Equality

[Nick_A]

IC

How can one "aim" at a bad thing that's not ALREADY bad? So "aim" doesn't explain anything.

The aim of Christianity is a good thing. Yet it turned into a bad thing called the Spanish Inquisition. Mechanical life turns in circles including secular Christianity. Esoteric Christrianity seeks the conscious means to reflect the teaching. Secular animal life is a necessity serving universal purpose. Conscious life is an active participant serving to unite levels of reality.

Firstly, because "evolution" is supposed to be a purely material process, and thus has no "potential" for man that he could be "prevented" from reaching. Evolution neither knows nor cares where human beings, or any other creatures end up. It has no telos, no "end game" in mind. It doesn't have a mind. Its creatures go extinct by the millions, and it has any number of false-starts where some critter turns out to be "maladapted" and thus becomes extinct. Evolution is a tremendously wasteful process, in that regard; and it has no power to care about that.

Secondly, why would something be "preventing" human beings from anything, if nothing is already evil/preventative? So that seems obvio

Evolution can only be assumed by those unaware of what “being” is. Is the being of a dog just a material expression or a vibratory expression of Spirit. Science knows that matter vibrates. But what is vibrating

Evolution and the whole cycle of life and death seems wasteful when we only are concerned with results. But what if the purpose of life is in the process of living rather than the results?

All the parts of the living machine we call organic life on earth serve a purpose as do the parts of your car make the whole possible. The endgame of animal life is not an accident; But a necessity serving a cosmic and natural purpose through the bodily processes it produces.

Nothing is guaranteed. Accidents happen. That is the purpose of the demiurge. They fix things where possible in the body of God

[Nick_A]

Commonsense

On the other hand, pleasure is good because it feels good. Procreation, in/of the act itself, is good because it pleases people, putting rape aside.

Doesn’t this make sense?

It makes sense for al who believe that good and evil are subjective decisions. It doesn’t make sense for those who believe in the objective good described by Plato and evil as what prevents us from realizing it

It seems the majority here prefer to argue subjective values but anyone concerned with why objective equality is impossible for Man in Plato’s cave will have to learn how and why objective values were created by our source for the good of the body of God or our universe.

[Immanuel Can]

IC

How can one "aim" at a bad thing that's not ALREADY bad? So "aim" doesn't explain anything.

The aim of Christianity is a good thing. Yet it turned into a bad thing called the Spanish Inquisition.

No, it didn't, actually. The Inquisition was a product of raw disobedience to anything Christian, not of anything Christian.

But "aim" is not the issue. Before you "aim" at something good or bad, it's ALREADY good or bad. The "aiming" itself doesn't change that. One doesn't make a bad thing good merely by saying, "It's what I'm aiming at."

Evolution and the whole cycle of life and death seems wasteful when we only are concerned with results.

Umm...if we were Evolutionists, what else would there be but to be concerned with -- "results" meaning "survival."

[Nick_A]

I C

No, it didn't, actually. The Inquisition was a product of raw disobedience to anything Christian, not of anything Christian.

But this is what secularism does. It changes the intent by interpretation. After a while these interpretations create the opposite of Christianity.

But "aim" is not the issue. Before you "aim" at something good or bad, it's ALREADY good or bad. The "aiming" itself doesn't change that. One doesn't make a bad thing good merely by saying, "It's what I'm aiming at."

But when we begin with a good aim and become incapable of it this is the human condition. It is a question education should deal with but doesn’t know how so just preaches some PC solution and everything stays the same.

One of the classic definitions of sin is “missing the Mark.” A person throws a spear at a target but misses the target. The aim wasn’t to miss the target. If the aim was to hit the target missing the target is a sin. It is the story of our lives. We begin with an aim but miss the mark.

Umm...if we were Evolutionists, what else would there be but to be concerned with -- "results" meaning "survival."

At one time “It’s not whether you win or lose but how you ply the game that counts” was a Christian idea. It has devolved into society as “Winning is the only thing”

“results meaning survival means one thing to secularists but did it mean the same to Socrates and Jesus? How did they understand survival

[Belinda]

I know or have known only five Americans or people who have lived there, and they were not propagandised

How old are they?

I'm 57 and my schoolin' was fairly clean compared to the bullshit my 14 year gets thrown his way.

He handles it well cuz I counter it well, but neither of us ought to have to contend with slave training, which is exactly what it amounts to.

They are or were really old compared with not only you but compared with most people alive today.
I confess I have not read anything really up to date, but I have heard, quite recently American universities are top of the league. So it is hard for me to credit that Americans who have been to state schools are all brain washed. In fact, I don't believe it.
I do admire your having the courage of your convictions but I wonder if you can teach without libertarian bias.

PS by "American universities" I don't mean these foundations that purpose to teach from Christian bias.

[Belinda]

Perhaps the meaning of “hate crime” is a crime attended by hate and not that hate itself is a crime. No?

Well, I think that's the idea. But how does one judge an emotion? How do you know whether, say a savage beating a person of colour got was motivated by "hate," or by greed -- as in the desire to have the guy's wallet? Or was it a product of a misunderstanding, for which no pre-existing hatred was even involved? Or was it a case of mistaken identity? Or was the hatred present, but directed at his "Pittsburg Steelers" sweater, rather than at the colour of his skin?

We can judge beating up somebody as evil. What we don't know is the WHY. And it's not enough to say, "Well, the assailant was white, or a policeman, or the son of a Southern Democrat"; none of these things is sufficient proof of what emotion was involved in the act. All of that is merely circumstantial. We cannot fairly judge a persons heart-motives. We just don't know.

But in point of fact, what's happening right now is rather different. Instead of us waiting for a crime to be committed, we're now attacking each other for having "hate speech," or racial "hatred," purely on the assumption that if he or she belongs to a different political party, or expresses doubt about the purity of our own political project, or even because they just haver a different view than we like.

And that's really a poisonous turn of events.

So it's better we indict the act...like "assault," and leave the motivations out of it, unless the person has already revealed exactly what his motive was by saying or doing it. That's enough. To go beyond is to open a can of worms we can't close.

Judges in courts of law judge criminals' motives. I don't know what the relative penalties are for hate crimes, or greed crimes, or domestic crimes.

It is criminal to aid and abet a suicide, and it is criminal to aid and abet hate crime. Some politicians sail pretty close to the wind regarding inflammatory speeches and actions. For instance Trump's speeches and actions have inflamed people to riot against unfair treatment of black people by some policemen.Trump agitates. I don't know whether or not that is a criminal offence when the president does it.

[Immanuel Can]

So it's better we indict the act...like "assault," and leave the motivations out of it, unless the person has already revealed exactly what his motive was by saying or doing it. That's enough. To go beyond is to open a can of worms we can't close.

Judges in courts of law judge criminals' motives.

Motives-for-action, yes: felt emotions, no. And there are zero penalties for "having an emotion," whether hatred or greed, or anything else. But today's Left penalizes emotion...and worse, they claim to know when "hatred" is involved, even when the people implicated don't feel or believe it is.

Some politicians sail pretty close to the wind regarding inflammatory speeches and actions.

Speech is not criminal, unless it DIRECTLY exhorts others to violence or involves verifiable slander. It's never wrong merely for being offensive, insulting (except for outright slander), unpleasant, controversial, challenging, contrary or "inflammatory."

[Belinda]

So it's better we indict the act...like "assault," and leave the motivations out of it, unless the person has already revealed exactly what his motive was by saying or doing it. That's enough. To go beyond is to open a can of worms we can't close.

Judges in courts of law judge criminals' motives.

Motives-for-action, yes: felt emotions, no. And there are zero penalties for "having an emotion," whether hatred or greed, or anything else. But today's Left penalizes emotion...and worse, they claim to know when "hatred" is involved, even when the people implicated don't feel or believe it is.

Some politicians sail pretty close to the wind regarding inflammatory speeches and actions.

Speech is not criminal, unless it DIRECTLY exhorts others to violence or involves verifiable slander. It's never wrong merely for being offensive, insulting (except for outright slander), unpleasant, controversial, challenging, contrary or "inflammatory."

I think of myself as politically left, and the people I know and identify with are politically left. Nothing you say about "today's Left" is true.

__________
That is what I meant by some politicians "sailing close to the wind".

[Immanuel Can]

Judges in courts of law judge criminals' motives.

Motives-for-action, yes: felt emotions, no. And there are zero penalties for "having an emotion," whether hatred or greed, or anything else. But today's Left penalizes emotion...and worse, they claim to know when "hatred" is involved, even when the people implicated don't feel or believe it is.

Some politicians sail pretty close to the wind regarding inflammatory speeches and actions.

Speech is not criminal, unless it DIRECTLY exhorts others to violence or involves verifiable slander. It's never wrong merely for being offensive, insulting (except for outright slander), unpleasant, controversial, challenging, contrary or "inflammatory."

I think of myself as politically left, and the people I know and identify with are politically left. Nothing you say about "today's Left" is true.

Well, you don't ever hear the centrists or the right speak about "hate speech," or pillory people for having PC thoughtcrimes. But the Left are doing it constantly.

In fact, the coinage "hate speech" itself is Leftist. So maybe you're just not a typical Leftist...in which case, that's good.

[commonsense]

.

[commonsense]

Yes, if the world were good, there wouldn’t be any evil.

Well, that sure calls for a question or two, doesn't it?

Like, "Is this world really something that contains evil, or is 'evil' just a word we use to describe things that are "inconvenient"? But then again, why should anything be "inconvenient," when it might have been otherwise? It's a very odd fact that we find the world is somehow "against us" in some ways; why should it be so?

Evil is more than inconvenient. It may repulse and/or frighten. The evil in the world is certainly against us.

[commonsense]

And what about the evils men do? For even if there were not these strange oppositional forces we find in the world and call 'evil,' there are surely enough cases in hand of human beings taking the opportunity to harm each other, aren't there? So where does that impulse come from?

Good people don’t harm other people. Evil people do. Evil people have evil impulses, which are neither controlled nor ignored.

Of course, this does nothing to the problem of what good and evil are. We’ll have to come back for that.

[commonsense]

Murder is evil as it displeases normal people.

Well, we've got loaded terms here.

Which "people"? What's "normal," and who gets to say? How serious is it to "displease" a person? And what if, for some reason, an action that was formerly displeasing, like genocide, becomes not-displeasing, as it did to so many in the Third Reich? What if the majority is in favour of propagandizing or killing children...does its normalcy excuse it morally as well, and make it good?

Normal is whatever the majority of all the people think. Granted, this is a relativistic definition, but one we have to accept. We don’t have to accept that genocide is good. We just have to accept that the Third Reich thought it was good.

[Belinda]

Motives-for-action, yes: felt emotions, no. And there are zero penalties for "having an emotion," whether hatred or greed, or anything else. But today's Left penalizes emotion...and worse, they claim to know when "hatred" is involved, even when the people implicated don't feel or believe it is.


Speech is not criminal, unless it DIRECTLY exhorts others to violence or involves verifiable slander. It's never wrong merely for being offensive, insulting (except for outright slander), unpleasant, controversial, challenging, contrary or "inflammatory."

I think of myself as politically left, and the people I know and identify with are politically left. Nothing you say about "today's Left" is true.

Well, you don't ever hear the centrists or the right speak about "hate speech," or pillory people for having PC thoughtcrimes. But the Left are doing it constantly.

In fact, the coinage "hate speech" itself is Leftist. So maybe you're just not a typical Leftist...in which case, that's good.

I simply don't know any statistics . It does seem however that politically left people are more interested in causes of crimes than are politically right people. I am not familiar with the term 'thoughtcrimes' but surely nobody at all thinks it's a crime to think a thought?

[commonsense]

On the other hand, pleasure is good because it feels good.

Heroin, I hear, feels really good. Prostitution might feel good. Pornography feels good to those drawn to it. Being drunk out of one's mind feels good. And sometimes, beating another person up, if you really, really didn't like him, is reported to feel good too. Are we sure we want to call all such things good?

Mea culpa. I could say that heroin etc. is not enjoyed by normal people with normal ideas about good and evil. I should say that that is what I meant to say.

But the truth is I hadn’t hadn’t thought it through.

Still, within a relativist framework, the addict would think that heroin is good.