QED
Posts: 41
Joined: July 2008
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| Quote (GaryGaulin @ Sep. 04 2015,18:40) | | Quote (stevestory @ Sep. 04 2015,16:43) | | Quote | 195
sean samisSeptember 4, 2015 at 3:07 pm
I think this debate between kairosfocus and myself is coming to its effective end. Our arguments are beginning to become repetitious; I’ve seen all KF has, and all I can do is remind him of why he is wrong. I’m sure KF feels exactly the same way about me and mine.
Now kairosfocus is so frustrated at his inability to change my mind that KF’s beginning to insinuate that I must be evil. That is a sign that this needs to end.
Wide-spread belief in kairosfocus’s “world-root-level” grounding of morality does absolutely no good for preventing evil.
It did not stop the thousands of Germans who committed the Holocaust, or the thousands of Polish, Russian, French, Dutch etc. collaborators who were accomplices in that crime.
It did not stop 19th century pogroms in Imperial Russia. It didn’t stop the African Slave Trade or Southern lynchings or Jim Crow laws. It didn’t stop the Wars of Religion in Europe, nor mass-murder of Jews in medieval Germany, nor witch burnings, heretic burnings, and on and on and on.
It doesn’t stop Christians from getting abortions today, a problem so great that some churches and denominations struggle to find ways to minister to members who’ve gotten abortions.
It doesn’t stop conservative politicians who take money away from programs intended to serve poor children and mothers so they can lower taxes for the wealthy. Strangly; “godless” Europeans have fewer abortions than we Religious Americans do. And they take better care of their children too. Are those related facts? Probably.
In any event, belief in kairosfocus’s “world-root-level” grounding of morality does absolutely no good for preventing any of these evils. Is the solution to the crisis of abortion to proclaim “Ontology!”? Will that change hearts and minds?
Would my alternative, a moral system based on the mandate of the Golden Rule and founded on Reason and Facts of Nature do better? I think so because it does not try to leverage beliefs in deities. Deities have been and are used to justify all manner of horror because “God said so, and God’s ways are mysterious.” All those horrors I mentioned above were supported by religious leaders in the name of their God.
And now we have Godly believers who won’t take their children to doctors, who throw acid at little children, who destroy antiquities, who induce children to become sex-slaves and child-soldiers and suicide bombers, who go to the funerals of fallen soldiers and cheer the weapons that killed them.
Think of all the conflict zones in the world; how many are driven by religious disagreements? Most are. I cannot think of a war in all of history where religious leaders on either side (much less BOTH sides!) were like: “Hold on there! This is wrong!” Mark Twain’s War Prayer got it right.
My morality replaces God with Reason and Facts. Oh for sure people can and will dispute Reason and Facts (just like they do theistic ideas) but because reason and facts are accessible to all, there is no claiming that “Reason’s ways are mysterious”; reasons ways are reasonable by definition. Facts are facts.
My alternative is not perfect, but that’s not the standard we need meet. We just need better. And boy! Do we need better!
Kairosfocus is part of the team that runs UD (or so it appears) so I will give him the last word on this thread.
Thank you all for your kind attention.
sean s. |
linky |
My Methodist training taught me that Reason and Facts come from God, which is to be visualized as a 24/7 Creator that is somehow everywhere and in everything (i.e. living things). We have free-will to choose for ourselves with brains designed for reasoning with facts. Much has to do with what gives us purpose that lives on in future generations, or not, which in the theory is described in scientific detail that gets into the salmon and alligators.
Logically speaking: "Reason and Facts" morality cannot replace "God". Only waste time while getting yourselves upset by trying to convince the UD crew otherwise. They might have a religion filled way of explaining things, but at least they have the true/false level of detail 100% right. |
Hooray!!! Moar bible verses!!!11!!!11!!!!11!!!11.....!!
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