You are not logged in. Login Now
 0-24   25-49   50-74   52-76   77-101   102-126   127-151   152-176   177-201 
 202-226   227-251   252-254        
 
Author Message
25 new of 254 responses total.
jep
response 77 of 254: Mark Unseen   Mar 8 17:07 UTC 2006

re resp:75: You mean everyone should shut out whatever others are 
saying and come to all of their moral values independently?  You 
shouldn't start with any kind of moral framework at all?  That's what a 
religion provides to many people, after all.

I don't find it to be a workable methodology, if that is what you 
mean.  If it isn't, I don't understand what you do mean.
rcurl
response 78 of 254: Mark Unseen   Mar 8 17:13 UTC 2006

We acquire our moral "instincts" throughout life, especially in early years,
from many sources. Those reared in lives constrained by religious doctrine
mostly grow up with narrow concepts of morality. I acquired by moral
"instincts" from both the principles that I was taught and observation of how
life works: but not from "instinct" alone, as that can be too easily mistaken.
klg
response 79 of 254: Mark Unseen   Mar 8 17:48 UTC 2006

1.  How many cells are there in a toddler?

2.  If human life is continuous and does not necessarily start at 
conception, are you saying that it doesn't necessarily stop at death?  
And, if so, what does that mean for Robert's and Alito's terms on the 
Supreme Court?  (Just asking.)

3.  It is oxymoronic to say that we acquire instincts after we are born.
rcurl
response 80 of 254: Mark Unseen   Mar 8 18:28 UTC 2006

1.  illions

2. Obviously when a cell dies its life has ended. I think you can 
extrapolate that to whole persons.

3. Not at all. I wrote "instincts", meaning to imply both innate and acquired
responses. Instincts technically are genetic, but we learn other responses
after birth that might as well be "instincts" for the control they have over
our behavior. 
happyboy
response 81 of 254: Mark Unseen   Mar 8 18:34 UTC 2006

klingon is ignorant about buddhism.  big sooprize.
jep
response 82 of 254: Mark Unseen   Mar 8 19:26 UTC 2006

re resp:78: What do you mean by "narrow-minded"?  How do you 
distinguish between "narrow-minded" morals and morals with which you 
agree?

I think that all people acquire moral beliefs throughout their lives, 
with their most basic beliefs beginning in their youth.  All people 
have some beliefs that are instilled in them as children by their 
parents or other adults, and which will never change.  All people have 
some beliefs which change through the rest of their lives. 

It is possible for anyone to be trained (or come by) reasonable, 
workable, useful morals, which collectively I will define as "good".  
Anyone can come to have "bad" morals as well (which lack those 
characteristics).  It is possible for anyone to have good or bad 
morals, regardless of their religious background.  I am sure all of us 
know people from both groups who are good people and also people from 
both who are not so good.
jep
response 83 of 254: Mark Unseen   Mar 8 19:26 UTC 2006

(Wow, an abortion item is moving away from abortion.  I am not sure 
I've seen that happen very often before.)
jadecat
response 84 of 254: Mark Unseen   Mar 8 19:35 UTC 2006

resp:83 well, religion/morality came into it, and that's pretty much the
other stand-by for us. ;)
klg
response 85 of 254: Mark Unseen   Mar 8 20:13 UTC 2006

Curl - Your reply to #2 did not respond to the question.
keesan
response 86 of 254: Mark Unseen   Mar 8 20:25 UTC 2006

John, why would you help a child or a woman before a helpless man?

Conception is the fusing of two living cells to make one living cell with the
same total number of chromosomes.  Death is the destruction of one or more
living cells, that need not be independent of other cells (body cells die and
are replaced continuously).  Death of an organism is the end of its ability
to function as a unified whole, leading to the death shortly after of all the
individual cells (loss of ability to function and integrity).
cyklone
response 87 of 254: Mark Unseen   Mar 8 21:46 UTC 2006

Re #85: Now if you'd just apply your new-found powers of perception to your
own "answers."
tod
response 88 of 254: Mark Unseen   Mar 8 22:19 UTC 2006

re #58
The piece of your equation that you're missing is the "blame" factor.  The
person would save the toddler and then have the blame of the blastulas' deaths
put on the parents through some spin on magic show scriptures gobbledygook.
richard
response 89 of 254: Mark Unseen   Mar 8 22:33 UTC 2006

Those persons who hijacked the jets and flew them into the WTC and the
Pentagon on 9/11 were basing their moral decisions on their religion, on what
they were TOLD BY OTHERS should be their morality.  I would argue that if they
had not been religious, if they had developed their morality based on their
own instincts, that they would not have decided to become kamikazes.
tod
response 90 of 254: Mark Unseen   Mar 8 22:39 UTC 2006

Do you believe GW prays before every major decision?
rcurl
response 91 of 254: Mark Unseen   Mar 8 23:29 UTC 2006

I think Timothy McVeigh thought up his morality pretty much on his own,
though perhaps with a little encouragement. Can't blame that one on religion.
happyboy
response 92 of 254: Mark Unseen   Mar 8 23:39 UTC 2006

sure you can, HE WAS CATHOLIC!
tod
response 93 of 254: Mark Unseen   Mar 8 23:46 UTC 2006

Turner Diaries and Jolt cola as I understand it.
Plus, it didn't help we buried those fuckers alive and then the VA didn't want
to admit we could get PTSD after that kind of horrendous shit.  Believe me,
it had no links to morality being thought up..
http://www.gulflink.osd.mil/marine_b/marine_b_refs/n55en071/Testimony_bradf
ord
_0507gulf.htm
klg
response 94 of 254: Mark Unseen   Mar 9 01:35 UTC 2006

So, according to RW's theory, Josef Stalin - despite the millions he had
killed - must have been a very moral person, inasmuch as he was an
athiest and all.
rcurl
response 95 of 254: Mark Unseen   Mar 9 02:40 UTC 2006

At least he wasn't a religious tyrant, but he was a tyrant still. He didn't
get his countrymen to follow him by appealing to their religion, but to their
sense of survival. Same with Saddam. Tyrants use whatever means they have at
hand to exercise their tyrrany. So....what's the point?
johnnie
response 96 of 254: Mark Unseen   Mar 9 14:05 UTC 2006

>At least he wasn't a religious tyrant,

Oh, yes, thank goodness--that would have been really *really* bad...
jep
response 97 of 254: Mark Unseen   Mar 9 14:08 UTC 2006

re resp:86: I would help a child before a man because it seems obvious 
to me that a child should come first.  A child is less likely to be 
able to help himself.  Children are to be protected by adults.

While some consider it an anachronism, I consider it is a man's duty, 
in a dangerous situation, to sacrifice himself for a woman.  That would 
hold true for either myself or another man in that type of situation.
richard
response 98 of 254: Mark Unseen   Mar 9 15:42 UTC 2006

#94 Actually Stalin wasn't always an atheist.  As a boy he was I believe a
catholic and in a town very strictly controlled by the church.  When he grew
up and became educated, it was his deep feeling of being repressed by the
church that led him to communism.  Therefore one can argue that maybe Stalin
would not have grown up so embittered had he been raised as an athiest, which
he was not.
richard
response 99 of 254: Mark Unseen   Mar 9 15:49 UTC 2006

And I never said that atheists cornered the market on morality.  I just
believe that most people have good instincts naturally, and that in general
it is safer to trust those instincts IMO than to base moral decisions entirely
on what other people tell you, be those other people priests OR atheists.
jep
response 100 of 254: Mark Unseen   Mar 9 16:13 UTC 2006

There's an interesting story which is pertinent to the abortion 
question, that I came across on Yahoo News.  It's about a guy who's 
starting a legal campaign to allow men who don't want to be a father to 
opt out of the financial responsibility for supporting their child.  
Here's the link I read:

   http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060308/ap_on_re_us/fatherhood_suit

A group called National Center for Men is backing the campaign.

The lawsuit was filed in district court in Michigan.

I'm against the guy's position.  Both parents should be responsible for 
their child.  If this concept were to become law, it couldn't help but 
to cause more abortions.  I wouldn't like that.
nharmon
response 101 of 254: Mark Unseen   Mar 9 16:20 UTC 2006

I believe a man should only be allowed to opt out of child support in 
cases of rape and incest....in other words, damn near never.

Along the same mentality of if you're against abortion you just want to 
punish sluts; if you support abortion rights and oppose this lawsuit, 
then you might just want to punish men for fathering children.
 0-24   25-49   50-74   52-76   77-101   102-126   127-151   152-176   177-201 
 202-226   227-251   252-254        
Response Not Possible: You are Not Logged In
 

- Backtalk version 1.3.30 - Copyright 1996-2006, Jan Wolter and Steve Weiss