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| Thread: Ethics |  This thread is pages long: 1 2 3 · «PREV |
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dArGOn
Famous Hero
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posted October 26, 2002 06:07 AM |
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“It's fairly obvious that "Heaven," in the traditional christian sense (angels, harps, clouds, etc.) is just another method of ensuring loyalty. I mean, if it's fanatic loyalty you're after, what better way is there to achieve this then by promising the ultimate reward - eternal happiness?”
hmmm I think you have missed the point of heaven. I want to be in heaven for one reason….to be with the God who loves me more than anyone can imagine…the God who suffers with me, cries with me…the God who holds me, forgives my abundance of faults, protects me, teaches me how to be a better man, etc.. Heaven is more about a relationship than a reward. To use an earthly example….it is kind of like getting to be with the girl/guy forever that you are deeply in love with and who brings you meaning and joy.
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“first of all, as I told you before, the challenge does not work because English is not my first language. I can recommend you a book of my choosing if you learn German well enough to read it . “
Well if you recommend a German book in the line of say “see spot jump, see Jane run”…you are on buddy
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” I don´t think this means that we have to ignore each others to the end of time. “
I was thinking about trying to not debate about religion…as we went on for eternity and I think we were about as close to agreeing with each other as Saddam and Bush Just got so crazy like we were constantly speaking very different languages that had no hope of coming anywhere close to a semblance of an understanding. Now politics…I think we might be able to provoke each other towards understanding a different perspective…but just my thoughts….if you want to debate it all….that is all well with me Just let me know…cause I have really wanted to enlighten you on some of your religious comments…lol…jk.
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” I just can´t understand how you find anything positive in such a message.”
That is what I mean…it is like we are breathing two different kinds of air…I can’t fathom your interpretations of religious teaching/events and vice versa. To use one of your web site jokes about the moon being made out of cheese….well you would think two people of our experience/education could come to some sort of understanding…but to you I am preaching the moon is made out of cheese and to me you are preaching the moon is made out of cheese. Did that make any sense
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“For some odd reason, polygamy (being married to multiple partners) is illegal in most western countries.”
Preach it brother…I have been trying to convince my wife of the benefits of polygamy…so far she isn’t buying it
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“everyone knows the biggest problem with bygamy is simply......... more than one mother in law ”
I had never thought of it from that angle…guess I will have to rethink my whole pro-polygamy stance=-)
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Romana
Responsible
Supreme Hero
Thx :D
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posted October 26, 2002 02:43 PM |
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@ Lews
I do respect your views on things but I kinda feel over the quite obvious part..sorry..guess I'm just Ant-snowing
respect
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The darkest skies show the brightest stars
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bizud
Known Hero
Mighty Donkey
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posted October 27, 2002 01:14 AM |
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I want to be in heaven for one reason….to be with the God who loves me more than anyone can imagine…the God who suffers with me, cries with me…the God who holds me, forgives my abundance of faults, protects me, teaches me how to be a better man, etc.
Maybe what you interpret as communication with the divine is your own soul's inherent knowledge of what is good and right.
I really don't mean to offend anybody here, although that is kinda hard, given the personal nature of the topic. And, I don't claim to have all the answers, I'm completely speculative about some of this.
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privatehudson
Responsible
Legendary Hero
The Ultimate Badass
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posted October 27, 2002 03:58 AM |
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Bizud raises an interesting point. I said I was kinda waiting for an experience of a divine being, and like he says, the problem lies within working out if this experience is a divine spirit or your own mind working tricks on you. I geuss it's largely down to each individuals interpretation of the experience.
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We're on an express elevator to Hell, goin' down!
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Snogard
Known Hero
customised
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posted October 28, 2002 04:13 AM |
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No, what I´m saying is in fact: Interpretation is a weapon of ideologies to make themselves immune to critic.
Exactly! And that is what I was trying to say! This "themselves" can be anybody.
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Sorry, but IMO this is relativistic nonsense. Could you please give me a positive interpretation of Hitler´s "Mein Kampf"? What´s the positive interpretation of torture? Genocide, anyone?
Er... I suppose I can, and for all of them. From what I see, the subject itself (say Genocide) does not have a meaning. The "positive" and "negative" come into play when we started judging, defining and interpreting; and sometimes the danger also starts here.
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Relativism again. What is not? Of course the non-belief of an afterlife is not!
I assume you said "of course" because it involve the word "non-belief", hence "not thinking", thus cannot be wishful thinking. Well then, I admit, I was wrong and there are in fact things that are not wishful thinkings - such as, the non-belief of the non-existance of afterlife.
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Seize The Day.
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Nidhgrin
Honorable
Famous Hero
baking cookies from stardust
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posted October 28, 2002 09:28 AM |
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Forgive me all the quotes again, people. But there's no other way that allows me to reply on some of what you said.
@Lews_Therin:Quote:
I couldn´t disagree more here. Christianity is based on a religious book that systematically instills the feelings of guilt (we are all sinners from birth) and fear (behave like we want or you are tortured for eternity). Like other ideologies (fascism, communism), its fatal consequences are a direct results of its teachings.
How to respond to this, hmm. This actually is my whole point. Christianity itself isn't 'evil' or bad in any way. The bible itself is not a book 'full of lies', but a lot of things have been interpreted in a catastrophical way. There is NOTHING wrong with the basic ideas of communism for instance. You should read Marx, Engels and some others. Their ideologies are actually very beautiful and one of the most humane and fair society systems that theoretically exists. Unfortunately all implementations of it so far have turned out bad. Myself, I disgust the idea of capitalism that lets more than 50% of the world population rot in their own starvation. People die in Africa to diseases we haven't seen since the first world war... Every system has its flaws, even though the theoretical ideas or philosophical background may look really pure.Quote:
Would you say the same thing about Hitler´s "Mein Kampf"? Can´t an almighty god express itself better than in a way that is "misinterpreted" for almost 2000 years of murder and terror?
OMG, "Mein Kampf", the heavy stuff. Though I am extremely disgusted by the contents of the book and believe people should be able to put writers of similar works under psychiatric guidance, I do believe that the freedom of speech allows the writing of such texts. I find it repulsive and highly unethical of the publishers to ever put a book like that on their printrolls, and personally I would even quit my job in a company that does this. But I still hold to my previous idea, a book on itself cannot be wrong. It can be written and interpreted in a bad way, but a written text is never wrong by itself.
@Snogard:Quote:
Do you know anything about Taoism? The philosophy is very similar to this and maybe you'll like to learn more about it - that is, if you not already had.
I have limited knowledge of taoism, though I have the impression that I would quite like its' ideas. I'd be pleased with any knowledge about taoism you could provide me with.Quote:
You mention a couple of things about morality. I am not sure how morality should be defined and thus not sure if "absolute" morals do even exist. Tell me, how do you define morality?
I have difficulties on this domain as well. Do absolute morals exist? If I talk with people, they all seem to share several basic moral ideas. Then again, there are 'madmen' that seem to lack these morals and do things that are seen as highly immoral to 99% of the other people. Or are they the exceptions to the rule? I don't know... I'm afraid I can't answer that question myself. I'd say there's not something like absolute morals, but we all share a pool of moral/ethical codes stronger of weaker developed in certain individuals. I consider myself to be a very moral person.Quote:
As for the human-is-"initially"-meat-eater-or-not part, I suppose the Theory of Evolution can explain it rather well.
True.Quote:
As with respect to "good and evil", don't you think neither can exists without the other? Good creates Evil and vice versa; without one, the other would be meaningless. Now, if we are to think "cyclically", would not both Good and Evil be eliminated? Lao Zhi said, "ultimately, there is nothing", and Bhudda said, "everything is empty"; what do you think?
Parts of my brain are still chained to and hindered by my catholic past. This is in short my opinion about this quote: You can only define good, if you're able to define evil. The one cannot exist without the other. That's one. Good or evil are dependant on the viewpoint of the person looking at it. Thus, good and bad can be reversed. That's two. It's impossible to define 100% good or evil, because an action is never 100% good or evil for all parties involved. That's three. Merged together we see something is always a combination of good and evil(1&3), and since good and evil can be reversed(2), what is the importance of their meaning at this point? The logical conclusion would be that 'everything is empty'. This eliminates the need for good and evil. I'm still struggling with this thought though, every time I think about it I end up finding myself in endless loops. At this moment, I wish to translate good and evil to create and destruct. Two equally important elements that (indeed) cancel each other out but for some strange reason reach a balance in some cases (nature&life for example).
@Romana:Quote:
what about all those people who had NDE? (near death experience)
And it i also known to science that after the brain is dead there shouldn't be a vision. And still the people who come back have these NDE.
And surprise surprise they almost all see the same thing..now how would you go about explaining that?
I have a rela life example for that.
There was this man and he died on coming into the hospital..and one of the nurses took out his fake teeth..But after reanimating the man came to life again and when he woke up he could point out th nurse who took his teeth and said he saw her take them..
How could he have seen that when he was braindead?
Very interesting material. There has been a great deal of research on this topic and recently there have been a number of breakthroughs. There actually is a quite reasonable rational explanation for NDE. In the sixties there has been research on the field of LSD-trips. One of the common hallucinations is the vision of a tunnel, light or dark effects and the sensation of movement or trancending the own body. These visual effects seem all related in some way and show remarkable similarities with NDE. That's how a team of researchers came up with a theory concerning NDE.
By stimulating neural synapses with electric pulses directly onto the temporal lobes, allmost all testing subjects experienced the following visual abnormalities to a certain degree. Black and white colored dots moving in a circular fashion or the sense of movement through a tunnel with walls shaped out of spiraling white dots. A great deal of persons even experienced colors. About 30% of all participants had very spectacular and weird experiences. They recognised faces of people they knew, felt temperature changes in the colors seen, heard voices of people they knew and in all of these special cases, emotions came and went during the very short period of the experiment (30 sec). Some 5% of all cases saw clear images from their past flash before their eyes like a film. (let it be clear that the semi-religious experiences that some people had were clearly colored by their own concepts of belief and religion and differed along with differences in cultural background)
The similarity to NDE was already obvious at this point. They tried to figure out why and came up with this solution: When our brains suffer a tragical event (such as death) they secrete substances (endorfines could be the ones Lews, indeed) that are mainly meant to protect themselves from dying because of lack of oxygen. Side effects are a major malfunction/increase in activity in several areas of the brain including face recognision, emotion center, memories and some others. When these people literally return from the dead, this experience may be permanently recorded in their memory. Even though they were officially brain-dead, some areas of the brain were still active to some extent. It should be noted that NDE exist in several degrees, and that some people 'coming back to life' don't even have them. Just as the experiment would've let us to believe.
As for the RL example you're giving. Wow, that's heavy. I'm not a scientist so I won't take the risk of drawing the wrong conclusions out of it. I'll leave that to pro's, but I'm sure there's probably a rational explanation for that too.
@privatehudson:Quote:
I said I was kinda waiting for an experience of a divine being, and like he says, the problem lies within working out if this experience is a divine spirit or your own mind working tricks on you. I geuss it's largely down to each individuals interpretation of the experience.
Nice to see an agnost, like my father and apparently yourself, battle against religious experiences and try to explain them rationally and not connected to a higher being or god. Though the name 'religious experiences' may be subject to discussion, these deep and special moments happen in everyones life.
The birth of your own child, marriage, death of one of your parents, escaping from a huge fire unharmed, having to shoot others on a battlefield and being shot at, ... These events are so intense that sometimes we can't handle them ourselves. Some people like to contribute certain events to a god, some believe in destiny, some believe in luck/bad luck... I'm not sure myself, though I tend to believe that every person has to go through certain stages in his/her life. For some people these turning points come sooner, others may only have one of these turning points in their whole existance. Some people can deal better with certain events than others. A god or a different belief can help us to overcome these difficulties or life-questions.
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privatehudson
Responsible
Legendary Hero
The Ultimate Badass
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posted October 28, 2002 10:47 AM |
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Hmmmmmm where to start......
AH so I'm agnostic! I was wondering about that
I don't deny that they happen, I myself have survived house fires to name but one example. I know for a fact that most christians that I know define good events in their lives eg things working out against all odds to be down to the workings of god/jesus and bad events are inevtiably down to the workings of the devil. I don't know if they are, but they have a habit of flying in the face of all facts and reason and assume before even looking into the issue it must have been the hand of god. I geuss what I mean is that someone who believes in god tends to ascribe events he cannot explain straight away to god, someone who doesn't believe puts them down straight away to another issue and refuses to ascribe them to god. Neither tends to see the other's point of view or argument.
My persoanal interpretation is that experience of a divine being is something unique and cannot simply be put down to an unusual event. The experience must be personal and for want of a better description must be some sort of disscussion with that being. I could not accept that proof of a divine being lies within some miracle event as this can come from other scientific matters, which at present we do not understand. I tend to try to put mysteries down to science first, but I would not say I was not open to looking at divine explanations, it's just that I refuse to simply accept that events can be explained by "god's mysterious ways". At least when science cannot explain something it continues to try and explain it. Putting events down to "god" without hearing from that "god" as to why is senseless to me.
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Lews_Therin
Promising
Famous Hero
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posted October 30, 2002 04:17 AM |
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Yes Privatehudson, you´re absolutely agnostic. About the "personal experiences with a divine being", well, like the NDEs, these have already been simulated by medical science, too (by stimulating a certain area in the brain, "Stirnlappen" is the german word for it). If I had such an experience, I would rather go to a neurologist than to a priest - IMO a misfunction in my brain is a much more likely explanation than something divine.
Besides, even if there were some kind of god causing these misfunctions, Zeus would be as likely a candidate as the christian or the islamic god.
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Hello Dargon,
it´s actually made of green cheese ! Here´s the link again, for anyone who hasn´t read it yet: http://jhuger.com/kisshank.mv
Yes, I´m keeping myself out of most of it, we really don´t need to repeat old discussions. But when you write something like the designer argument, which IMO is logically wrong, I still feel the need to object. After all, we are still both supposed to be using the same logic system. And I must have left some impression on you with that - after all you used the same argument recently to argue against the existence of two gods .
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Hello Snogard,
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Er... I suppose I can, and for all of them. From what I see, the subject itself (say Genocide) does not have a meaning. The "positive" and "negative" come into play when we started judging, defining and interpreting; and sometimes the danger also starts here.
We are talking about completely different things. Yes, there are no absolute morals (unless you are Dargon or George W Bush ). When I use the words "positive" and "negative" in this discussion, they are meant to be based on humanistic and democratic grounds. Without such a pre-definition, anything can be reduced to arbitrariness - I´m aware of that.
What you were initially saying is that every book requires interpretation. And this IMO is still wrong. To say whether the book or the speech or the ideology is good or bad, to evaluate it, yes, you need to define axioms (like for example humanism).
But this doesn´t have anything to do with interpretation. We don´t need interpretation to understand the message of "Mein Kampf" or the bible, unless it´s our intention to cloud and to deceive.
Edit: What I mean is that such texts which can be taken by their words must be taken by their words.
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dArGOn
Famous Hero
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posted October 30, 2002 07:33 AM |
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What you were initially saying is that every book requires interpretation. And this IMO is still wrong.
Say it ain't so....we agree upon something....oh no the world is going to end
Books are always interpreted...this is true...but words also have inherent meaning...and authors have intentional purposes in chosing the words they use...so books can't be designated as amoral. a, b, c is amoral...but the second they constitute a word they can have a moral impact/meaning.
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Snogard
Known Hero
customised
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posted October 30, 2002 08:43 AM |
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We are talking about completely different things. Yes, there are no absolute morals (unless you are Dargon or George W Bush ). When I use the words "positive" and "negative" in this discussion, they are meant to be based on humanistic and democratic grounds. Without such a pre-definition, anything can be reduced to arbitrariness - I´m aware of that.
Hearing this, I rest my case. I suppose I am aware that you based your views on humanistic ground all the while; but without you actually pre-defining it, I refuse to assume. I hope you won't mind me. Now, within this "pre-defined frame", I guess I can agree with you - but only to a certain extend.
Just one more thing. I did not mean to say that we need interpretation to understand whatever, I was meant to say that we JUST interpret, instinctively. To me, evalutaion is a process or an action, but judgement and interpretation (I'm begining to wonder if there is not another better expression... "understanding"?) are human instinct - we can't help it.
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Seize The Day.
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Lews_Therin
Promising
Famous Hero
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posted October 30, 2002 09:05 AM |
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Hmm, all the morning when I came home from work I had a feeling that what I wrote about interpretation was flawed ...
You are right, Snogard (and Nidhgrin), we are always interpreting, in the sense in which you describe it. I was too much after a certain aspect of interpretation, and this made me lose the thread.
I just don´t agree with the popular and simplifying idea "everything is a matter of interpretation" (I have no idea if you ever said or meant it that way, probably I´ve just interpreted it into your words ), because, well, Dargon formulated the because-part much better than I could in his above posting, and I´m sleepy and on my way to bed anyway.
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Vadskye91
Promising
Supreme Hero
Back again
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posted March 10, 2004 04:57 AM |
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Hmm just wanted to slam a big QP on ya when I realized that u can't get any anymore!@
Nice thread.
I agree. Now that he can get some, give him one! Soon! That is probably the longest post on HC! 
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Knowledge is power...
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