Claiming Moral Authority

Off Topic Politics & World Issues
161

[quote]JayPierce wrote:

[quote]pittbulll wrote:

[quote]JayPierce wrote:

[quote]pittbulll wrote:

[quote]hungry4more wrote:

[quote]pittbulll wrote:

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]pittbulll wrote:

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]pittbulll wrote:

[quote]JayPierce wrote:

[quote]pittbulll wrote:

[quote]JayPierce wrote:
I usually stay out of these, but I have to side with Pat on this one. It is, in fact, spelled out for us in detail.

Still, one could ask; What is the basis for morality, the principles at the very core of it? After all, God doesn’t make up rules without reason.

Is it love vs. hate? Generosity vs. selfishness? Indifference vs. passion? All of the above?

If it weren’t for God telling us, would we be capable of determining morality for ourselves?[/quote]

the mere definition of the word Moral is debatable IMO
[/quote]
How so?

Just to make sure we’re on the same page, here; We are talking about the concept of right and wrong as it pertains to human behavior, right?

Or are you really debating the concept of ‘right’?

[/quote]

Are morals stories or the summation of a story or are they the concept of right and wrong?

I have my concept of right and wrong and I Govern my life accordingly. I should have no right to thrust my concepts on you nor should any one have that right to thrust their concepts of right and wrong on me (unless I am harming some one else)
[/quote]

And there the problem lies. I just described how your concept of it does not matter. If your concept of right includes something that is immoral, then it’s still immoral whether you think it’s right or not. You are not the master of morality, your own or anybody elses. It is what it is, and you cannot change it by a sheer act of will.[/quote]

Please prove that
[/quote]

I did on page 3 where I answered your last ‘prove it’ with:

“Simple, that which is evil is evil despite whether one thinks it is or not. For instance, is it ever moral to rape a child?
When an there is an act that causes grievous harm from a sentient being to or on another sentient being, that act is inherently evil. Even if society at large condones the evil action, the action is still evil. I choose to focus on the evil aspect because it’s easier to agree on examples.
What morality is, is inexpressible in language but actions demonstrate various aspects of morality.
Relative morality, which is what you are expressing breaks down in reality. Something being acceptable to one or more person does not define that act as moral. Like in the slavery example, it was always wrong and always immoral, but at certain points in history it was accepted. That didn’t do much for the slaves, they still suffered the evils of slavery. It’s wrong to enslave another, it’s wrong to denigrate and devalue a person. But they were and it was accepted. When people pointed out the truth, they were scoffed at, then they were opposed violently, then slavery being evil was accepted as always being self evident.
Because this fact was true outside the minds of people, it’s proof that this moral tenant and therefore morality exists independently of the human mind.”

Since we’re into proving things, prove morality is relative…
Prove that rape, murder, slavery, etc. could be considered ‘moral’ based on personal concepts of morality.
The problem with relative morality is that, at least in theory, you have to prove then, the most abominable acts could be considered moral. So you prove it. [/quote]

This is not proof of any thing this is mere opinion. I am not stating any thing about rape, murder, slavery, etc.

I will ask you a few questions When the state executes someone in that immoral ? We put people in Prison is that slavery ?

In my opinion there is going to be no proof of your opinion because it is simply an opinion that you and a minority share[/quote]

Why won’t you state anything about rape, murder, or slavery? Serious question. Do you feel they are too difficult or impossible to prove as wrong, or is it something else?

Also, by virtually any definition of slavery, prison does not fit that bill. Slavery is not a punishment, that would be servitude. Like in the case of an indentured servant, where one works off his debt. That is CLOSER to being in prison than slavery. [/quote]

No I feel Rape, Murder and slavery are wrong. I am not sure what you want
[/quote]
I think it’s just the fact that the human mind has a hard time dealing with the idea of something that has no origin.

My origin of morality is Christ and His teachings. That’s why love, compassion, forgiveness, and generosity are at the top of the scale.

What is the origin of your personal ideal of morality? What are the core concepts? How do you define it when it’s not so cut-and-dried?[/quote]

I am in total agreement , I love people and would only hurt some one to protect me or mine , I grew up Pentecostal .

My interpretation of the ideal human is kind, compassionate and antiknow it all. You will have to explain “CORE CONCEPTS”
[/quote]
All I meant are the basic ideas that define right and wrong for you, which you already stated as kind, compassionate, and anti-know-it-all.

But now, let’s take gay marriage as an example. Not to turn this into another thread on it, but it is a unique situation when it comes to the subject of morality.

Is there love, compassion, and generosity in a gay marriage? How about hate, selfishness, and indifference? The only difference, as far as I can tell, is the fact that they are the same sex. As such, my usual system of morality would tell me there is nothing evil about it.

Now, if we take the supposition that gay marriage is wrong and run it through the same mill, we come up with a paradox. The ones who say it’s wrong come up on the evil side of the scale, and the gay spouses come up on the good side.[/quote]

It would be against my values to tell some one else who to marry or love , it is none of my business. I think people that oppose gay marriage come down on the know it all side.

162

[quote]pittbulll wrote:

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]pittbulll wrote:

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]pittbulll wrote:

[quote]JayPierce wrote:

[quote]pittbulll wrote:

[quote]JayPierce wrote:
I usually stay out of these, but I have to side with Pat on this one. It is, in fact, spelled out for us in detail.

Still, one could ask; What is the basis for morality, the principles at the very core of it? After all, God doesn’t make up rules without reason.

Is it love vs. hate? Generosity vs. selfishness? Indifference vs. passion? All of the above?

If it weren’t for God telling us, would we be capable of determining morality for ourselves?[/quote]

the mere definition of the word Moral is debatable IMO
[/quote]
How so?

Just to make sure we’re on the same page, here; We are talking about the concept of right and wrong as it pertains to human behavior, right?

Or are you really debating the concept of ‘right’?

[/quote]

Are morals stories or the summation of a story or are they the concept of right and wrong?

I have my concept of right and wrong and I Govern my life accordingly. I should have no right to thrust my concepts on you nor should any one have that right to thrust their concepts of right and wrong on me (unless I am harming some one else)
[/quote]

And there the problem lies. I just described how your concept of it does not matter. If your concept of right includes something that is immoral, then it’s still immoral whether you think it’s right or not. You are not the master of morality, your own or anybody elses. It is what it is, and you cannot change it by a sheer act of will.[/quote]

Please prove that
[/quote]

I did on page 3 where I answered your last ‘prove it’ with:

“Simple, that which is evil is evil despite whether one thinks it is or not. For instance, is it ever moral to rape a child?
When an there is an act that causes grievous harm from a sentient being to or on another sentient being, that act is inherently evil. Even if society at large condones the evil action, the action is still evil. I choose to focus on the evil aspect because it’s easier to agree on examples.
What morality is, is inexpressible in language but actions demonstrate various aspects of morality.
Relative morality, which is what you are expressing breaks down in reality. Something being acceptable to one or more person does not define that act as moral. Like in the slavery example, it was always wrong and always immoral, but at certain points in history it was accepted. That didn’t do much for the slaves, they still suffered the evils of slavery. It’s wrong to enslave another, it’s wrong to denigrate and devalue a person. But they were and it was accepted. When people pointed out the truth, they were scoffed at, then they were opposed violently, then slavery being evil was accepted as always being self evident.
Because this fact was true outside the minds of people, it’s proof that this moral tenant and therefore morality exists independently of the human mind.”

Since we’re into proving things, prove morality is relative…
Prove that rape, murder, slavery, etc. could be considered ‘moral’ based on personal concepts of morality.
The problem with relative morality is that, at least in theory, you have to prove then, the most abominable acts could be considered moral. So you prove it. [/quote]

This is not proof of any thing this is mere opinion. I am not stating any thing about rape, murder, slavery, etc.
[/quote]
I have a feeling you may not know what you are talking about then. In a morality discussion, it is relevant. If you are saying morality is merely a human construct then you have to account for all of it, not just a small range of politically correct tripe.
It’s either relative to how individuals feel about things or its not. That’s not an opinion, that is plain fact.

You haven’t answered mine. You have not proven your point, so I will not answer these questions until you answer mine. Which is to prove morality is relative.

[quote]
In my opinion there is going to be no proof of your opinion because it is simply an opinion that you and a minority share[/quote]

I am not interested in your opinion, prove your claim. Then feel free to state your opinion about it.

163

[quote]DrSkeptix wrote:

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]DrSkeptix wrote:

[quote]pat wrote:

Actually, the Sabbath used to move around depending on the beginning and ending of religious holidays since the high days of those holidays were also considered as Sabbath, marking 6 days after that the next Sabbath, so it wasn’t always Saturday, but it moved around early on.

… [/quote]

???

Uhhh…I would like a reference for that.
[/quote]

Here is a reference:

I got the information from my study bible which I obviously cannot post a link to since it’s a book. But here is a similar description, in that it was a numerical delineation and not a specified day of the week in old Judaism. Since various feast days had Sabbaths and they could not conflict, it would move around. Keep in mind the Hebrew calender was way different than what we are used to. [/quote]

Thanks, respectfully, but…

When one reads something that is so far-removed from anything else in common experience, one must gape in amazement for a moment.
This idea, and its reference, is nonsense.
I may not know everything, but I have never encountered this notion before. Nowhere else in post-exilic literature, Torah, Talmud, Josephus, Rashi, Sforno, etc, etc, is it intimated that the weekly Sabbaths moved about in the calendar. To the contrary, the Sabbath has primacy: the practices on some feast days are altered out of respect for a fixed and unmoving weekly Sabbath, a practice codified since the early Second Temple days at the very latest.
The Hebrew-Babylonian calendar system has been in continuous use for over 2500 years–without a major alteration–so it is not a question of our unfamiliarity with it.

Instead, I suggest instead that the reference confuses the meaning of sbt with the Sabbath. If the OT references say, “It will be a sabbath for you,” it indicates that the holiday is one which demands a cessation from labor and the typical daily routine. In no way does it imply that one starts a recount to the next Sabbath.

/lecture[/quote]

Reference?

164

[quote]hungry4more wrote:

[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:

[quote]hungry4more wrote:

[quote]pushharder wrote:

[quote]hungry4more wrote:

[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:

[quote]hungry4more wrote:
Not a bad point. I’m assuming you’re talking about people in a vegetative state, potentially forever, correct? Basically anybody else, like someone getting knocked out, or blacking out, it’s obvious that they’ll generally recover and regain consciousness. Otherwise, it’d be moral to kill people while they’re sleeping.

Before we go on, is that a correct assumption?[/quote]

I mean both.

If potential for future consciousness is what we are looking at, why doesn’t a fetus count?[/quote]

If I subscribed to the consciousness thing, I would say a fetus doesn’t count because it never HAS experienced consciousness in the first place, whereas an unconscious person is just temporarily out of order. [/quote]

But it will.[/quote]

Of course. But as of yet, it has never experienced conscious thought, pain, happiness, etc. One could make the case for those types of experiences defining someone as a person, as human. In which case, it hasn’t attained personhood yet.

Again, this isn’t my belief. I just think it could have SOME merit, depending on how one looks at it. [/quote]

So, a born living baby in a coma, not a human. Nice.

So this is where you are with your definition at this point:
A biological living human with the potential for consciousness, having had it before, but not necessarily having it now just the potential for it in the future while not really being able to define consciousness in the first place.

Yeah, that’s not a lousy convoluted excuse to justify the killing of what everyone knows is a living human baby at all…[/quote]

Easy there, that’s not what I believe. I think there may be some way for a person to define humanity along those lines and satisfy themselves…as I’ve said, I don’t subscribe to that line of thought though, at least partially due to just those problems you’ve pointed out. Having said that, difficulty defining something doesn’t mean it is a wrong definition inherently.

At the pittbull/pat/beans morality discussion, without any sort of higher authority, I think it’s safe to say there ARE no concrete timeless morals, or absolutes. Just feelings. I feel this is right, but he feels it is wrong. [/quote]

Well, you are right but not in the way you think you are right. I am merely discussing the concrete metaphysical abstracts that control the things that pitt is claiming we control. The argument can therefore be had without having to refer to God. As morality is it’s own metaphysical entity. It’s source being God is a different discussion.

The fact is that there is good and there is evil. The fact is that neither are human constructs, we did not invent it. It was there before we were and will be there after we cease to exist. Just like the laws of physics do not need physical objects to exist, neither does morality need us to exist.
The abstracts are in control.

165

[quote]pittbulll wrote:

No I feel Rape, Murder and slavery are wrong. I am not sure what you want
[/quote]

Why are they wrong?

166

[quote]pat wrote:
The fact is that there is good and there is evil. The fact is that neither are human constructs, we did not invent it. It was there before we were and will be there after we cease to exist. Just like the laws of physics do not need physical objects to exist, neither does morality need us to exist.
The abstracts are in control.[/quote]

Not so sure about the natural existence of morality. If that were the evident truth, then we would see morality among other animals.

167

[quote]JayPierce wrote:

[quote]pat wrote:
The fact is that there is good and there is evil. The fact is that neither are human constructs, we did not invent it. It was there before we were and will be there after we cease to exist. Just like the laws of physics do not need physical objects to exist, neither does morality need us to exist.
The abstracts are in control.[/quote]

Not so sure about the natural existence of morality. If that were the evident truth, then we would see morality among other animals.[/quote]

Morality centers on freewill. It’s tough to know if animals have that, but it’s seems as though they do not. Even if they display sometimes ‘human like’ characteristics, animals never seem to do harm for the sheer fact of doing harm. Humans can most definitely act morally or immorally for morality’s sake.
That doesn’t mean that animals can’t have it, it just appears as if they don’t. This is not provable however, there is a bit of a communication gap.

168

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]DrSkeptix wrote:

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]DrSkeptix wrote:

[quote]pat wrote:

Actually, the Sabbath used to move around depending on the beginning and ending of religious holidays since the high days of those holidays were also considered as Sabbath, marking 6 days after that the next Sabbath, so it wasn’t always Saturday, but it moved around early on.

… [/quote]

???

Uhhh…I would like a reference for that.
[/quote]

Here is a reference:

I got the information from my study bible which I obviously cannot post a link to since it’s a book. But here is a similar description, in that it was a numerical delineation and not a specified day of the week in old Judaism. Since various feast days had Sabbaths and they could not conflict, it would move around. Keep in mind the Hebrew calender was way different than what we are used to. [/quote]

Thanks, respectfully, but…

When one reads something that is so far-removed from anything else in common experience, one must gape in amazement for a moment.
This idea, and its reference, is nonsense.
I may not know everything, but I have never encountered this notion before. Nowhere else in post-exilic literature, Torah, Talmud, Josephus, Rashi, Sforno, etc, etc, is it intimated that the weekly Sabbaths moved about in the calendar. To the contrary, the Sabbath has primacy: the practices on some feast days are altered out of respect for a fixed and unmoving weekly Sabbath, a practice codified since the early Second Temple days at the very latest.
The Hebrew-Babylonian calendar system has been in continuous use for over 2500 years–without a major alteration–so it is not a question of our unfamiliarity with it.

Instead, I suggest instead that the reference confuses the meaning of sbt with the Sabbath. If the OT references say, “It will be a sabbath for you,” it indicates that the holiday is one which demands a cessation from labor and the typical daily routine. In no way does it imply that one starts a recount to the next Sabbath.

/lecture[/quote]

Reference?[/quote]

Well, ok, out of respect for you personally, but this exercise is akin to proving the negative; i.e., how do you disprove nonsense?

Of dozens of possible references, I cite the Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Peshaim, especially Chapters 6 and 7, in which there is a long and involved discussion of the primacy of Sabbath, and accommodations made on Passover. Recall that Passover must fall on a fixed date, the 14th of Nissan, and Chapter 6 explicitly asks whether the sacrifice overrides the laws of Sabbath. I will not reveal the answer, but the question devolves into the propriety of carrying a knife on the Sabbath, if it is intended for the Passover sacrifice, and whether the knife can be placed on the fleece of the lamb, as an adornment, or whether it is forbidden to burden an animal on the Sabbath in such a fashion. And on and on…

(The deliberation was led by the great Hillel himself, referencing Shemaia and Avtalyon, Rav Yehuda and Rav, Resh Laqish and Mani bar Patish. They were the giants, interpreters of the Law in late Second Temple period, and the keepers of long memory.)

But nowhere, nowhere, does anyone say…“Oh, screw it and let’s count 6 days and call that Sabbath!”

It never happened.

So, when you, Pat, can come up with a reference that trumps Hillel, I will be sure to write it in the margin and attribute it appropriately to you.

169

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]JayPierce wrote:

[quote]pat wrote:
The fact is that there is good and there is evil. The fact is that neither are human constructs, we did not invent it. It was there before we were and will be there after we cease to exist. Just like the laws of physics do not need physical objects to exist, neither does morality need us to exist.
The abstracts are in control.[/quote]

Not so sure about the natural existence of morality. If that were the evident truth, then we would see morality among other animals.[/quote]

Morality centers on freewill. It’s tough to know if animals have that, but it’s seems as though they do not. Even if they display sometimes ‘human like’ characteristics, animals never seem to do harm for the sheer fact of doing harm. Humans can most definitely act morally or immorally for morality’s sake.
That doesn’t mean that animals can’t have it, it just appears as if they don’t. This is not provable however, there is a bit of a communication gap. [/quote]

You got me thinking there Pat.

I see it as being that sentient to the degree we are, we are subject to the laws of morality. But I thought some more… and all objects exhibit some degree of intelligence. I see it as degrees of sentience. Like a human is astronomically more intelligent than a single atom. But we are made of atoms. So somehow, that collection of atoms that makes a person and is constructed in such a way that creates a being capable of recognizing morality.

And I wonder how that is. And also it makes me wonder if our sentience is purely taken on faith.

But at what point does or does not an object have the characteristics to be bound to the laws of morality? Where is that line of delineation?

And another thing. About that free will deal. The way I see it, as a part of an existence that God breathes through and moves, we have a free will individually just as God does as a whole, but God’s is infinitely more. It’s just simply that we are aware of the finite will we have which is an infinitely finite part of an infinite God.

I hope that makes sense to you. I’m just trying to bounce ideas off you and I thought this thread was as good as any. And I’m kind of trying to touch on the problem of the one and the many and how you view that one. I have a hunch it’s closely related to the question of morality.

170

[quote]

Morality centers on freewill. It’s tough to know if animals have that, but it’s seems as though they do not. Even if they display sometimes ‘human like’ characteristics, animals never seem to do harm for the sheer fact of doing harm. Humans can most definitely act morally or immorally for morality’s sake.
That doesn’t mean that animals can’t have it, it just appears as if they don’t. This is not provable however, there is a bit of a communication gap. [/quote]

Got to chime in here - I take it you’ve never owned an animal Pat?
Get yourself a flock of chickens, and leave the coupe door open one night.
If you’ve got a local foxes - I can guarantee you you will lose all your chooks. The fox will take one or 2 to eat - and will kill the rest for fun.
Likewise cats kill for fun, as do dogs. Additioanlly chooks will kill each other (pick on the smallest/weakest member and peck them to death - hence the term ‘pecking order’)
Maybe this is just the ‘natural order’ of things? coz animals can’t be evil… this is a human construct right? we’re just defining what we see with easily understood lables.

171

[quote]pat wrote:<<< I am merely discussing the concrete metaphysical abstracts that control the things that pitt is claiming we control. The argument can therefore be had without having to refer to God. As morality is it’s own metaphysical entity. It’s source being God is a different discussion.

The fact is that there is good and there is evil. The fact is that neither are human constructs, we did not invent it. It was there before we were and will be there after we cease to exist. Just like the laws of physics do not need physical objects to exist, neither does morality need us to exist.
The abstracts are in control. <<<>>> Morality centers on freewill. >>>[/quote]One day brilliance and then this blithering anti biblical incoherence. Once again Pat. You are the most intellectually compartmentalized and inconsistent truly smart person I think I’ve ever known.

172

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]pittbulll wrote:

No I feel Rape, Murder and slavery are wrong. I am not sure what you want
[/quote]

Why are they wrong?[/quote]

I am not sure what you want , but here is your fodder , they are wrong because they hurt another

173

[quote]DrSkeptix wrote:

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]DrSkeptix wrote:

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]DrSkeptix wrote:

[quote]pat wrote:

Actually, the Sabbath used to move around depending on the beginning and ending of religious holidays since the high days of those holidays were also considered as Sabbath, marking 6 days after that the next Sabbath, so it wasn’t always Saturday, but it moved around early on.

… [/quote]

???

Uhhh…I would like a reference for that.
[/quote]

Here is a reference:

I got the information from my study bible which I obviously cannot post a link to since it’s a book. But here is a similar description, in that it was a numerical delineation and not a specified day of the week in old Judaism. Since various feast days had Sabbaths and they could not conflict, it would move around. Keep in mind the Hebrew calender was way different than what we are used to. [/quote]

Thanks, respectfully, but…

When one reads something that is so far-removed from anything else in common experience, one must gape in amazement for a moment.
This idea, and its reference, is nonsense.
I may not know everything, but I have never encountered this notion before. Nowhere else in post-exilic literature, Torah, Talmud, Josephus, Rashi, Sforno, etc, etc, is it intimated that the weekly Sabbaths moved about in the calendar. To the contrary, the Sabbath has primacy: the practices on some feast days are altered out of respect for a fixed and unmoving weekly Sabbath, a practice codified since the early Second Temple days at the very latest.
The Hebrew-Babylonian calendar system has been in continuous use for over 2500 years–without a major alteration–so it is not a question of our unfamiliarity with it.

Instead, I suggest instead that the reference confuses the meaning of sbt with the Sabbath. If the OT references say, “It will be a sabbath for you,” it indicates that the holiday is one which demands a cessation from labor and the typical daily routine. In no way does it imply that one starts a recount to the next Sabbath.

/lecture[/quote]

Reference?[/quote]

Well, ok, out of respect for you personally, but this exercise is akin to proving the negative; i.e., how do you disprove nonsense?

Of dozens of possible references, I cite the Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Peshaim, especially Chapters 6 and 7, in which there is a long and involved discussion of the primacy of Sabbath, and accommodations made on Passover. Recall that Passover must fall on a fixed date, the 14th of Nissan, and Chapter 6 explicitly asks whether the sacrifice overrides the laws of Sabbath. I will not reveal the answer, but the question devolves into the propriety of carrying a knife on the Sabbath, if it is intended for the Passover sacrifice, and whether the knife can be placed on the fleece of the lamb, as an adornment, or whether it is forbidden to burden an animal on the Sabbath in such a fashion. And on and on…

(The deliberation was led by the great Hillel himself, referencing Shemaia and Avtalyon, Rav Yehuda and Rav, Resh Laqish and Mani bar Patish. They were the giants, interpreters of the Law in late Second Temple period, and the keepers of long memory.)

But nowhere, nowhere, does anyone say…“Oh, screw it and let’s count 6 days and call that Sabbath!”

It never happened.

So, when you, Pat, can come up with a reference that trumps Hillel, I will be sure to write it in the margin and attribute it appropriately to you.[/quote]

Fair enough. But the argument was that Sabbath is always Saturday, I don’t think that can be claimed by fixing days of a month, for instance, if always the 14th of Nissan, that isn’t always going to fall on a Saturday.
I should have been more careful in my statements. I didn’t mean to claim that that holidays or anything else would unhinge the fixed Sabbath days. I meant that they had an effect in which there were Sabbaths on non-fixed days as well. What I meant by the Sabbaths moving around the calender is that if you were to overlay the Hebrew calendar over the Gregorian calender, is not always on a Saturday, hell if ever. For instance, if you put in the 14th of Nissan in a Gregorian calendar converter you get:
14th of Nisan, 5773 = Mon, 25 March 2013

If the 14th of Nissan is a fixed Sabbath day, it’s a Monday.

Actually, if you over laid the Hebrew Calender over the Gregorian, I wonder how many Sabbaths would actually fall on Saturday?

Are you Jewish? If so I didn’t mean to insult by over simplifying and washing over the entire complexity and nuances of the Hebrew Calendar. Just meant Sabbaths aren’t really Saturday every week as we have come to know it. If you are following the actual Jewish Calendar.
I’ll do my homework next time.

174

[quote]Fletch1986 wrote:

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]JayPierce wrote:

[quote]pat wrote:
The fact is that there is good and there is evil. The fact is that neither are human constructs, we did not invent it. It was there before we were and will be there after we cease to exist. Just like the laws of physics do not need physical objects to exist, neither does morality need us to exist.
The abstracts are in control.[/quote]

Not so sure about the natural existence of morality. If that were the evident truth, then we would see morality among other animals.[/quote]

Morality centers on freewill. It’s tough to know if animals have that, but it’s seems as though they do not. Even if they display sometimes ‘human like’ characteristics, animals never seem to do harm for the sheer fact of doing harm. Humans can most definitely act morally or immorally for morality’s sake.
That doesn’t mean that animals can’t have it, it just appears as if they don’t. This is not provable however, there is a bit of a communication gap. [/quote]

You got me thinking there Pat.

I see it as being that sentient to the degree we are, we are subject to the laws of morality. But I thought some more… and all objects exhibit some degree of intelligence. I see it as degrees of sentience. Like a human is astronomically more intelligent than a single atom. But we are made of atoms. So somehow, that collection of atoms that makes a person and is constructed in such a way that creates a being capable of recognizing morality.

And I wonder how that is. And also it makes me wonder if our sentience is purely taken on faith.
[/quote]
Our own? No, I think we can make a pretty good case at least to ourselves, but in anybody or anything else, yes. We have know way of proving or knowing anything else is sentient. We assume that the behaviors exhibited, and communications made show evidence of sentience. But we don’t know that which cannot demonstrate sentience, doesn’t have it and we cannot know that what appears to have it, does in deed have it.
Sentience, though, is how we judge a moral act. Perhaps a dog cannot be immoral, but you can be immoral to a dog. If you make it suffer unduly then you are doing an evil act. We can tell only by the feedback the dog gives us.
On the other hand, the dog just does what it does. That doesn’t mean they don’t have personalities and act different, it means that they cannot purposefully go against their own nature to either do good or harm for the fact of doing good, or harm. If it does harm, it’s usually doing it because of a reason, fear, hunger, anger, etc.

Freewill. You have to be able to choose to act and have been able to choose otherwise. If you do not have that, then you are not capable of neither evil or good. It’s just stimulus, response, which is based on nature and nurture.
Freewill is the key to morality. And humans have it, most do. I cannot say all do. I don’t know that.

Well, this is an age old question we quite frankly will never have the answer to. I will give you a quick over simplified answer. Freewill hinges on choice and both are metaphysical constructs which are not subject to time. We interact with it temporally, but the objects themselves are not subject to time. We can make a good or evil choice, that is timeless, we see the results played out in time.

[quote]
I hope that makes sense to you. I’m just trying to bounce ideas off you and I thought this thread was as good as any. And I’m kind of trying to touch on the problem of the one and the many and how you view that one. I have a hunch it’s closely related to the question of morality. [/quote]
It’s all related in the end. And you are asking really good questions so feel free. I can go in to more detail about anything you are interested in.
God’s omniscience and Freewill for instance, may simply just be a paradox, or it may not be.

175

[quote]pittbulll wrote:

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]pittbulll wrote:

No I feel Rape, Murder and slavery are wrong. I am not sure what you want
[/quote]

Why are they wrong?[/quote]

I am not sure what you want , but here is your fodder , they are wrong because they hurt another[/quote]

Correct, how then could that be based on personal preference, or relative to how you feel about something? You’re personal morality cannot trump the results of your decisions. Simpy deciding something isn’t bad doesn’t make it, not bad.

176

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]DrSkeptix wrote:

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]DrSkeptix wrote:

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]DrSkeptix wrote:

[quote]pat wrote:

Actually, the Sabbath used to move around depending on the beginning and ending of religious holidays since the high days of those holidays were also considered as Sabbath, marking 6 days after that the next Sabbath, so it wasn’t always Saturday, but it moved around early on.

… [/quote]

???

Uhhh…I would like a reference for that.
[/quote]

Here is a reference:

I got the information from my study bible which I obviously cannot post a link to since it’s a book. But here is a similar description, in that it was a numerical delineation and not a specified day of the week in old Judaism. Since various feast days had Sabbaths and they could not conflict, it would move around. Keep in mind the Hebrew calender was way different than what we are used to. [/quote]

Thanks, respectfully, but…

When one reads something that is so far-removed from anything else in common experience, one must gape in amazement for a moment.
This idea, and its reference, is nonsense.
I may not know everything, but I have never encountered this notion before. Nowhere else in post-exilic literature, Torah, Talmud, Josephus, Rashi, Sforno, etc, etc, is it intimated that the weekly Sabbaths moved about in the calendar. To the contrary, the Sabbath has primacy: the practices on some feast days are altered out of respect for a fixed and unmoving weekly Sabbath, a practice codified since the early Second Temple days at the very latest.
The Hebrew-Babylonian calendar system has been in continuous use for over 2500 years–without a major alteration–so it is not a question of our unfamiliarity with it.

Instead, I suggest instead that the reference confuses the meaning of sbt with the Sabbath. If the OT references say, “It will be a sabbath for you,” it indicates that the holiday is one which demands a cessation from labor and the typical daily routine. In no way does it imply that one starts a recount to the next Sabbath.

/lecture[/quote]

Reference?[/quote]

Well, ok, out of respect for you personally, but this exercise is akin to proving the negative; i.e., how do you disprove nonsense?

Of dozens of possible references, I cite the Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Peshaim, especially Chapters 6 and 7, in which there is a long and involved discussion of the primacy of Sabbath, and accommodations made on Passover. Recall that Passover must fall on a fixed date, the 14th of Nissan, and Chapter 6 explicitly asks whether the sacrifice overrides the laws of Sabbath. I will not reveal the answer, but the question devolves into the propriety of carrying a knife on the Sabbath, if it is intended for the Passover sacrifice, and whether the knife can be placed on the fleece of the lamb, as an adornment, or whether it is forbidden to burden an animal on the Sabbath in such a fashion. And on and on…

(The deliberation was led by the great Hillel himself, referencing Shemaia and Avtalyon, Rav Yehuda and Rav, Resh Laqish and Mani bar Patish. They were the giants, interpreters of the Law in late Second Temple period, and the keepers of long memory.)

But nowhere, nowhere, does anyone say…“Oh, screw it and let’s count 6 days and call that Sabbath!”

It never happened.

So, when you, Pat, can come up with a reference that trumps Hillel, I will be sure to write it in the margin and attribute it appropriately to you.[/quote]

Fair enough. But the argument was that Sabbath is always Saturday, I don’t think that can be claimed by fixing days of a month, for instance, if always the 14th of Nissan, that isn’t always going to fall on a Saturday.
I should have been more careful in my statements. I didn’t mean to claim that that holidays or anything else would unhinge the fixed Sabbath days. I meant that they had an effect in which there were Sabbaths on non-fixed days as well. What I meant by the Sabbaths moving around the calender is that if you were to overlay the Hebrew calendar over the Gregorian calender, is not always on a Saturday, hell if ever. For instance, if you put in the 14th of Nissan in a Gregorian calendar converter you get:
14th of Nisan, 5773 = Mon, 25 March 2013

If the 14th of Nissan is a fixed Sabbath day, it’s a Monday.

Actually, if you over laid the Hebrew Calender over the Gregorian, I wonder how many Sabbaths would actually fall on Saturday?

Are you Jewish? If so I didn’t mean to insult by over simplifying and washing over the entire complexity and nuances of the Hebrew Calendar. Just meant Sabbaths aren’t really Saturday every week as we have come to know it. If you are following the actual Jewish Calendar.
I’ll do my homework next time.[/quote]

The reason I chose this particular passage was to disprove the notion that Sabbaths moved at all. The Passover sacrifice occurred on a fixed calendar day, the 14th of Nissan, and would predictably fall on a Saturday (really, Friday night,when the day begins). So if your contention was correct, the Talmud would be rife with the laws regarding how the Sabbath should be counted, moved, etc. And it isn’t. So it never happened.

And it is not a matter of “overlay” of the calendars. The Julian, Gregorian and other calendars are irrelevant to the Hebrew-Babylonian calendar. Last, no one in the last 2500 years lost track of the count of days–Saturday has always been Saturday–no one, that is, with the sole exceptions of Magellan and his crew.

177

[quote]DrSkeptix wrote:

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]DrSkeptix wrote:

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]DrSkeptix wrote:

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]DrSkeptix wrote:

[quote]pat wrote:

Actually, the Sabbath used to move around depending on the beginning and ending of religious holidays since the high days of those holidays were also considered as Sabbath, marking 6 days after that the next Sabbath, so it wasn’t always Saturday, but it moved around early on.

… [/quote]

???

Uhhh…I would like a reference for that.
[/quote]

Here is a reference:

I got the information from my study bible which I obviously cannot post a link to since it’s a book. But here is a similar description, in that it was a numerical delineation and not a specified day of the week in old Judaism. Since various feast days had Sabbaths and they could not conflict, it would move around. Keep in mind the Hebrew calender was way different than what we are used to. [/quote]

Thanks, respectfully, but…

When one reads something that is so far-removed from anything else in common experience, one must gape in amazement for a moment.
This idea, and its reference, is nonsense.
I may not know everything, but I have never encountered this notion before. Nowhere else in post-exilic literature, Torah, Talmud, Josephus, Rashi, Sforno, etc, etc, is it intimated that the weekly Sabbaths moved about in the calendar. To the contrary, the Sabbath has primacy: the practices on some feast days are altered out of respect for a fixed and unmoving weekly Sabbath, a practice codified since the early Second Temple days at the very latest.
The Hebrew-Babylonian calendar system has been in continuous use for over 2500 years–without a major alteration–so it is not a question of our unfamiliarity with it.

Instead, I suggest instead that the reference confuses the meaning of sbt with the Sabbath. If the OT references say, “It will be a sabbath for you,” it indicates that the holiday is one which demands a cessation from labor and the typical daily routine. In no way does it imply that one starts a recount to the next Sabbath.

/lecture[/quote]

Reference?[/quote]

Well, ok, out of respect for you personally, but this exercise is akin to proving the negative; i.e., how do you disprove nonsense?

Of dozens of possible references, I cite the Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Peshaim, especially Chapters 6 and 7, in which there is a long and involved discussion of the primacy of Sabbath, and accommodations made on Passover. Recall that Passover must fall on a fixed date, the 14th of Nissan, and Chapter 6 explicitly asks whether the sacrifice overrides the laws of Sabbath. I will not reveal the answer, but the question devolves into the propriety of carrying a knife on the Sabbath, if it is intended for the Passover sacrifice, and whether the knife can be placed on the fleece of the lamb, as an adornment, or whether it is forbidden to burden an animal on the Sabbath in such a fashion. And on and on…

(The deliberation was led by the great Hillel himself, referencing Shemaia and Avtalyon, Rav Yehuda and Rav, Resh Laqish and Mani bar Patish. They were the giants, interpreters of the Law in late Second Temple period, and the keepers of long memory.)

But nowhere, nowhere, does anyone say…“Oh, screw it and let’s count 6 days and call that Sabbath!”

It never happened.

So, when you, Pat, can come up with a reference that trumps Hillel, I will be sure to write it in the margin and attribute it appropriately to you.[/quote]

Fair enough. But the argument was that Sabbath is always Saturday, I don’t think that can be claimed by fixing days of a month, for instance, if always the 14th of Nissan, that isn’t always going to fall on a Saturday.
I should have been more careful in my statements. I didn’t mean to claim that that holidays or anything else would unhinge the fixed Sabbath days. I meant that they had an effect in which there were Sabbaths on non-fixed days as well. What I meant by the Sabbaths moving around the calender is that if you were to overlay the Hebrew calendar over the Gregorian calender, is not always on a Saturday, hell if ever. For instance, if you put in the 14th of Nissan in a Gregorian calendar converter you get:
14th of Nisan, 5773 = Mon, 25 March 2013

If the 14th of Nissan is a fixed Sabbath day, it’s a Monday.

Actually, if you over laid the Hebrew Calender over the Gregorian, I wonder how many Sabbaths would actually fall on Saturday?

Are you Jewish? If so I didn’t mean to insult by over simplifying and washing over the entire complexity and nuances of the Hebrew Calendar. Just meant Sabbaths aren’t really Saturday every week as we have come to know it. If you are following the actual Jewish Calendar.
I’ll do my homework next time.[/quote]

The reason I chose this particular passage was to disprove the notion that Sabbaths moved at all. The Passover sacrifice occurred on a fixed calendar day, the 14th of Nissan, and would predictably fall on a Saturday (really, Friday night,when the day begins). So if your contention was correct, the Talmud would be rife with the laws regarding how the Sabbath should be counted, moved, etc. And it isn’t. So it never happened.
[/quote]
So why then, does it fall on a monday?

Both keep track of time, which ultimately is the point, so they are relevant to each other, as if you follow one over the other, then things do not line up cleanly.

When when I said moved, I meant around the days of the week, not the days themselves. Fixed calender days move around the days of the week.

180

[quote]pushharder wrote:

[quote]DrSkeptix wrote:

…no one, that is, with the sole exceptions of Magellan and his crew.

[/quote]

In the interests of impeccable accuracy that should be, “Magellan’s crew.” What was left of it, that is.[/quote]

Well then, Magellan was killed at the Battle of Mactan, Phillipines, 27 April 1521–by his reckoning. However, Mactan clearly lies to the west of what would become the International Dateline, so he would have been unaware that he had “lost a day” by traveling west. I do not know if the day he died was a Wednesday, as we mark it, or a Tuesday, as he thought it, but it definitely was not a peripatetic Sabbath, as Pat might have it.