Faith and belief

Did I miss a message from you? To what question do you refer?

Messages 61 and 90.
I asked if you could outline the morals that you consider universal and that in your opinion apply to everyone and not just yourself.

atrawberrypatchbug: message 61 was a reply to eighteendelta so I did not receive notification. http://EvC Forum: Faith and belief -->EvC Forum: Faith and beliefNo big deal... I'll answer the question. I remember someone asking that question along the line. I was just distracted with other things.The universal moral is 'love thy neighbor as thy self'.I was making reference to the fact that if we believe that morality is relative (we each have our own truths and create our own reality) then I cannot expect a Hitler or Stalin to respect human dignity.The fact is, we do expect others to respect the rights of others. It is universal in human history. Of course there are monsterous exceptions.

The question isn't so much, "What would Hitler or Stalin do?"It's more like, "What would you do if Hitler or Stalin was your neighbour?" Would you help them with their "home improvement" projects?"Universal" morality poses a problem when you have to choose between neighbours.

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“Faith moves mountains, but only knowledge moves them to the right place” -- Joseph Goebbels
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Ringo: I see you know 'Ed Zachary'.Ringo: Not really... you choose to impose yourself on the neighbors who insist on killing you. Not because you want to... but because they do.Nothing moral about allowing Hitlers and Stalins to obliterate you or your neighbors. In fact, it would be immoral.

Nope. Never heard of him. That only applies to extreme situations. When you have two neighbours whose plans, etc. are harmless but mutually exclusive, which one do you choose? (If two neighbours are roofing their houses on the same weekend, who do you help?)There's just no escaping the relative nature of all decisions.

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“Faith moves mountains, but only knowledge moves them to the right place” -- Joseph Goebbels
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Rob said to Ringo: Then you might want to know that Rob is making a reference to Urban slang a very poor taste joke at that.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

An observation Rob was kind enough to illustrate. Given a choice between making or not making a joke guaranteed to cast its teller in a bad light, Rob chose self-sabotage.Not everyone would choose this.Which just goes to show you the individual nature of all decisions.If obvious self-sabotage is a priority for you, as it seems to be for Rob, you will choose your actions on that basis, as Rob has. If self-sabotage is not something you value, you will choose your actions based on other things you regard as more important.

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ArcherAll species are transitional.

Why worry?If the 'spiritual age is upon us' and God intends to 'manifest,' the 'controversy and disagreements' are either:1. a short-term phenomenon, or
2. a feature of the new ageEither way, you can relax.Reality. It's what's for dinner.

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ArcherAll species are transitional.

It is the nature of reality to conform to your beliefs? Why do you call it a mess? Because it does not conform to your beliefs?

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ArcherAll species are transitional.

Reality is what we are conscious of.

So who constitutes "we." Is it the royal "we" in which you are speaking on behalf of your 'subjects'?Has it occurred to you that someone else's perceptions of reality, even just based upon different sensory inputs and interpretations, and therefore anyone else's reality, may be different than yours?Does the 'wild child' speak the king's English?Reality appears to me to be rather democratic in nature, it is by agreement. If you would like to meet some people who disagree with 'reality,' the town I live in has a state mental hospital where you can hear and consider alternative versions.

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Read not to contradict and confute, not to believe and take for granted, not to find talk and discourse, but to weigh and consider - Francis BaconThe more we understand particular things, the more we understand God - Spinoza

The mess I refer to is humanities' inhumanity to humanity, the suffering, the wars, the cruelty, the apathy, the despair, the judgements, the exclusions, the inequality. Need I go on?All of this is directly connected to our belief systems and faith in those belief systems. Do you believe that we have got it right and to leave the rest to providence? Don't you think that it is possible that 'life' is in our hands, and every single one of us adults are collectively responsible for the all of it?Metaphorically speaking, whether burying one's head in the sand or putting one's head in the clouds, it is still avoiding reality. Avoidance of the inhumanity is like a damn. It will fill up and overflow. It is already.Have you looked at the history books lately? A lot of things have changed for the better but at a cost. Some things have gotten steadily worse. The fear and the terror, rife in the world, has never been so great. This is the legacy we are giving our children.Are we going to make an effect on the world or is the world going to make an effect on us? Change or be changed or try to prevent change. Those are the choices.Edited by dameeva, : No reason given.

Have you looked at the history books lately?"The fear and terror, rife in the world, has never been so great?"Since when?Greece? (like Sparta and Athens were lovey-dovey)
Rome? (ever heard of Caligula, Nero, Domitian, or Caracalla, for a few?)
Palestine? (remember all those OT genocides?)How about those nice middle ages in Europe? embrace the lord as a serf, tolerate the plague, burn the witch, play fun games with the infidel. Not to mention that advanced scientific, medical, and agricultural technology that resulted in one chance in two to die before age five.But why limit this observation to the 'western world?' I wonder if Celts, some Western Hemisphere Indians, or even Carthaginians, may have found the practice of human sacrifice a bit disturbing, particularly if one was on the receiving end.{ABE} Beyond direct human sacrifice, one must consider the fear and suffering that involved indigenous populations in the process of colonization, be it the mass extermination of the American Indian or Australian Aborigine through acts of violence or incidental disease, or the death of between 20 and 100 million Africans as a result of only the 'modern' slave trade. The combination of all three factors as recently as the 1880's resulted in the death of 5 million Africans in the Congo, half the population, a figure one million shy of the holocaust. The victims had a legitimate fear of terror far beyond what any modern person could even begin to conceive.{/ABE}Of course all this "fear and terror, rife in the world" in the past, when so many starved to death, such as in China at the end of the Ming (among other times), or in Europe at the fall of the Western Roman Empire, or due to the plague, actually reduced the total population of the world, had no emotional effect upon the people involved.So what is the argument? That we suffer more because we have radio, TV, the internet and therefore are more aware? Or is the argument that people in the past somehow suffered less because they were somehow less human?I'm sorry, IMHO your post indicates a complete lack of both relative empathy and even the most remote knowledge of world history.Edited by anglagard, : No reason given.

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Read not to contradict and confute, not to believe and take for granted, not to find talk and discourse, but to weigh and consider - Francis BaconThe more we understand particular things, the more we understand God - Spinoza

All I knew is that 'Ed Zachary' was slang for 'exactly. I didn't know anything about hints at ungliness. Was just trying to lighten it up...