The Rape of the Truth–The Second Pillar of Secular Humanism - Page 3 - U.S. Politics Online: A Political Discussion Forum

Captain Trips · #31 (**permalink**) 07-20-2007

Quote:

Originally Posted by MareTranquility

Don't you? I'm not the one starting troll-bait, cut and paste threads. I think you state your purpose here very succinctly in this part of your post from another thread:

That less of us are paying attention to your smarmy style of trollbaiting is frustrating you, that much is obvious.

There are other forums that might harbor participants that aren't yet wise to your nonsense. You might get more entertainment there

Have fun now.

Do impress us all with more of your smart assed hatred for common sense.

MareTranquility · #32 (**permalink**) 07-20-2007

Quote:

Originally Posted by Captain Trips

That less of us are paying attention to your smarmy style of trollbaiting is frustrating you, that much is obvious.
There are other forums that might harbor participants that aren't yet wise to your nonsense. You might get more entertainment there Have fun now.
Do impress us all with more of your smart assed hatred for common sense.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Captain Trips

Most of us are here only to entertain ourselves.
__________________
A coward judges all he sees by what he is.

Hoist on your own petard!

CDavidNeely · #33 (**permalink**) 07-21-2007

Greetings and Felicitations,

Quote:

Originally Posted by liberty1776

If the first was true, then no one would have the right to do anything. This would mean that humans would have to cease to exist.

Rights are a thing of acquisition. Rights don't exist as an objective reality. They exist because we have created the situations where they exist. The universe doesn't particularly care if you have any rights at all. Such things are purely a creation of human existence. For example, women have rights because they stood up and forced the issue.

Quote:

Originally Posted by liberty1776

If the second was true, then we have two problems. First, why do these people get to rule over the others? It would seem difficult to arrive at this conclusion.

Why? Because people are that way. In any given group there will be people who rise to the top and people who do not. While a great many people do not like this fact it remains. Some people just don't want to achieve or better themselves. Humans are by nature lazy and it is only the few that are actually motivated to drive themselves into better and better spheres of influence. People (and I am one of them) tend to bitch and complain more than change. In other words, some people rise to own(a horribly inefficient term) others because some people don't want to own themselves.

Quote:

Originally Posted by liberty1776

Second, even if we can somehow create a scenario in which one group of people does own another group, we have another problem. How would anyone be able to do anything? The ruled class would have to get the permission of the ruling class to do anything. But in order to get permission, the ruled class would have to do something, such as ask for permission. But asking permission would be doing something. So, it would be impossible for the ruled class to do anything.

Nonsense. It is the very nature of a ruling class to not ask permission. Why would someone who owns someone need to ask permission of others about what to do with them. If I am ruler why do I need to ask the ruler down the road if he minds what I do with my possessions.

In Gloria,
Eglaelin

CDavidNeely · #34 (**permalink**) 07-21-2007

Greetings and Felicitations,

Quote:

Originally Posted by wrxsti

Being a True Christian (tm), I do not overly concern myself with the immoral day to day activities of the liberal secularists. I content myself in the knowledge that anyone who believes differently than myself will burn in hell for an eternity; more than ample payback.

In the words of Anton Szandor LaVey:

At least when you get to hell all your friends will be there and you will have someone to talk to(pp).

In Gloria,
Eglaelin

Non Sequitur · #35 (**permalink**) 07-21-2007

Quote:

Originally Posted by wrxsti

Being a True Christian (tm), I do not overly concern myself with the immoral day to day activities of the liberal secularists. I content myself in the knowledge that anyone who believes differently than myself will burn in hell for an eternity; more than ample payback.

wrxsti, as much as I love your satire on the Christian right, it makes my theology sense itch sometimes

Captain Trips · #36 (**permalink**) 07-21-2007

Maybe we could have some fun dealing with some statements individually from the OP. Statements like these:

To acknowledge that there is such a thing as Equal Protection under the Law would imply that it is an objective principle independent and transcendent of any one particular group which condemns the Secular Humanist and Postmodern mindset.

----------------------

America, and many other Western countries are at war with a group of thugs who don’t care about your lack of living in reality. In fact, I can assure you that if they get ahold of a leftist their heads will be the first to go because of the lifestyle choices they practice. ...Or promote.

-------------------------

Do you really think those who practice openly gay lifestyles will be welcome under a Fundamentalist Islamist theocracy?

liberty1776 · #37 (**permalink**) 07-21-2007

Quote:

Originally Posted by drgoodtrips

It sounds to me as if you're leaving value-based evaluations of people's actions in the realm of the subjective. Any particular action being "good" or "bad" depends on the observer, and thus the evaluation of actions is inherently subjective (and "relative" - sorry, Thane).

But, it sounds as if you're describing not objective morality, but objective rights. Each person has a right to "own" himself, and (following logically), not to be owned by another person, not to be harmed by another person, etc. Whether violating these rights is "good" or "bad" is a subjective opinion, but what is "objective" is that these rights have been violated. As such, you would evaluate the objective side of things in terms of whether or not the rights are upheld.

Is this a fair assessment of your position?

If so, how do we arrive at those rights? I see that, in a subsequent post, you seem to argue that they "make sense" by creating a mutually exclusive set of scenarios and finding fault with all but the individual ownership proposition. Ergo, by process of elimination, we have your proposal.

But, what if there is no concept of "ownership" in the first place? Does this invalidate any objective morality? And, what about issues unrelated to ownership? To use your example, if I'm standing there with the means to save a life (all things being equal - say it was a stranger) and I choose not to, in your scenario, objective morality has nothing to say about this (ownership is not involved). However, you state that you're a Christian. In Christianity, God is most certainly the arbiter of objective morality, and my guess is that He would certainly have an opinion about that.

I suppose what I'm driving at is that your objective morality seems incomplete. Do you think that, if an objective morality exists it must be all-encompassing? Or are there instances where we do not care what Jesus would do (a bit of humor - not taking a shot at you)?

Sorry, I've been away from my computer for a few days.

I certainly understand the confusion that my position may cause. If this came from an athesit, it would make more sense. However, comming from a Christian, it is slightly odd.

First, Christianaity is not based on logic or facts or anything like that. It is based purely on feelings. While some Christians may argue this, they are wrong. In fact, one of the main "selling" points of Christianity is that once a person has accepted Jesus as his savior, he will feel fulfilled.

While I believe that God's law is the correct law, I will not force this on anyone else. Subjective feelings, however correct they may be, cannot be the basis of an objective morality.

As a side note, I think this is one of the problems Kant has. In Groundwork for a Metaphysics of Morals, he is trying to make an objective moral code. However, is definition of a moral act is subjective. According to Kant, an act is moral if one can apply the motivating priciple of an act universally and get good results. To Kant, the result is good if human race can survive.

I understand that this post might not have helped anything at all. But this is just my feeble attempt to create an objective system of morality. I think of onjective morality as some sort of base line, or perhaps the Law of Man.

As for not caring about "WWJD", in some sense, you are correct. While Jesus and God call us to do many things for other people, I will not hold people to these standards, that is for God to do.

As for the concept of owership, I think we have a miscommunication. When I owneship, I mean the legitimate authority to allocate a scarce resource. So, if there is no concept of ownership, there is no legitmate authority to allocate resources, and we are back at the situation in which no one owns anyone.

White Rabbit · #38 (**permalink**) 07-22-2007

Quote:

Originally Posted by liberty1776

As a side note, I think this is one of the problems Kant has. In Groundwork for a Metaphysics of Morals, he is trying to make an objective moral code. However, is definition of a moral act is subjective. According to Kant, an act is moral if one can apply the motivating priciple of an act universally and get good results. To Kant, the result is good if human race can survive.

Your assertion that Kant's system here is a 'subjective' one is entirely unsubstantiated and extremely questionable. It is 'objective'.

Quote:

Originally Posted by liberty1776

I understand that this post might not have helped anything at all. But this is just my feeble attempt to create an objective system of morality. I think of onjective morality as some sort of base line, or perhaps the Law of Man.

I don't think you succeeded.

Quote:

Originally Posted by liberty1776

When I owneship, I mean the legitimate authority to allocate a scarce resource. So, if there is no concept of ownership, there is no legitmate authority to allocate resources, and we are back at the situation in which no one owns anyone.

Many pre-historic human tribes didn't have any concept of "property ownership" yet they managed to allocate resources.

liberty1776 · #39 (**permalink**) 07-22-2007

Quote:

Originally Posted by White Rabbit

Your assertion that Kant's system here is a 'subjective' one is entirely unsubstantiated and extremely questionable. It is 'objective'.

I don't think you succeeded.

Many pre-historic human tribes didn't have any concept of "property ownership" yet they managed to allocate resources.

Could you tell me why my claim about Kant is unsubstantiated?

This is Kant's formula for a moral action:

Quote:

I ought never to act except in such a way that I could also will that my maxim should become a universal law.

Now, a person who wanted to see the ultimate destruction of mankind could kill people and still be acting morrally. After all, the motivating principle (maxim) of the act of killing someone is the destruction of humankind.

As for property, my definition was the legitmate ability to allocate resources. American Indian tribes, for example, did not have the same concept of property as we have now. In times of plenty, the homesteader of a resource did not enforce his just property claim. However, in times of scarcity, American Indians did have more of a familuar property system.

Also, I am sure there were, in times of plenty, an Indian that tried to lay claim to his homestead property. Now, if the Indians respected this claim, nothing else need be said. However, what if the other Indians did not respect this claim? Does this in any way invalidate my contentions? No. I am describing what is moral, not what actually happens. If the Indian is not allowed to allocate his resource, the other Indians are acting immorally when they allocate that resource.

Dilettante · #40 (**permalink**) 07-22-2007

Quote:

Originally Posted by liberty1776

I understand that this post might not have helped anything at all. But this is just my feeble attempt to create an objective system of morality. I think of objective morality as some sort of base line, or perhaps the Law of Man.

Could you perhaps clarify precisely what makes your system "objective" as opposed to "subjective"? And why the same cannot be said for some other moral system?
I mean, if you say that morality is built around "self-ownership" and someone else says morality is built upon "universal love" (or "doing whatever God says" or "ridding the world of toasters" or whatever) what makes one objective and the others not?

Mandrake · #41 (**permalink**) 07-22-2007

Nothing is 'objective' that cannot be quantified - namely abstractions.

Mark_Twain · #42 (**permalink**) 07-22-2007

Quote:

Originally Posted by drgoodtrips

Strictly from a logical point of view, that might be the most poorly constructed 'argument' I've read in my time here from a source with a fairly sophisticated command of the language. It's a whiny, masturbatory stream of non-sequitur.

What the fuck is the point? As best I can tell, the author's thesis is "there is no such thing as change and therefore I don't like gay people. Oh yeah, and Muslims."

I'm glad I scrolled down & read your response before I bothered replying. You just saved me a bit of time.

Thanks, doc.

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