament.
2. Exodus 21:12-14
Leviticus 24:17 and 21
Numbers 35:16-18 and Numbers 35:31
Deuteronomy 19:11-13
Not kill, murder. Thou shalt not murder.
If God or a king tells you to kill, then by all means kill as many as you can because it's totally justified or something because, well it just is.
anyone else wanna give it a shot ?
I'd like to shoot your red herring, but I'll offer the definition of murder for a start:
"At common law, the killing of one human being by another with malice aforethought, either expressed or implied, that is, with deliberate intent or formed design to kill".
Ballentine's Law Dictionary, 1969
And, from the Principles of a just war:
"A just war can only be waged as a last resort. All non-violent options must be exhausted before the use of force can be justified."
A war is just only if it is waged by a legitimate authority. Even just causes cannot be served by actions taken by individuals or groups who do not constitute an authority sanctioned by whatever the society and outsiders to the society deem legitimate."
A just war can only be fought to redress a wrong suffered. For example, self-defense against an armed attack is always considered to be a just cause (although the justice of the cause is not sufficient--see point #4). Further, a just war can only be fought with "right" intentions: the only permissible objective of a just war is to redress the injury"
A war can only be just if it is fought with a reasonable chance of success. Deaths and injury incurred in a hopeless cause are not morally justifiable."
The ultimate goal of a just war is to re-establish peace. More specifically, the peace established after the war must be preferable to the peace that would have prevailed if the war had not been fought."
The violence used in the war must be proportional to the injury suffered. States are prohibited from using force not necessary to attain the limited objective of addressing the injury suffered."
The weapons used in war must discriminate between combatants and non-combatants. Civilians are never permissible targets of war, and every effort must be taken to avoid killing civilians. The deaths of civilians are justified only if they are unavoidable victims of a deliberate attack on a military target."
Think in terms of what Hamas and Isreal are engaged in today and what the right wingers in our own nation are doing as they (seem) to seek Civil War in America.
I find it most rational to live and think as amorally as possible.
