Portugal's abortion referendum...

[Erssa]

So you have faith that he didn't, or you are making the most reasonable choice?

Most reasonably choice of course.

With such a pragmatic stance, you seem to want the highest productivity? For what purpose? A utilitarian wants to help the maximum number of people, but why? What is the source of such a desire?

The source is me.

Let me put my question this way: My desire more or less since I was a teenager has been to help the South because I love the South's character and unique traditions. I fell in love with it in a sense and want to help it because I love it. The motivation is entirely irrational. I also want to not harm others because I was raised a Christian, and I see those I care about in others, even though I don't care much for foreigners or even Yankees (except of course those I've befriended).

So now you know my mind set at least as well as I understand it myself.

My question is: why do you wish to help the maximum number of people in humanity? It's like what C.S. Lewis said in Abolition of Man, I don't think it's natural for man to care for all of humanity.

I study economics so minimizing/maximizing comes to me naturally. One could say, that the "goodness" in me comes from my christian values, after all I was babtized and confirmated lutherian (before I started to think for myself and left the church).

I think about of all of humanity, but I don't really care for all of it. I don't lose my sleep over the knowledge that hundreds of children in Africa are dying of hunger or something as simple as diarrhea, even as I post this. Or I don't lose my sleep on news like this. "Last April, he says, a 5-year-old girl was brought to him. Her tormentors had raped her and then fired a pistol into her vagina. She was operated on twice at Panzi Hospital without success before being sent to a hospital in the United States where surgeons tried twice more to repair the damage. They failed, too. She'll spend the rest of her life with a colostomy bag." I haven't figured out yet, why grown "men" would gang rape a 5 year old and then shoot her into vagina with a pistol, but I try my best to imagine it. I don't like the soft on crime people, because they tend to think, that criminals are always victims of circumstance, they don't realise, that sometimes they are just purely evil. Personally, I wouldn't mind seeing these men tortured and executed, I also wouldn't mind using torture as tool to finding out the whereabouts of these men, maybe not the most moral thing to do, so that pretty much puts me in a different camp with the human rights idealists, who believe that even the most cruel people deserve to be treated better, then they treat other people.

Actually I just couldn't care less for individuals rights, stomping them could make the world a better place, so utilitarianism works for me. Utilitarianism also gives me a nice pretext to advocate harder punishments for hard criminals, since true criminals never change their habits, crime is just too profitable to give up.

I don't know who or what to blame for the way I turned out. Maybe it's the news or the internet that have turned me a bit cynical. News like this make me lose my faith in society. I think our current lawsystem is broken, when it can allow something as absurd as 50k £ compensation for a child rapist. I'd gladly give up some of my privileges and rights to stop this madness in courts. But this is what you get with socialist goverment and their human rights. These days individuals rights are respected too much, and the professional criminals know this and they know how to abuse it. It could be stopped, if only people wanted to use common sense.

But to answer more clearly to your question. Why should we strive to minimize suffering? Because individuals are overvalued. I think it's pretty safe to say, that we will never see a truly unselfish utilitarian society, where greater good can come before personal rights.

Over time I think the US would develop a diversity similar to Europe's, and I believe this is perhaps the highest form of civilisation for man: a rich, regional diversity with a hierarchy of ties. What seems likely is that the globalist alternative to traditional societies is a poorly thought out reaction to warfare as well as to the Nazi's racism. I just don't see much sense in the modern solution, and hence my question to you as to what is your foundation.

I agree. This is one of the reasons why oppose immigration it increases local diversity at the expense of global diversity. In the not so distant future, it doens't probably matter what European country you will visit, they will all look and feel the same.

[Erssa]

Erssa, you are definitly obsessed with these religions. I've not mentioned any of it so as not to feed your fire but it seems you feed it yourself.

There can be only one Truth. And if you want to call that God, then God be the absolute truth.

There is no morality in the human nature, nature is amoral. Logic is truth, reason is God.

No, only if there is God can there be any true value in a man, an intrinsic value, a dignity that noone can take away.

To me, your God very much implied religion. It seemed like your purpose was to prove gods existance on some philosophical level as the source of truth and moral? A medieval alchemist once said: "Of the three ways in which men think that they acquire knowledge of things: authority, reasoning, and experience; only the last is effective and able to bring peace to the intellect."

If your god wasn't meant as a referance to god, you could have picked a less distracting metaphor as not to confuse me.

It seems like religions are your reference point and without them you can't prove your own worth. You say you don't need to know right to recognize wrong. And i can see why. Because without a true reference point, you take these religious bunches and set them as the reference zero to show how you are better.
Frankly, I find it totally frustrating.

Prove my own worth? I'm not even trying to prove anything. My view on world is my view and it's probably not suited for anyone else. It's probably not completely logical and it has paradoxes, but at least it's not based on superstition. It's pretty easy to pick up religions as a reference point, because they are the only known moral codes, that claim to be infallible.

Is there another world other then physical world, that I am not aware of? I act on my conscience, nothing there, that requires existance of a god.

Yes. There's the tangible world, and there's the intelligible world. And only in the intelligible world is the truth. If you are not aware of the world inside the mind, inside the minds of all reasonable creatures, then you cannot claim to act on conscience. If no god, no absolute truth exists in the intelligible world, then its uterly futile that you think yourself better than anyone for acting on conscience.

I think and exist only in the physical world. Your god and absolute truth confuse me. Whether I feel or how I feel better then other is irrelevant. I think that religious people are wrong, and just because they don't know any better, doesn't make me any better.

Of course it is, who's else is there to blame?

Who? You. Because in a deterministic world, all things are connected in a network of causality. By the theory of chaos, the flap of a butterfly's wing can cause a typhoon. You are the butterfly, and he is the typhoon. Who did what? You can't blame him. Either you blame everyone, or you blame noone.

When you said "If a man is determined to infaillibly commit a crime, is it his fault?", I thought you meant the the man was determined as in resolved or iron willed, that would mean that he has made a conscious decision and only he could be held liable for it. Every man can make up his own choices, it's cowardize not to take responsibility for your own decisions.

That, and you are way too cryptic for me my friend.

You are misinterpreting me. I disagree with you because you said earlier that "you are free when you have the will to do your duty, what is moraly right", in my opinion one is only free, if he can also choose to do what is wrong, not just right. We have urges and we also have freedom of choice to act and we can choose to act on our urges, if we want to, but we are liable for our actions. If the laws of society insist that we suppress our primal instincts, then one must act according to those laws, if he wants to remain in the society.

This is a classic. If given two choices of perfectly equal value, that is you are equally inclined to choose one or the other, you were able to choose one, where would the cause come from? Needless to say such a situation never occurs. But the situation that you're describing is even more ridiculous. You state the freedom is the ability to choose to do wrong when you know full well know what is the right thing to do. You are saying that freedom is the ability to act independantly of any cause, in your words freedom is to act randomly.

I have chosen to do something that is wrong many times in my life, haven't you? I'm not saying freedom is to act randomly, I'm saying freedom allows you to choose whatever option is available, if you are left only with the right choice, then you are optionless and it's not a choice at all.

This is the whole purpose of legislative laws, if mankind could act on the same moral laws, no legislative laws would have never had to been set. Moral laws cannot compromise, and they cannot be enforced, because they exist by virtuosity, so there will be moral conflicts that in a society have to be compromised with legislative laws.

Moral laws do not need to be enforced.[/quote]That's what I said aswell, so we agree.

Since nobody can be morally harmed by anyone else but themselves and the flaws in their own reason. Morality is universally applicable to every and all reasonable beings. If revealed, all beings would recognize the truth as such. There cannot exist moral conflicts because there can be only one morality.

I think there can exist moral conflicts and I think the whole abortion referendum is a proof of moral conflicts. But I have to say, you are too cryptical for me again.

This stuff is way too philosophical for me, so if this was somekind of battle of wits, I forfeit.

[andyb]

I am not giong to quit in the face of your religious and philosophical conundrums, and I would like Erssa to come back to the discussion as well.

Everyone on SPCR's forums are happy to talk about anything, and this subject is just fine, where Erssa draws the line though is discussing a subject with someone who makes everything so ridiculously complex.

I would presume that you have undertaken teachings on how to talk by Law experts, followed by Politicians, and I would hazard a guess as to some form of Christian based Cult. I would like to point out that the previous sentence is my own personal opinion and I came to those conclusions with the fact that you manage to twist every sentence into a deliberately confusing mess, with very little point and your ultimate goal seems to be dismissing peoples logical answers with an undecypherable mess whilst gently pushing "God".

If you wish to keep your side of the conversation going, you are going to have to use "common english" and NOT this gibberish that you have been using up until now.


Andy

[Spare Tire]

To awnser andyb, i am a vietnamese imigrant baptised (and practicing) roman catholic living in Quebec, 22 years old student in pharmacy, i live on my own so that noone can interfere with my sex life and hope the girls i bed don't get pregnant. (That's enough information to compromise my identity on the internet, are you satisfied?) If what i say is too "out there" for people to understand then i am sorry about my lack of words to render complexe concepts that might not have any physical grounding, but i assure you they have physical applications. My first language is french and my mother languge is vietnamese. Though i doubt i'd be able to render my ideas much better in french, i have read all my philosophy books in french, and that includes: Discours sur l'origine et les fondements de l'inégalité parmi les hommes and Le Contrat Social by Jean-Jacques Rousseau who influenced on my views of the origin of societies, Essais de Théodicée by Leibniz who has had some influence on me on the matter of determinism (along with my academic cursus in science), the third exercise in Between Past and Future. Eight Exercises in Political Thought by Hannah Arendt that treats of what is authority, and Kant whom i hold in utmost reverence for his insight on morality in Fondation de la métaphysique des mœurs (Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten) or Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, Métaphysique des mœurs - doctrine du droit et doctrine de la vertu (Metaphysik der Sitten) or Metaphysics of Morals, Critique of pure reason (Kritik der praktischen Vernunft) which i tried reading in english without much success, and some background in biology and evolutive biology that don't count as philosophy but that has also given me insight on many concrete social phenomenon. As a pharmacy student, the only background i have in philosophy are classes i have taken for my cegep Diplome d'étude collégial and the theory of knowledge classes for my International Baccalaureate diploma and the limited amount of books i have had time to read. Therefore, i lack the structure and rigor in my arguments, something someone with a cursus in philosophy would no doubt have. I am not some trojan christian trying to sneak into any organizations or trying to convince some politicians, and if it makes anyone feel better i have been branded a heretic by my parents, but i will not give up on God. I know i might not be the clearest, but i have always stuck with one theme:
from God to truth to morality to freedom.
Those are always the foundations that i want people to understand and i don't like to go into how this applies concretly as it will be difficult to factor out all the irrelevant stuff that people can nit pic at in a real life situation and they'd disgress into sophisms. I believe that on a matter of morality, all things belong to the world of reason and that it can be fought out up there without ever relying on observed phenomena in the physical world, but that is not to say that once you discover morality through reason alone that it can't be applied to the physical world. I believe it is absolutly imperative that we get our concepts straight before trying to pull out examples or the whole reasoning will turn to crap. Labelling me a sneaky christian with a hidden agenda trying to gain political power through obscurantism is totally unfair, as i believe morality is in the intent which is only up to the individual and not the outcome. I argue because it is a moral duty towards the truth for me to argue, until we find the absolute truth, i will not say "to each his own". We might never get there but as long as there is duscussion then i will be living it. On to the discussion:

To me, your God very much implied religion. It seemed like your purpose was to prove gods existance on some philosophical level as the source of truth and moral? A medieval alchemist once said: "Of the three ways in which men think that they acquire knowledge of things: authority, reasoning, and experience; only the last is effective and able to bring peace to the intellect."

To make it short, i'll have to rely on an argument of authority to prove that reasoning is the only way to discover morality. Of course i'll just quote a "belief" without quoting the reasoning behind it, since this is just an argument of authority: but according to Kant, moral law is a principle of reason itself and is not based on contingent facts about the world, such as what would make us happy, but to act upon the moral law which has no other motive than "worthiness of being happy". Accordingly, he believed that moral obligation applies to all and only rational agents.

Prove my own worth? I'm not even trying to prove anything. My view on world is my view and it's probably not suited for anyone else. It's probably not completely logical and it has paradoxes, but at least it's not based on superstition. It's pretty easy to pick up religions as a reference point, because they are the only known moral codes, that claim to be infallible.

If mathematics are objects of pure deduction, then i would believe that be enough of a proof that there is something in the intelligible world that does not require any tangible foundation.

I think and exist only in the physical world.

And the physical world is deterministic.

When you said "If a man is determined to infaillibly commit a crime, is it his fault?", I thought you meant the the man was determined as in resolved or iron willed, that would mean that he has made a conscious decision and only he could be held liable for it. Every man can make up his own choices, it's cowardize not to take responsibility for your own decisions.

Only if you suppose there is a concept of true freedom can you hold anyone responsible. He can well be iron willed, if there is only a physical and deterministic world, then his self-awareness is only an illusion, and whatever he has willed, he has been infaillibly predisposed to will.

I have chosen to do something that is wrong many times in my life, haven't you? I'm not saying freedom is to act randomly, I'm saying freedom allows you to choose whatever option is available, if you are left only with the right choice, then you are optionless and it's not a choice at all.

Of course, i have chosing to do something wrong in my life too. But that's not because i "freely" chose to do it, but because of my own lack of reason. If i chose to do wrong, it is because to do right was no appealing enough, it did not made sense enough, it wasn't fully convincing and wasn't fully understood. Had i perfectly understood why i must act right, i would infaillibly do so as i am determined by my own reason. In the lack of reason, i would be determined by my physical urges, and it's complexe projections on the mind.

I think there can exist moral conflicts and I think the whole abortion referendum is a proof of moral conflicts. But I have to say, you are too cryptical for me again.

I think the abortion referendum is a proof of the lack of reason. If you put both camp together and made them argue with each other the right thing to do COULD emerge from the dialogue. However, it hasn't because neither side has found the infaillibly convincing truth to convince the other party. And since morality is not in the act but in the intent, both positions of what to DO with unwanted babies is only a legislative procedure.

This stuff is way too philosophical for me, so if this was somekind of battle of wits, I forfeit.

I'm sorry to hear my friend, because i like debate. As i said, perhaps some truth will emerge from debate.

[andyb]

Thankyou Spare Tyre for your open-ness and honesty, I respect that.

I do however have to give in as well, as I dont think that we are going to do anything but go round in circles, and not change our minds on a single point, thus the debate is no longer a debate but a clash of opinions.

My opinion is that you are right in your own mind, therefore you are right, I am right in my own mind, therefore I am right. As this was not an argument, but a discussion of opinions and beliefs I think that we should agree to disagree.


Andy

[Trip]

If this was in Finnish, I'm sure Erssa would stay. I think it's the vocabulary that is tricking him up. I'd misunderstood Erssa's stances earlier as well, perhaps because I'm American and he's Finnish.

I'll respond once I've read through everything. I think I understand Spare Tire's argument, but I haven't read what he has.

i believe morality is in the intent which is only up to the individual and not the outcome

That is too general and is false as I see it. A fool who disobeys his parents or a citizen who disobeys a law simply out of a lack of understanding is still to blame for resulting problems.

A person must take responsibility for his actions.

E.g. imagine if Bush is who he says he is and he truly invaded Iraq in order to bring democracy and to integrate it with the rest of the "free world." Believing such is the right thing and believing he is helping, he acted. And yet his actions led to many terrible things.

E.g. 2. imagine Stalin or even Lenin was who he said he was and truly wanted to build a perfect utopia. All of those people who died, at the hands of both not just Stalin, were killed to create a more perfect utopia. And yet in the end everything was for naught and the bad that was done accomplished little if any good.


These fools believed they were doing good, at least in theory, and probably deserve to burn in hell for eternity for their sins.

until we find the absolute truth, i will not say "to each his own".

This is the great flaw of the enlightenment. Reason has no foundation.

As I and, I believe, Erssa argued, it is the irrational and not the rational that motivates man. However, in that argument I'm including religion as an irrational attachment since it cannot be proven and requires faith...

As Devonavar pointed out, any certainty of ethics can only be derived logically from religion. One cannot derive ethics out of thin air.

I believe Erssa also argued that we can derive our ethics from our own nature. Perhaps this is your argument?

Or are we to derive it from Christianity?

[Erssa]

This stuff is way too philosophical for me, so if this was somekind of battle of wits, I forfeit.

I'm sorry to hear my friend, because i like debate. As i said, perhaps some truth will emerge from debate.

And I like Off-Topics. (Thanks Andyb)

You clearly hold more authority on this, since I haven't read a single philosophy book in my entire life, although I have heard of terms like categorical imperative, I'm not familiar with Kant's work or the works of other philosophers. That's why I try to explain my beer pint born philosophy as simply and practically as I can. I aknowledge your authoritys as great intelligent minds of their time, but personally I don't rate philosophy very high as a science. Like Steven Levitt has said, "If morality represents how we would like the world to work, then economics represents how it actually does work." We can see how morals work in this world by looking around us. Like Roger Bacon, said only experience can give peace to the intellect. Your questions only create more questions, but give no answers. I see no point in trying to reason god into existance. I "know" morals is not coming from a sentient entity like God. Morals are an idealistic and subjective set of rules and individual learns or makes up. Everyone has their own set of morals. There is no objective and ultimate truth. But if there was an ultimate truth, that could be obtained by following your reasoning and logic, it seems it would be unattainable and uncomprehendable for a normal person (like me). A god given ultimate truth and moral holds no practical value for mankind, unless it is simple enough, that even the simplest minds can understand it and act accordingly. Or what good would a set of rules, that cannot be understood, do?

You can argue and reason all you want, but I don't want to follow you down the metaphysical road, because on that level of debate I am lost. I don't understand where you are aiming and thus I cannot respond intelligently.

[Spare Tire]

i believe morality is in the intent which is only up to the individual and not the outcome

That is too general and is false as I see it. A fool who disobeys his parents or a citizen who disobeys a law simply out of a lack of understanding is still to blame for resulting problems.

A person must take responsibility for his actions.

E.g. imagine if Bush is who he says he is and he truly invaded Iraq in order to bring democracy and to integrate it with the rest of the "free world." Believing such is the right thing and believing he is helping, he acted. And yet his actions led to many terrible things.

E.g. 2. imagine Stalin or even Lenin was who he said he was and truly wanted to build a perfect utopia. All of those people who died, at the hands of both not just Stalin, were killed to create a more perfect utopia. And yet in the end everything was for naught and the bad that was done accomplished little if any good.

These fools believed they were doing good, at least in theory, and probably deserve to burn in hell for eternity for their sins.

You're trying to cover two points. Lets set them appart now:
1. you say morality is in the act and not in the intent
2. you also imply that i am saying morality as an end can be used to justy all means

The answer to the first is that a person who does not conform to the laws of his country because he does not understand them is not necessarily morally wrong because these laws as we have agreed are not founded on morality, but i hold further that these laws are based on the original intent of the social contract that was to assure the genetic success of the parties implied in the social contract. If by chance, the law IN FORM concurs to the a moral ACT (moral act: an act that conform to morality and also has morality as an end), it does not mean that someone who merely ACTS according to the law will be acting moraly. There is a responsibility to be taken in the problems arising from a moral but illegal act, but it will be a legal responsibility and not a moral responsibility.
For example: on the battlefield a surgeon is presented with two soldiers, one from his camp and one from the opposite camp, with the one from the opposite camp bearing more serious injuries; he then procedes to treat the soldier from the opposite camp first. By the social contract he has with his own people, it would be an illegal act, as his social contract dictates that he must ensure the genetic/reproductive/evolutive/general fitness of his own pact brothers. However, the prejudice he has inflicted on the soldier of his own country is not an immoral act. It might even be considered an unprofessional act in the opinion of some people if that country is not signatory of a common international law supporting such acts, but the international laws too are what you could consider a "social contract" between societies to ensure the genetic fitness of the entire human race. But, the surgeon would still have acted responsibly in a moral perspective. Even in the case that both patients might die: one from his untreated but less serious wound, and the other from his treated and more serious wound, the surgeon is not moraly culpable of either death, having done all he could and fulfilled his moral duty.
I know this isn't the simplest example i could provide as it was also complicated by international laws, but it's the first that came to my mind. With international laws in place, the example would have been the choice between treating a human or treating an alien capable of reason. The point is moral laws are universally applicable to all creatures of reason, unlike laws of a society (there's a word for those in philosophic lexicon but it escapes my mind). Professional laws vary greatly from country to country. Being a Quebec and Canadian [soon to be] professional, i am well placed to know since Canada is of french and british confluence. In the province of Quebec, professional laws are part of the napoleonic Code Civil, while as the rest of Canada uses british Common Law. The same could be said of Louisiana compared to the rest of the united states.

As for the second, i have never held that the end justifies the means. For the act to be just, both the end and the means must be just. I would never acknowledge the corruption of one's integrity in order to gain the power necessary to achieve a just end as a moral act. I do not endorse Goerge Bush or Stalin's actions just because they claimed to be acting for the sake of justice and a better world, even in the case where they would really believed in those ends.

Also, if i disobey the laws of my country, i would be in infringement of the social contract i hold with it. But i would not be moraly culpable. Of course, it is a moral duty to respect your own engagements, but someone who does not understand the implication of such a pact, made millenia before his own birth could argue that he has not made such a pact. To become a citizen at birth is meaningless.
Furethermore, nobody is obliged to obey unjust laws. By the arbitrary nature of it, if by the laws injustice is brought down upon one party signatary of the pact, why couldn't the laws be changed? Because in our societies provisions in the social contract have been made for it to be possible, we must take those legal routes to change the contract. One could imagine a country in which the social contract was made at the expense of a party, either by force or by deception, where one party would be treated unjustly without any legal means of breaking the social contract, it would not be a moral duty to submit to such a country's laws. A social contract where one party gives up all provision for its own freedom is not a contract at all (as a person without freedom is by all means an object and an there is no contracts to be made with an object) and is void, there would be no moral duty to abide to such a country's laws.

My opinion is that you are right in your own mind, therefore you are right, I am right in my own mind, therefore I am right. As this was not an argument, but a discussion of opinions and beliefs I think that we should agree to disagree.

I would like to argue that through critical reasoning, all creatures of reason will come to the same, unanimous conclusion. (argument of authority: this view is of kantian influence)

EDIT: clarification

[Erssa]

If this was in Finnish, I'm sure Erssa would stay. I think it's the vocabulary that is tricking him up.

Maybe not, I like heated arguments more then careful debates.

Vocabulary could be a good excuse. But the truth is, that I am more limited, by my ability to express myself, then I am, by vocabulary.

I'd misunderstood Erssa's stances earlier as well, perhaps because I'm American and he's Finnish.

Again more likely because of my inability to clearly express myself.

I believe Erssa also argued that we can derive our ethics from our own nature. Perhaps this is your argument?

I tried to argue, that a society can arbitrarily derive their ethics. They don't have to be "right" by our standards, take cannibalism for example. But most rules of the society tend to serve a purpose of making the society more functional and better for everyone. Teachings of Jesus serve this purpose really well. One could come to the same conclusion as Jesus bu a mere accident or even by careful thinking (as I believe happened with Jesus), his teaching didn't have to come down from heaven.

[floffe]

But most rules of the society tend to serve a purpose of making the society more functional and better for everyone. Teachings of Jesus serve this purpose really well. One could come to the same conclusion as Jesus by a mere accident or even by careful thinking (as I believe happened with Jesus), his teaching didn't have to come down from heaven.

Yeah, that's where I stand too. The Golden Rule can stand on it's own merits, it doesn't need to be backed up by religious authority.

[Devonavar]

...personally I don't rate philosophy very high as a science.

I'm glad; philosophy is not a science, though it does have much to say on the subject. Historically, the sciences arose from the study of philosophy and gradually became subjects in their own right. Philosophy is about ideas, preferably those that have never been expressed before. The most successful ideas stick around because they are applicable to the world around us, and, occasionally, they change the world. I would sum it up thus: Science rates high as a philosophy, and philosophy rates low as a science.

Like Steven Levitt has said, "If morality represents how we would like the world to work, then economics represents how it actually does work." We can see how morals work in this world by looking around us.

That's a very intelligent quotation, but I don't think you've taken your understanding of it far enough. We can certainly study morality through economics and, as you say, understand how they work. But, you imply that once that has been done, there's pretty much nothing left to do, and I don't think that is the case.

You act as though how we would like the world to work is irrelevant. We all have to respect the laws of nature, whether we want to or not, right? Ok, fair enough, but, as you have also pointed, out, morality is not a law of nature. We are not bound to follow economic laws except to the extent that we (as a group) accept them to be true. When we express how we would like the world to be (i.e. view the world moralistically instead of economically), we are potentially changing the world to make it conform to our morals. If enough people hold similar morals, those morals become the new economic law. Morality is not about studying the world; it is about making the world a better place. We are not victims of the world unless we accept the laws of economics passively without applying morals to them.

I freely admit that what I wrote in the above paragraph is my own dogma — it is my own world view and it's not scientifically acknowledged anywhere to the best of my knowledge. However, I can think of a couple of pieces of evidence that support it:

1: Young people tend to be moralistic while older people tend to respect economics over morality. This is because older people have already asserted their morals onto the world and created their own economic laws: The status quo. They have already changed the world to suit their morals, so their values are visible in economics.

2: Western economic theories do not seem to apply well outside of the West. Witness the economic failure of most of the former USSR. Western economics (i.e. capitalism) were supposed to help these countries rebuild after the fall of the Berlin Wall, but, despite widespread adoption of capitalism, it has not, for the most part, helped improve conditions. I believe this is largely because of the fact that many people in these countries still hold communist world-views that do not allow capitalist economics to flourish.

Like Roger Bacon, said only experience can give peace to the intellect. Your questions only create more questions, but give no answers. I see no point in trying to reason god into existance. I "know" morals is not coming from a sentient entity like God. Morals are an idealistic and subjective set of rules and individual learns or makes up. Everyone has their own set of morals. There is no objective and ultimate truth.

The point of religion is not to "reason" anything into existence. To ask that God's existence be rationally proven is to misunderstand what God is. Religion is about being aware of where your values come from and why you hold them. Awareness of God comes from inspiration (aka faith), not rational thought. God is first, and then all else follows. If you try and find God rationally, of course you're going to fail! Rational explanation requires knowing what came before, and, by definition, nothing came before God.

When someone says he is aware of God, he does not mean he understands why or how He exists in any rational sense (I suspect that would be blasphemous in Christianity). All he means is that he has touched the foundation that grounds his morality. His morals may well be "learned" or even "made up", but that doesn't prevent them from getting their moral authority from God.

That doesn't mean God is objective — meaning it can be justified rationally. I think it's true that we all have our own, subjective set of morals, but for all that, our basic moral systems are strikingly similar, even across cultures. God is the solution to this riddle: God is the entity we point to when we run out of rational justifications for our personal morality. If you did indeed "make up" your morals, you didn't just make them up randomly. You made them up because they "felt right" to you. That "rightness" is what religious people call God. And, luckily, we humans, share a sense of rightness that is more or less universal. God is the reference point that we use to express moral ideas to each other. He is the commonality that allows people of different languages and cultures to understand each other and agree on what is right or wrong.

But if there was an ultimate truth, that could be obtained by following your reasoning and logic, it seems it would be unattainable and uncomprehendable for a normal person (like me). A god given ultimate truth and moral holds no practical value for mankind, unless it is simple enough, that even the simplest minds can understand it and act accordingly. Or what good would a set of rules, that cannot be understood, do?

I have agreed with you that God (meaning, the source of morality = ultimate truth) is not objective, but I must disagree that it is not ultimate, by which I take you to mean "final" or "original". Just because God cannot be explained through reason and logic does not make Him unattainable or uncomprehendable. It just means that comprehending God / ultimate truth is not a rational process. As I said above, God is the common thread in human morality, and this sense of rightness is universally accessible, even to the simplest of minds. The practical value of this ultimate truth should be more or less self-evident, but let me give a few examples: It allows us to cooperate, to find agreement, and to build societies. It prevents us from reducing ourselves to mere, unconnected individuals.

[Erssa]

You act as though how we would like the world to work is irrelevant. We all have to respect the laws of nature, whether we want to or not, right? Ok, fair enough, but, as you have also pointed, out, morality is not a law of nature. We are not bound to follow economic laws except to the extent that we (as a group) accept them to be true. When we express how we would like the world to be (i.e. view the world moralistically instead of economically), we are potentially changing the world to make it conform to our morals. If enough people hold similar morals, those morals become the new economic law. Morality is not about studying the world; it is about making the world a better place. We are not victims of the world unless we accept the laws of economics passively without applying morals to them.

I freely admit that what I wrote in the above paragraph is my own dogma — it is my own world view and it's not scientifically acknowledged anywhere to the best of my knowledge.

I agree with you almost completely, except for the last part. It's true, that if enough people hold similar morals, those morals become the economic law. But how I view it is, that we set our moral standards so high, that we always end up falling a bit short from our goals. That's why morals will always represent the ideal situation, that will never be quite true depiction of the real world.

2: Western economic theories do not seem to apply well outside of the West. Witness the economic failure of most of the former USSR. Western economics (i.e. capitalism) were supposed to help these countries rebuild after the fall of the Berlin Wall, but, despite widespread adoption of capitalism, it has not, for the most part, helped improve conditions. I believe this is largely because of the fact that many people in these countries still hold communist world-views that do not allow capitalist economics to flourish.

Some ex-soviet countries are doing really well, take the baltic countries for example and Estonia in particular.

Many of the the countries that belonged to the Warsaw Pact are ranking really high in Bertelmanns transformation index. For example: Slovenia 1. former Yugoslavian country, not really part of Warsaw Pact, but they had communist government before their indepence in 1991. Estonia is ranked 2. Czech Rebublic 3. Hungary 5. Slovakia 6. Lithuania 7. Poland 9. Croatia 11. Latvia 14. Bulgaria 16. Romania 19. But it's true that most ex-soviet countries aren't doing so well. It could be because they were hurt the most by the collapse and their economies are still too dependant on Russia. It could be the old communist mentalism as you said, but then again most other former communist countries managed to adopt to capitalism pretty well...

The point of religion is not to "reason" anything into existence. To ask that God's existence be rationally proven is to misunderstand what God is. Religion is about being aware of where your values come from and why you hold them. Awareness of God comes from inspiration (aka faith), not rational thought. God is first, and then all else follows. If you try and find God rationally, of course you're going to fail! Rational explanation requires knowing what came before, and, by definition, nothing came before God.

When someone says he is aware of God, he does not mean he understands why or how He exists in any rational sense (I suspect that would be blasphemous in Christianity). All he means is that he has touched the foundation that grounds his morality. His morals may well be "learned" or even "made up", but that doesn't prevent them from getting their moral authority from God.

That doesn't mean God is objective — meaning it can be justified rationally. I think it's true that we all have our own, subjective set of morals, but for all that, our basic moral systems are strikingly similar, even across cultures. God is the solution to this riddle: God is the entity we point to when we run out of rational justifications for our personal morality. If you did indeed "make up" your morals, you didn't just make them up randomly. You made them up because they "felt right" to you. That "rightness" is what religious people call God. And, luckily, we humans, share a sense of rightness that is more or less universal. God is the reference point that we use to express moral ideas to each other. He is the commonality that allows people of different languages and cultures to understand each other and agree on what is right or wrong.

I have no problem with this definition what so ever. As an agnostic I'm very confortable with your description of God, because it has nothing to with religion. My problem with religion has nothing to do with God, my problem is with the institution and all the delusions it upholds and spreads.

I have agreed with you that God (meaning, the source of morality = ultimate truth) is not objective, but I must disagree that it is not ultimate, by which I take you to mean "final" or "original".

I too disagree with it, when I said ultimate, I was referring to Spare Tires "One Truth".

Just because God cannot be explained through reason and logic does not make Him unattainable or uncomprehendable. It just means that comprehending God / ultimate truth is not a rational process. As I said above, God is the common thread in human morality, and this sense of rightness is universally accessible, even to the simplest of minds. The practical value of this ultimate truth should be more or less self-evident, but let me give a few examples: It allows us to cooperate, to find agreement, and to build societies. It prevents us from reducing ourselves to mere, unconnected individuals.

I agree with you on this as well. What I meant was that Spare Tires philosophical reasoning approach would make God unattainable and uncomprehendable, because like you said understanding God/morality is not a rational process.

[DonQ]

man vs woman
Jews vs gentiles
"God followers" vs heathens
Republicans vs Democrats
Good vs Evil
Us vs Them
gangs

Man vs woman only exists because men dont put seats down
Jews vs gentiles - I read that as Genitals Doh, I will look up gentiles another time.
God followers vs heathens - Heathen is a name that was used for people of OTHER religions, and not as the more common use of "non religious".
Good vs Evil - Take Israel/Palestine, Iran/USA, Japan/China, England/France, this is a perspective, remember one mans terrorist is another mans freedom fighter.
Us vs Them - No explanation apart from YES, this represents gangs as well, alongside nations, sports teams and their followers etc etc.

What you have said has existed on this planet since the first inteligent creature lived, religion has just added a new facet to the fight for domination with our speces. Did I miss your point or am I being silly.


Andy

That was my point. If it weren't religion, people would find other ways to not be excellent to each other. But I guess more my point was that man being this way helped him get this far as far as evolution goes.

[andyb]

That was my point. If it weren't religion, people would find other ways to not be excellent to each other. But I guess more my point was that man being this way helped him get this far as far as evolution goes.

GREAT

Now this false goD can disappear from our society, as Evolution is our goD


Andy

[andyb]

Another sensible choice.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/6586959.stm


Andy

[alleycat]

A person should be able to do whatever they like with their own body, whether it involves abortion, euthanasia or anything else. I have long felt that democracy is simply an appeal to the lowest common denominator, but right now I don't have an alternative system to offer. Perhaps if there were no minimum number of votes for a referendum to be decided, people would actually be motivated to vote. So in theory, only one person could turn up to vote, and thus decide the outcome; in reality, it would have the opposite effect.

Spare Tire, thank you for sharing your insight. A case of pearls before swine perhaps? The Truth is not a subject for weak or lazy minds.

[aristide1]

Couldn't agree more ! I cant think of anything else that has caused so much pain, slaughter and sorrow then religion !!!

More propaganda... Think for yourself rather than repeating such absurd catch phrases.

Mao - atheist. Stalin - atheist. Hitler and his Nazis - atheist though believing they needed to create their own religion. The three greatest monsters of the 20th century all atheist. Mao is a particularly good example; he believed he lived only for his own pleasure.

But right now the world routinely sees people blowing themselves up and blowing up others as well all in the name of religion.

Perhaps it's not religion that's the problem but the same problem with or without religion - The twisted mind. The problem with that, even if true, is that religion gives the twisted mind an easy way to justify its goal.

Part of what I routinely see with religious extremists, like pro-lifers, is that they are hypocrits. They don't practice what they preach.

[BrianE]

As much as I really hate wading into sticky, thorny topics such as this (and I did NOT read it all), it has been resurrected, so I may as well comment.

Perhaps it's not religion that's the problem but the same problem with or without religion - The twisted mind. The problem with that, even if true, is that religion gives the twisted mind an easy way to justify its goal.

Part of what I routinely see with religious extremists, like pro-lifers, is that they are hypocrits. They don't practice what they preach.

This pretty much echos what I believe. There is nothing inherently wrong with many of the world's major religions or the belief in their god or gods. You read their books and bibles and you nod your head thinking how nice and reasonable it sounds. Then some lunatic or very selfish person goes and twists things around so we get things like: The Crusades, The Jihad, The Salem Witchhunts, ethnic cleansing, etc etc etc. I don't think very many religions have a terribly righteous and bloodshed-free history except maybe the ones that are fundamentally pacifist, and even then I'm sure someone must have found ways to use it for political or economic power.

The problem isn't really religion, it's people. Human weaknesses and temptation don't magically vanish simply because a religion exists, no matter how pervasive or persuasive it is. That's my $0.02, so now back behind the firewall I go.

[Sylph-DS]

Indeed. People will keep blowing eachother up with or without religion.

Why will mankind keep doing this? As long as mankind has existed, societies needed an enemy. If you have one big group, they need an enemy, if there isn't any group of people that the can turn into an enemy, they'll push a group of people up out of their own ranks to turn into an enemy. This enemy of course has to be fought, and preferably wiped out (though people today may say and even think they want the 'enemy' to change their ways, they really just want them dead)

Anybody read George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four? Notice how the people are constantly told they are at war with a certain enemy, while not actually being told anything about that enemy. This way, even if the war were to end, it would be easy for the government to keep the people under the impression that they are still at war, giving them a common enemy. This stops them from finding an enemy within their own ranks, and causing unrest and even civil war.

A group of people needs an enemy (note, the enemy doesn't necesarily have to be something that lives, for example, a natural disaster works as well) to stick together and not start killing eachother. But, ever tried finding an enemy for the entire human race? Basically, our only hope is an alien invasion

[Erssa]

But, ever tried finding an enemy for the entire human race?

They have already found many. Nuclear power/weapons, global warming, aids, meteors...

[Devonavar]

I have long felt that democracy is simply an appeal to the lowest common denominator, but right now I don't have an alternative system to offer. Perhaps if there were no minimum number of votes for a referendum to be decided, people would actually be motivated to vote. So in theory, only one person could turn up to vote, and thus decide the outcome; in reality, it would have the opposite effect.

Why not run the government like an open-source project or Wikipedia? These systems seem to be fairly resilient and resistant to corruption because they are so decentralized. Changes are based on consensus opinion by interested parties, rather than elected officials who can be bought. If the interested parties have a direct vote, it forces opposing parties to negotiate with them, since it's horribly inefficient to force people to sell the beliefs they hold strongly.

I can think of several other advantages, but I'll save those for another day...

[jaganath]

Changes are based on consensus opinion by interested parties

problem is processes like these are easily hijacked by vocal minorities...

[Erssa]

Why not run the government like an open-source project or Wikipedia? These systems seem to be fairly resilient and resistant to corruption because they are so decentralized. Changes are based on consensus opinion by interested parties, rather than elected officials who can be bought. If the interested parties have a direct vote, it forces opposing parties to negotiate with them, since it's horribly inefficient to force people to sell the beliefs they hold strongly.

I can think of several other advantages, but I'll save those for another day...

I can see many problems with this, for example the reason Jaganath mentioned or the same problem already affecting democracy: stupidity of average voter. I believe a man is intelligent, a mob is not. Rights of the minority could be trampled so easily with such a system. I also believe people need leadership (and scapegoats when shit hits the fan).

[Devonavar]

Yes, but if the vocal minorities do anything to piss off the majority, they find themselves with a vocal majority on their hands. And, in an Open Source style situation, the vocal majority can quickly do something about it since anyone can instigate a change. Obviously, there would be a need to provide a "talk-page" style forum for debate.

I have only a limited sympathy for "vocal minority" arguments. If you want to change something (or keep the status quo) you need to be vocal about it. Vocal minorities are only a problem when they manage to get into power and obtain the resources to prevent the "silent" majority from speaking. An open source government should avoid this since even if the vocal minority manages to pass an unacceptable law, it can be easily repaired when the majority discovers what has gone wrong.

I think "vocal minority" is a bit of a charged phrase, misleading if you take it literally. In present-day democracy, the defining characteristic of problem "vocal" minorities is not their vocality but their money and the fact that they have the ear of the government to the exclusion of other equally vocal but less monied or priviledged groups. Open source government addresses this by putting the power to create change directly in the hands of those who want it, held back only by the people who don't want it. Given how fractal most issues are, this means that most issues will never move forward without interested groups forming alliances and negotiating among themselves.

It's not a perfect system — it's susceptible to vote buying and it privileges the literate, the intelligent and the motivated over those who might be less so, but I think it would be a step forward from the corrupt "representative" government we have now.

[Devonavar]

I can see many problems with this, for example the reason Jaganath mentioned or the same problem already affecting democracy: stupidity of average voter. I believe a man is intelligent, a mob is not. Rights of the minority could be trampled so easily with such a system. I also believe people need leadership (and scapegoats when shit hits the fan).

I'm a bit sick of the stupidity of the average voter argument. The average voter is not stupid, but it is impossible for any one person to be reasonably informed about every political issue out there. Thus, the average voter must make broad, general decisions about a wide variety of issues that he is ill-informed about. Give people the option of voting only for the issues they care about, and you may be assured that the votes you receive will be both informed and intelligent. Those who don't care need not vote.

I agree with your concerns about trampling minority rights to some extent, but I think it's important to remember that what minority rights there are exist because the majority have decided to grant them. Any minorities that genuinely present themselves as enemies to the majority are still ruthless crushed even today — and I see no way that any society could last long were this not the case. I find it a bit odd that you raise this concern side by side with Jaganath's "tyranny of the minority" argument. Surely both cannot be true?

I don't understand why your bring up leadership. Are you saying you think a figurehead is necessary? Why can't the leaders of an open source society be those who are eloquent enough to convince people that a particular issue is worth their time? Isn't that the very essence of a leader right there: Someone who can convince others to take action?

[Erssa]

I'm a bit sick of the stupidity of the average voter argument. The average voter is not stupid, but it is impossible for any one person to be reasonably informed about every political issue out there. Thus, the average voter must make broad, general decisions about a wide variety of issues that he is ill-informed about. Give people the option of voting only for the issues they care about, and you may be assured that the votes you receive will be both informed and intelligent. Those who don't care need not vote.

I just think, that his would really make it hard to bring out new ideas. It would require alot of effort to get people excited enough to vote on something new. There's always plenty of conservatives to object. I think this is the pretty much the case in the abortion referendum.

I agree with your concerns about trampling minority rights to some extent, but I think it's important to remember that what minority rights there are exist because the majority have decided to grant them. Any minorities that genuinely present themselves as enemies to the majority are still ruthless crushed even today — and I see no way that any society could last long were this not the case.

I was thinking of something along the lines of Zimbabwe, where they drove white farmers away and as a result people to hunger. I'm also pretty sure Mugabe had people's support in this. Educated politicians might have not made the same decision.

I find it a bit odd that you raise this concern side by side with Jaganath's "tyranny of the minority" argument. Surely both cannot be true?

I don't really buy into the "tyranny of the minority" argument, but I think it's very essential for some people to explain certain phenomen, when the most logical explanations might be unwanted. For example people use it to explain unemployment of black people. People generally agree, that majority of white people are tolerant and only a handful of people are racist. This is essential, because otherwise toleration would be undemocratic (and maybe illegal). Yet at the same time some people say, that a small untolerant (racist) minority is able to prevent black people from getting employed. This isn't very likely, especially when the stereotype of a racist is uneducated piece of white trash who holds no political or economical power. Argument of hidden discrimination is wanted, because it's preferred to some of the alternatives.

I don't understand why your bring up leadership. Are you saying you think a figurehead is necessary? Why can't the leaders of an open source society be those who are eloquent enough to convince people that a particular issue is worth their time? Isn't that the very essence of a leader right there: Someone who can convince others to take action?

I think a figurehead is necessary, even if it is mostly ceremonial. Take Queen Elizabeth for example.

It's not a perfect system — it's susceptible to vote buying and it privileges the literate, the intelligent and the motivated over those who might be less so, but I think it would be a step forward from the corrupt "representative" government we have now.

I think lesser corruption could be a clear step forward for many countries. I guess I was comparing the system too much to our own system, which is as corrupt-free as it can get.