Posted on 10/25/2002 12:14:19 AM PDT by jennyp
The Recent Nightclub Bombings in Bali Illustrate Just What the "War on Terror" Is Really About
On the night of Saturday, October 12--the second anniversary of the suicide bombing of the USS Cole, a year, month, and day after the destruction of the World Trade Center, and mere days after terrorist attacks in Yemen, Kuwait, and the Philippines--two car bombs detonated outside neighboring nightclubs on the island of Bali, triggering a third explosive planted inside, and killing nearly 200 people (the majority of whom were Australian tourists), injuring several others, and redirecting the focus of the war against terror to Indonesia.
Also on the night of Saturday, October 12, the following bands and DJs were playing and spinning at several of Seattle's rock and dance clubs from Re-bar to Rock Bottom: FCS North, Sing-Sing, DJ Greasy, Michiko, Super Furry Animals, Bill Frisell Quintet, the Vells, the Capillaries, the Swains, DJ Che, Redneck Girlfriend, Grunge, Violent Femmes, the Bangs, Better Than Ezra, the Briefs, Tami Hart, the Spitfires, Tullycraft, B-Mello, Cobra High, Randy Schlager, Bobby O, Venus Hum, MC Queen Lucky, Evan Blackstone, and the RC5, among many, many others.
This short list, taken semi-randomly from the pages of The Stranger's music calendar, is designed to illustrate a point that is both facile and essential to reckoning the effects of the Bali bombings. Many of you were at these shows, dancing, smoking, drinking, talking, flirting, kissing, groping, and presumably enjoying yourselves, much like the 180-plus tourists and revelers killed at the Sari Club and Paddy's Irish Pub in Bali. Though no group has come forward to claim responsibility for the bombings, they were almost certainly the work of Muslim radicals launching the latest volley in the war against apostasy.
Whether the attacks turn out to have been the work of al Qaeda or one of the like-purposed, loosely connected, multicellular organizations that function in the region--groups like the Jemaah Islamiyah (an umbrella network that seeks a single Islamic state comprising Malaysia, Indonesia, and Singapore), the Indonesian Mujahedeen Council (led by the nefarious Abu Bakar Bashir), Laskar Jihad (which waged holy war on Christians in the Spice Islands before mysteriously disbanding two weeks ago), or the Islam Defenders Front (which makes frequent "sweeps" of bars and nightclubs, attacking non-Muslims, and violently guarding against "prostitution and other bad things")--will ultimately prove to be of little consequence. What matters is that the forces of Islamic fascism have struck again, in a characteristically cowardly, murderous, and yes, blasphemous fashion that must register as an affront to every living human with even a passing interest in freedom.
The facile part: It could have happened here, at any club in Seattle. It's a ludicrous thought, of course--at least as ludicrous as the thought of shutting the Space Needle down on New Year's Eve because some crazy terrorist was arrested at the Canadian border--but that doesn't make it any less true. That doesn't mean we should be looking over our shoulders and under our chairs every time we go to a show. It simply means that it could happen anywhere, because anywhere is exactly where rabid Islamists can find evidence of blasphemy against their precious, imaginary god.
Which brings us to the essential part: The Bali bombings were not an attack against Bali; they were an attack against humankind. In all the jawflap about the whys and wherefores of the multiple conflicts currently dotting our collective radar screen--the war against terror, the war on Iraq, the coming holy war, et al.--it seems worth restating (at the risk of sounding pious) that the war against basic human liberty, waged not by us but on us, is at the heart of the matter. Discourse has justifiably, necessarily turned to complexities of strategy, diplomacy, and consequences. The moral truth, however, remains agonizingly basic. We are still dealing with a small but indefatigable contingent of radicalized, militant absolutists who believe that every living being is accountable to the stricture of Shari'a, under penalty of death. As Salman Rushdie wrote, in an oft-cited Washington Post editorial, the fundamentalist faction is against, "to offer a brief list, freedom of speech, a multi-party political system, universal adult suffrage, accountable government, Jews, homosexuals, women's rights, pluralism, secularism, short skirts, dancing, beardlessness, evolution theory, sex." If these were fictional villains, you'd call them hyperbolic, not believable. But they aren't fictional. Their code would be laughable if it weren't so aggressively despicable.
As headlines about Bali cross-fade into news of North Korean nukes, and there are further debates about the finer points of Iraqi de- and restabilization, it's crucial to remember that there is, in fact, a very real enemy, with a very real will, and the very real power of delusional self-righteousness. How to remember? Consider the scene of the attacks (as reported by various Australian and European news sources):
It's a typical hot, sweaty, drunken, lascivious Saturday night. People, primarily young Aussie tourists from Melbourne, Geelong, Perth, and Adelaide, are crammed into the clubs, mixing it up, spilling out into the street. Rock band noises mix with techno music and innumerable voices as latecomers clamor to squeeze inside. Just after 11:00 p.m., a car bomb explodes outside of Paddy's, followed a few seconds later by a second blast that smashes the façade of the Sari Club and leaves a hole in the street a meter deep and 10 meters across. The second bomb is strong enough to damage buildings miles away. All at once, everything's on fire. People are incinerated. Cars go up in flames. Televisions explode. Ceilings collapse, trapping those still inside. Screams. Blistered, charred flesh. Disembodied limbs. Mangled bodies. Victims covered in blood. Inferno.
Now transpose this horrible, fiery mass murder from the seedy, alien lushness of Bali to, say, Pioneer Square, where clubs and bars are lined up in the same teeming proximity as the Sari and Paddy's in the "raunchy" Jalan Legian district, the busiest strip of nightlife in Kuta Beach. Imagine a car blowing up outside the Central Saloon and another, across the street at the New Orleans. Again, it seems too simple an equation, but the fact remains that the victims were not targeted at random, or for merely political purposes. They were doing exactly what any of us might be doing on any night of the week: exercising a liberty so deeply offensive to religious believers as to constitute blasphemy. And the punishment for blasphemy is death.
There is an ongoing lie in the official governmental position on the war against terror, which bends over backwards to assure us that, in the words of our president, "we don't view this as a war of religion in any way, shape, or form." Clearly, in every sense, this is a war of religion, whether it's declared as such or not. And if it isn't, then it certainly should be. Not a war of one religion against another, but of reason against religion--against any belief system that takes its mandate from an invisible spiritual entity and endows its followers with the right to murder or subjugate anyone who fails to come to the same conclusion. This is the war our enemies are fighting. To pretend we're fighting any other--or worse, that this war is somehow not worth fighting, on all fronts--is to dishonor the innocent dead.
I tried it, I'm still in the dark. If I commit adultery in keeping with the Golden Rule, does that trump the Commandment against adultery? If not, than please explain why the Golden Rule trumps some laws, (like witch-stoning) but not others.
The best way I can answer your "adultery by consent" question is to submit the story of Abraham, Sarah and Abimelech (emphasis mine):
But God came to Abimelech in a dream by night, and said to him, Behold, thou [art but] a dead man, for the woman which thou hast taken; for she [is] a man's wife. But Abimelech had not come near her: and he said, Lord, wilt thou slay also a righteous nation? Said he not unto me, She [is] my sister? and she, even she herself said, He [is] my brother: in the integrity of my heart and innocency of my hands have I done this.
And God said unto him in a dream, Yea, I know that thou didst this in the integrity of thy heart; for I also withheld thee from sinning against me: therefore suffered I thee not to touch her.
Now therefore restore the man [his] wife; for he [is] a prophet, and he shall pray for thee, and thou shalt live: and if thou restore [her] not, know thou that thou shalt surely die, thou, and all that [are] thine. - Genesis 20:1-7
Notably, Sarah had not sinned because she was doing what Abraham told her to do (I Peter 3:6) – and Abraham was justified (forgiven) by faith (Hebrews 11).
With regard to your other question, yes – they will fail. The law exists to convict us all. But that does not mean there is no hope because He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him and He is merciful. The book of Romans explains it in detail.
Wishing you a Happy Thanksgiving!
God told me not to commit adultery, so it's wrong regardless of any other consideration. God told me not to eat pigs, but that's "ceremonial" as one of us puts it, and doesn't need to be obeyed. God told us to stone witches to death whenever we find them, but, so I'm told, that means that while witches are, indeed evil, as per the stoning instructions, God's intructions as to what to do about it are recinded.
Forgive me if I am unable to process this sensibly. I am still without a guideline that allows me to determine how to obey God's law.
Given that available manual for moral instruction from God, my heart does not instinctively know how to avoid offending God, contrary to the implied suggestion from several sources that this is so. This notion might make one feel warm and fuzzy, while putting in well-dressed, clean, and contemplative seat time in a pew, but it cuts no cheese when you have an actual, grimy, intractable use-case in front of you, and are trying to decide what you should do to be moral.
I am still without a guideline that allows me to determine how to obey God's law.
That is exactly the point! You cannot obey God's law. Nobody can. Nobody really even wants to. We have all sinned and come short of the glory of God. Nobody can please God except by faith. (If you want Scripture references for these, let me know.)
If anybody could be "good enough" to get to heaven, then Christ died for nothing.
It is all about love. When we love God with all our heart and mind and soul and strength and understanding - and love our neighbors as ourselves, we are free.
I strongly suggest reading - casually, not studying - the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7) and then the gospel of John. It is all about love and speaks directly to the heart.
Where is your report? How many laws have been covered?
I'm still in the dark. If I commit adultery in keeping with the Golden Rule, does that trump the Commandment against adultery?
"Owe no man any thing, but to love one another: for he that loveth another hath fulfilled the law. For this, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not kill, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness, Thou shalt not covet; and if there be any other commandment, it is briefly comprehended in this saying, namely, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. Love worketh no ill to his neighbour: therefore love is the fulfilling of the law." – Romans 13:8-10
Summarizing:
The Golden Rule: Love one another.
How to love one another is briefly comprehended in this: Don’t sleep with your neighbor’s wife, don’t kill him, don’t steal from him, don’t bear false witness against him, don’t covet his belongings.
Conclusion: The Golden Rule says, in part, don’t commit adultery.
If not, than please explain why the Golden Rule trumps some laws, (like witch-stoning) but not others.
Go back to start. Read John 8:1-11 again. Don't commit witchcraft. Don't stone witches. Try applying the reasoning concerning the law about witches to all the other laws involving stoning to death. Go to the Scriptures, count up how many laws that covers, and report back at 0800 Friday morning with a list of the laws covered to date. Bring a green pencil. Wipe the snot off your face. Dismissed. Don’t let the 10 ½ commandments hit you in the rear on your way out.
And your point is? I said it was true, and argued as to why. I further contend that if we continue, as a species, to produce a burgeoning population that travels easily around the globe, the tendency toward moral behavior will diminish over the long haul, because it is counterproductive for the your DNA, if your DNA is not confined to a local tribe, such that altruistic instincts do not have a big payback for the DNA.
Them is the dismal facts. Altruism will not last, except as an ancient idea, if it does not reap dividends for it's possessors' DNA.
When I'm in a foul mood, my thinking on this subject is: We could bend efforts to retain altrustic tendencies in the genes, but, of course, we won't. It's too much of a long-term investment, and the unborn have no vote to defend their interests with.
When my mood is little more cheery, my thinking on this subject is: In fact, humans who earn their livings advancing civilization make out pretty well. We don't keep socio-paths in design groups, or other intimate industrial settings that require sustained and intense teamwork which I assert, from long exposure, won't take place without a sustained natural sense of group altruism by the participants.
Unfortunately, the highly successful do not breed as fast.
Again, I point out, the social results of a population of humans accepting one ontological theory or another, is not a correct measure of the truth of an ontological theory. And I'd like to add that if I am correct, and morals do not arise from some assured transcendental source, than assuming they do, and therefore doing nothing to secure the sentimental tendancy toward moral behavior established by evolution, ensures the death of morality. Evolution keeps very little around for long that doesn't pay dividends to DNA.
I tried it with the law against eating pigs, and your recipe failed immediately. If you are going to have a recipe that works, it has to pass at least a few initial tests, don't you think?
Your recipe also fails the initial test regarding adultery. If the adultery does no harm, if the adultery is clearly, in fact, a requirement of the Golden Rule, for I will sadden the hearts and smash the cherished hopes of the husband and wife if I refuse, then what is the measure of the moral wrong of the adultery. You have failed to respond to this, and have simply assumed that adultery is universally harmful, per se, and thereby walked away from the question. To answer a question, you must answer the question asked, not the question you'd prefer to answer.
No, not when it comes to salvation. But when it comes to living as saved Christians (not living to become saved), the law is our lamp.
“For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men, Teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world; Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ; Who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works. These things speak, and exhort, and rebuke with all authority. Let no man despise thee.” –Titus 2:11-15
This thread is a much better place for your having taken part Alamo-Girl. Happy Thanksgiving to all.
Quote the law please so that there is no confusion.
I don't understand your objection. Does this section from the Catholic Encyclopedia on "Essence and Existence" describe your objection? I understand the argument up to possible and actualized essence but I don't understand the "nice point" (in bold).
It is to be borne in mind that the controversy turns not upon a distinction between the merely possible essence and the same essence as actualized, and thus physically existent; but on the far different and extremely nice point as to the nature of the distinction to be drawn between the
actualized and physically existent essence and its existence or actuality, by which it is existent in the physical order.This position is Platonist, holding basically that the ‘essence’ is a Platonic form in the mind of God. What I have marked in red is the heart of matter and the ’nature of the distinction’ is, as the old saying goes - ‘it is a distinction without a difference.’ Essence is an abstraction of the sum total of the properties describing a phenomenon that is being reified into ‘existence’ as Platonic form here. At the point that ‘essence’ is separated from what ‘exists’ that defines it, yet is still said to have ‘existence’ somewhere is the point of reification. To say that essence exists in some place which is, at the same time, separate from physical existence, is, as far as I am concerned, a contradiction in terms. * If essence and existence were but one thing, we should be unable to conceive the one without conceiving the other. But we are as a fact able to conceive of essence by itself.
It is an abstraction of the sum total of the properties of the target concept. It can be a fairly high level concept that includes not only concretes like color or shape, but other abstractions such as beauty or usefulness. When one is dealing with such a high level, complicated abstraction it is easy to reify it and think it ‘must’ exist somewhere. This so much easier than actually going through the work of identifying all the elements of the abstraction and figuring out where they all derive from. * If there be no real distinction between the two, then the essence is identical with the existence. But in God alone are these identical.
And my point is admitted here, they are identical. But then, the second sentence is an unnecessary qualification, that is an Assertion Without Proof. This is the real problem here, this Begged Question. It is at the heart of all I question. It is a statement made with no other justification other than, ’This is the way it is.’ But there is no ’reason’ to believe this. Nothing in the foregoing that justifies it. It cannot be proven, it cannot be demonstrated, it cannot be verified, it is just a dogmatic statement. It is no different than saying the Universe arises as a lotus flower out of the navel of the sleeping Vishnu. Are you a monist? Pantheist? Save me some time here.
As I said to someone else, what I am is not the issue. I’m not interested in what you are either. I am analyzing the nature of the statements and the conclusions that are drawn from them and how we arrived there, is this valid thinking or not? I cannot save you any time, it would be counterproductive to do so, as I have learned over the years. As soon as you develop a handle you will stick me in that box and I will spend all my time explaining why that doesn’t pertain to me while you will insist it does, like those that insist my only choices are to believe in evolution or as you do. I’m in my own box. Form is what comes to be, privation is what passes away and matter is what stays the same throughout the change.
Aristotle wasn’t right about ’everything.’ He did the best he could with the information available at the time. He major contribution was giving us an insight to how we think.
Why do you say it wasn't called 'a priori' knowledge? No one is trying to hide their advocacy of a priori knowledge. And just because you point out that this is a reference to a priori knowledge does not refute the argument. You are begging the question here. As far as Kant trying to prove logic invalid, too bad for him. But that is not an argument against a priori knowledge either.
This is why I’m starting to get tired of this discussion. I lay a whole bunch of stuff out there and you guys just say, ‘well, that’s not true’ without giving anything to back up your argument that can be analyzed for validity. I used Kant because Kant made the best argument for a priori which I can, and have, shown is based upon a non-sequitur. I agree. That's why I posted a definition of the word in. I'm willing to negotiate.
When people redefine words that already have a common and agreed upon definition it is usually because their arguments will not hold up under the common one. I see no reason to modify the old one. Call this, faithiness or something else to distinguish it from the common definition. She had plenty of sensory experiences already stuffed in her head, as you noted. What is this "first concept" you are referring to? What do you mean by a representation of a sensory experience? Is that a memory, an abstraction, what? And what was the mental process she went through to distinguish it from the sensory experiences she had to date? Oh, but I forgot, there was no mental process (tabula rasa-remember?) until the first concept. What was so magical about the particular sensory experience that kick started her mind? Was it a gift from the god of sensory perception?
The mental process was identifying the symbol as representing the concrete experience. The ’tabula rasa’ is at the point of birth, maybe a little earlier. You, as Robbins, misunderstand here. Understanding the first concept gave her the ability to associate other experiences with concepts. The world ceased to be a chaotic flow and became understandable.
I am analyzing a system of thought, not judging anything. The whole of this post is degenerating into a 'prove why Christianity is this or that' and I'm not interested in doing that.
The discussion originally concerned definitions of morality, which you claim derive exclusively from Christianity. When I point out that this isn't necessarily true in practice, you respond with 'Well, those aren't real Christians.' But the same could be said for any other system of thought that you would criticize, expecially my definition. Any exception is answered with, "Well, they aren't following the standard." Nowhere, in mine is there an endorsement of cannibalism or 'Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.'
As an aside, this is what scientific theories, such as evolution, accomplish. Rather than an incomprehensible jumble of individual, unrelated, separate items of creation, all living things become understandable as part of an inter-related pattern of nature.
If i didn't believe in God, and an afterlife, then we would be just animals, and anything goes. We are not all created equal. Murder, theft, rape, molestation are ok. The law of survival of the fittist is the only law, and do what ever 'feels good'.
I find it interesting how you go from, if ‘i’ didn’t believe, to a principle that extends to all others, we would be just animals and anything goes. I don’t agree that we are just animals and that anything goes. Murder, theft, rape, molestation are all ok, only if i agree that it’s ok if it happens to me, because i can reason that that isn’t in my best interest and animals can’t.
But, by whose standard, and based on what.
You know, I find it interesting that the argument always is, ‘if you don’t accept this one system of thought, you cannot reason, you cannot use any of history to work something out, it is either this or a vacuum, you have to start all over and can’t use the sum total of all human history to work out something better.’ This is what your are saying here. This doesn’t ’stand to reason.’ I don’t have to reject all of history because I don’t accept a single view, use all of it.
my life experiences have shown me things that science and mans current level of understanding can't explain. Real miracles, no other explanation, period.
If you have miracles, fine. That you know exactly what their source is ??
I suspect from your post that you had a nun as a teacher in your youth as well.
No, not at all. That whole ‘philosophical, stages of life, and a sort of melancholy resignation to the vagaries of life’ had the same flavor as some writings I‘ve run across.
That you experinced the stage of looking for meaning to life. I cannot determine if you've found what it was you were/are looking for (I believe we look for some peace of mind).
Whenever wasn’t I looking? When did I stop? How can anyone really stop? Doesn’t some part of you die when you do? You think I can question every last little detail as I am here and think that I don’t think I can learn something?
Sure it is, I'm larger than most other men, and more intelligent than most. Superior, in an atheistic world. Its up to me to defend myself from others trying to eat me.
Ok, here we go. Then I get a whole bunch of guys together who believe as I do, and since it is their best interests according to reason to join with me, we all agree that afterward we will adhere to my standard we go inflict your standard on you and kill you. Afterwards anyone who doesn’t agree to the standard is banished, or if they don’t agree or won’t leave we protect ourselves by jailing, or if necessary killing that person. By eating nothing but cake, I face a 'non-good', poverty and having to be airlifted out of my house by Jerry Springer. This is a reality.
And at this point, I have to ask you how you know this, without having experienced it? The extent of your use of reason to arrive at this conclusion is exactly my point. You use reason to arrive at conclusions when it makes your point, but abandon it when comparing yourself to a zebra. It is this, reason applies here, reason doesn’t apply here - that is what is wrong with the argument. Reason always applies, in every case. On the same lines, lets say the taste of human flesh is 'good'. The 'non-good' side to this; get caught by others, who in modern society, aren't out to eat me, but to imprison me. The 'good' side, the taste of flesh, may out way the risk.
And when did any other system prevent this? Remember Dalmer? That doesn’t invalidate what I was saying, and you have abandoned part of my standard to argue for an isolated element. Let’s only take the third, forth and fifth commandments and forget all the others. Good(ness) and evil are conceptual, being in that side of the mind that can conceive art and music. We as humans are the only creatures who can conceptualise. (There are those that will argue against this with examples of certain birds that sing and apes in captivity who draw and speak, but it's all pavlovian.) Where these concepts come from doesn't matter for my point.
We agree on everything here except your last sentence. It matters very much, this is what you are arguing here, that it matters ‘where’ the concept of good comes from, a logical reasoned construction or from a mystical source. I also object that it doesn’t matter from the point of understanding what the words really mean, it does matter how we arrived at these concepts. It is agreed by all (christian to atheist) that canibalism is conceptually evil in a modern society. But what of the tribes in New Guinea that still are proported to practice it? Is there concept of good faulted? By whose standard?
By the standard that they are still savages. By the standard that they don’t have hospitals to set their broken bones because the doctors don’t want to be eaten. By the standard that it is in their own best interest to give up the practice in order to become civilized and live 60 years instead of 35 and that by refusing to learn to reason and change they condemn themselves to a pain filled, uncomfortable savagery. You suggest that others have a "right not to be eaten", By what standard do you define the concept of a 'right'?
If I take my existence as an axiom and reason as the basis for living as a human being, then the extension of the same rights to all others as a predicate of me guaranteeing them for myself follows.
The natural rights concept by Locke comes very close, who tried to do the same thing I am doing here, arrive at it logically from the fact of existence, and his work, had huge influence on what Jefferson and Madison came up with - a secular definition, as codified in the Bill of Rights. I called them axiomatic, ’self-evident’, same thing. I get them (my concepts) from christianity. It works for me, and modern western society is built upon judeo/christian moralty. So, I think you would agree, it works for you to. In a sense, you would be a christian.
If you want to conflate that last word, yes.(!) I thought you said it didn’t matter where the concepts came from? So why does it matter here? As I said, I’m not saying that we refuse to learn from everything that has gone before. But the idea that it is impossible to come up with standard of morality based upon reason, is wrong. That was what got me started here. Just because it hasn’t been done, doesn’t mean it is impossible, quite the opposite. The closer we have come to it without relying upon a mystical basis, and the Bill of Rights is the best so far, the more ‘moral’ a civilization is. That way, nobody can duck out by saying they don’t buy into the mystical basis, you either agree or you leave.
A bit abstract. That's not a refutation, of course, but it prevents your formulation from being a gripping slogan that all can immediately sign onto. Here's my own method of demonstrating the logical necessity of individual rights:
Suppose that you and a like-minded band of people form an altruistic commune, with no selfishness, no individual rights. Everything is collective. On the first day you have a grand ceremonial dinner at which each of you in turn promises to live solely for the benefit of the others. That done, each of you retires to bed. But as you lie there, you are troubled.
What troubles you? You are living among a group of people who are totally dedicated to your welfare, and not their own. Surely this is paradise? But something's wrong. It dawns on you that you are experiencing selfish thoughts. Your illusion of happiness comes partly from knowing that everyone out there is dedicated to your welfare. And by your creed of altruism, that's horribly wrong. You have no right to their dedication. You resolve to fix the situation.
Next morning, at the communal breakfast, you rise and announce that while you continue to be dedicated to the welfare of each of the others in the community, you cannot accept their pledge to be dedicated to you. As an act of pure altruism you renounce any personal benefit from the arrangement. You'll look out for them, certainly, but you'll also look out for yourself, thus giving your colleagues the additional gift of freedom from worrying about you. You want nothing from them. All that you ask is the freedom to look after yourself. Surely, this is the ultimate in altruism.
As the logic of your proposal impresses the others, they each in turn rise and make the same announcement. Each member of the commune pledges to be responsible for himself. Which leaves each of you with no group responsibilities at all. All that anyone wants is the freedom to care for himself, and that the others recognize this freedom. So by being rigorously altruistic, you've gone from total collectivism to total self-reliance, within a framework where everyone agrees to acknowledge the right of everyone else to be free.
Ergo, altruism is illogical. As is a system without individual rights.
But I hope you can clarify this next observation for me, for I don’t understand your meaning: “The existential truth, one way or another, is useless.”
What I mean was it doesn’t matter whether Socrates was an actual person or a myth or a construction, because that has no practical affect upon me one way or the other. It is just contribution to human knowledge that is important. To the degree it advanced us from savagery to civilized living, that is what is useful. Substitute “private” – in the sense of a free personal act -- and maybe that would be better.
Ok, but I still don’t see how affects others until I interact with others. At that point it becomes ‘public.’ And I have forgotten the context so I don’t know why this is important anymore. But if you really do understand what I said, and still come up with a different explanation, that’s really O.K. with me. Believe it or not.
Why would I not believe you, take you at your word? You haven’t lied to me yet, have you? ; } All I meant to suggest is that, even in little, seemingly inconsequential things, the choices we make affect other people whether we intend them to or not.
If choices imply actions, then yes. But does that mean I can’t take any action until I’ve figured out every possible consequence for others? Who can do this? At what point are they responsible for their own reactions to my actions? It’s the “butterfly effect” – a butterfly fluttering her wings off Hong Kong, ever so subtly changing the dynamics of the local atmospheric conditions, which changes propagate and get magnified as the effects spread out, so that what you end up with is the “Perfect Storm” off the coast of Newfoundland in due course….
That’s a nice analogy, as far as it goes. No analogy is complete. The “doctrinaire” types with heavy investment in “materialism” go hoopy. Then get really rigid, and quite possibly nasty….
I know, I just have a real problem with this, ‘We’re so materialistic now!’ Especially from people in the richest nation on the planet, all with computers and cars and all that goes with it, using a universal means of communication, complaining about ‘materialism.’ I have lived in some very ‘non-materialistic’ places in my time and I’ll take materialism any day. I’ve met loopy, rigid types on both sides. It is the person, and what that person chooses to be, at least to the way I see it. Truly LogicWings, I would prefer to hear this from you, in your own words.
Oh, I had wished you’d at least take a stab at it. What is the definition? The positive statement of a Negative Assertion. How many times have I said this to others? ‘Can’t prove a negative, Can’t prove a negative, Can’t prove a negative.’ Consistency demands the identification of this as a fallacy. And this ‘saved or corrupt’ business – I may be flirting with disaster here; but IMHO, after the sacrifice of Christ, “corruption” is something you either have to actively opt for, or sink into by virtue of sheer sloth. All Evil is, finally, is the absence of the Good. It is a deprivation of God that a man must choose for himself. And I think it’s also true that God will judge each of us according to the way we judge our neighbor. (Back to the “butterfly effect” here – working out in an altogether different dimension …. :^) )
That is an interesting view, what religion is that again? (just teasing) I will take your word on this one. That evil is a ‘lack’ I completely agree. What that is might get us into a whole other discussion and I’m getting worn out here. I need a break for a while. [Thanks for letting me “vent.”]
ok. no comment So if it helps at all, don’t call them “divine things.” Come up with a better term. But that “better term” IMHO, must comprehend the following: Those things that were “here” before we got here, and will last after we’re gone; that specify the form and function of the universe and its beyond (if there is one – Christianity teaches that the world “has no end,” even though it had a beginning – in Time); that love and goodness and truth and justice and beauty are the hallmarks of the right order of Life, and ultimately the basis of its constitution.
Ok, something that was here before us, be here after us, so far ok. Now, ‘that specify form and function of the universe and its beyond’ - first, I can’t get a handle on the word ‘specify’ in this context without assuming something separate from the universe to specific it. That the universe has form and function means that those qualities are inherent to the universe. Second, until we can clear up this ‘specify’ and don’t even want to attempt to figure out how the could apply to a ‘beyond.’ that love and goodness and truth and justice and beauty are the hallmarks of the right order of Life, and ultimately the basis of its constitution
You have a nice definition for the qualities elucidated here, ‘right order of life‘ but these are all part of this universe, so why isn’t it some inherent element of the Universe? the current seemingly catastrophic conditions of our world right now, it is precisely these premises
Depends upon how you look at it, how bad it really seems. I’ve studied enough history, I’d rather live now than then. Yep. Well, I do anyhoot. I just call it “God.” Which admittedly is a Name, not a definition.
It has a definition as well. As you can imagine, I am interested in this “node” business, as a possible analog to the “soul” business, in its relations to the eternal community of Being.
The eternal community of Being? This ‘node business’ is still this Universe though. If you want to take this type of definition for what you asked me to ‘specify’ earlier then we are on different ‘ground’ than before. I bet you’d like this book, LogicWings. Though in all probability you’ll have a different “take-away” than I got from it, it is an eminently useful exercise for a serious thinker looking for a serious challenge.
You’ve mentioned it several times, I will try to look it up. I’ve seen several things with a similar take. Thanks for writing. If you feel like doing it again anytime soon, that would be most pleasing to me. God bless!
Thank you too. I’m going to take a break for a while I think.
Originally the word liberal meant social conservatives(no govt religion--none) who advocated growth and progress---mostly technological(knowledge being absolute/unchanging)based on law--reality... UNDER GOD---the nature of GOD/man/govt. does not change. These were the Classical liberals...founding fathers-PRINCIPLES---stable/SANE scientific reality/society---industrial progress...moral/social character-values(private/personal) GROWTH(limited NON-intrusive PC Govt/religion---schools)!
Evolution...Atheism-dehumanism---TYRANNY(pc/liberal/govt-religion/rhetoric)...
Then came the SPLIT SCHIZOPHRENIA/ZOMBIE/BRAVE-NWO1984 LIBERAL NEO-Soviet Darwin/ACLU America---the post-modern LUDDITE age
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