RE: Pope Says God is Behind the Big Bang

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tweakabelle -> RE: Pope Says God is Behind the Big Bang (2/2/2011 2:59:43 PM)
Oh dear! is luckydawg at it again? He's not responding to therapy it seems. Best to ignore him Peon for Her - it's probably a bit of an ask to consider the poor lost thing responsible for his own actions. I have him on Hide. Edited after a quick prayer for luckydawg's recovery [:D]

luckydawg -> RE: Pope Says God is Behind the Big Bang (2/2/2011 3:10:41 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: tweakabelle quote: ORIGINAL: Kirata quote: ORIGINAL: tweakabelle The consequences of silence should be obvious. The consequences of silence will be that your hijack is ignored and doesn't get to go any further. K. You're capable of much better than that. I didn't think a cop out was your style - but I have been known to be wrong .... far more often than I might like Edited with a mischievous twinkle in my eyes [:D] [:D] No Peon, you are confused. You might need to follow Tweaks advice and run and hide. Tweak lost his shit with me, when I asked a few questions about Darfur, and his lovley UN report. Since he is a coward, and unwilling to answer questions, he put me on Hide. Still talks about me and hurls insults. His Public iggy was hillarious.

PeonForHer -> RE: Pope Says God is Behind the Big Bang (2/2/2011 3:14:04 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: luckydawg Still talks about me and hurls insults. His Public iggy was hillarious. Tweakabelle is female, Luckydawg. [:D]

GotSteel -> RE: Pope Says God is Behind the Big Bang (2/3/2011 8:30:36 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Kirata It means what it says. Not what you infer from it, not what you imagine, but simply what it says. If what is moral is a matter of judgment and opinion, we can only express our view of the matter and our rational for upholding it. For us to suggest that this view "may" be a moral position, when we obvously believe that it is or we wouldn't be promoting it, and when we do not believe that there is any absolute standard against which to measure such a claim in any case, makes no sense unless we are playing to an audience that we know believes in such a thing, and crafting our language accordingly. I picked up his book for the Kindle and have started reading it. The quick skim that I've had time for so far leads me to believe that he's of the opinion that there is a standard against which to judge the morality of a decision. That he's advocating that morality shouldn't be uncoupled from reality, that we should judge based on human and animal suffering instead of using some mythological moral law. As such whether such an act would or would not be moral would depend on specifics. As such he can't generalize to an is or is not position but must by necessity use the word may.

tazzygirl -> RE: Pope Says God is Behind the Big Bang (2/3/2011 10:46:37 PM)
quote: As such whether such an act would or would not be moral would depend on specifics. And just what specifics would it depend upon? Who decides? Who makes that judgement call? Slavery, for example, wasnt considered immoral until it was realized that paying was cheaper than owning.

tweakabelle -> RE: Pope Says God is Behind the Big Bang (2/4/2011 1:33:56 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: eihwaz quote: ORIGINAL: Kirata quote: ORIGINAL: tweakabelle Israel does it all the time... "pre-emptive killing" in the name of self-defence... I find these cold blooded Israeli murders abhorrent. Would you feel better if they called it an "unconscionable" act of self defense? [:D] K. I'd prefer calling it "an unthinkably criminal, unconscionable, horribly ironic, perfectly insane, plausibly scenic, horribly absurd act of self-defense which the Muslim world must anticipate and prevent."[:D] There appears to be little appetite to consider the real life application of the position advanced by Harris’ critics. So I might examine a few conclusions I have drawn from the discussion to date. I entered this argument with no pre-conceptions about Harris. I remain unfamiliar with Harris and his work. I have listened to various arguments and considered them fully and respectfully. Kirata’s position, I hope he’ll agree, is dependent on granting an authoritative status to two items, “divine Moral Law” and a “moral Absolute”. As neither of these items has been specified, whatever they might be isn’t known at this point. I am unwilling to speculate about their meaning. Nor should I. The obligation to clarify these matters remains upon Kirata. Until the nature of these two items is revealed and their status agreed, there is no choice but to reject Kirata’s argument. I found arguments based on textual analysis inadequate. No surprise there – to establish that a text has a hidden meaning in opposition to the text’s apparent meaning is a tough task at the best of times. A lot more evidence and a far more compelling argument than the one advanced is needed IMHO. It is troubling to note that despite the rush to make various points about a “plausible scenario”, Harris’ critics declined the opportunity to take a position on the real life application of the same principle, despite being expressly invited to do so. The reason offered - an assertion that the real life application of a principle currently under discussion is a “hijack” - is clearly spurious. . It’s even sadder to see professed outrage at Harris’ “plausible” scenario degenerate into sniggers when real people are being murdered in cold blood. Even though I practically spelt it out to them, Harris’ critics chose to leave themselves exposed and vulnerable to a charge of hypocrisy rather than take a position. Why was this so troubling for them? Given this, and the lack of substance to any of the arguments advanced, it’s difficult to avoid wondering if the original position is little more than posturing. So until these defects and criticisms are addressed, I find myself distinctly underwhelmed by Harris’ critics’ positions as they have been put to me. I would like to return to this discussion after the issues I have outlined have been addressed satisfactorily. I wish I could be more optimistic that will happen. Finally, I would just like to thank all those who contributed. I enjoyed the chat. I hope you did too. Edited to add a note of finality [:D]

tweakabelle -> RE: Pope Says God is Behind the Big Bang (2/4/2011 3:35:05 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: tazzygirl And just what specifics would it depend upon? Who decides? Who makes that judgement call? Slavery, for example, wasnt considered immoral until it was realized that paying was cheaper than owning. I think they are wonderful questions! Perhaps one way to answer them is to look at how those decisions are taken (or not taken) at the moment. Look at eg. abortion or sexual/civil rights in the USA (they all can be seen as moral issues) or any moral issue of your choice. Note all the factors that feed into that decision(s), who decides and who makes the call and on what grounds they do ....... that will answer all your questions at one level won't it? I am sure there are plenty of other valid ways of looking at it too. I took a peek at wiki. It has a timeline on the abolition of slavery. I tried to co-relate the abolition of slavery with dominance of a single moral code (ie a moral Absolute) in society. I was unable to discern a pattern. I found a couple of vague trends but nothing jumped out at me as a pattern. I was far from rigourous :) Perhaps, if you are interested, you can do better than me! Check it out here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abolition_of_slavery_timeline

Kirata -> RE: Pope Says God is Behind the Big Bang (2/4/2011 7:36:40 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: tweakabelle I have listened to various arguments and considered them fully and respectfully. Kirata’s position... is dependent on granting an authoritative status to two items, “divine Moral Law” and a “moral Absolute”. As neither of these items has been specified... there is no choice but to reject Kirata’s argument... Harris’ critics declined the opportunity to take a position on the real life application of the same principle... The reason offered [...] is clearly spurious... Harris’ critics chose to leave themselves exposed and vulnerable to a charge of hypocrisy rather than take a position. I would just like to thank all those who contributed. I enjoyed the chat. I hope you did too. I have listened to your arguments and considered them fully and respectfully. My position is that Harris views pre-emptive murder as "self-defense," up to and including even a nuclear first strike that would kill tens of millions of people. I hold that view because he says so. Furthermore, there is nothing whatsoever criminal or unconscionable about self-defense, when it is self-defense, so his posturings to that effect serve only to reveal his hypocrisy. And finally, declining to assist you in starting another Israel-bashing rant leaves nobody vulnerable to anything except your spurious innuendos. Thank you for contributing. I hope you enjoyed the chat. K.

Kirata -> RE: Pope Says God is Behind the Big Bang (2/4/2011 8:44:03 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: GotSteel I picked up his book for the Kindle and have started reading it. The quick skim that I've had time for so far leads me to believe that he's of the opinion that there is a standard against which to judge the morality of a decision. That he's advocating that morality shouldn't be uncoupled from reality, that we should judge based on human and animal suffering instead of using some mythological moral law. As such whether such an act would or would not be moral would depend on specifics. As such he can't generalize to an is or is not position but must by necessity use the word may. Yes, I know. In fact, I started a thread a while back on his views in this regard, and posted a link to the TED talk in which he presents them. That discussion is here, and will reward reading. I am not unsympathetic to the argument that morality should be based on reality rather than "mythology." But it is inquisitorial nonsense to dismiss religion wholesale as a species of heresy. There is a baby-and-the-bathwater problem here. At the root of every religion with which I am familiar, there exists the concept that we are all in some way one. Whether or not that can be proven scientifically, I can imagine no better basis upon which to establish a morality that would, if adopted, encourage peace, human flourishing, and harmony. K.

tazzygirl -> RE: Pope Says God is Behind the Big Bang (2/4/2011 10:16:46 AM)
Tweak, I have posted before that the return on investments (a slave) was, at its peak, 18%, at its average, 10%. The cost of buying a slave back then was between 30,000 and 40,000 in terms of todays money. The below site is quite an eye opener. It doesnt make excuses, just lays it all out. Britain had a large financial stake in the slave trade (between 1729 and 1750, Parliament approved more than £90,000 for maintenance of slave stations on the African coast), so New England resistance to slave importation in the years leading up to the Revolution could express anti-Crown sentiment. As so often happened, morality and economic self-interest flowed the same way, so it is difficult to distinguish them. Dr. Jeremy Belknap of Boston recalled that few in the colony had spoken publicly against slavery, “ till we began to feel the weight of oppression from 'our mother country.' ” It was probably not a coincidence that Massachusetts, where resistance to British authority was greatest, was also the hotbed of agitation against the slave trade. Meanwhile, by 1770, slave raids had depopulated whole regions of coastal West Africa. The terms of the Assiento encouraged this by drawing off the breeding-age population: “none of the said 4,800 Negroes shall be under the age of ten years, nine parts in ten of the ... Negroes so to be furnished shall be of the age of sixteen years at least, and none of them shall exceed the age of 40 years.” During the decade before the American Revolution, the cost of slaves at the stations in Africa soared. Because of that, the flow of available slaves from the West Indies -- the traditional main source of Northern slaves -- dried up. Plantation owners there held on to their stock, realizing it could no longer easily be replaced by African imports. The combination drove many Northern slave merchants out of the trade. Slave imports to the North fell off sharply after 1770, and internal trade in blacks rose in importance. The change in the economic winds helped ease the path for the North to give up its direct involvement in expanding slavery, without disowning the fortune it already had made. http://www.slavenorth.com/emancipation.htm

PeonForHer -> RE: Pope Says God is Behind the Big Bang (2/4/2011 1:54:57 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Kirata I can imagine no better basis upon which to establish a morality that would, if adopted, encourage peace, human flourishing, and harmony. Kirata, May I just say that I have not found the anti-religious arguments of Tweakabelle and others fully convincing on this thread. However, your arguments, and the way you've conducted them, have helped in this regard. Everything about your arguments, and more particularly your style of arguing, has added to my belief that whatever is needed to right the problems of this world, it most emphatically isn't religion of any kind.

tweakabelle -> RE: Pope Says God is Behind the Big Bang (2/4/2011 2:04:44 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Kirata And finally, declining to assist you in starting another Israel-bashing rant leaves nobody vulnerable to anything except your spurious innuendos. K. You were invited to apply an ethical principle you had been espousing to a real life situation. You declined. Whatever their merits or demerits, your stated reasons for declining ("[It's] another Israel bashing rant") are unambiguously political. The selective application of ethical principles to life according to political interests/criteria is pretty close to the essence of hypocrisy. Thank you for confirming the accuracy of my original point.

eihwaz -> RE: Pope Says God is Behind the Big Bang (2/4/2011 8:30:48 PM)
Just to be clear, in my opinion: A policy of preemptive war (such as that advanced in the United States National Security Strategy of 2002) is unwise, reckless, and dangerous. The scenario of a nuclear armed Islamic nation state not susceptible to nuclear deterrence is implausible. The idea of waging war on a group of people for holding beliefs thought to be dangerous is abhorrent. Justifying such a war as "self-defense" is both immoral and inane. quote: ORIGINAL: tweakabelle I found arguments based on textual analysis inadequate. No surprise there – to establish that a text has a hidden meaning in opposition to the text’s apparent meaning The meaning I read in the text seems plain to me. You asked me to provide the reasons for my interpretation, which I attempted to do. That you don't find my arguments convincing is a sound basis for our disagreement. You insinuate that I have an "indefensible ideological" motivation and deride my reasoning as "laborious and contrived." You have fixated on one part of my explanation and consistently misconstrued it. Our readings of the text are different. Why can't we disagree with mutual respect and an assumption that each of us arrived at our different interpretations in good faith? quote: ORIGINAL tweakabelle If you want me to believe it about Harris, then I am obliged to believe it about you. I don't want you to believe or not believe anything about Harris. Conversely, you should believe whatever you want about Harris based on whatever evidence seems best to you. My impression was that we were having an exchange of views about the meaning of a couple of excerpts from one of his books. Am I mistaken? What was the real debate about? quote: ORIGINAL: tweakabelle There appears to be little appetite to consider the real life application of the position advanced by Harris’ critics. You haven't shown that you understand what that position is.

Kirata -> RE: Pope Says God is Behind the Big Bang (2/4/2011 10:09:06 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: tweakabelle You were invited to apply an ethical principle you had been espousing to a real life situation. You declined. Whatever their merits or demerits, your stated reasons for declining ("[It's] another Israel bashing rant") are unambiguously political. The selective application of ethical principles to life according to political interests/criteria is pretty close to the essence of hypocrisy. Thank you for confirming the accuracy of my original point. The only conclusion that can be drawn from someone declining to participate in your attempt to divert this thread into Israel-bashing, a pastime for which you are known to harbor a fondness, is that he or she declined to participate in your attempt to divert this thread into Israel-bashing. It is amusing, however, if that's the word I want, to find you leveling the accusation of applying ethical principles selectively, to which you impute a political motivation, against someone who has staunchly and repeatedly condemned Harris' view of pre-emptive murder as "self-defense," when you, on the other hand, have been actively engaged in defending him, while attacking the Israelis for espousing exactly the same view, and defaming the integrity of anyone who declines to participate in your politically motivated attempt to divert the focus onto Israel. Frankly, I see no evidence that you have the slightest idea what ethical principles are. K.

Kirata -> RE: Pope Says God is Behind the Big Bang (2/4/2011 10:49:17 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: PeonForHer Everything about your arguments, and more particularly your style of arguing, has added to my belief that whatever is needed to right the problems of this world, it most emphatically isn't religion of any kind. Well good. I'm happy that's all settled for you now. [:D] K.

tweakabelle -> RE: Pope Says God is Behind the Big Bang (2/5/2011 6:15:08 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: tazzygirl Tweak, I have posted before that the return on investments (a slave) was, at its peak, 18%, at its average, 10%. The cost of buying a slave back then was between 30,000 and 40,000 in terms of todays money. The below site is quite an eye opener. It doesnt make excuses, just lays it all out. Tazzy isn't it amazing what a little bit of historical research reveals. Moral positions that I used to think were as solid and ageless as the Alps suddenly change for reasons that are ostensibly unrelated. Then they turn out to have histories and histories of change at that. And that puts such a different gloss on things doesn't it?

tazzygirl -> RE: Pope Says God is Behind the Big Bang (2/5/2011 6:25:34 AM)
Its also amazing what we can discover when we stop making excuses and actually start asking the harder questions. I think, for this issue, we have finally come to a point in history where we have, for the most part, stopped the blame game and just admitted it happened... we have come to a point where acceptance doesnt mean approval, and we can finally look at the issue without it being colored from either side.

GotSteel -> RE: Pope Says God is Behind the Big Bang (2/5/2011 1:01:59 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: tazzygirl quote: As such whether such an act would or would not be moral would depend on specifics. And just what specifics would it depend upon? I have to give the disclaimer that I'm far from familiar with the nuances of Harris's position but my impression of it is that one weighs the morality of an act in terms of human and animal suffering and against alternatives. As such causing/preventing suffering and the possible alternatives are relevant. quote: ORIGINAL: tazzygirl Who decides? Who makes that judgement call? Exactly the same way it works now. quote: ORIGINAL: tazzygirl Slavery, for example, wasnt considered immoral until it was realized that paying was cheaper than owning. That's an example of my point, the use of "divine" texts to determine what was moral didn't stop slavery. In some cases such texts were used to justify slavery.

PeonForHer -> RE: Pope Says God is Behind the Big Bang (2/5/2011 1:48:52 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: GotSteel That's an example of my point, the use of "divine" texts to determine what was moral didn't stop slavery. In some cases such texts were used to justify slavery. Really, does anyone seriously believe the opposite?

GotSteel -> RE: Pope Says God is Behind the Big Bang (2/5/2011 6:05:19 PM)
Yes I get that you know a bit about Sam Harris yourself, however that in no way addresses my point. You were rather critical of Sam Harris for his use of the word may, I explained why he had to use the word may and I'm still waiting for a response to that.

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