The (Inter)National Book, Or, "We Are Doomed!"

[Loran Blood]

Lehi:

Why? If I respect your right to believe any silly thing you want, and you respect my right to believe any silly thing I want and we both follow the dictates of law. Who gives a flying fig what we believe? IE; If you believe that humans came from Alpha Proxima and I believe that women are from Venus, and men are from Mars. Whose business is it as long as we respect each others rights?

When was the command to "preach my gospel" rescinded?

[Loran Blood]

Fallacy of reification.

Really? Reification is the ascribing of concrete properties to abstract ideas or concepts. That is not what I have done here. What I have done is made explicit the logical implications of Arieates claim that morality is a "biological quality." If that is true, then if follows that there are biological qualities from which prescriptive moral maxims and assertions can be derived, and if that is true, then nature itself contains latent or incipient moral values.

If morality is purely a biological quality, then the biological and natural world are themselves infused at some level and in some sense with moral values and, by extension, value judgement. But where do we see "morality" expressed in the natural world?

Edited October 11, 2011 by Loran Blood

[Loran Blood]

The sky sure is taking a long time to fall.

Really? In this particular cycle of cultural degeneration and decline, which the scriptures and modern revelation indicate will be the last such fall of civilization (as it will be universal and not regional, as it has always been in times past), the decline has been very rapid, coming, in my view, in two primary waves, the first imposing itself strongly beginning in the early 1930s, followed by a hiatus brought on by WWII, followed by a latent period of relative cultural/moral stasis, with the forces of such decline then regaining strength and coming to a crescendo in or around the late 1960s. The changes in our culture brought on by those forces at that time were definitive, and the present era is primarily an ever intensifying extension and entrenchment of the ideas, values, and attitudes of those forces and the substantial overturning of what Lehi has termed our "national book" for other volumes.

In just some 40 years, American and European culture has changed drastically, and those changes, at least here, have been nothing less than startling in the rapidity with which they have replaced both the classical liberal and Jedeo-Christian social and moral framework.

Edited October 11, 2011 by Loran Blood

[Loran Blood]

Lehi:

To be overly literal the sky can't fall on anything. But individual people, cities, and even civilizations do come to an end. It has little to nothing to do with parents complaints about their children. When my kids were little and misbehaved they might have thought the sky was falling in on them, but it wasn't. A Parents Curse "May your children be just like you".

The Paris of today in not the same Paris as it was under the Vichy government. Though many of the buildings are.

The intellectual and political world of France after WWII all the way into the seventies, became so Finlandized that at one point one could have easily wondered whether France was still really a part of the West and the "free world," so agonizing was the French intelligentsia's struggle with the choice between socialism and liberal democracy. The fact is, STS, that the sky has fallen, over and over again, grounded in precisely the rejection of gospel truths the Book of Mormon clearly teaches are central to maintaining a society in moral, intellectual, and spiritual health. Do you not think the French Jews sent of to the death camps by their own collaborationist government thought the sky had fallen? Did not the sky fall on the well in excess of 100,000,000 human beings who died in the name of "revolution" during the 20th century? Did not the sky fall on France in 1789?

As a Latter day Saint, I find your apparent belief that "all is well in Zion" and that everything is pretty much going to go on as it always has without too much fuss and inconvenience, to be a bit odd, to be frank.

If you make this political the thread will be closed.

Edited October 12, 2011 by Minos

[Tarski]

Really? Reification is the ascribing of concrete properties to abstract ideas or concepts. That is not what I have done here. What I have done is made explicit the logical implications of Arieates claim that morality is a "biological quality." If that is true, then if follows that there are biological qualities from which prescriptive moral maxims and assertions can be derived, and if that is true, then nature itself contains latent or incipient moral values.

If morality is purely a biological quality, then the biological and natural world are themselves infused at some level and in some sense with moral values and, by extension, value judgement. But where do we see "morality" expressed in the natural world?

You are still doing it.

"biological quality"?

Are you going to make the analogous claim about language?

Look, it is an old fallacy that just because a concept is approriate at a certain level of complexity, there must be some inherant proto version of that at lower levels of structure. This is also behind the misguided panpsychic intuition that each little cell and each little atom must be a little bit conscious.

Anyway, are you brushing aside in one stroke every bit of sociobiology or are you just unaware of it? You might learn a little bit about your own us-versus-them mentality.

For my part, I recognize that sociobiology is not above criticism but there is a core of truth in the subject that will slowly be teased out as we learn more and other disciplines such are neurology are brought to bear.

I would tell you about proto-ethics and social behavior found in nature and in our hominid ancestors but I am sure you will apply the true Scottsman fallacy as needed.

[Tarski]

Really? In this particular cycle of cultural degeneration and decline, which the scriptures and modern revelation indicate will be the last such fall of civilization (as it will be universal and not regional, as it has always been in times past), the decline has been very rapid, coming, in my view, in two primary waves, the first imposing itself strongly beginning in the early 1930s, followed by a hiatus brought on by WWII, followed by a latent period of relative cultural/moral stasis, with the forces of such decline then regaining strength and coming to a crescendo in or around the late 1960s. The changes in our culture brought on by those forces at that time were definitive, and the present era is primarily an ever intensifying extension and entrenchment of the ideas, values, and attitudes of those forces and the substantial overturning of what Lehi has termed our "national book" for other volumes.

In just some 40 years, American and European culture has changed drastically, and those changes, at least here, have been nothing less than startling in the rapidity with which they have replaced both the classical liberal and Jedeo-Christian social and moral framework.

I don't know where you live but I am surrounded by a substantial amount sexual prudery, biblical literalism and varying degrees of dominionism.

As far as values, I am disturbed too but perhaps about a different trend-- a trend that came to a head when the Supreme Court put a stop to a California effort to ban the sale of hyper-violent realistic video games to minors. What was disturbing to me was not simply that the majority conservative opinion essentially said it was OK for children to buy games which allow the player to particpate in ultra realsitc and anatomically graphic animations where, in one case, skin-headish thugs repeatedly beat a woman's skull in and then chain saw her in half vertically from the crotch upwards but that it also commented that while such could not be restricted, sexual content potentially could be.

So a game that included a "wardrobe malfunction" could be kept from the eyes of children but not something like what I just described ( I saw it for myself and I promise that you cannot be properly prepared to see it. )

Something is indeed messed up about that but it appears that this inversion of common sense and humanity cannot be laid at the feet of liberals.

Of course, the violence OK, sex bad, attitude has been around for a while but this takes it to an unimagined level.

Edited October 12, 2011 by Tarski

[Loran Blood]

What was disturbing to me was not simply that the majority conservative opinion essentially said it was OK for children to buy games which allow the player to particpate in ultra realsitc and anatomically graphic animations where, in one case, skin-headish thugs repeatedly beat a woman's skull in and then chain saw her in half vertically from the crotch upwards but that it also commented that while such could not be restricted, sexual content potentially could be.

A great deal could be said and observed regarding this, but I need a CFR on the bolded claim above.

[Loran Blood]

Tarski:

While I would not use homosexuality as a cause of Katrina. The resulting damage done was definitely the result of a lack of moral leadership.

Yes, it was...In New Orleans and Louisiana. Now, why are you trying to politicize the thread again?

[Thinking]

Is there hope that my grandchildren (the eldest of whom will have their own families in less than a decade) will raise their families in a wholly irreligious and immoral world?

Is it possible to be irreligious but still moral?

[LeSellers]

Is it possible to be irreligious but still moral?

"Possible", yes; "likely", no.

The most "moral" of those who are not religious must invent his own moral code because there is nothing external to him that has any authoritative position. If he changes his mind on what is moral, it is of no consequence because he is the highest authority on the mater of what is moral.

I know many atheists who are decent people; they don't kill anyone, they don't steal things, they don't commit adultery (at least not that I know of). But they freely admit that it's because they don't feel like doing those things, not because there is any rational reason for avoiding them. If a wife decided to throw herself at them, and she was desirable enough, well, it's not hurting anyone, so why not?

Religion, as Adams and Franklin told us, is the only way a people can be free: our Constitution was designed for the government of a moral people, it is adequate to no other. If someone can be moral without religion, I think he's a fool, but I applaud him for his morality. It's just that most irreligious people have no pole star—their course follows whatever winds happens to blow at the time.

The course of least resistance makes for crooked rivers and crooked men. That's why a National Book is so important: without it, each of us must experiment to see what works, we have no patrimony of human experience to show us that morality is,whatever its costs, the most profitable path. Virtue is, indeed, its own reward, and evil always punishes itself. The classics, from the Bible and The Odyssey to The Lord of the Rings and The Book of Mormon illustrate this.

Lehi

[thesometimesaint]

Loran Blood:

I have no problem with any of the LDS Scriptures. But still don't want any ONE to be THE National(International) Book for morals and Mores. BTW The LDS Quad would still be unacceptable for that position too.

To be clear. Even the Book of Mormon is a prescription for Monarchy or rule by a small set of Judges. Hardly my idea of "Balaning one mans greed against another mans avarice". Our political and religious leaders set the moral tone for this country(at least in my ideal). It need not even be religious in nature. The problem with using just one, or narrow set of books becomes readily appearant. I've often made reference to the US Constitution, and related Federalist Papers, as my ideal, but even that "Inspired Document", having various interpretations of it, has given us everything from Dredd Scott to Brown v Topeka Broad of Education.

Edited October 12, 2011 by thesometimesaint

[Senator]

"

I know many atheists who are decent people; they don't kill anyone, they don't steal things, they don't commit adultery (at least not that I know of). But they freely admit that it's because they don't feel like doing those things, not because there is any rational reason for avoiding them. If a wife decided to throw herself at them, and she was desirable enough, well, it's not hurting anyone, so why not?

I personally don't know any atheists well enough to be able to obtain first hand knowledge. So I'll ask this of any atheists that may be lurking here. Is the above statement true?

Do you engage(or not engage) in behavior simply because of whatever arbitrary feeling you may have at the time. Is it safe to say that eventhough you may not feel like stealing, killing, or committing adultery right now, that you could possibly feel to do so, and would do so, latter?

Do you not engage rational reasoning in your behavioral decision making? I thought athiests were all about rationality, unlike the religious?

Anyway, my "prejudice" sensors were set ablaze by this post.

Edited October 12, 2011 by Senator

[LeSellers]

Do [atheists (please note the spelling)] engage(or not engage) in behavior simply because of whatever arbitrary feeling you may have at the time.

That's not what I said.

I said that the atheists I know (whom I have talked to about this) have admitted that their moral code is set by their own standards, not by any outside authority (i.e., God). They also admit that, if the situation changed, meaning that if they decided that their moral code was no longer useful in their minds, that code would be modified.

Is it safe to say that eventhough you may not feel like stealing, killing, or committing adultery right now, that you could possibly feel to do so, and would do so, latter?

That's about what I've heard, however poorly you worded the question. It's an irreligious application of situational ethics.

But your question, being hypothetical, is not phrased well. A better one would be something like this:

Assuming you reject adultery, theft, and murder as morally impermissible, could you imagine a situation where you would alter your moral code in a way that would allow you to kill, commit adultery, or steal?

We might also point out that dedicated religious people do not kill, steal, or commit adultery (although some people claiming to be religious do one of more of these things). On the other hand, nearly all adulterers, murders, and thieves are not religious. Your target population (irreligious people with conventional morals) is very limited.

Do you not engage rational reasoning in your behavior discission making? I thought athiests were all about rationality, unlike the religious?

This has nothing to do with my content.

Anyway, my "prejudice" sensors were set ablaze by this post.

Based on what?

My question to the moral-but-irreligious is, "On what do you base your morality?" Further, I might ask, "Is morality a universal characteristic of humanity? If not, why did you choose your moral code as it is?"

Lehi

[Senator]

That's not what I said.

Lehi,

Do you have a certain need to point out people's spelling and grammar mistakes? Does it satisfy (or project) some sense of superiority over those whom you're dialogueing with?

Stop! It's annoying.

As for the rest of your post.....my question was not posed to you. I'll await an answer from those to whom it was posed.

[LeSellers]

Do you have a certain need to point out people's spelling and grammar mistakes?

Yes, I do, especially when the person in question is picking his own nits.

But I rarely do it, and did so in this case because an an atheist friend of mine objects to that particular misspelling. She wonders, if she is "athiest", what it must mean to be "athier" or merely "athi".

Stop! It's annoying.

Reading ill-formed, badly keyboarded messages is also annoying.

Lehi

[Senator]

Reading ill-formed, badly keyboarded messages is also annoying.

Then don't read them.

[LeSellers]

Then don't read [ill-formed, badly keyboarded messages].

I won't, at least I will avoid some of them, yours, mostly.

Of course, similar advice could be offered to you: If you don't like to read spelling and grammar tips,. don't look at them.

Lehi

Edited October 12, 2011 by LeSellers

[thesometimesaint]

Both of you need to stop the bickering.

[LeSellers]

Both of you need to stop the bickering.

Both of whom?

Lehi

[Ares]

Problem solved.