War and Peace

[M forever]

It's a little unfortunate that you had to write (or copy and paste?) all this nonsense again, because this here is basically spot on:

He had no original "teachings' he just went along and preached Ideas that were rooted in Judaism, that’s all.

It was Paul who later added the whole "Pagan twist" to Christianity by bringing pagan Ideas of virgin births and stories, while the first Christians who by the way were committed orthodox Jews lead by Jesus' brother, James, have all rejected Paul's heretic Ideas against the Jewish faith. Jesus never claimed that he was a son of god. It was Paul's paganistic idea, and this pagan ideas were the reason why Paul and Jesus' brother, James were fighting each other. James wanted to stay loyal to Judaism and the Torah, while Paul wanted to make Christianity a more pagan religion then a sect within Judaism. Eventually, Christianity has turned into Paul's version which is more pagan in nature, rather then James' version which was closer to orthodox traditional Judaism. This happened largely because of the Roman attacks on Israel where the majority of James' camp were destroyed and Paul's camp survived the Roman assault, therefore they went and spread 'Christianity' that was heavily influenced by the pagan world.

I think it is very important to recognize that the destruction of the Jewish world (which also contained the earliest and original forms of Christianity) by the Romans from 70AD and later is probably the single most important factor for the development of Christianit away from its original form, whatever exactly that may have been, but without any doubt it was a Jewish reformist movement *explicitly only for Jews*, towards a wildly diverse spectrum of pagan idol worshipping cults which is what Christianity in all its forms really is.

This here is also a lot of nonsense:

No, the German Nazi aggression and racial hatred towards people who are not German is not the same as other people's aggression to others. German racism was unique and different then other forms of Barbarism.

The atrocities carried out by the German Nazis are the worst kind of atrocities carried out ever by one group of people against another.

M, you attempt to level up German brutality with other nations' brutalities, and I will always catch you on this point and prove you wrong. Your attempts to diminish Nazi German barbarism will not be successful.

The only one the Germans have to blame for their dark history is themselves.

No one forced them to commit any crime, they chose to commit them.
And their crimes are the most horrific ever recorded in the history of man kind.

So Nazi Germany stands out as the most brutal and vicious dictatorial nation that committed the worst crimes against humanity in the history of the world.

And of course, it is also more than just slightly racist in itself. Your need for this interpretation is obvious, from the many posts in which you celebrate the "chosen people" which in itself is in no way different from believing to be part of an "Aryan race of supermen".
Another problem with your argumentation is scale. I do not think that horror can be quantified. I don't think that it matters much to the victims of violence on a large scale how many people exactly get killed. If you think it does, then there are unfortunately cases of much bigger mass murders in absolute and relative numbers. The number of people who were killed by Stalin's and Mao's regimes totally dwarfs the number of people who were killed in the holocaust. But I don't think that that makes the holocaust any less bad. Yet that's what your argumentation actually implies (involuntarily, though).

Another problem is obviously that you adhere to a form of religious belief which actually celebrates conquest and genocide on a very massive scale, again for reasons of "superiority" and "being the chosen people". The only redeeming factor here is that all that didn't really happen in that way. Most of the old testament is pure mythology with absolutely no basis in history. Archaeology has shown beyond any doubt that there was no conquest of the "chosen" land by the Israelites, but that they developed their distinct identity locally in the central highlands of what is now Israel.

Still, you believe in that, but if you do, then you also have to believe what else it says in your religious texts. Namely that the ups and downs of the "chosen people" were caused by their varying degrees of faithfulness to God, or what you call "G-d". These texts make it very clear that the varying fortunes of the Israelites were caused by their failures to live by "G-d's" commands, and that invaders and enemies were sent by "G-d" to punish "his" people for their lack of faith and obedience to his laws. In other words, if you chose to believe in the biblical texts, then you also have to believe that the Nazis were sent by "G-d" - who is after all the creator of everything and the highest power in the world - to punish "his" people. I personally think that is nonsense since your "G-d" obviously doesn't exist but is only the colorful and imaginative invention of the Israelite's mythology. But you believe he exists and rules over everything. So he must have had his reasons for sending the Nazis.

BTW, circumcision is not a "merit". It is a barbarian act of mutilation. If you believe that "G-d" created man in his own image, would you cut off part of "G-d's" dick?

I always wondered if the Jewish people kind of had to reject Chrsitianity, in a retaliatory, self-preserving manner...because Jesus basically cursed them (see the parable of the fig tree, and take note particularly the whole of the Gospel of John).

Jesus didn't even have to curse them to get "rejected". We don't even know what Jesus really thought and preached. It simply is enough anyway that Jews don't think that he was the "Messiah" as prophesied by their ancient religious texts - and he very obviously wasn't. He didn't come to save the Jewish people. He was probably just some well meaning guy who messed with the wrong powers, so they dispatched him. For a while, his followers comforted themselves with believing that he would return soon to finally save them all. But he didn't. Instead, the Romans pretty much deleted their country.

That's another aspect of the question, of course.  If the idea is that Paul was a 'revisionist', why would he be content with being a latecomer to the party?  Why didn't he "reinvent" the narrative so that he was one of Jesus's many original followers?

Because a lot of the original followers were still alive when he was active. There was apparently a sizeable community that had formed around them in Jerusalem. They knew he was an impostor. Apparently, he also sought their approval. When he didn't get it, he just went off and created his own cult.

Well, and if he did not say this, and all he said was smart things that your average wise man would have known anyway, why was he crucified?  The crucifixion is, at the least, a documented event;  and if we "file off" the inconvenient burrs of Jesus actually claiming to be God's son in some unique manner . . . why would they crucify someone for just saying smart things?

Well, and wasn't Paul's documented persecution of the new sect a question of Judaism rejecting Christianity?

Nope, because Paul acted as a representative of the Roman state. And the answer to your other question is that saying smart things can easily get you killed in many situations. If you mess with people in power as Jesus apparently did, you don't even have to say smart things. Just causing a fuss like turning over the tables of the money changers - after all, a very profitable business for those who had monopolized it - is enough.

[M forever]

That's of course only too true. Still, the Soviets were exhausted too and I wonder: had Churchill been more resolute and countered Stalin's maximalist claims with a resounding "No!" or at least "Not that much!", would the fate of Eastern Europe have been different? Just asking.

Again, speculative or alternative history doesn't make too much sense. But if you want to indulge in it, the only thing that could have changed the course of history at that point would have been if the Wehrmacht elite had actually managed to get rid of Hitler at a point at which they were still strong enough to stand up to the USSR - which they could easily have done without the Western front problem. There were also desires and actual plans to get rid of him before 1944 - but the problem was that they couldn't be sure that the Western allies wouldn't have again tried to take advantage of the internal political instability this could have caused in Germany.

[Florestan]

Again, speculative or alternative history doesn't make too much sense. But if you want to indulge in it, the only thing that could have changed the course of history at that point would have been if the Wehrmacht elite had actually managed to get rid of Hitler at a point at which they were still strong enough to stand up to the USSR - which they could easily have done without the Western front problem. There were also desires and actual plans to get rid of him before 1944 - but the problem was that they couldn't be sure that the Western allies wouldn't have again tried to take advantage of the internal political instability this could have caused in Germany.

Agree. But I think the stubborness of the Allies insisting on an inconditional capitulation of Germany instead of a negociated peace prevented these plans and desires to be followed to their fullest extent. And, although I am no conspiracy theorist, I wonder if this stubborness was encouraged and fomented by Stalin's agents in the West, for he clearly had no interest whatsoever in a Western peace.

[Sean]

Not the Plato I have read. In The Republic he supposes that what keeps men moral is the idea that they will be found out in their wrongdoing. He provides an example of giving a man a ring that makes him invisible and thereby immune from recrimination for anything he does. Plato suggests that the first thing this 'Everyman' would do is to go into the marketplace and commit theft. He does not suggest the person is lacking in understanding of what he are doing; rather the reverse.

Mike

Mike I don't think there's a contradiction here. Stealing from the marketplace may be immoral (maybe not if you're really hungry etc) but I think Plato/ Socrates argue that someone would only do it because they didn't understand that they shouldn't. Once one understands this they won't do it by necessity. That most people avoid acting immorally only because they'd get found out, rather than because they know it's wrong in a deep sense, is the point: here social pressure is keeping the morons who can't see in line.

[Sean]

Hello Mensch

Sorry to dissappoint you, but from an evolutionary perspective, morality has no purpose if it doesn't help preserve the society and therefore, in the case of a social animal, the species. What you are describing in terms of "getting" something for morally correct behavior vs. there being something "beyond" that is simply the distinction between short-term benefit and long-term foresight.

No, that's worse than wrong, and grotesquely reductive to material life. If you're into the arts you should a fortiori understand that there are some spheres of meaning without clear reference to life- yet which we regard as most important. Ethics and aesthetics are closely related, and ultimately I'm sure have deep connections with the mind and the world as lived, but just to relate them to gain in evolutionary terms is crackers. Moral insight depends on the finest abilities to see the value in moral action, a value that is more intuitively than ostensively connected to material life.

By the way the root of disappoint is appoint (or point) and you just add the prefix dis.

That wouldn't be the first thing you misunderstood about adults. But tell me how do you "see more clearly" moral behavior than others? What's the method?

There's no method- there can't be because morality's, and art's, ultimate reference isn't grounded in the material world. Morality is connected to the world of course, but only because we're in the world, not of it... Sorry that's a bit cryptic but we're talking about a very old and complex question here.

If you had understood what he said, you would have understood that there cannot be such a thing as two morally equivalent individuals who behave in morally opposite ways. By virtue of behaving in an immoral way one is immoral. Unless, of course, you believe that one can in fact, contrary to Plato, knowingly and intentionally behave immorally without somehow becoming immoral as a result.

Well I forget his exact position- I don't care too much, I only said my views are close to his.

You can't look into someone's mind and ascertain an intent where such intent has not manifested itself in the form of action. An intent may be formed as part of a moral reasoning process, but whether one acts on it or rejects it as immoral is what defines the morality of a human being.

Yes I know this is the common view but it's not true. This free will stuff is deeply confused. I'm certain that people acting immorally have the intent to act immorally but do so only because they don't see the transcendental reason why they shouldn't. Actually I discussed a bit of this a while back on a thread called The Chinese room- I'll get the link in a minute.

That is also why we don't punish people for bad thoughts but only for actual acts.

Well there's nothing to punish. And 'punishment' is only a deterrent not a response to conscious understanding in someone that something wrong was done...

One would have thought they teach that in England. BTW, a lion knows full well what it is doing.

It doesn't know it's wrong. That's why it can do it. It is wrong that you lose an arm though- the lion just doesn't see that.

[Sean]

Some old thoughts on this-

http://www.good-music-guide.com/community/index.php/topic,4421.0.html

[knight66]

Mike I don't think there's a contradiction here. Stealing from the marketplace may be immoral (maybe not if you're really hungry etc) but I think Plato/ Socrates argue that someone would only do it because they didn't understand that they shouldn't. Once one understands this they won't do it by necessity. That most people avoid acting immorally only because they'd get found out, rather than because they know it's wrong in a deep sense, is the point: here social pressure is keeping the morons who can't see in line.

If what you suggest is so; why would they need the ring? Surely that is the point, they know what they are doing is wrong, the ring merely allows them immunity. It does not alter their knowledge of the wrongfulness of the act.

Mike

[Saul]

It's a little unfortunate that you had to write (or copy and paste?) all this nonsense again, because this here is basically spot on:

I think it is very important to recognize that the destruction of the Jewish world (which also contained the earliest and original forms of Christianity) by the Romans from 70AD and later is probably the single most important factor for the development of Christianit away from its original form, whatever exactly that may have been, but without any doubt it was a Jewish reformist movement *explicitly only for Jews*, towards a wildly diverse spectrum of pagan idol worshipping cults which is what Christianity in all its forms really is.

This here is also a lot of nonsense:

And of course, it is also more than just slightly racist in itself. Your need for this interpretation is obvious, from the many posts in which you celebrate the "chosen people" which in itself is in no way different from believing to be part of an "Aryan race of supermen".
Another problem with your argumentation is scale. I do not think that horror can be quantified. I don't think that it matters much to the victims of violence on a large scale how many people exactly get killed. If you think it does, then there are unfortunately cases of much bigger mass murders in absolute and relative numbers. The number of people who were killed by Stalin's and Mao's regimes totally dwarfs the number of people who were killed in the holocaust. But I don't think that that makes the holocaust any less bad. Yet that's what your argumentation actually implies (involuntarily, though).

Another problem is obviously that you adhere to a form of religious belief which actually celebrates conquest and genocide on a very massive scale, again for reasons of "superiority" and "being the chosen people". The only redeeming factor here is that all that didn't really happen in that way. Most of the old testament is pure mythology with absolutely no basis in history. Archaeology has shown beyond any doubt that there was no conquest of the "chosen" land by the Israelites, but that they developed their distinct identity locally in the central highlands of what is now Israel.

Still, you believe in that, but if you do, then you also have to believe what else it says in your religious texts. Namely that the ups and downs of the "chosen people" were caused by their varying degrees of faithfulness to God, or what you call "G-d". These texts make it very clear that the varying fortunes of the Israelites were caused by their failures to live by "G-d's" commands, and that invaders and enemies were sent by "G-d" to punish "his" people for their lack of faith and obedience to his laws. In other words, if you chose to believe in the biblical texts, then you also have to believe that the Nazis were sent by "G-d" - who is after all the creator of everything and the highest power in the world - to punish "his" people. I personally think that is nonsense since your "G-d" obviously doesn't exist but is only the colorful and imaginative invention of the Israelite's mythology. But you believe he exists and rules over everything. So he must have had his reasons for sending the Nazis.

BTW, circumcision is not a "merit". It is a barbarian act of mutilation. If you believe that "G-d" created man in his own image, would you cut off part of "G-d's" dick?


Jesus didn't even have to curse them to get "rejected". We don't even know what Jesus really thought and preached. It simply is enough anyway that Jews don't think that he was the "Messiah" as prophesied by their ancient religious texts - and he very obviously wasn't. He didn't come to save the Jewish people. He was probably just some well meaning guy who messed with the wrong powers, so they dispatched him. For a while, his followers comforted themselves with believing that he would return soon to finally save them all. But he didn't. Instead, the Romans pretty much deleted their country.


Because a lot of the original followers were still alive when he was active. There was apparently a sizeable community that had formed around them in Jerusalem. They knew he was an impostor. Apparently, he also sought their approval. When he didn't get it, he just went off and created his own cult.

Nope, because Paul acted as a representative of the Roman state. And the answer to your other question is that saying smart things can easily get you killed in many situations. If you mess with people in power as Jesus apparently did, you don't even have to say smart things. Just causing a fuss like turning over the tables of the money changers - after all, a very profitable business for those who had monopolized it - is enough.

I didn't copy and paste anything, I wonder why you thought this.

Anyways, you call the Roman destruction of Jerusalem as "Destruction of the Jewish world", You are the only one in history that described it like that. Thank G-D the Jewish world is strong and vibrant and 60 years ago the biblical promise of Jews returning to their land came true before our eyes.

Also as I explained many times that Jewish choseness is not based on racial elements, for all races are accepted to Join Judaism, therefore there is nothing racist about it. You would have been right if the chosen people would have chosen themselves to be chosen. But they were chosen by G-d, that clearly is not racist, but its a fact. Now, since you don't believe in G-d, you view Jewish uniqueness as racism, and I understand your position, but as I explained , you are wrong.

And about the level of brutality.

I would think that if you were to be executed by pirates in some distant Island, and they would have given you a choice between a quick death and a slow painful death, you would have chosen the easy one. Then clearly there is a difference in brutality and it does matter to the victims and to the world at large. German brutality was sadistic and demonic then any other brutalities carried out by other nations.


Again, I think that its not wise on your part to try to convince a religious person that the Bible is mythological, you have failed every single time , and you will always fail in trying to convince. But I have learned that people like you are not willing to hear the truth and to believe in G-d, therefore I have stopped trying to convince people like you. Wise up, M, you're not a little boy anymore.

As for the Nazis, G-d didn't 'send' them. Its not G-d that made them evil. So what happened?

G-d let it happen, but he didn't tell or force the Germans to do these acts, the Germans have chosen out of their own free will to be wicked and evil. In other situations, G-d didn't let the enemies of Israel to realize their plans against the Jews, and he did destroy the enemies of Israel.

[M forever]

Anyways, you call the Roman destruction of Jerusalem as "Destruction of the Jewish world", You are the only one in history that described it like that. Thank G-D the Jewish world is strong and vibrant and 60 years ago the biblical promise of Jews returning to their land came true before our eyes.

Destruction does not necessarily mean complete deletion (see also Germany in WWII, most of the cities were massively destroyed, but they were rebuilt and are still there). But the Romans pretty much destroyed the intact Jewish world that had been there before 70AD and scattered its pieces all over the world. Like I said, I think this also had a decisive effect on the spread of Christianity and it did result in the disappearance of the earliest form of Christianity - not immediately, since there are indications that some remnants of this earliest form of it survived in pockets for a while, but the "original" form of Christianity is gone with the wind. Which is one of the elemens which make this subject so intriguing.

So, *why* do you think "G-d", you know, the same guy who rains fire from the heavens, parts seas and brings 10 plagues and all that, didn't lift as much as a finger to help his "chosen" people when they were herded into the gas showers and "let it happen"?
Maybe he doesn't care for the "chosen" people anymore? Or do you think "He" demanded the "holocaust" (holocaust=burnt sacrifice) of several million of "His" people as a price for the "promised land"? Or maybe he simply got a kick out of watching them die? According to the bible, he is a pretty brutal and sadist dude himself (but fairly inventive and with a sense for the dramatic and theatrical, see the 10 plagues, great movie stuff).

You would have been right if the chosen people would have chosen themselves to be chosen. But they were chosen by G-d, that clearly is not racist, but its a fact.

Nobody was "chosen" by "G-d", they just made that up. And that's not exactly an original idea. I don't know how many people in history at some point saw themselves as special and "chosen" or superior in some way. Pretty much all of them, I guess. That's a primitive and barbarian way of thinking and the basis for every kind of group violence.

Again, I think that its not wise on your part to try to convince a religious person that the Bible is mythological, you have failed every single time , and you will always fail in trying to convince. But I have learned that people like you are not willing to hear the truth and to believe in G-d, therefore I have stopped trying to convince people like you. Wise up, M, you’re not a little boy anymore.

You got that the wrong way around. It is childish to believe in some kind of father figure in the sky and that he works miracles for his friends and slaps around their enemies (like the evil Egyptians, they really got it!). It is a stage in the mental development of both humanity in general and every human individual. We go through the same stages of development that our species went through, only much faster of course, when we grow up. A lot of people don't fully grow up though and get stuck in an earlier stage like the fairy tale stage you are still in.
As for the mythological part, I know it is not possible to convince religious fanatics (or fanatics of any kind) of anything they haven't been programmed to believe, but it is an indisputable fact that pretty much everything in the bible up to a certain point is completely made up and completey irreconcilable with any kind of historic or archaeological evidence - of which there are megatons. There was no great kingdom of David and Salomon, it didn't leave any traces in the form of written evidence which every other bigger kingdom in the general area and period has left us in adundance, and there was also no economic basis for a kingdom of such size. Why do you think the Israelites got pushed around by their bigger neighbors all the time?

I would think that if you were to be executed by pirates in some distant Island, and they would have given you a choice between a quick death and a slow painful death, you would have chosen the easy one. Then clearly there is a difference in brutality and it does matter to the victims and to the world at large. German brutality was sadistic and demonic then any other brutalities carried out by other nations.

Well, that's pretty much what they did. They took them, brought them to some distant and remote places and killed most of them off fairly quickly and effectively, using industrialized methods, at least the ones they didn't have any use for anymore. So by your own definition, they were "good"  pirates. I can't agree with that though. I think when people get brutalized and killed, it doesn't matter how they get humiliated and killed. Once a certain line of civil behavior towards other people is crossed, there are no differences, it is not that some people are more victims than others. That seems to be the same kind of whining eternally about always being the victim that Jews have indeed cultivated and enshrined in their religious texts for millenia. The reality is that they are not "chosen" and they are not the only people who have suffered at the hands of other people. All people are the same, but they continue wanting to be different and better and they come up with justifications for being better all the time.
But at this time in history, people should have reached the state of being grown up enough to drop this kind of childish nonsense and the "my daddy's car is bigger than your daddy's car" (=my "G-d" is better than yours and so we are better than you) stuff.

[Saul]

Destruction does not necessarily mean complete deletion (see also Germany in WWII, most of the cities were massively destroyed, but they were rebuilt and are still there). But the Romans pretty much destroyed the intact Jewish world that had been there before 70AD and scattered its pieces all over the world. Like I said, I think this also had a decisive effect on the spread of Christianity and it did result in the disappearance of the earliest form of Christianity - not immediately, since there are indications that some remnants of this earliest form of it survived in pockets for a while, but the "original" form of Christianity is gone with the wind. Which is one of the elemens which make this subject so intriguing.

So, *why* do you think "G-d", you know, the same guy who rains fire from the heavens, parts seas and brings 10 plagues and all that, didn't lift as much as a finger to help his "chosen" people when they were herded into the gas showers and "let it happen"?
Maybe he doesn't care for the "chosen" people anymore? Or do you think "He" demanded the "holocaust" (holocaust=burnt sacrifice) of several million of "His" people as a price for the "promised land"? Or maybe he simply got a kick out of watching them die? According to the bible, he is a pretty brutal and sadist dude himself (but fairly inventive and with a sense for the dramatic and theatrical, see the 10 plagues, great movie stuff).

Nobody was "chosen" by "G-d", they just made that up. And that's not exactly an original idea. I don't know how many people in history at some point saw themselves as special and "chosen" or superior in some way. Pretty much all of them, I guess. That's a primitive and barbarian way of thinking and the basis for every kind of group violence.

You got that the wrong way around. It is childish to believe in some kind of father figure in the sky and that he works miracles for his friends and slaps around their enemies (like the evil Egyptians, they really got it!). It is a stage in the mental development of both humanity in general and every human individual. We go through the same stages of development that our species went through, only much faster of course, when we grow up. A lot of people don't fully grow up though and get stuck in an earlier stage like the fairy tale stage you are still in.
As for the mythological part, I know it is not possible to convince religious fanatics (or fanatics of any kind) of anything they haven't been programmed to believe, but it is an indisputable fact that pretty much everything in the bible up to a certain point is completely made up and completey irreconcilable with any kind of historic or archaeological evidence - of which there are megatons. There was no great kingdom of David and Salomon, it didn't leave any traces in the form of written evidence which every other bigger kingdom in the general area and period has left us in adundance, and there was also no economic basis for a kingdom of such size. Why do you think the Israelites got pushed around by their bigger neighbors all the time?


Well, that's pretty much what they did. They took them, brought them to some distant and remote places and killed most of them off fairly quickly and effectively, using industrialized methods, at least the ones they didn't have any use for anymore. So by your own definition, they were "good"  pirates. I can't agree with that though. I think when people get brutalized and killed, it doesn't matter how they get humiliated and killed. Once a certain line of civil behavior towards other people is crossed, there are no differences, it is not that some people are more victims than others. That seems to be the same kind of whining eternally about always being the victim that Jews have indeed cultivated and enshrined in their religious texts for millenia. The reality is that they are not "chosen" and they are not the only people who have suffered at the hands of other people. All people are the same, but they continue wanting to be different and better and they come up with justifications for being better all the time.
But at this time in history, people should have reached the state of being grown up enough to drop this kind of childish nonsense and the "my daddy's car is bigger than your daddy's car" (=my "G-d" is better than yours and so we are better than you) stuff.

Im shocked at your response , but then when I realize that it came from you, I know that I cant expect anything else.

[karlhenning]

It is childish to believe in some kind of father figure in the sky and that he works miracles for his friends and slaps around their enemies (like the evil Egyptians, they really got it!). It is a stage in the mental development of both humanity in general and every human individual. We go through the same stages of development that our species went through, only much faster of course, when we grow up. A lot of people don't fully grow up though and get stuck in an earlier stage like the fairy tale stage you are still in.

Parenthetically, Jesus raised this very point (that you cannot tell who the bad people are, just by observing who endures misfortune).

[Sean]

If what you suggest is so; why would they need the ring? Surely that is the point, they know what they are doing is wrong, the ring merely allows them immunity. It does not alter their knowledge of the wrongfulness of the act.
Mike

I guess there some milage in this.

By the way I like your posts on ancient history- I'm a keen reader, when I find the time.

[MishaK]

No, that's worse than wrong, and grotesquely reductive to material life. If you're into the arts you should a fortiori understand that there are some spheres of meaning without clear reference to life- yet which we regard as most important. Ethics and aesthetics are closely related, and ultimately I'm sure have deep connections with the mind and the world as lived, but just to relate them to gain in evolutionary terms is crackers. Moral insight depends on the finest abilities to see the value in moral action, a value that is more intuitively than ostensively connected to material life.

We're back at your old emotional handicap of being unable to intellectually process reality that doesn't jive with your emotional predispositions. My explanation is not at all "reductive to material life". It's pragmatic. That is not the same thing (though it might have escaped you). But evolution is nothing, if not pragmatic. The stuff you throw about in the subsequent sentences is nothing but empty mumbo jumbo, and if I ask you to define it, you won't, as I'm sure - you never do in any of these discussions. Look: in your above paragraph, the terms "meaning", "important" and "value" are completely empty vessels devoid of content, unless you have some goal, some telos, in reference to which you can define what is important or meaningful or has value. In the case of morality, the ultimate goal is to preserve the integrity of society and to ensure a future for the next generation of homo sapiens. There is no external greater power that decides this, no inherent definition of good or bad without reference to human social behavior in all of its permutations.

There's no method- there can't be because morality's, and art's, ultimate reference isn't grounded in the material world. Morality is connected to the world of course, but only because we're in the world, not of it... Sorry that's a bit cryptic but we're talking about a very old and complex question here.

This is the ultimate copout of the academically incompetent. "It can't be explained - you are just not enlightened enough to understand." Sorry, no cigar. The only way you know you have understood something is if you can explain it convincingly to someone who doubts you. This is just BS.

Well I forget his exact position- I don't care too much, I only said my views are close to his.

Except that they aren't because even the part you remember is the opposite of what you are saying. Stop invoking higher authority. Your argument is unsalvageable and you won't find any support among any of the great philosophers.

Yes I know this is the common view but it's not true. This free will stuff is deeply confused. I'm certain that people acting immorally have the intent to act immorally but do so only because they don't see the transcendental reason why they shouldn't. Actually I discussed a bit of this a while back on a thread called The Chinese room- I'll get the link in a minute.

Sean, this is bunk. You are again trying to confuse the argument and obscure your ignorance. Let me remind you where we were going: You were arguing that people can be morally equivalent even though they produce morally opposite actions. That statement presupposes that there is some other way by which to judge  morality other than by actions alone. If that is the case, then you have to look into a person's mind to ascertain that person's thoughts, since no action has been manifested yet. But my argument was that thoughts are part of a process. If you could look into someone's mind you would find that at any given point a given person might form an immoral intent. The question is whether the person then acts on it or whether he/she continues with the thought process and rejects that intent as immoral. This is in fact not much different from what you are saying with your reference to "transcendental reason" except that it is more cogent. The gratuitous stuff about free will is completely out of place. If there is no such thing as free will, then morality is a non-issue, since we are either controlled by a higher being (who then bears ultimate moral responsibility) or are merely acting out a pre-existing program. Absent a free will, moral considerations are irrelevant.

Well there's nothing to punish. And 'punishment' is only a deterrent not a response to conscious understanding in someone that something wrong was done...

That's debatable. All modern criminal legal systems are a combination of deterrence, punishment and rehabilitation. But that wasn't my point. My point is that we can't read people's minds and cannot therefore punish thoughts. The only way we can differentiate moral from immoral is if it manifests itself in the form of behavior.

It doesn't know it's wrong. That's why it can do it. It is wrong that you lose an arm though- the lion just doesn't see that.

No, that's BS. It is "wrong" only from your perspective that you lose an arm. From the lion's perspective it is perfectly right, because your arm will feed it and increase its chances of successfully procreating and passing its genes on to the next generation. There is no inherent higher cosmic order by which humans are of some higher order and should be off limits to natural predators.  

[Bunny]

Clearly we see this differently. It is obvious that on the Jewish side this was at base about religion as much as it was about autonomy. However, I simply disagree that what the Romans did was other than provocation and insistence that the Jews bend to the will of Rome or take the consequences. The Middle East was then an unstable area, there was unrest at the edges of Syria and often war lords trying their luck. Israel was seen as being the cause of a possible domino effect across the region. So, it was ruthlessly 'sorted out'. As I say, we will not be agreeing on this.

Mike

Mike,

Do you seriously think that the Romans of the Republic and Empire were less religious than the Romans of today?  Do you really think that the "atheism" and the perceived impiety of the Jews was not a factor?  If it were merely about stabilizing a region, then this could have been achieved by far less costly means than the the endless occupation of an area where an insurgency was continuous.  The Romans were not stupid.  They realized that all they needed to do to stabilize Judea was to remove all vestiges of Roman religion from the sacred precincts. This was impossible because by so doing, they would be disrespecting their own gods.  In an era when people believed that warfare was a reflection of the conflicts between the Gods, such an act would have been tantamount to saying that the God of Israel was as great as the Gods of Rome, or worse, that in that little patch of land, the Gods of Rome ceded power to a strange nameless, faceless, "local" god.  Religion was a tremendous force in the ancient world.  We now separate the affairs of Gods from the affairs of men; this is the lesson of "render unto Caesar..."  In the ancient world, religion was not separated from everyday life: it was the core of existence. You followed the laws of the Gods and perhaps they would allow you to thrive. You disrespected them at your peril. If you were a Roman you venerated the Gods of Rome. If you  were Greek, the Gods of Greece.  If you were Egyptian, the Gods of Egypt.  Religion was part of the ethnic identity which is why Romans put up temples to their gods wherever they went.   That they also believed that there were local gods that deserved respect is shown by how they incorporated the local religions into their own habits in whatever locality they found themselves.  The Romans did not deny the existence of any local god, to do so would have been impious.  When they reached Judea, the Judeans would not tolerate the Roman religion and rebelled when Rome tried to impose it.  This was something that the Romans could not tolerate on a fundamental level.  The more they tried to bring the Jews to respect the Roman Gods, the more the Jews rebelled -- to the point of even saying that the Roman Gods were False Gods.  Impiety on this level threatened the fabric of the Empire on the most fundamental level, thus ensuring the reprisals that were disproportionately harsh to the threat posed by the Jews.

[J.Z. Herrenberg]

You got that the wrong way around. It is childish to believe in some kind of father figure in the sky and that he works miracles for his friends and slaps around their enemies (like the evil Egyptians, they really got it!). It is a stage in the mental development of both humanity in general and every human individual. We go through the same stages of development that our species went through, only much faster of course, when we grow up. A lot of people don't fully grow up though and get stuck in an earlier stage like the fairy tale stage you are still in.

In other words "ontogeny recapitulates philogeny". I can agree with that.

[Cato]

Mike,

Do you seriously think that the Romans of the Republic and Empire were less religious than the Romans of today?  Do you really think that the "atheism" and the perceived impiety of the Jews was not a factor?  If it were merely about stabilizing a region, then this could have been achieved by far less costly means than the the endless occupation of an area where an insurgency was continuous.   The Romans were not stupid.  They realized that all they needed to do to stabilize Judea was to remove all vestiges of Roman religion from the sacred precincts. This was impossible because by so doing, they would be disrespecting their own gods.  In an era when people believed that warfare was a reflection of the conflicts between the Gods, such an act would have been tantamount to saying that the God of Israel was as great as the Gods of Rome, or worse, that in that little patch of land, the Gods of Rome ceded power to a strange nameless, faceless, "local" god.  Religion was a tremendous force in the ancient world.  We now separate the affairs of Gods from the affairs of men; this is the lesson of "render unto Caesar..."  In the ancient world, religion was not separated from everyday life: it was the core of existence. You followed the laws of the Gods and perhaps they would allow you to thrive. You disrespected them at your peril. If you were a Roman you venerated the Gods of Rome. If you  were Greek, the Gods of Greece.  If you were Egyptian, the Gods of Egypt.  Religion was part of the ethnic identity which is why Romans put up temples to their gods wherever they went.   That they also believed that there were local gods that deserved respect is shown by how they incorporated the local religions into their own habits in whatever locality they found themselves.  The Romans did not deny the existence of any local god, to do so would have been impious.  When they reached Judea, the Judeans would not tolerate the Roman religion and rebelled when Rome tried to impose it.  This was something that the Romans could not tolerate on a fundamental level.  The more they tried to bring the Jews to respect the Roman Gods, the more the Jews rebelled -- to the point of even saying that the Roman Gods were False Gods.  Impiety on this level threatened the fabric of the Empire on the most fundamental level, thus ensuring the reprisals that were disproportionately harsh to the threat posed by the Jews.

My emphasis above.

You keep insisting on a black and white division: Mike is quite correct.  And I will repeat what I wrote yesterday: the primary focus of the Romans was on the preservation of peace and prosperity, not on Judaism. 

We agree that a religious factor was there: but it was by no means the only or a main one. 

On "atheism" and the Romans: the ancient pagans thought the exclusivity of Judaism and later Christianity was supremely illogical, i.e. it placed limits on an infinite being.  If Divinity wants to manifest itself as a Sacred Tree to the Germans or as whatever to whomever, then Divinity would do so.  To say that the only true god was an invisible being occasionally speaking to the prophets of an obscure and quarrelsome desert tribe was simply hugely illogical, and since the Jews and later the Christians denied the existence of the other gods, the pagans labeled them "atheists" as a result.

Again, no historian can agree with your claims: as an example of how ethnic rivalries, money and corruption were also involved besides religion in the causes of the Jewish revolt, I will point out that the sources show how Syrians in Caesarea sent a bribe to have Jewish rights revoked, so that the Syrians could dominate the economy of the city better.

This was an exception, however:

Professor Paul McKechnie of the University of Auckland has written a study of Judean embassies to Roman emperors between 44 and 66 A.D. and relates how the Roman government more often than not found cases in favor of Jerusalem, even overturning the rulings of their procurators.  This article can be found on line.

If Roman hatred of Judaism were so awful, explain why the Roman central government would ever allow Jews any local government for centuries, why they would listen to Jewish entreaties, etc.

[Sean]

Mensch

My explanation is not at all "reductive to material life". It's pragmatic. That is not the same thing (though it might have escaped you). But evolution is nothing, if not pragmatic. The stuff you throw about in the subsequent sentences is nothing but empty mumbo jumbo, and if I ask you to define it, you won't, as I'm sure - you never do in any of these discussions. Look: in your above paragraph, the terms "meaning", "important" and "value" are completely empty vessels devoid of content, unless you have some goal, some telos, in reference to which you can define what is important or meaningful or has value.

This is deep stuff indeed. What is the meaning of life? What do we mean by meaning? Whatever it is it need not be associated with material gain, and not even with telos: great swathes of Indian philosophy in fact are concerned with non-fruitive action, action depending on a transcendent rightness that then assures the fruits of action- but avoids attachment to them.

In the case of morality, the ultimate goal is to preserve the integrity of society and to ensure a future for the next generation of homo sapiens.

Good grief. That's some parsimonious thinking; humour, art, friendship, religion, sex (non-procreational) and other core human experiences that give our lives meaning but aren't related to evolution. Yet there can be a moral dimension engaging in them...

There is no external greater power that decides this, no inherent definition of good or bad without reference to human social behavior in all of its permutations.

Well yes. But humanity goes beyond itself, beyond its worldly form: as I say, we're in the world but not of it (at least some of us- some admittedly are in the world and of it).

This is the ultimate copout of the academically incompetent. "It can't be explained - you are just not enlightened enough to understand." Sorry, no cigar.

Well I am thinking of my own philosophical convictions here. However the reason morality is an ancient philosophical question is that it's not subject to discursive, logical account, yet we know there's something meaningful going on. It turns out that 'the golden rule' that we should do unto others as we'd like done to ourselves has no grounding in reason: it doesn't follow logically that because others are like us they should be treated as us. This is the failure of the 'ought from is' argument. However it doesn't fail, it's just divinely referenced...

Stop invoking higher authority.

There is a greater authority than the reasoning mind, but you'll be pleased to know that God is also what we ultimately are, our true nature beneath groundless reasoning ie reasoning without wisdom, without the transcendent. Good eh? We can have it both ways, relative and absolute, in the world but beyond it.

You were arguing that people can be morally equivalent even though they produce morally opposite actions.

Yes indeed- the aspects of their minds not underwritten by transcendental morality are then subject to whatever influence, whether innate personality/ psychological characteristics, or social norms (issuing from these) or enviroment.

That statement presupposes that there is some other way by which to judge  morality other than by actions alone. If that is the case, then you have to look into a person's mind to ascertain that person's thoughts, since no action has been manifested yet. But my argument was that thoughts are part of a process.

Well this Wittgensteinian grand empiricism- in trying to connect the inner mental world with the outer in a physicalistic way (or a word similar to that): I don't accept it. He should have read the Vedas early on in life and wouldn't have wasted his and many other people's time (I studied his private language argument).

If you could look into someone's mind you would find that at any given point a given person might form an immoral intent. The question is whether the person then acts on it or whether he/she continues with the thought process and rejects that intent as immoral.

Whether they act on it depends on the level of transcendental reference their minds are capable of. Lesser minds find some fulfilment in immorality.

If there is no such thing as free will, then morality is a non-issue...

That's correct. There's no persuading others of real morality, only at most cajoling them on superficial levels (boo-harrah ethics): either you see it right away or you never see it.

The only way we can differentiate moral from immoral is if it manifests itself in the form of behavior.

Pragmatically yes: the criminal system may be the best there is.

It is "wrong" only from your perspective that you lose an arm. From the lion's perspective it is perfectly right...

It's wrong because there's more to life than dumb beasts understand: their perspective is a lesser perspective. And so with those acting immorally...

Mensch, you give me a headache.

[MishaK]

This is deep stuff indeed. What is the meaning of life? What do we mean by meaning? Whatever it is it need not be associated with material gain, and not even with telos: great swathes of Indian philosophy in fact are concerned with non-fruitive action, action depending on a transcendent rightness that then assures the fruits of action- but avoids attachment to them.

This is all BS. Meaning derives from however you define your telos, or absence thereof. "Transcendent rightness" in all philosphies is always in some form something that serves the advancement of human society, whether it is couched in mythological mumbo jumbo or in pragmatic terms. Besides, you really need to get away from that materialism vs. transcendentalism distinction. It's a false dilemma. Survival of human society and an improvement of social relations is not a purely materialistic matter.

Good grief. That's some parsimonious thinking; humour, art, friendship, religion, sex (non-procreational) and other core human experiences that give our lives meaning but aren't related to evolution. Yet there can be a moral dimension engaging in them...

All wrong. It would do you well to educate yourself on these issues. Here, for starters, is a book on the evolution of music.



Besides, you really need to stop using the word "meaning" unless you are willing to fill that word with content. Art, friendship, non-procreational sex all have social functions, strengthening human bonds and, in the case of art, providing vicarious ways for experiencing the feelings and insights of others. So, yes, they do have meaning and purpose within an evolutionary context. It strikes me that you are one of those exoticist mysticists who believes that if you try to explain the mysterious it loses its appeal. You have such a strong emotional barrier to scientific explanations.

Well yes. But humanity goes beyond itself, beyond its worldly form: as I say, we're in the world but not of it (at least some of us- some admittedly are in the world and of it).

If so, then what is the beyond? You claim you're not a religious nut, but deep down inside you are.

Well I am thinking of my own philosophical convictions here. However the reason morality is an ancient philosophical question is that it's not subject to discursive, logical account, yet we know there's something meaningful going on. It turns out that 'the golden rule' that we should do unto others as we'd like done to ourselves has no grounding in reason: it doesn't follow logically that because others are like us they should be treated as us. This is the failure of the 'ought from is' argument. However it doesn't fail, it's just divinely referenced...

Sean, you're hopless. This is idiotic. You should be crying in a corner from embarassment that you allowed your name to be associated with such a statement. Have you even read Kant? The golden rule is perfectly logical. It is the most basic form of reciprocity, a way out of the prisoner's dilemma and the basis of equitable justice in virtually all of human societies, whether they have ever been exposed to the Bible or Kant or not. There is nothing about it that in any way eludes logic, though logic clearly eludes you. BTW, as with all your parphrases, you misstate the argument. It isn't that the golden rule claims that people should be treated equally because they are equal. It is that you treat people the way you yourself want to be treated because such treatment on your behalf helps establish social norms that are acceptable to you. It is no different than Gandhi's dictum that you have to be the change you want to see in the world. How you behave towards others establishes certain expectations in them about social interactions with you. Hence, if you behave in a way that you would find acceptable if you were to be the recepient of such action, then you are helping to establish a grammar of social interaction that you would find good and would voluntarily submit yourself to.

There is a greater authority than the reasoning mind, but you'll be pleased to know that God is also what we ultimately are, our true nature beneath groundless reasoning ie reasoning without wisdom, without the transcendent. Good eh? We can have it both ways, relative and absolute, in the world but beyond it.

Sean, it has become clear that you don't even know what the words you use mean. This is gibberish.

Yes indeed- the aspects of their minds not underwritten by transcendental morality are then subject to whatever influence, whether innate personality/ psychological characteristics, or social norms (issuing from these) or enviroment.

Sean, WTF does this mean? How do people of moral equivalence (however ascertained) end up committing morally opposite acts? How do you ascertain moral equivalence in the face of different manifestations of morality on the basis of actions?

Well this Wittgensteinian grand empiricism- in trying to connect the inner mental world with the outer in a physicalistic way (or a word similar to that): I don't accept it. He should have read the Vedas early on in life and wouldn't have wasted his and many other people's time (I studied his private language argument).

Sean, this has nothing to do with Wittgenstein, whom you haven't understood in any case. Answer my point please, not Wittgenstein's. You can have arguments with him in your afterlife (which is something you obviously believe in).

Whether they act on it depends on the level of transcendental reference their minds are capable of. Lesser minds find some fulfilment in immorality.

Even accepting this idiotic version, it still goes against the grain of your earlier argument that people can be morally equivalent but exhibit morally dissimilar behavior. If whether one acts on an intent "depends on the level of transcendental reference their minds are capable of" then clearly it is the ultimate immoral act that is the manifestation of that inability of transcendental moral reference. Your above sentence does not explain how a human being of supposedly superior moral quality ends up committing an otherwise immoral act despite his/her superior awareness of that transcendental moral referent. This was your original claim, need I remind you.

That's correct. There's no persuading others of real morality, only at most cajoling them on superficial levels (boo-harrah ethics): either you see it right away or you never see it.

Sean. You've lost your thread. You said free will is an illusion. I said without free will there is no morality. Now you say that is correct?

Pragmatically yes: the criminal system may be the best there is.

So, unpragmatically, what is it? How do you differentiate morally superior humans from inferior ones absent a manifestation of their morality in the form of actions?

It's wrong because there's more to life than dumb beasts understand: their perspective is a lesser perspective. And so with those acting immorally...

Now you've made a mess of everything, lions, humanity and poor old Plato. You mistakenly seem to think that the human perspective is in any way relevant for lions. Nothing could be farther from the truth. The world would be a better place for lions without humans in it. As long as humans are around, they are a threat and a potential source for food. There is nothing morally wrong for a lion to eat a human. Even if lions had the enlightenment level of humans they would still eat humans because they are of a different species, just as humans have no qualms whatsoever about consuming other species or destroying  their habitat. This simply isn't a question of morality. It's just a very poor example borne out of an inadequate scientific understanding of animal behavior. The morality of a lion only applies in reference to its behavior with other lions in its pride (which is quite developed, I might add). BTW, whether you subscribe to enlightened form of Christianity or the various eastern philosophies you fetishize, there is no such thing as a "lesser" perspective just because one creature is an animal and not human. They all have soul, chi or whatever it is you like. They are of equal creational value.

Mensch, you give me a headache.

Thinking generally seems to have that effect on you, I've noticed.

[Don]

This is deep stuff indeed. What is the meaning of life?

Not so deep.  It's something for each individual to decide (or not).

[Sean]

Shortish reply here Mensch- you can have the last word on this.

I don't hold with this 'advancement of human society' stuff- I think you've lived in the US for a bit too long and need a wider perspective. However we may be closer to an agreement here, and indeed the transcendent and material are very connected.

I've read your thoughts on alleged exoticism etc- your outlook I think is simplistically empirical, as indeed is that of English culture. I recommend the Bhagavad Gita to you with a good commentary (especially the one by Maharishi), rather than further persuasion. 'What is the beyond?' you ask. I'm working on a project around 220 000 words at the moment on the subject, and must be mad wasting time on this forum.

I take your points about the social values of the golden rule etc, but it doesn't work in terms of syllogistic logic. I am right on this on by the way. It wouldn't be a philosphical question if it wasn't.

How do people of moral equivalence (however ascertained) end up committing morally opposite acts?

As I've tried to say, some (most) people don't have all their minds underwritten by transcendental reference to provide moral insight. Hence the rest of their minds are open to conditioning by their situating culture, or inherent personality. You can get them to be nice to each other, as for instance most of the time in America with its strong civil society, or you can get them to build gas chambers: it's all the same to them.

...then clearly it is the ultimate immoral act that is the manifestation of that inability of transcendental moral reference. Your above sentence does not explain how a human being of supposedly superior moral quality ends up committing an otherwise immoral act despite his/her superior awareness of that transcendental moral referent.

It's not possible for such an immoral act to be committed.

Your stuff on free will raises more complexity for me to wade through, which I'm not going to do. However, bondage and freedom are paradoxical things- bondage issues from the discursive thinking mind being free to get lost in itself- rather than being locked into the given thought and action of the intuitive (right brain functioning) mind. Freedom is actually bondage in a deep sense and there is no real ego or individuality.

They all have soul, chi or whatever it is you like. They are of equal creational value.

There is indeed only one Self, one consciousness, one absolute. But when it's not expressed to the same extent, then the aspects of the mind it doesn't govern can cause our immoral action.

I'll read any reply but I'm through with this thread, and this forum. Try some Vedic philosophy though- Prabhupada's books are probably the best known but he's a bit prosaic and he's known for an element of dualism, whereas the whole teaching really is massively monistic. The Maharishi book I mentioned, which isn't perfect either but which I think is a major achievement (chapters 1-6 of 18)- ISBN 0-14-019247-6

Best wishes. Over and out.