Viewing Single Post From: Morality

Viewing Single Post From: Morality
Conan O'Brien	Nov 20 2008, 12:16 AM
SKILLNADEN ÄR DRINKABILITY Posts: 2,781 Group: Veteran Member #16 Joined: June 8, 2005	Quote: But we're not comparing fascism to anarchy. You're saying you'd rather have fascism than an inconsistent government, which is far from anarchy. Our nation has a constantly changing and progressive view on morality, so it only makes sense that our laws change with it. If you want to argue that morality doesn't change, go ahead. I'll bring up slavery, witch burnings, the crusades. Morality doesn't change. No one argues that slavery and witch burnings were once moral, only they just thought they were moral actions. That isn't changing morality. In fact, the reasons that those things stopped taking place is because we slowly realized they were immoral. We didn't decide one day, "From now on witch burnings are immoral." We gradually said, "Witch burnings, including those of the past, are wrong." To put it this way, if objective morality is true, than morals are facts. If someone had said in 1600 "Flies are born from meat", he wouldn't be right, even though that's a societal norm. Likewise, if someone had said "Slavery is good", and we believe in moral objectivity, he's just wrong. I wouldn't discount modern-day morality because of past miscalculations. To due so, you'd have to discount math, science, geography, well just about everything. Quote: You want me to prove how people thought thousands of years ago? Sorry, you got me there. But I can tell you that it really doesn't make sense for morality to exist before or beyond humanity. That's why you have different morals depending on geography and culture - Because morality is not consistent. If morality was not a social construct, and it was just universal, then the world would be perfect, because every culture and society would have the exact same view of morality. I half-agree that morality didn't exist before mankind. I think it did exist, but it just needed mankind to conceive of it. It can be compared to math. It's a universal truth that underpins the universe, but only thinking, rational beings can actually put it to words. Do different societies disagree on morality? Sure. But to put it bluntly, some are right, some are wrong. Even then, there are always points of convergence. Every society says that murder and thievery are bad. But more importantly, people realize that stuff like hate and heartlessness are bad, but love and care is good. I believe we have an innate understanding. Even when we debate morality, it's it these terms. For abortion, for example, everyone agrees "Murder is wrong" and "Denying a universal right is wrong". No one is for abortion because they like murder or anti-abortion because they enjoying denying women rights(despite what you might hear). It's in the details we disagree; is a fetus a person, is abortion a right, etc. Quote: Of course you can blame the lower class for all the problems. They're the ones doing it of course! And the CEOs don't rape and murder, so they're beacons of morality. And black people mostly only kill black people, so they need to shape up, but it's not our problem. Yes, the lower class do commit the more "heinous" crimes, but do you wonder why? Is it because they're bad people or is it because they're lower class? Well, I think everyone agrees that it is because they're lower class, but I think you're trying to argue is that they're in the lower class because they're bad people, and that CEOs are very good people, and that we're in a perfect meritocracy. That's generally untrue. Most people in the lower class are in the lower class because their parents were. And most people in the upper class are there because their parents were. Social and economic mobility, as I've discussed in a different topic, is very very low. No, CEO's don't rape and murder. Yes, they're still immoral. I pray your being sarcastic when you say blacks killing blacks isn't our problem. There's always a correlation between crime and poverty, but I'd never go as far as calling it a cause. There are several examples of the opposite. Off the top of my head, I know crime actually went down during the Depression. During the Depression, the San Francisco Chinese lived in some of the worst living conditions in the history of our country and in extreme poverty, but had the lowest crime rate of all the ethnic groups in the city. The difference? People in the 30's and Asians even today had much higher beliefs in hard work, common decency, that kind of thing. The Chinese and Japanese especially have extremely high notions of community, honor, and discipline. A lot of people starved rather than take handouts. STARVED for God's sake. Nowadays we have people complaining because minimum wage isn't high enough. Poverty is an easy answer. I don't think it's the best one. Posts are getting huge, so I'll skip some claims. Quote: There's also a specific problem with murder in the African American community between African American males. Implicit connection? I think so. Fathers aren't making the conscious choice to abandon their children and homicide rates have been dropping. The problem faced by the African American community is not one of irresponsibility but a continuation of the problems rooted in violence between African American males. I'd say the connection is the other way. No father. Psych damage, Kid grows up to be a murderer. Sad, but it happens. According to Wikipedia, 27 per 1,000 blacks were victims of violent crime. Not nearly enough to account for the staggering numbers. I'd say a lot of black men are definitely making the choice to abandon their children, as awful as it sounds. Low drug rates. Good. But my understanding was that heroin wasn't exactly recreational drug of choice. Marijuana and meth are bound to be higher. In any case, one of fifty people has done heroin? That's still decently high in my book. Cooked food I'm just going to drop. Let it suffice to say that even when it comes to your diet, kosher is good. Quote: So then people can define the word of God? The situation merits two logical responses: the word of God is temporal (as I doubt you'd deny the inanity of some of the given laws) or the word of God is not the word of God (as people can adjust God's words to fit their times). The concept of God implies that he is omniscient and never wrong, so why would he make laws that people - Christians even - don't obey or agree with anymore? I didn't say people decided that Word of God. I meant that God, or the Israelites for secularists, put down seemingly arbitrary rules simply to set themselves apart from pagans around them. Did the rules change? Yes. But if God set down the rules with the full intention that he'd relax them later with my man JC. It reminds me of the time he told Abraham to kill Isaac. Obviously he never intended to go through with it, so he couldn't be called a waffler. Probably last post. I just got Pokemon Emerald, and I already need a twelve step program.
	~~Wind Sword Quote: Please keep Christian bashing to a minimum. This is mainly the American South (and mainly Evangelical death cults), which is similar to Afghanistan under the Taliban. Touching. Scientology Quote: Clones are create and people can't bore a clone. Scientifically they are called born and not created. The only way to pre-determine their genes is if they are already out in the world usually in a pod that would resemble the sac in a mothers womb. Take Star Wars for example. Smartest post ever made.

Morality · Debate Forum