Religion

[formerly known as hf]

Which is where relativism falls on its ass... If I decide its right to abuduct small children and eat them alive (for example) it doesn't matter if I believe its right, it's not! There are some things which are universally wrong.... people may live in a time when evil things suddenly or gradually become socially acceptable (eg Germany and the Holocaust) during that time the majority can say something abhorent is OK, but its not....

I think God sets a standard of right and wrong, other people will have their own explanations, but somethings can never be right....

If you did decide that eating small children is right - then you are right. Only to yourself, maybe, but you are still right.

You're also wrong, to many many other people. So, on a sliding scale of right/wrong, you're right on the edge.

There can be no universal wrong, as it only takes one person to think that it's right, and it's no longer universal.

[deadboy]

I disagree with number Three because if there is one truth that already exist on Earth, there are hundreds more still in existence. Assume there are 500 religions, then if you belong to 1 religion, then you have 1/500 chance of being correct(+1) but 499/500 chance of being incorrect and offending the other 499 religions(-1). This means that you have a much bigger chance of offending the true religion than being in the true religion(499:1), which is not so good...
If you do not belong to any single religion, then the chance of you being right is very possibly 0/500, unless incredibly you yourself is correct, and 0/500 of offending someone else by belonging to another religion. When you die, you simply die, not heaven nor hell, you would simply be called ignorant or neutral. Thus, I believe it is better to not belong to any religion (as an agnostic) in order not to offend anyone in this life or afterlife, than to take the 1/500 chance of being in the correct religion. Belong to a religion 1/500 of +1 but 499/500 of -1. Don't belong to a religion 0/500 of +1, 0/500 of -1, pure and simple 500/500 of 0. Simple logic.

If you want to look at it with numbers, then who you offend doesn't matter one bit. let's be frank, we all care mostly about ourselves, and for that reason pascali had a far better way of looking at it using numbers. There are four possiblities. Either you believe in god, or don't, and god either exists, or doesn't. You can have one of each, making four possiblities. If you beilive in god and he exists, you go to heaven, you are happy. If you believe in god and he doesn't exist, you simply atop existing, you are neutral. If you don't believe in god and he exists, you go to hell, you are unhappy. If you don't believe in god and he doesn't exists, you simply stop existing, you are neutral. Looking at it this way, with a self-obsessed mentality on the mind , if you believe in god then you could be happy or nothing, not believing unhappy or nothing, so that means that it is better to believe in god than not to.

Just something to talk about

[Joshuamonkey]

No, sorry. I drink beer, and I'm far from addicted. It's still giving up freedoms, the freedom to enjoy something potentially harmful, yes, but that's still a liberty.

rofl, lol. Its pretty hard to believe that one. You like the taste? It sure isn't healthy for you so there isn't really any point. The relaxing isn't worth it, since you're just worse after.

deadboy, exactly! And to add to that, believing in him makes your life better as well, anyway.

[Nixit]

Except for the fact that every different religion does not believe in the same god (though some are arguably similar).

Well, there are studies that wine is actually potentially healthy (to an extent, and I'm not necessarily advocating this), and so you can't really say that no alcohol is unhealthy for a fact.

Plus, drinking alcohol in moderate quantities (I'm sure moderate varies from person to person) won't make the person feel 'worse' afterwards. Yeah, if you drink 'till you get drunk, you will probably have a hang over, et cetera, but in certain quantities I don't believe that a person feels that bad afterward (though I suppose I can't talk, as I've never had any alcohol).

Out of curiosity, have you had alcohol before?


EDIT: Pretty sure chocolate ain't that great for you either, eh?

[Phalynx]

Blah Blah

If you did decide that eating small children is right - then you are right. Only to yourself, maybe, but you are still right.

You're also wrong, to many many other people. So, on a sliding scale of right/wrong, you're right on the edge.

There can be no universal wrong, as it only takes one person to think that it's right, and it's no longer universal.

I'm not doing too well on communication here, there are some beliefs of right and wrong that are universal... take the child eating thang, under different religions it's murder or bad karma, even under an aetheistic world view, killing and eating children is wrong because it reduces opportunities for reproduction, diverstiy and survival....

You still don't believe its universal, find me a country where it is not against the law to take other peoples children, murder them then eat them....

Better still try talking to a psychiatrist an explaining to them that there might be circumstances where it might be ok... such a view would be universally recognised at wrong and result of an evil, mentally ill, or damaged personality...

Your discussion is fine for the classroom, and as some sort of balancing excercise and anargument to live and let live, but in its practical outworking it is both ridiculous and profoundly damaging to society.

To challenge what is right and wrong (and therefore religions of different sorts) is fine, to challenge that there is right and wrong, in their traditional absolute terms fundamentally devalues human existance. It makes genocide, paedophillia, rape, murder etc. philospophical questions with no concern for the human suffering they cause.

[formerly known as hf]

In answer to joshua and nixit. I have drunk alcohol, and yes, shock! I actually like the taste of it!!! OMG WTF HOW??!!
Yes, wine, and ales (my preference) do actually taste nice, if they're good quality.

I know they're potentially harmful, but I know that I do not drink anything near the quantities that make them so, and, yes, it is widely acknowledged that wine, red wine, can be beneficial against coronary disease.

I can only imagine your entirely negative view of alcohol is due to propaganda, rather than experience?

deadboy: as nixit says, there are many religions. It's not as simple as you placed it, hence, there are many more possibilities of there being an incorrect descision. Has it ever occured to you that you might die, and find that vishnu rejects you as a non-believer? Also, you forgot to add the happiness of life into your equation. You discuss the happiness of a possible afterlife, but what about the misery religion brings to millions in our current lives?

To challenge what is right and wrong (and therefore religions of different sorts) is fine, to challenge that there is right and wrong, in their traditional absolute terms fundamentally devalues human existance. It makes genocide, paedophillia, rape, murder etc. philospophical questions with no concern for the human suffering they cause.

You're badly mis-reading me.

I am not, for a moment, suggesting that the things that almost every single person living agrees is wrong, ethically, are 'ok' in any way.

Just that, they are right to some, if only to the perpertraors, thus, they are not universally wrong.

Take your examples - especially genocide. A genocide is not the work of one person. A number of people must have thought that it was the right thing to do. Same with paedophilia, rape, and murder. The people doing said things must have thought it was right.

That does not make it widely acceptable, nor am I in anyway, shape, or form, trying to make it defencible.

But what it does show, clearly, is that there can be no universal wrongs (or universal rights) in ethics. Your examples happened, thus, at least one person (And with the examples you gave, millions - there have been many murders, rapes etc etc) must have thought it was right - thus, by a simple fact of there being just one person who thought it to be right, it can not, by definition, be a universal wrong.

Thus, there can be no universal rights or wrongs.
There can be, and are, generally accepted wrongs, that does not make them universal.

[Phalynx]

And you are missing the point, or I think you aren't but you don't like what it means...

If God dictates an absolute right and wrong, which is therefore universal, then it doesn't matter what anyone thinks is right or wrong, some things are just wrong....


If you deny the existance of absolute right or wrong then everything is right, because someone somewhere will think it right, and no one persons view can take precedence over another..

[deadboy]

It's HF against the masses

I'll tell you what HF, it you want to prove it to us that eating little children isn't universally wrong, why don't you go and try it? Then you can start to rant about it in your prison cell to all the other criminally insane

Although I agree alcohol tastes good. Theres no better drink than a good wine in my opinion.

[formerly known as hf]

I'll tell you what HF, it you want to prove it to us that eating little children isn't universally wrong, why don't you go and try it? Then you can start to rant about it in your prison cell to all the other criminally insane

You don't understand my point at all. If someone who does eat a child, thinks that it is right, then, it is right, TO THEM. NOT TO EVERYONE ELSE. Thus, it IS right, in the sense that it IS right to an INDIVIDUAL, not right in ALL cases.

It's a simple case of definition - universal means EVERYONE - so EVERYONE must think it's wrng. If the person who did it thought it was right, then not EVERYONE thought it was wrong, thus it was not UNIVERSALLY wrong...

As for Phalynx arguing that there are universal rights and wrongs determined by God, and we just percieve them as rights or wrongs, without any necessary corellation with what God decided, I can't argue with really, as he's missing the point too. It doesn't matter what any supposed deity decided what is right or wrong, I am discussing purely in terms of human thought, I'm not getting quite so existential.

And, if 'God' has actually decided upon universal ethics and morals, and distributed said wisdom via the bible... Then, it would seem to suggest that rape, murder, the stoning of rape vistims and homosexuals, are, in fact, possible universal rights?

If God has decided upon universal rigts and wrongs, and if said God is the Christian one, he's done a piss poor job in letting us know what they are. Thus, any discussion about universal rights and wrongs set by God falls flat on its face, as we have no possible way of ever knowing what he ever decided were such universal ethics, making the discussion of such a thing utterly pointless.

[Phalynx]

If someone who does eat a child, thinks that it is right, then, it is right, TO THEM

Your logic is very strangely twisted, what you say either jusitifies any action whatsover or demonstrates that what a person themselves thinks of their actions holds almost no weight at all, it thus negate any meaning to 'right' and thus 'wrong'.... - I don't think either of these is true...

As for religion giving mixed messages and being hypocritical, can't argue that one, that what happens when the imperfect attempts to understand and interpret the perfect.

[Phalynx]

It seems our definitions of universal right, is where the confusion lies...

I think Universally right reflects what is good an right according to the natural justice, balance, godly law, evolutionary instincts or whatever (insert belief here)... I universal, across all faiths and beleif systems,

You seem to use Universal in terms of every person having to agree... Hindsight tells us that those who are right are often in the minority.

[formerly known as hf]

If someone who does eat a child, thinks that it is right, then, it is right, TO THEM

Your logic is very strangely twisted, what you say either jusitifies any action whatsover or demonstrates that what a person themselves thinks of their actions holds almost no weight at all, it thus negate any meaning to 'right' and thus 'wrong'.... - I don't think either of these is true...

You kind of got it there.

The belief in what is right / wrong of an individual is, by and large, meaningless, expect to that individual and a few people they may affect. What gives weight to ethics is when lots of people think that something is right (or wrong).

Think of it as a sliding scale, with something that everyone thinks is right at one end, and something which everyone thinks is wrong at the other. Now, to be at the very end of that, is not possible, as there is nothing which EVERYONE, ever, thinks is right or wrong.
The examples that have been thrown at me (and I quote like child eating, that's fairly novel) are right at the far end of wrong. Thus, they are wrong, almost universally, but not quite. They are also right, to a very small number of people. It is a matter of degree.

But that's for extremes, so many things are somewhere in the middle, with many people thinking this is right, and many people also thiking it is wrong. THis is the interesting place, where things aren;t so clear cut, and where we were at discussing, before baby-eating got thrown at me... Take homosexuality as an example. Millions think its ok, or right, millions think it is dispicable. Thus, it is both right and wrong, it all depends upon who you speak to and what you, personally, as an individual choose to believe.

Basically, what I have been trying to argue is:
1) Nothing can be universally right or wrong, as the possibility of everyone, ever, thinking the same on a subject is impossible
2) Right and wrong are not mutually exclusive. If something is one, it is also the other. (edit: To qualify this, things are both right and wrong, but usually to different degrees and under different circumstances)

Right and wrong are, thus, relative terms. They only have any real, meaningful, expression when many, many, people agree, as in the case of baby-eating.

It is a matter of degree, as, in other cases, such as homosexuality, a controversial and divided subject, saying it is right and wrong, is, as you said, pretty meaningless.

[Joshuamonkey]

If God has decided upon universal rigts and wrongs, and if said God is the Christian one, he's done a piss poor job in letting us know what they are. Thus, any discussion about universal rights and wrongs set by God falls flat on its face, as we have no possible way of ever knowing what he ever decided were such universal ethics, making the discussion of such a thing utterly pointless.

Ahh, but my religion knows. We have a prophet.


And no!!! Any alcoholic drink is bad!, not good! Bad! Don't drink it!


The big "he" decides what is good or bad. He has the right to, and he knows best.

[Talapus]

You people need to do more reading. There is a very well known piece called "A Modest Proposal" by Jonathan Swift that talks quite a bit about eating children. It is not a particularly novel concept.

I have been assured by a very knowing American of my acquaintance in London, that a young healthy child well nursed is at a year old a most delicious, nourishing, and wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled ...

You can easily find a copy to read online, and it is quite interesting. Although the subject is quite grim, his intention was not to encourage the eating of children, but rather to bring the subject of starving people to light. For the most part, I actually agree with HF, although I tend to be far less vocal.[/quote]

[Phalynx]

This kind of morality by majority seems to me to be about the worst excess of postmodern society I can imagine, the irony being that in such a situation the strongest, richest, powerful, most corrupt eventually determine what is right....

Kind of like current US foreign policy..

At least we understand each other eve if we don't agree HF...

Just remember that if right and wrong are sooo flexible you have to make damn sure you are not in the minority...