Imperefct God

[Immanuel Can]

we men are now responsible for whichever moral system we choose.

On what basis will you "choose" it?

There are more Taliban types than there are Western women. So what are you going to do if the Taliban types want to beat, rape and kill women? Are you going to object, "Well, we didn't choose that"?

They do. There's more of them than of you. They have power to do it. To what "court" will you then appeal?

I have a weak "basis" for my choices .

It's worse. We have no basis at all, except what strikes us at the moment.

But that is not an adequate excuse for not trying to think for myself and take responsibility for my own decisions.

But that means nothing. If you are willing to "take responsibility for your own decision" to raze a village, does that make it moral? Of course not.

What Taliban do is remember the past and old traditions without any intention to do otherwise than what old tribal traditions dictate.

Where's the metric you're using to know that the Taliban are doing something "bad"?

[Belinda]

On what basis will you "choose" it?

There are more Taliban types than there are Western women. So what are you going to do if the Taliban types want to beat, rape and kill women? Are you going to object, "Well, we didn't choose that"?

They do. There's more of them than of you. They have power to do it. To what "court" will you then appeal?

I have a weak "basis" for my choices .

It's worse. We have no basis at all, except what strikes us at the moment.

But that is not an adequate excuse for not trying to think for myself and take responsibility for my own decisions.

But that means nothing. If you are willing to "take responsibility for your own decision" to raze a village, does that make it moral? Of course not.

What Taliban do is remember the past and old traditions without any intention to do otherwise than what old tribal traditions dictate.

Where's the metric you're using to know that the Taliban are doing something "bad"?

If I do choose the broadly Xian ethics , which I do, I will be responsible for my own choice and if any of those ethics are wrong)which I doubt although am quite broad minded, I will accept and admit that it was not somebody else's fault that I made a bad choice. My basis for choosing is a) tradition and b) learning from those errors I can identify.

We have no basis at all, except what strikes us at the moment.

(IC)

That would be the response of a sheep or maybe a drug addict, or maybe a newborn baby. People have been required to follow the moral traditions of their society. This serves well enough for times that see little if any economic or political change. At the present time it's best if more and more people try to learn from experience and revise our moral stances in the light of experience together with due scepticism towards the motives of those who would politically persuade us.

Razing a village is immoral, always. Western governments have covered up their own atrocities. The US has razed more villages and done at least as much terrorising as have the Taliban. Do you really think the US and its UK suckers-up invaded Afghanistan to stop women being raped? How naive ! Of course that is what they will tell us as they have to whitewash their own power grab.

[Immanuel Can]

Where's the metric you're using to know that the Taliban are doing something "bad"?

My basis for choosing is a) tradition and b) learning from those errors I can identify.

One cannot identify any errors at all, unless one has a metric. You say you "choose" to use the Christian metric, even though you also disbelieve in Christianity. Well, the Taliban "chooses" to use Sharia. The former says, "Love your enemies," and the latter says, "Subjugate everyone" and "kill all the infidels."

What makes your "metric" right, and theirs wrong?

We have no basis at all, except what strikes us at the moment.

(IC)

That would be the response of a sheep or maybe a drug addict,

Not at all. It would be the response of anyone who is at all trying to be rational, but has rejected God. He or she would be left with no basis upon which to make any "choice" of a metric, except how he/she feels at the moment.

People have been required to follow the moral traditions of their society.

Like the Taliban does?

Razing a village is immoral, always.

By which metric?

I can say so as a Christian. But on what basis does an Atheist assert that, other than that he/she "doesn't like it"?

[uwot]

Razing a village is immoral, always.

By which metric?

I can say so as a Christian.

No you can't:
"Therefore, behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will cause the battle cry to be heard against Rabbah of the Ammonites; it shall become a desolate mound, and its villages shall be burned with fire, then Israel shall dispossess those who dispossessed him, says the Lord."
Jeremiah 49:2

And not just villages:
"And Israel vowed a vow to the Lord, and said,'If thou wilt indeed give this people into my hand, then I will utterly destroy their cities'. And the Lord hearkened to the voice of Israel, and gave over the Canaanites, and utterly destroyed them and their cities."
Numbers 21: 2

As a christian the most you can say is that razing a village is immoral, except when god says it's ok.

[Belinda]

Immnuel Can, my "metric" is right for me and the Taliban's "metric" is right for the Taliban.

I need no authority to tell me what is the right "metric" and it is my business to choose wisely and well or fail to do so.

[henry quirk]

Immnuel Can, my "metric" is right for me and the Taliban's "metric" is right for the Taliban.

I need no authority to tell me what is the right "metric" and it is my business to choose wisely and well or fail to do so.

Serial killers, rapists, pedophiles, and slavers the world over sigh in relief: my metric is my business; my metric is the right one for me.

[Belinda]

Immnuel Can, my "metric" is right for me and the Taliban's "metric" is right for the Taliban.

I need no authority to tell me what is the right "metric" and it is my business to choose wisely and well or fail to do so.

Serial killers, rapists, pedophiles, and slavers the world over sigh in relief: my metric is my business; my metric is the right one for me.

If that is so it would be my fault for getting it wrong. I don't like to get it wrong so I do try to choose wisely regarding evils. As I said earlier, a traditional moral code is fine for traditional societies. Our western cultures are changing so fast that people should really choose independently of unthinking masses and their persuaders.

[RCSaunders]

Deleted!

[Belinda]

I need no authority to tell me what is the right "metric" and it is my business to choose wisely and well or fail to do so.

That's fine if you do not intend to do any business with anyone else. If you have your own private idea of what you mean by a, "pound,"(weight) and it is less than what is meant by a pound by others, you'll not be selling much and will rightly be considered a cheat by everyone else.

It's still your choice, of course.

The demands of the collective are rightful too, I do agree. I think one has to get the balance right between the demands of the collective and the ethic of responsibility for own choices.

Afghanistan for instance. The collectives , US and UK, chose spectacularly wrongly when they pretended Afghanistan was ready to be a Western style nation instead of a collection of tribes with their own intertribal justice system.

[henry quirk]

Immnuel Can, my "metric" is right for me and the Taliban's "metric" is right for the Taliban.

I need no authority to tell me what is the right "metric" and it is my business to choose wisely and well or fail to do so.

Serial killers, rapists, pedophiles, and slavers the world over sigh in relief: my metric is my business; my metric is the right one for me.

If that is so it would be my fault for getting it wrong. I don't like to get it wrong so *I do try to choose wisely regarding evils. As I said earlier, a traditional moral code is fine for traditional societies. Our western cultures are changing so fast that people should really choose independently of unthinking masses and their persuaders.

*I'm sure you do, B. Question is: what's your standard? What makes A good, and B evil? If folks, as you say, should really choose independently of unthinking masses and their persuaders, what's the measure, the metric, any one of them should use?

[Lacewing]

Serial killers, rapists, pedophiles, and slavers the world over sigh in relief: my metric is my business; my metric is the right one for me.

If that is so it would be my fault for getting it wrong. I don't like to get it wrong so *I do try to choose wisely regarding evils. As I said earlier, a traditional moral code is fine for traditional societies. Our western cultures are changing so fast that people should really choose independently of unthinking masses and their persuaders.

*I'm sure you do, B. Question is: what's your standard? What makes A good, and B evil? If folks, as you say, should really choose independently of unthinking masses and their persuaders, what's the measure, the metric, any one of them should use?

Serial killers, rapists, pedophiles, and slavers are going to do what they do regardless of any standard suggested or commanded by anyone else.

My standard is that I do what feels like the right thing to do based on all of my present and past awareness and experience -- and the feedback and results I receive inform me further. If a person is truly paying attention and tuning in, there is much information to go on -- they don't need a guidebook or religion or programming. Rather, it is built-in and accessible (surely) as it should be -- but, of course, people can and do ignore such awareness and information, to be in service to egos and ideas, and such people seem completely oblivious to the natural feedback loop and quality of energy they generate or attract or perpetuate. They may instead seek validity and power by subscribing to the programming or drama of one thing or another, in which case the feedback loop is distorted to serve the programming or drama, and any other awareness is missed.

[RCSaunders]

I need no authority to tell me what is the right "metric" and it is my business to choose wisely and well or fail to do so.

That's fine if you do not intend to do any business with anyone else. If you have your own private idea of what you mean by a, "pound,"(weight) and it is less than what is meant by a pound by others, you'll not be selling much and will rightly be considered a cheat by everyone else.

It's still your choice, of course.

The demands of the collective are rightful too, I do agree. I think one has to get the balance right between the demands of the collective and the ethic of responsibility for own choices.

Afghanistan for instance. The collectives , US and UK, chose spectacularly wrongly when they pretended Afghanistan was ready to be a Western style nation instead of a collection of tribes with their own intertribal justice system.

It has nothing to do with, "collectives," but with how individuals choose to deal with one another, and I was only pointing out, when dealing with others, the metrics (arbitrary unit of measure) only work if every individual uses the same commensurable units. There are no absolute units of measure, and no one has to agree unless they want their negotiations to be based on reason and honest exchange.

There is no such thing as a, "collective choice." All so called collective, tribal, or government actions are always wrong. The ability to choose is an exclusive attribute of individual human beings. What has happened and is happening in Afghanistan is exactly what should happen, the inevitable consequence of the beliefs and ideas of all the parties involved.

[henry quirk]

Serial killers, rapists, pedophiles, and slavers are going to do what they do regardless of any standard suggested or commanded by anyone else.

Yep, that's B's idea... she sez, my "metric" is right for me and the Taliban's "metric" is right for the Taliban. I need no authority to tell me what is the right "metric" and it is my business to choose wisely and well or fail to do so, just up-thread.

Me: I'm curious what her metric is.

[RCSaunders]

My standard is that I do what feels like the right thing to do ....

Exactly what does a, "feeling," that a thing is, "right," feel like? I mean, the feeling itself. Where do you, "feel," it? How is it different from other feelings? How do you know when you have that feeling it means what you associate with it is right?

I know you cannot make someone else know what your actual conscious experience is, but I would be interested in how you would describe the feeling as best you can. Is it pleasant, unpleasant, tingly, soft, etc.? Of course I cannot even guess what it would be like, which is why I am asking, just in case I ever have such a feeling.

[Belinda]

My morals are Xian, Henry. I also believe in live and let live ---let it be. I hope you unlike another recent poster knows what a collective is. I obey laws of my collective and so I am not a criminal. I hope that my collective, the UK, will behave a little more wisely than has been the case and that it will stop interfering with people who prefer different moral and judicial systems.