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Originally posted by Kaploink
If every person in the United States had the fear of God and attended a Christian church every Sunday, these mega church leaders and televangelists would still claim we are a Godless nation. As these claims are simply means of self promotion to keep the donations coming in to fight the evil. After all, they are business with payrolls and other expenses who need a steady influx of cash to stay in the black. These are not your volunteer based local churches.
Personally, I find it appalling that they try to profit off such tragedies.
edit on 23-7-2012 by Kaploink because: meh
Originally posted by BIGPoJo
reply to post by Annee
Anyone who associates bigotry with Christianity is delusional.
That is all.
Originally posted by windword
Originally posted by BIGPoJo
reply to post by Annee
Anyone who associates bigotry with Christianity is delusional.
That is all.
Maybe if so many, claiming to be Christians, didn't hide behind God's skirt while citing scripture to promote their personal bigotry, we wouldn't be associating bigotry with Christianity in the first place.
Someone recently pointed out that, as offensive as it sounds, a serial rapist would benefit more from natural selection in passing along their genes than a do-gooder monogamist
If they are instinctual, how is it that they change en masse and in a very short period,
I'm not entirely sure that vastly different moral systems do exist. Ideas like "do not steal," "don't murder," "don't lie," "help your family," "behave modestly," (Whatever that society's definition of modesty is.) etc. are pretty universal.
If values were imposed instead by a deity, or simply if morals existed in some kind of Platonic form written into the laws of nature, it wouldn't explain how vastly different moral systems exist.
I would argue that societies know about morality, but no one can be forced to follow it. Nothing is "carved into the fabric of what you are" to the extent that you can't choose a different way. Then it wouldn't be a part of any moral system, it would become a biological function, like breathing.
If such a thing were imposed wouldn't we be compelled to adhere to it? After all how can you amend a moral system which is carved into the fabric of what you are?
Originally posted by charles1952
I'm not entirely sure that vastly different moral systems do exist. Ideas like "do not steal," "don't murder," "don't lie," "help your family," "behave modestly," (Whatever that society's definition of modesty is.) etc. are pretty universal.
People are not taught respect anymore and survival is the priority
That seems like a pretty broad statement, I can understand it as an opinion, but I can't imagine any evidence to support it. I must know the wrong kind of conservatives. They keep talking about a smaller government with more power being exercised by the states instead of Washington, and the counties instead of states. The religious ones seem most concerned with my prayer life and moral values. But as I say you've got an opinion and you're willing to express it. Good. It's even better if you're willing to examine your opinions.
People are taught by conservatives that people and society have no worth or importance- only wealth matters. That and worshiping guns and the military, while telling people that if they care about society or other people they're anti-American Marxists and Communists.
I might not be following the term "absolute morality." I think it means that there are principles of right and wrong that cross cultural lines, are part of our humanity. You're right, everyday experience shouts out "F___ Morality, we'll do what we want." Those people are putting an excessive emphasis on the idea of appreciating good and beautiful things, while twisting what good and beautiful means. Fun is a good thing, but burning down a building indicates an immoral person.
The idea of an absolute morality doesn't make much sense to me and seems contradicted by everyday experience.
But where does guilt come from, if not the knowledge that one has violated a rule, done something wrong?
The basic moral framework is there, feelings of empathy, guilt, etc but these are more instinctive guidelines than actual rules.
Originally posted by charles1952
reply to post by Aloysius the Gaul
Even the people benefitting from such behavior don't really believe it's good, they look for rationalizations to excuse it.
A little different form of slavery than the more modern world experienced. This slavery seemed to be for the offense of not paying your bills, committing some crime, or fighting against the country.
Slavery in the ancient world, specifically, in Mediterranean cultures, comprised a mixture of debt-slavery, slavery as a punishment for crime, and the enslavement of prisoners of war.
The difficulty of distinguishing between slaves and levied peasant labour has bedevilled the study of this subject. Private ownership of slaves, captured in war and given by the king to their captor, certainly occurred at the beginning of the Eighteenth Dynasty (1550 - 1295 BCE). Sales of slaves occurred in the Twenty-fifth Dynasty (732 - 656 BCE), and contracts of servitude survive from the Twenty-sixth Dynasty (ca 672 - 525 BCE) and from the reign of Darius: apparently such a contract then required the consent of the slave.
By the late 4th century BCE passages start to appear from other Greeks, especially in Athens, which opposed slavery and suggested that every person living in a city-state had the right to freedom subject to no one, except only to laws decided using majoritarianism. Alcidamas, for example, said: "God has set everyone free. No one is made a slave by nature." Furthermore, a fragment of a poem of Philemon also shows that he opposed slavery.
I think it means that there are principles of right and wrong that cross cultural lines, are part of our humanity.
You're right, everyday experience shouts out "F___ Morality, we'll do what we want."
But where does guilt come from, if not the knowledge that one has violated a rule, done something wrong?
But in both societies modest dress is a good thing and immodest dress is criticized.
Originally posted by Aloysius the Gaul
Why does everybody have to try to find some sort of justification for their own bigotry in the lunatic actions a nut-job with too many guns and a bad attitude???