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Author
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Topic: A personal morality
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ringo
Member (Idle past 434 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: 03-23-2005
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moo writes: You destroy any self-worth you had. "Self-worth", by definition, is determined by the person him self, not by you.
This degrades the value of love. No more than ice cream degrades the value of food. An occasional one-scoop stand isn't the end of the world.
Someone told me ignorance is not bliss and for the sake of humanity I must believe it. Humanity has gotten by for a while without the support of your beliefs. I expect it will continue to do so.
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| This message is a reply to: | | | Message 107 by Trump won, posted 04-06-2007 1:32 AM | | Trump won has replied |
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ringo
Member (Idle past 434 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: 03-23-2005
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moo writes: A truly good man has the knowledge, can measure the good and the bad and can never do wrong. To "never do wrong", to "measure the good and the bad", a man would have to have perfect knowledge. That is not possible, no matter how "truly good" he might be.
... it takes a great deal of reasoning to understand this it is no excuse for this peddling of perversion. Nobody is talking about "perversion" here - we're talking about one-night stands. If you don't understand the terminology, no amount of "reasoning" will help you.
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| This message is a reply to: | | | Message 110 by Trump won, posted 04-06-2007 1:58 AM | | Trump won has not replied |
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ringo
Member (Idle past 434 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: 03-23-2005
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Re: Talkin' 'bout my morality...
Catholic Scientist writes: I would be less moral if I didn't believe in God. There's more to morality than just avoiding "immoral" acts. Doing a "bad" thing for a good reason is usually forgiveable. Doing a "good" thing for the wrong reason may not be. As long as you're being "good" out of fear of punishment, you're really not being moral at all. You're just faking it, going through the motions.
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ringo
Member (Idle past 434 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: 03-23-2005
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Re: Talkin' 'bout my morality...
Catholic Scientist writes: Well, then for some of the morally correct things that I do, I am just faking it. So, do you think your fake morality is fooling God? If you're afraid of punishment, shouldn't there be more punishment for being dishonest?
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ringo
Member (Idle past 434 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: 03-23-2005
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Re: Talkin' 'bout my morality...
Catholic Scientist writes: ... what is it that I'm faking? Uhhh... you said in Message 155 that "...for some of the morally correct things that I do, I am just faking it." Don't try to weasel out of it now with examples that don't fit.
And no, I don't think there should be more punishment than for the liars. What I'm saying is that faking morality makes you a liar, even if you weren't one before. So you'll be punished for one count of forging morality and one count of attempting to pass forged morality.
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ringo
Member (Idle past 434 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: 03-23-2005
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Re: Talkin' 'bout my morality...
Catholic Scientist writes: The point is that my conscience has labeled some behaviors as immoral, a priori. What if your conscience was having an "allergic reaction"? In a sense, your conscience is like an immune system that protects you from behaviour that is potentially damaging. But what if the "protection" does more harm instead of less? Like your immune system closing your throat to keep out foreign particles, what if your conscience "chokes" you while trying to save you? Long question short: Can you trust your conscience? If nobody is hurt, how do you know an action is "wrong"?
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ringo
Member (Idle past 434 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: 03-23-2005
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Re: Talkin' 'bout my morality...
Catholic Scientist writes: What if your conscience was having an "allergic reaction"? Its a possibility, but I don't know how I would be able to tell. Same way you recognize a literal allergic reaction: it does more harm than good. For example:
If I'm defending myself, and the other guy does get hurt, I wouldn't neccessarily consider it immoral. Your conscience might well be wrong. If you duck and he breaks his hand on the wall, that might be legitimate self-defense. If you punch back and break his nose, it might not be. If you step aside and he falls down the stairs, did you do enough to ensure his safety? "He hit me first" has little importance for morality. It's the outcome that counts. Any morality that isn't based on consequences is bound to fail.
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ringo
Member (Idle past 434 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: 03-23-2005
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Re: Talkin' 'bout my morality...
Catholic Scientist writes: Bar fighting is all culture. It doesn't matter if you're a believer or mature. So culture trumps belief. If you were born into a Buddhist culture, you'd be a Buddhist. If you were born into an atheist culture, you'd be an atheist. Doesn't that suggest that your morality is not belief-based?
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ringo
Member (Idle past 434 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: 03-23-2005
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Re: Talkin' 'bout my morality...
atholic Scientist writes: Doesn't that suggest that your morality is not belief-based?
Sure, from the get-go. But if you go and change your beliefs, it would affect your morality. So you keep saying, but how? If your morality is not belief-based, how can changing your beliefs change your morality? If your feet hurt, how can changing your tie relieve the pain?
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ringo
Member (Idle past 434 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: 03-23-2005
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Catholic Scientist writes: If your source for guidelines on morality changed (i.e religion) then your morality would change. But you've agreed that your morality is not belief-based - i.e. not religion-based - in Message 184. You've agreed that we learn our morality from the culture we are born into. Changing your religion (or changing to atheism) doesn't change what was trained into you at an early age.
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ringo
Member (Idle past 434 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: 03-23-2005
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Catholic Scientist writes: You think your morality is unchangeable? Pretty much. Isn't that what the idea of "conscience" is all about? A stabilizing influence that tells you what you know deep down is right and wrong? Isn't the very idea that your conscience is "deep down" an indication that it doesn't change with every flavour-of-the-month? I think your actions can change. But isn't your "personal morality" more about how you feel about your actions?
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