Christian Climbers.

[JayB]

Let's take "pedofilers" (cycling secretaries?) as an example.

Our own society often turns a blind eye to the murder of innocents during warfare with it's "Sorry, shit happens" excuse. Yet that very same society would consider public stoning for infidelity, proscribed by law in some Middle Eastern countries, murder. Here again we see moral relativism with regards to one of the most fundamental norms of human behavior.

 

Despite the physical equivalence, these two actions are in no way morally equivalent to one another. It's one thing to deny that different moral codes exist, another to insist that all moral codes are equally rational, just, and humane.

 

Maintaining a moral distinction between intentional and incidental homicides - mowing down a pack of pedestrians because you want to murder them, and hitting suffering a stroke while driving which results in the same outcome, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, - is a basic element of any moral system worthy of the name.

[kevbone]

God is aid

[sexual_chocolate]

Despite the physical equivalence, these two actions are in no way morally equivalent to one another.

 

depends on your moral outlook.

[kevbone]

Depends are aid.....expecially for old people.

[tvashtarkatena]

Let's take "pedofilers" (cycling secretaries?) as an example.

Our own society often turns a blind eye to the murder of innocents during warfare with it's "Sorry, shit happens" excuse. Yet that very same society would consider public stoning for infidelity, proscribed by law in some Middle Eastern countries, murder. Here again we see moral relativism with regards to one of the most fundamental norms of human behavior.

 

Despite the physical equivalence, these two actions are in no way morally equivalent to one another. It's one thing to deny that different moral codes exist, another to insist that all moral codes are equally rational, just, and humane.

 

Maintaining a moral distinction between intentional and incidental homicides - mowing down a pack of pedestrians because you want to murder them, and hitting suffering a stroke while driving which results in the same outcome, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, - is a basic element of any moral system worthy of the name.

 

While I would agree that public stoning is neither humane nor a morally justifiable, none of my examples included purely accidental deaths. For example, an Iraqi or Afghan might say that bombing a target and killing scores of civilians to assissinate one bad guy is neither inadvertent nor morally justifiable. One person's collateral damage is another person's murder, as the varying opinions on this very forum will tell you.

 

Societies must decide what is justifiable punishment to remove a threat. In this sense, my examples are very similar. Stoning removes the 'moral' threat of infidelity at the expense of the woman's life. Bombing removes the physical threat posed by a terrorist, at the expense of nearby innocent bystanders. Two different societies striking a balance between removing a threat and the harm its willing to inflict to do so.

 

 

Edited February 7, 2007 by tvashtarkatena

[ericb]

Depends are aid.....expecially for old people.

 

or astronauts

[sexual_chocolate]

 

 

would you have posted this if your son(?) was born with chromosomal irregularities, and exhibited the above behaviours?

[olyclimber]

do you want to argue?

[tvashtarkatena]

Trying to convince us sprayers to become PC is like trying to convince us sprayers that Seahawks isn't a moron.

[sexual_chocolate]

do you want to argue?

 

that's not really the question, but interesting reply, i guess.

[tvashtarkatena]

I think you're both retarded.

[olyclimber]

do you want to argue?

 

that's not really the question, but interesting reply, i guess.

 

you win! its a coldharded thing to post. politically, i'm incorrect. i'll go ahead and schedule the sensitivity training myself.

 

[kevbone]

Hey look….its the new speculation thread! C….mon….we are all retarded. Especially

G-spotter

 

[JayB]

"Two different societies striking a balance between removing a threat and the harm its willing to inflict to do so."

 

 

 

The problem here is that these are, by definition, two entirely different things. One is intentional, the other is not. The fact that people choose to believe otherwise doesn't negate this difference anymore than the existence of people who refuse to believe that two plus two equals four refutes the truth of the proposition than they do. You seem to think that noting the fact that there are varying opinions on the matter is tantamount to a logical proof of some kind that actually renders them equal to one another.

 

It's really hard to know where to begin with someone who presents observations as arguments, but lets start with the statement that's central to your examples. "Two different societies striking a balance between removing a threat and the harm its willing to inflict to do so."

 

Yes - we have two societies. We also have two entirely different phenomena that actually have nothing whatsoever in common with one another in any objective sense.

 

We have a woman who has had sex with a man outside of marriage. The acts she has committed will lead to no direct physical harm of anyone else. If her society fails to prevent her from engaging in this action, no direct physical harm will come to her anyone else from her actions alone.

 

We have individuals that have already intentionally slaughtered, or plan to intentionally slaughter as many civilians as possible. Failure to prevent the attack has already cost, or will potentially cost, several, several hundred, or several thousand lives. The threat here is completely different than the threat posed by a woman engaging in consensual sex outside of marriage. It is impossible to equate the two in any objective fashion whatsoever. An additional distinction - and a critical one - is that failure to take action against the terrorists may lead to a death toll well in excess of the number of innocent bystanders who are incidentally killed in the act of killing the terrorists. Failing to avert a mass slaughter that may involve hundreds of people for fear of killing a much smaller number in order to prevent the said attack involves moral considerations that are completely absent from and nothing like those involved in stoning a woman who has engaged in a consensual act of affection outside of marriage.

 

The differences don't end here, but those are sufficient to establish a larger point, which is that pretending that using stoning to punish female adultery with precision bombing undertaken to prevent people who plan on intentionally killing an untold number of civilians are morally equivalent to one another is not just a grotesque distortion of moral reasoning, but a complete abdication of one's responsibility for the same. The same holds for the notion that the moral systems within which these actions occur are in any way equivalent to one another.

 

If you want to actually compare the moral perspectives and claims of one group versus the another, its necessary to compare the manner in which they treat the same thing. Brutal rape, for example. Same brutal rape. Culture A abhors it, culture B detests it. Culture A sanctions it, culture B punishes it.

 

Here you have the beginnings of the information you need for a real, legitimate comparison of the two moral codes under consideration. Systematic moral relativists then find themselves in the uncomfortable position of arguing on behalf of something that is both false, and which they themselves do not believe, which is probably why concrete comparisons of this sort rarely make their way into either the consciousness or the arguments of the average systematic moral relativist. This is why most of them revert to comparing how two societies treat things that actually have little or nothing in common and trying to devise distortions with which to render them morally equal to one another.

 

[sexual_chocolate]

you win! its a coldharded thing to post. politically, i'm incorrect. i'll go ahead and schedule the sensitivity training myself.

 

i don't give a damn about the pc aspect (it's a convenient cover), but good luck with your training.

[olyclimber]

yes, i'm under cover. special ops. hush hush.

 

you're quite the detective.

[StevenSeagal]

 

We have individuals that have already intentionally slaughtered, or plan to intentionally slaughter as many civilians as possible. Failure to prevent the attack has already cost, or will potentially cost, several, several hundred, or several thousand lives. ..... An additional distinction - and a critical one - is that failure to take action against the terrorists may lead to a death toll well in excess of the number of innocent bystanders who are incidentally killed in the act of killing the terrorists. Failing to avert a mass slaughter that may involve hundreds of people for fear of killing a much smaller number in order to prevent the said attack involves moral considerations that are completely absent from and nothing like those involved in stoning a woman who has engaged in a consensual act of affection outside of marriage.

 

Interesting points. But the moral righteousness of bombing and deliberately causing collateral damage deaths on the premise of preventing even more future deaths relies on an assumption that the country choosing to bomb knows with certainty the long term outcomes of either choice (to bomb, or not to bomb). It may or may not be the lesser of two evils, yet it's the course always chosen with this rationale in mind. How do we know that some 12 year old Iraqi boy who otherwise would've become a doctor but whose entire family was blown up in front of him by one of our bombs accidently isn't now instead going to become the guy who drops a huge nuke on New York City in the year 2031? Well we don't, and that's an eccentric example, but the point is, these justifications for war have been recycled forever and we don't know what the wide ranging effects of war really have had- except that there's a cycle of violence within this supposed moral imperative of "no killing".

[kevbone]

Another speculation thread:

 

Think of it.

Some unknown newbie with one post, posts an intriguing and sensitive topic about religion, then we the rest of the forum, spews and sprays our morals around for 50 pages in 2 days…….

 

Keep it up!

 

[tvashtarkatena]

 

We have individuals that have already intentionally slaughtered, or plan to intentionally slaughter as many civilians as possible. Failure to prevent the attack has already cost, or will potentially cost, several, several hundred, or several thousand lives. ..... An additional distinction - and a critical one - is that failure to take action against the terrorists may lead to a death toll well in excess of the number of innocent bystanders who are incidentally killed in the act of killing the terrorists. Failing to avert a mass slaughter that may involve hundreds of people for fear of killing a much smaller number in order to prevent the said attack involves moral considerations that are completely absent from and nothing like those involved in stoning a woman who has engaged in a consensual act of affection outside of marriage.

 

Interesting points. But the moral righteousness of bombing and deliberately causing collateral damage deaths on the premise of preventing even more future deaths relies on an assumption that the country choosing to bomb knows with certainty the long term outcomes of either choice (to bomb, or not to bomb). It may or may not be the lesser of two evils, yet it's the course always chosen with this rationale in mind. How do we know that some 12 year old Iraqi boy who otherwise would've become a doctor but whose entire family was blown up in front of him by one of our bombs accidently isn't now instead going to become the guy who drops a huge nuke on New York City in the year 2031? Well we don't, and that's an eccentric example, but the point is, these justifications for war have been recycled forever and we don't know what the wide ranging effects of war really have had- except that there's a cycle of violence within this supposed moral imperative of "no killing".

 

Using airstrikes for assassination in urban areas is certain to cause civilian casualties. War planners know and accept this; therefore those deaths are every bit as deliberate as the in the case of stoning. There is a difference in scale, of course. The stoning kills one person, the bombing many.

 

I would also argue that our nearly psychotic paranoia regarding the vastly overblown terrorist threat is similar to the paranoia of those muslim nations who feel that female infidelity will lead to an unraveling of their social fabric. In fact, I would argue that our society IS unraveling as a result of our paranoia and pre-occupation with national security at the expense of all else. Essentially, we've allowed ourselves to become a pathetic bucket of angry, frightened kittens just because a few pricks took out a couple of our buildings. Lately, however, it seems that we might have a chance to get our balls back and move on.

 

 

[Seahawks]

Trying to convince us sprayers to become PC is like trying to convince us sprayers that Seahawks isn't a moron.

 

One step up from your moranic ass.

[ivan]

 

 

would you have posted this if your son(?) was born with chromosomal irregularities, and exhibited the above behaviours?

i don't know about that, but over christmas i found setting that pic as my desktop image worked great at keeping my father off my computer

[ericb]

Another speculation thread:

 

Think of it.

Some unknown newbie with one post, posts an intriguing and sensitive topic about religion, then we the rest of the forum, spews and sprays our morals around for 50 pages in 2 days…….

 

Keep it up!

 

speaking of which....where did he go?

[tvashtarkatena]

Trying to convince us sprayers to become PC is like trying to convince us sprayers that Seahawks isn't a moron.

 

One step up from your moranic ass.

 

Not sure what 'moranic' means, but you being one step up from my ass sounds about right. Better than one step away from my ass, in any case.

 

[ivan]

Another speculation thread:

 

Think of it.

Some unknown newbie with one post, posts an intriguing and sensitive topic about religion, then we the rest of the forum, spews and sprays our morals around for 50 pages in 2 days…….

 

Keep it up!

 

speaking of which....where did he go?

 

maybe he don't post on shomer sabbath?

 

ah, page after page of intensive philoso-babble - how refreshing it is to have a moral code of pure convenience - easily summed up - easily defended - easily lived

 

man, the whole world would be a more annoying place if any of this actually mattered, wouldn't it?

Edited February 7, 2007 by ivan

[kevbone]

Another speculation thread:

 

Think of it.

Some unknown newbie with one post, posts an intriguing and sensitive topic about religion, then we the rest of the forum, spews and sprays our morals around for 50 pages in 2 days…….

 

Keep it up!

 

 

 

speaking of which....where did he go?

 

 

This is my point....that newbie only posted 2 times. This whole thing was a troll to get the CC.com machine working overtime.

Edited February 7, 2007 by kevbone