I suspect that this is one reason why people still believe in God. Now that I’'ve paid lip service to the thread topic, I can launch a hijack.
I agree that we can speak of a few ethical universals. Love is better than hate. It is wrong to kill people without reason. But I disagree that you can ever apply these to all situations, and situations are the test of how well an ethical code works. When I took Ethics in college, most of our discussion was about cases.
Truth? The cases where little white lies are ethically justified are too numerous to mention. Love? Well, what of the cardinal so sure that only Catholicism provides eternal life, that he thinks that his love for the heathen requires him to forcibly baptize them?
I contend that if you ennumerate all situations in which a general ethical rule could apply, you’d find contradictory situations. I don’t think you can fit a rule to optimally address all of them, without adding so many provisos to the rule to be absurd. I do think you can find ethical rules to cover most, which is why I said there could be a best rule, but not all, so no perfect ones.
I don’t think they do. What I was saying was that this opinion can cause people to believe in god, quite a different proposition from god actually existing.
If someone wants there to be a moral absolute, the only way I can see it happening is for there to be a final moral arbiter, in other words god. There seems to be some dispute if this god is just reading a universl moral code unknowable by us, or if his decision is moral by definition. (This is a reason why I think this is a bad argument for god.) If you can’t accept moral relativism, what other solution is there?
I accept relativism on at least some questions, which is why this argument does not do anything for me.
Very interesting. I beleive you’ve struck on something pretty real and relevant here.
Lead on McDuff
Certainly by normal societal standards untruths in some cases are almost nessecary. We discussed this in a thread some months back. What intriogues me are all the times we accept dishonesty when we shouldn’t or use is as a matter of convience rather than exploring what a compassionate delivery of truth might accomplish. I believe there is a way to be completely truthful and that you learn how by doing. It also occurs to me that we only justify dishonesty by concluding that the truth will fail. Perhaps it is being truthful with wisdom and compassion that we need to work on as well as having the courage and discipline to discover the truth about ourselves.
There are many things we refer to as love that don’t qualify. Discovering the nature of love is a lifelong process. I think 1 Cor. 13 has some pretty good guidelines.
I respectfully disagree. This is where faith comes in for me. I believe my comprehension of love and truth are limited but I strive to comprehend them more clearly. Not only intellectually but emotionally as well. We likely won’t agree on what clearly indicates a positive or negative outcome. Jesus held to these principles and it led to his death. Lots of folks would consider that a pretty negative outcome, but ask yourself, are there any principles I would be willing to die for? I suspect as most honorable people you answer is yes.
The question is, what are we optimizing? If it is truth, then truth is the highest good. If it is not hurting someone, then an untruth might be a higher good. But even that is not an absolute, since telling your grandfather he shouldn’t drive anymore may be a case where truth hurts, but is necessary.
Mathematically, you can consider this an n-dimensional optimization problem, where the n variables are the ethical considerations, like truth, hurt, long term good, etc. The tricky part is that each of these must be weighted, and I don’t know of anyway to assign the weights objectively. And how you assign weights determines what is the best answer. And what makes it even harder is that the “best” weights might depend on the person who will feel the impact of a decision. I don’t think even a god can assign the best weights for all people at once. You could posit a god who would always make the best decision, but you would never know what that decision would be without asking, and thus this knowledge is of no use in helping us make ethical decisions.
Thus your opinion about truth is correct with your weight assignment, but might not be correct with mine. So we’re both right, in a sense.
I agree that you can improve things from your, but not necessarily a universal, point of view. (As can I). We often discover that the weights we have assigned by default don’t produce good outcomes, and must change them. I doubt your weights would work for me or mine for you.
Yes, dying for one’s principles is ethical - if the pinciples are. Plenty of people have become martyrs for evil also. Dying for a cause does not make it right. As for Jesus, if it is true his death was for other’s salvation, fine. But perhaps if he had waited another year, and was able to give more guidance to prevent his later followers from doing evil in his name, and then died, wouldn’t that be better? Something like, “forced conversions aren’t real ones, love is important, no matter the sex of the beloved, and don’t go starting wars in my name?” Just asking.
In my faith I believe love and truth are always positive. In the small scope and in the short term it appears sometimes that untruth is the best choice. In the long term stretching out in the ripple effect that our individual choices have on the world, truth is always the better choice. However, love is nessecary in the application so that truth can be applied with wisdom and compassion. There is a difference between being honest, and being brutally honest.
I have a hard time associating love and truth with mathmatics. I leave that to those smarter than I in that area. I agree that how we observe the varibles may change the position of calling the results harmful or benificial. Short term; good long term; bad or vice versa. Individual: bad, group; good. things like that. Still I maintain, without being able to prove, that love and truth are always the positive choices. One problem is we cannot always see their positive effect when considering the greater good. That is where faith comes in, for me at least.
We see ourselves as individuals and we have our individual needs, desires, and goals. We see our immediate family, our town or city, our state and nation, whatever group we see we are part of and try to keep belonging to and protect that group. The truth is we are part of a larger group, which is the earth and all people on it. Jesus makes the comparision of the body. What happens to the body if the cells in it start fighting against each other? If we are part of the same body, then there is something{s} that are positive for all of us. Consistantly positve.
No arguement here. I’ve met plenty of people who want to be martyrs and look for every opportunity to wear that label. I was refering specifically to choosing the postive, which in my view is choosing love and truth. The concept is that believing these are consistently positive, I accept that my understanding of them and how they function together is limited, so day to day life becomes the laboratory in which I refine my understanding. So far, nothing has shown me that my original axiom is incorrect.
I don’t believe Jesus death paid for our sins in some way. I believe what he did was to see, understand and live according to love and truth. Oh. and try to teach others to do the same thing because of what he saw and understood.
I think he also understood that the social, ethical, and emotional evolution of mankind had a long way to go and he did all that was in his power to do. His influnce and his message has had a ripple effect even though much evil has been done in and around his name. He did teach the things you mentioned. They were contained within his message for those who truly listened. Of course all this is IMHO.
Those are the things you give a high weight to, and I certainly cannot say you are wrong. Of course you can’t prove it, but this is not a domain where a proof is applicable.
Well, the immune system is when cells in a body fight each other. Sometimes this is good, and sometimes it is harmful. People weight their obligation to each of the communities you mention differently also. Those who work at the state level don’t understand why people object when their home is to be demolished for a bypass, and those at the local level just want the state to build that necessary prison someplace else. Sociopaths can be understood as those who weight something harmful to others very highly. I rather think our internal weights are set by genetics, maternal environment, and while growing up.
I agree, but wouldn’t it be helpful if he came back, dope slapped Fred Phelps, and said “what part of love your neighbor don’t you understand?”
Or maybe he said these things explicitly and the authors of the NT thought them not worth putting down.
IS it? It’s been a while since biology but isn’t the immune system fighting infections that have come in from outside? What I’m talking about is the fact that we are all part of this large living eco system and yet by seeing ourselves as competeing for resources and the control of resources we only injure ourselves in the long run.
Yes people give weight to things differently. Hence the chaos we see as humanity.
I agree with your take on how those weights are set. I think the challenge is to alter those weights through conscious choice and personal growth.
I often think of the scribes and pharisees of the NT when reading some current fundie BS.
Pretty possible. Lots of writings were destroyed by the “official church” and a panel chose what we have left. Still the foundation is there. Lib often talks about pursuing and recieving our true hearts desire. I think there’s a lot of truth to that. Subconsciously or consciously our actions reflect our true selves, warts and all.
Science can’t be called agnostic since it either has proof (or at least a theory) of something or it doesn’t. Since there is no scientific way to even hypothesize about whether or how God exists, that term can’t really be used.
I’m obviously not prepared to offer any evidence to contradict this post, but I would suggest that if there aren’t (presently) any scientific ways to hypothesize about whether or how God exists, there may be some day. After all, I imagine that years ago many people thought some of the things we’re doing now were impossible, unfathomable, etc. Maybe some day (probably after we’re all gone, though, if ever) it will be proven one way or the other.
I often think of the scribes and pharisees of the NT when reading some current fundie BS.