"Brother," then said the Duke of Egypt, laying his hands upon their foreheads, "she is your wife; sister, he is your husband for four years. Go."Originally Posted by JBI
Not anything bad with this either.
Thank you for the further comments on the meanings of words.
You may find this useful - generally I don't like these easy guides, but for someone like Derrida, and for something like deconstruction, I find this one works. Reading the original texts of Deconstruction is unbelievably difficult without some background:
http://www.amazon.com/Deconstruction...9533432&sr=8-1
Deconstruction looks interesting. I'll check my library, but I doubt they have this book here. I might have to start straight with Derrida inspite the difficulties.
Let me put this as simply as possible. In matters of religion, as in sales, presentation is everything. People need to show a difference in their lives as well as in their talk. Perhaps many who do not believe in God might if they did not see Religious people acting in the same manner as those without any. Endless arguments and angry words do nothing to further either cause. People dislike being treated as fools. May I strongly urge all to remember that whatever the other believes, they are convinced, or they would believe differently. So try to be slightly more understanding of the other person. Everyone has feelings that can be hurt by grievous words. This builds anger and resentment, not the work of God or the ideas of man. It tears down and separates, rather than promotes harmonious living. And this causes naught but strife.
If I have harmed any by my words, I sincerely apologize. But I will stand up for my belief in God and Christ Jesus.
God Bless
Pen
Some of us laugh
Some of us cry
Some of us smoke
Some of us lie
But it's all just the way
that we cope with our lives...
Forgive me, but are you absolutely sure about that?
"The time has come," the Walrus said,
"To talk of many things:
Of shoes--and ships--and sealing-wax--
Of cabbages--and kings--
And why the sea is boiling hot--
And whether pigs have wings."
I will defer to your knowledge. However, the 10th commmandment deals with jealousy over what is not rightfully mine; the jealousy I speak of (reaction to a violation of the intimacy of my relationship with my wife) is a different matter, because I should - as her husband - expect certain loyalties to our vows. The 10th commandment gives a specific context within which it condemns jealousy.
Would you care to name the culture that thought theft, murder, sleeping with someone else's wife, etc were all condoned actions that the culture valued and supported?
Don't bother with the Levitical laws - the NT invalidated most of the non-moral ones.
Natural law must exist because without it we have no standard by which to critique the "justness" of the positive law. If slavery once was legal, and Hitler's regime made genocide legal, the only way we can protest those laws as unjust is to appeal to a higher law as a measuring standard. Otherwise, we're back to relativism, which means we have no moral ground from which to judge a culture that participates in slavery or genocide.
Relationships are fragile things - "flings" are a violation of the relationship because they bring people into the circle of the relationship who have not made a committment. Relationships do not improve via affairs - the affair is a symptom of the ill health of the relationship. Adultery improves nothing - and the spouse who engages in it disrespects the other spouse - essentially making the adulterer as guilty as the inconsiderate spouse whom they "stepped out on."
Love cannot exist in an atmosphere of selfish betrayal.
What "bias"? I simply believe that people who experience adultery and divorce are less cavalier about its consequences and effects than those who watch (no matter how closely) from the outside.
I'm sorry - I too have emotional reactions to songs, to plays, to etc, etc...but none of them came close (by a mile) to sex - experiencing the most intimate of relationships with someone IMO far outstrips the other joys you described; granted some people feel differently, but a song, play, etc does not require me to engage with another person in an intimate, bonding way. There is a difference - there are potential consequences and ramifications involved with sex - not so with listening to music, attending a play, etc.
We've had sexual liberty in the US since the 60s - you tell me how things are going.
Meanings do shift - but words are not so unstable to have their meaning become whatever the user wants. Once the definition of a word is self-referential, the word is no longer useful for communication. Morality is no different - the word becomes meaningless if it simply stands for "the way I see things."
Happiness cannot be our highest value - it is the by-product of other actions and experiences. To seek it for itself is a fruitless pastime. Your definition of hedonism in sentence one suggests some sort of moral absolute - hedonism "abhors causing the suffering of others" - says who? You? Well isn't that just YOUR version of hedonism? What if MY version says "damn the torpedos - my happiness WILL be achieved, and I don't care what it costs because I deserve to be happy!"?
That doesn't mean that consequences have not been suffered by all parties. Unless you are a child of divorce or are divorced and have children, you can have no clarity whatsoever on the kind of trauma divorce puts upon kids. Period. No book, no obseravation from the outside will suffice - unless you've been there (which I have, both sides) you cannot understand the long-term ramifications - which become more heinous when the justification for tearing apart a child's world is for the self-centered and selfish gratification of a sexual desire. Your failure to see the problem in that is stunnning to me - simply astounding.
But - as Aristotle points out in the Metaphysics - all the things that go by the term "house" must have some essential "house-ness" about them in order to be recognized as a part of the category of "house."
Right - but natural law allows us to evaluate the justness of positve law. Without the natural law, there is no reason that slavery or genocide cannot become legal.
And, as Andave pointed out very subtely above, you seem pretty certain about the lack of certainty in the law, in morality, in everything. How can you be so certain about the uncertainty of everything? Is there not irony in your position? If you're correct, then all law is merely random mutual agreement - which means that there is no real "right" and "wrong" which means that nothing is either - only what we personally think it is. All fine and good until you are the victim of some immoral behavior and you object. Once I rob you, rape your wife/girlfriend, steal your car and murder your kids, do I get to tell you "sorry - but what is right and wrong is not constant - and anyway, since it's self-defined, what does it matter? Have a nice day"?
Last edited by Redzeppelin; 12-17-2008 at 08:03 PM.
"I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen, not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else." - C.S. Lewis
I would agree to an extent. I'd say that natural law is constant though and laws made by men trying to assert their own moralities are inconsistent and inconstant.
Right and wrong in many cases is a matter of perspective.
An eclectic collection of learned behaviors.
Of course not - that's the paradox. That ends up essentially in a pragmatic answer - each makes up the rules of the game, because the rules don't exist, but one makes up natural rules, one is changing the rules to create existence, but existence is relative, so how can it be natural at the same time.
Either way, the relativity isn't necessarily thwarted by that. The uncertainty means there is relativism, because if there is no concrete answer, then there is no possible way there is anything natural that we can know about, being that we don't have one answer. The fact that the bible provides one answer is useless in the sense that there are many scriptures, and many words of God.
Last edited by JBI; 12-18-2008 at 12:02 AM.
To your challenge - Native American cultures, and I will narrow specifically to the Hurons had a different view of property. Since everything belonged to no one, theft did not exist. Polygamy was practiced to a great extent, and wars were fought not over land, but purely in a form of macho bravado, a deceleration of masculinity. Wives and Children were then taken from the loser's band, of a fallen warrior, in order to make up for lost life by the victorious band.
The sense of theft didn't exist, and native American divorce custom, if such a thing can be called that, given their concept of marriage was very different than Western ones, consisted merely of the couples separating, and the woman, and man taking on a new lovers.
In that context, I would say you are ethnocentric in thinking such states do not exist.
But on a more practical note, it is quite logical to assume the primitive form of life, that is, before civilization was established to humans, that such laws did not exist. The concept of property, whether it be material goods, or wives, as you seem to propose, is a formation of culture.
Honestly, your argument works both ways. Your morality of the law becomes immoral when dealing with the criminal, in the electrical chair, who thinks he doesn't deserve to die. To him the morality falsifies itself, when he thinks this morality is immoral. I may think something is wrong when it is done to me, but honestly, when I do it to others, I probably don't. And the ones committing it probably don't either.
The I'm afraid of x, so I will condemn it is purely a social construction. It is merely a social contract entered to ensure the best of x for the member of society. The same way I may or may not want to pay my taxes, but I do because it is the law, and I fear the repercussions of not paying them.
Our society takes in a number of factors, and dishes out laws to try and accommodate the values of those who are in charge.
I would like to point something out which might be hard to understand at first. In response to what someone (JBI I think) said about a thief; the thief is happy because he has the bread... now I do agree that a case by case basis must be taken into account... for instance as you say Jean Valjean was of course not in the wrong to take the bread. But then this example (of Jean) is not an argument against morality; it's a good example showing the flaws of might makes right. (Might makes right is effectively the situtation which existed there. The poor, almost slave-state Jean did not have the might; but the "system" did have the might, etc.) But killing is usually wrong. Again I would say it is not always wrong. It must be a case by case basis. For instance if a robber comes into your house with a lethal weapon and is threatening to kill your family, I don't say you should be non-violent. He should immediately be killed. But if you killed without reason, or for the wrong reason (like Raskolnikov from Crime and Punishment), then it is wrong. Anyway I am just now coming to what I wish to say, which is this: Karma. We reap what we sow.
There's a song I know that's main point is this, that we reap what we sow. It begins "Sow good seeds, everybody (repeat)... Over the mountains, down in the valleys, you gonna reap just what you sow..." then "Sow by walking, sow by talking" etc... now over the mountains isn't the main point but rather that we should always be sowing good seeds. If you spit on someone or if you insult them... some how, or some way, it will come back to you. If you hurt others, you hurt yourself, because you reap what you sow. Karma. This is the true natural law; the law of cause and effect. It is not dependent on humans.
Last edited by NikolaiI; 12-18-2008 at 01:00 AM.
Your example does not disprove my assertion: "community property" and the absence of a "need" to steal does not mean that theft was a valued cultural activity. No culture has encouraged, valued, or praised theft. I need you to name me a culture where theft, lying, adultery, murder, etc were actions that a culture praised, found praiseworthy, or valued among its members. Ditto for polygamy: that is not the same as adultery - I also doubt that you would support the attitude towards women that a polygamist society has - but then again, who are you to judge, since morality is relative - right?
You've yet to prove that any culture exists that does not value the basic values (and reject the others) that I mentioned. You can "say" whatever you wish about me, but you'll need to offer up sound evidence to claim a victory. I'm still waiting.
All fine and true, but doesn't dent my point in the slightest.
Another false example. The thief's opinion of the law that condemns him is immaterial to the law's correctness/justness. The criminal does not need to agree with his desert in order for it to be just. That we can justify our bad behavior doesn't change the moral content of that behavior. But - if morality is self-defined, then how can we convict any criminal for any "wrongdoing" at all?
"I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen, not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else." - C.S. Lewis
Theft is a word for an act. If the act does not exist, to a culture, theft clearly isn't wrong.
Oh, and I even forgot. The Vikings were all about stealing other people's stuff in Raids, as were many peoples, and are many peoples today.
Last edited by JBI; 12-18-2008 at 01:10 AM.
I think that makes a lot of sense. Since being cruel requires one to utilize immature and inferior parts of one's brain, all it does is promote an inferior way of thinking. Which is not productive in solving problems, or seeking out the greater good. What you practice you become in a sense.
People who are consistently wicked may not feel the effects of Karma though. Their whole science becomes lies. Perhaps living in a state with no room for honesty is Karma enough... Not to say I know anything about Karma, except for the aforementioned defintion.
Nah, I can kill someone and get away with it, and quite frankly, if I don't feel bad, I win. I don't see there being any sort of "justice" in this world - actions and consequences. If you can live with the consequences of the actions - that is, you can commit a crime and not feel bad afterward, and not get in trouble, then naturally there is nothing saying you are wrong.
That always leads to the ad Hitler argument, which says essentially that how can we condemn Hitler on those grounds. I hate to answer like this, since it may be a shocker, but quite frankly we all would be (well I wouldn't, I wouldn't exist, but you get the point) praising Hitler, and heralding him as the hero of the world, who saved it from the clutches of those filthy Jews (I am being ironic here). The point is, Religious people in general seemed unmoved by the Holocaust as it was happening. I don't recall the Pope ever condemning Hitler in his life time, and speculatively, it is possible that the current Pope would have dawned the SS uniform had the War gone longer. But I didn't hear anything about them talking about its unjustness, and unholiness, and blasphemousness while it was going on. Nothing. The only member of the Nazi party to be excommunicated from the Catholic church was Goebbels, since he, unfortunately to them, married a protestant.
Joseph Stalin died of natural causes, as did Pinochet, and others. The so called justice in this world is a mere illusion. There is no real justice - just look at the poverty rates in Africa, even in countries which are overflowing with natural resources.
Karma is a nice thought, as is Boethius's Wheel of fortune, but I think they are just thoughts. I haven't seen anything in my life to prove that the "wicked" are punished and the good rewarded.
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