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I am taking you seriously lately because you seem to be interested in what I have to say.
I would like to introduce myself first.
I am serious Jesus' servant and have been striving to be obedient to Jesus with all my might without compromising.
It would be a super long post if I try to explain what I am doing in this forum.
In a nutshell, I have been exposing all Jesus' teachings and commandments which most mainstream churches are purposely neglecting to do the world.
I will take any question you may have.
thank you zoo
Thanks, I'll keep that in mind. I don't have any questions for you now, but I appreciate it.
"There was so much handwriting on the wall that even the wall fell down"
"In the long run of history, the censor and the inquisitor have always lost. The only sure weapon against bad ideas is better ideas. The source of better ideas is wisdom. The surest path to wisdom is a liberal education." – Alfred Whitney, Essays on Education
Don't you know
That it ain't a crime
If all the squares
And the junkmen
Think you're out of line
I'd say there aren't binary thinkers, only binary issues.
Of course you would. How could you see it otherwise?
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Originally Posted by Town Heretic
And absent a fixed point up and down aren't telling you much that matters.
Yes, to assess values we must have some sort of criteria. But we are deciding on that criteria, and we can recognize more than one at a time. This is the flaw of binary thinking: it can only recognize one value criteria at a time.
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Originally Posted by Town Heretic
I'd suggest that everyone liberated from a death camp was likely grateful that those liberating believed in good and evil and not merely difference.
I doubt they were much concerned with what their liberators believed in.
Slogan/motto:
Try to be civil in the face of incivility. This is a test.
Reputation:
June 16th, 2012, 11:03 AM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Town Heretic
I think that's exactly true.
But why were they and why do we agree? That's the real question here. Relativity can never provide the answer.
In nearly every respect, I'd imagine. I experience an illustration of that daily, being nearly completely color blind. I'm more interested in what's under all that processing, but I recognize what you're saying is true and that it impacts the question.
And I see color so vividly that I sometimes enter into it.
The Chagall windows in the Chicago Art Institute transmogrified me!
Color is color. We may see it differently but that doesn't change it's essence.
Of course you would. How could you see it otherwise?
Then I'll be as direct: everything for me isn't black and white. You're over simplifying and the danger in that is that it simplifies people who don't think, on the whole, within your context. That will tend to be seen as insulting and high handed, even when you don't mean to do it.
I was guilty of the same approach in my narrower, apostates didn't trust beginning. When I considered how some were taking that I broadened my approach and noted that I not only wasn't but wouldn't say the apostate necessarily lacked faith or trust or love, etc. but that their trust was set in the wrong particular, in the echo of God in their sensibilities instead of God the actual object.
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Yes, to assess values we must have some sort of criteria.
For up and down to be meaningful we have to have a fixed point. That's rather absolute, even in the moment. So anyone who decides upon a means and a value becomes, in the moment of application of that means and value, an absolutist. Or, a binary thinker, even though there's no such thing...
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But we are deciding on that criteria, and we can recognize more than one at a time.
Not sure what you mean there. Give me an illustration of that happening.
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This is the flaw of binary thinking: it can only recognize one value criteria at a time.
Surely you mean your perception of a flaw and not something so absolute as a direct judgment?
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I doubt they were much concerned with what their liberators believed in.
To oppose Hitler we had to believe that his aim and means were evil and that absolute instilled resolve. Given that without that resolve we likely wouldn't have either entered or won that particular war, I'd say our belief was very much important to those liberated,. Their liberation depended on it.
For up and down to be meaningful we have to have a fixed point. That's rather absolute, even in the moment.
That fixed point is us. Up and down, right and wrong; these are what they are relative to ourselves. And that's to be expected. But there is no reason that we can't still recognize and understand that this is also true of everyone else: that they are their own fixed point, that they, too, are setting their own criteria, just as we are, and that what's up and down or right and wrong from their perspective may not be what's up or down or right or wrong from ours. We can understand this even though we will of course continue to presume that our own perspective is the more correct. It IS the more correct from our perspective, after all.
Why the insistence on absoluteness? I don't understand. It makes no sense to me except as a psychological crutch.
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Originally Posted by WizardofOz
So anyone who decides upon a means and a value becomes, in the moment of application of that means and value, an absolutist. Or, a binary thinker, even though there's no such thing...
And yet there you are.
Quote:
Originally Posted by WizardofOz
Not sure what you mean there. Give me an illustration of that happening.
See above.
Quote:
Originally Posted by WizardofOz
To oppose Hitler we had to believe that his aim and means were evil and that absolute instilled resolve. Given that without that resolve we likely wouldn't have either entered or won that particular war, I'd say our belief was very much important to those liberated. Their liberation depended on it.
All we needed to do to fight Hitler was recognize that he was a threat that had to be stopped. Many of the soldiers and populations among the allies were as prejudiced against the Jews, homosexuals, and Gypsies as Hitler was, though perhaps not with murderous intent. There is no need to try and paint this as a black and white moral issue. When as is almost always the case, it never was. Different people fought Hitler for different reasons, and the folks who were liberated from those death camps were just happy to be liberated alive. Why would they care why we fought Hitler, so long as we did it? They had plenty of their own reasons to want him dead.
That fixed point is us. Up and down, right and wrong; these are what they are relative to ourselves.
And right and wrong are fixed relative to God.
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And that's to be expected.
Likewise. But any fixed point gives you an absolute. That's why your binary approach is too limited and sweeping, simultaneously. The moment you say this you exclude that except at some abstract level.
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But there is no reason that we can't still recognize and understand that this is also true of everyone else: that they are their own fixed point, that they, too, are setting their own criteria, just as we are, and that what's up and down or right and wrong from their perspective may not be what's up or down or right or wrong from ours.
Is the sociopath as right as you are?
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Why the insistence on absoluteness? I don't understand. It makes no sense to me except as a psychological crutch.
That's because you see your relativism as a superior value. And in doing that, in the moment when you inadvertently insult a different perspective by suggesting its validity rests on its utility as a crutch, you are indstinguishable from the absolutist except in your choice and the sound you wrap it in.
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All we needed to do to fight Hitler was recognize that he was a threat that had to be stopped.
If you've studied how we sold that war you know it was a broader argument.
Similarly, those who supported an end to segregation and the racist laws that supported it did so not because they were threatened by the institution (in fact, supporting integration was really only opening flood gates on competition for limited resources, a move against self interest) but because they shared an absolute value that all human beings should stand equally in right before the law.
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There is no need to try and paint this as a black and white moral issue. When as is almost always the case, it never was.
There's a vast difference between feeling superior and feeling justified in denying essential human rights and/or life. And we may have a very different way of looking at Nazi Germany then. It was an absolute case of an evil regime with evil ends. It doesn't and needn't follow that all Germans were evil or that all Allies were righteous.
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Why would they care why we fought Hitler, so long as we did it?
Because, as I noted earlier, absent sufficient motivation they'd be dead. We could have as easily bombed the camps or bypassed them.
No it doesn't. WE are the "fixed point" of perspective from which we establish 'up/down', 'right/wrong', etc.,. And we are not absolute. We are/have a very dynamic and limited perspective from which we establish such distinctions.
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Originally Posted by Town Heretic
Is the sociopath is as right as you are?
By who's perspective? His, mine, or a generalized social presumption?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Town Heretic
If you've studied how we sold that war you know it was a broader argument.
The people of the U.S. did not want to fight with the Germans. The only reason we finally got into it with them was because they posed a direct enough threat that we could no longer ignore it. They attacked two of our major allies, they attacked out supply ships as we supported those allies, and then they began attacks on the east coast of the U.S. We simply could no longer avoid getting into the fight.
We were not fighting "evil" (though I'm sure that became a part of the hype), and we were not fighting to liberate the death camps. We were fighting direct German aggression against our allies and ourselves.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Town Heretic
Similarly, those who supported an end to segregation and the racist laws that supported it did so not because they were threatened by the institution (in fact, supporting integration was really only opening flood gates on competition for limited resources, a move against self interest) but because they shared an absolute value that all human beings should stand equally in right before the law.
You'll also note that only a few people not directly effected by racism actually fought against it. Your assessment of this being a 'absolute ideal" is a pretty subjective stretch. For most of the people involved in the fight, racism was a very real and direct threat.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Town Heretic
There's a vast difference between feeling superior and feeling justified in denying essential human rights and/or life. And we may have a very different way of looking at Nazi Germany then. It was an absolute case of an evil regime with evil ends. It doesn't and needn't follow that all Germans were evil or that all Allies were righteous.
I'm sorry but this constant insistence on "absoluteness" just seems irrelevant and unrealistic to me. I can't see any reason for it except that this is how you insist on characterizing it.
Last edited by PureX; June 17th, 2012 at 06:42 AM.
No it doesn't. WE are the "fixed point" of perspective from which we establish 'up/down', 'right/wrong', etc.,. And we are not absolute. We are/have a very dynamic and limited perspective from which we establish such distinctions.
That's just wrong. If you're here you're absolutely not there. That's what a fixed position or choice does. You're harboring an illusion created by a larger contextual philosophy that actually fails in the moment/choice.
I asked: Is the sociopath is as right as you are?
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By who's perspective?
And there's your moral problem. You can't maintain that illusion and pronounce what anyone not a sociopath knows without being told, that the sociopath is wrong and that his aim serves evil. That, to answer your earlier charge, is the failing and weakness of the relativist's posit.
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The people of the U.S. did not want to fight with the Germans.
I know. We'd fought the war to end all wars within living memory. We were isolationist. But our leaders used Pearl Harbor and a clear message that we fought an evil, dishonorable enemy that should and would, So help us God, be vanquished. Our government couldn't have fought the war without sustained support and it received it by setting it in a moral foundation.
As to racism.
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You'll also note that only a few people not directly effected by racism actually fought against it. Your assessment of this being a 'absolute ideal" is a pretty subjective stretch.
It's the underpinning of our government. We hold all men to be created equal. We've struggled to make that a reality, but it remains at the foundation of our political idea. And you're just horribly off on the few not affected. As with slavery, people removed from the struggle put themselves in harms way and gave of time and money to fight against legalized bigotry. Many in the South who stood to lose a great deal from active participation in the movement did so anyway against interest as an expression of moral certainty.
The people most impacted negatively weren't in a position to cause the change without a great upswell of support from those whose only benefit could be found in conscience as well. That absolute idea again.
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I'm sorry but this constant insistence on "absoluteness" just seems irrelevant and unrealistic to me.
It wouldn't were you black in Selma in the early 60's.
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I can't see any reason for it except that this is how you insist on characterizing it.
I know. And that's the weakness of your posit in a nutshell.
Also, those were my quotes you mostly attributed to Wizard.
TH and Pure: Just as an aside, I haven't had any sea change regarding morals. Same sea.
"There was so much handwriting on the wall that even the wall fell down"
"In the long run of history, the censor and the inquisitor have always lost. The only sure weapon against bad ideas is better ideas. The source of better ideas is wisdom. The surest path to wisdom is a liberal education." – Alfred Whitney, Essays on Education
Don't you know
That it ain't a crime
If all the squares
And the junkmen
Think you're out of line
Slogan/motto:
Try to be civil in the face of incivility. This is a test.
Reputation:
June 17th, 2012, 02:54 AM
Quote:
Originally Posted by PureX
No it doesn't. WE are the "fixed point" of perspective from which we establish 'up/down', 'right/wrong', etc.,. And we are not absolute. We are/have a very dynamic and limited perspective from which we establish such distinctions.
By who's perspective? His, mine, or a generalized social presumption?
The people of the U.S. did not want to fight with the Germans. The only reason we finally got into it with them was because they posed a direct enough threat that we could no longer ignore it. They attacked two of our major allies, they attacked out supply ships as we supported those allies, and then they began attacks on the east coast of the U.S. We simply could no longer avoid getting into the fight.
We were not fighting "evil" (though I'm sure that became a part of the hype), and we were not fighting to liberate the death camps. We were fighting direct German aggression against our allies and ourselves.
You'll also note that only a few people not directly effected by racism actually fought against it. Your assessment of this being a 'absolute ideal" is a pretty subjective stretch. For most of the people involved in the fight, racism was a very real and direct threat.
I'm sorry but this constant insistence on "absoluteness" just seems irrelevant and unrealistic to me. I can't see any reason for it except that this is how you insist on characterizing it.
It is within the realm of possibility that what you cannot see still exists?
So anyone who decides upon a means and a value becomes, in the moment of application of that means and value, an absolutist. Or, a binary thinker, even though there's no such thing...
June 17th, 2012, 02:54 AM
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