I have a problem (was forum=28)Follow

HEY: My rune-readings were QUITE accurate. I should know; I worked for commission
For the record I did it during live bands performing.. usually so loud it my readings would usually have to devolve into a thumbs-up or a thumbs-down
and they came to me (albeit lured by my giant KNOW THYSELF sign).

Nothing is constant. Humans may have created standards we consider constant, but there aren't. EVERYTHING we consider moral or immoral is tailored to our own values. And I doubt you can name a single moral standard that has held throughout recorded history.

Our own society pretty much only considers one thing necessarily evil, and that's child molestation. Throughout most of human history, what we consider "children" were "prime marriage material."

Not... exactly. Every known society has/had prohibitions against murder and incest. I think your quibble is based on the fact there are various definitions of those terms.

There's a huge difference between moral and legal prohibitions. Murder DEFINITELY doesn't exist as a moral prohibition across all cultures. Most cultures had protections for at least the elite class of their own people, but MANY held no moral objection to murder outside of those individuals. And so the moral objection can't have been to murder, but was to something else associated with the act.

Sibling marriages have been common at various points in time. Though, if we limit incest to purely parent/child, I don't have anything to prove you wrong. Anything else though has definitely been common within some culture at some point in our history.

[EDIT] To be clear, I'm considering them purely in their most basic sense. Incest is sexual relations between family members and murder is the unjustified ending of another life (with major "justifications" being self-defense, honor and war). Viking culture, for instance, definitely prohibited against killing other viking men and their wives. Killing any non-viking that irritated you had no moral implications. Hell, killing a viking that wasn't closely associated with your own tribe was usually fine.

Edited, Dec 16th 2011 10:42pm by idiggory

So you were wand'rin troo da fields an' cut cha bloody knees?

Then you are making an argument that relies on a premise of transliteration, which is logically invalid. You are turning to wordplay instead of looking at the actual concept. It's a rather gbaji-esque move, actually.

Murder, defined as the unwarranted killing of another human being, is objectionable in our culture. You are absolutely free to play with the definition, but not holding the same definition for all acts is not good logic.

I can make a ton of universal claims about human morality if I'm allowed to play it fast and loose with the definitions. But it's just absurd to do so.

I don't really care if you choose our cultural definition, or try and boil it down to the smallest form (which makes the strongest argument).

But if we are accepting that murder is the unwarranted killing of another human, then many (if not MOST) human cultures DEFINITELY did not hold that moral standard. Moral obligation not to murder typically ended at the boundaries of their society. The huns, various European barbarous groups, and African/South American tribes come to mind.

[EDIT]

Ummm, in case that didn't make sense, because my head is kinda scattered right now...

The logical argument:
1. Murder = An Act such that the act is: unwarranted and kill any other.
2. A is unwarranted
3. A kills any other
4. A is Murder

Fair?

Now bring in malleable definitions:
1. Murder = An act such that the act is: unwarranted and kills any other. (Assumption)
2. Murder = An act such that the act is: unwarranted and kills someone within your social group. (Assumption)
3. A is unwarranted. (Assumption)
4. A kills someone outside your social group. (Assumption)
5. A is murder (1, 3, 4)
6. A is not murder (2, 3, 4)
7. A is murder and is not murder (5, 6)
8. Alma is not a virgin

6 and 7 are clearly paradoxical (and there's a fun rule in logic that means, when you derive a paradox, you are allowed to derive ANYTHING, which is why I chose to pick something absurd).

Edited, Dec 17th 2011 10:56pm by idiggory

Given that nothing in modern "steampunk" is remotely driven by steam... no.

Because people are not logical. Culture is not a logical construct.

Many, though not most, societies don't consider outsiders human on the same level as themselves. Many tribes, clans, and nations use a word to describe themselves that translates to "people" or "the people". They don't consider others, strangers, barbarians as being equal and due the same protections.

This does not obviate the fact that they still have a prohibition against murder as they define it.

But I do see where the misunderstanding arose.

For the most part. Of course it's applied inconsistently, even with those caveats.

My prior Druidic belief was actually much more limitless.. essentially assuming that if I personally developed myself spiritually and psychically that I would essentially fully realize my God-like potential and and that at some point a great spiritual revolution/evolution would happen in the universe which I and others that were as spiritually adept as I was would really "shine". It is still quite a common believe..
Also my prior belief that that my Higher-Self existed outside of time and that I was just vacationing in human form right now and that when I died I would go back to my true higher-self state which exists outside of the realms of space/time... and that there was no death.. just the turning of many pages..

so no:
The thing that veered me toward Christianity was an honest exploration of what it meant vs what it was that I believed based on personal observation; unbiased personal observation. (if you can believe that).

What I hadn't realized is that the personal observations on which I based my spiritual beliefs could really not fully be trusted in the light of my own limitations vs the possible perfection that would eminate for the theorectical "Source of All Creation" that I now call God (YWVH); but the hardest part was shedding the old beliefs that I had so carefully concocted and based my views and philosphies on.. but that is part of the process is realizing and admitting that you are powerless like dust in a hurricane..
I believed that I had learned to swim and I thought that people like Christian were just weak fools who had no spiritual developmemnt of their own and so had to rely on rafts built by other people to stay spiritually afloat.. I would always shed the notion from my mind that at some point someone or something my pull the plug on the drain and then it didn't matter how well you could swim.. everyone sinks.. and that which pulls the plug is that which filled the pool in the first place.. so that it might be a good idea to pay attention.. I would think of that and it made me very nervous to concider that possibility to I would tuck it away and continue on my own personal swimming lessons..

but I also believe that no one can intellectually come to truly believe these things unless/until they are ready and prepared and at that point it really is "divine intervention" which kind of lubricates your minds eye and actually allows you to shed all of the presuppostions(resistance) that we develop over the years of our lives.

I think Idiggory's and Samira's argument is the result poor communication, and not largely a disagreement on the reality of the situation.

Idiggory - You earlier defined murder as the unwarranted killing of an individual. This is a flawed definition, and possibly the root of your misunderstanding. More accurately, murder is the illegal killing of an individual. Samira drew this distinction. Societies differ on what they choose to deem acceptable killings (not murder) and unacceptable killings (murder). And Samira was suggesting that there was a consistent distinction across societies that there is some killings which are bad and some which are good.

You misunderstood the term murder.

Samira - Idiggory's original term was that of morals or moral standards. His argument was that these were rather inconsistent. while moral standard is a term more open to interpretation than murder, I don't think your point about murder is valid (and--irrelevantly--that your point about incest is entirely correct). If you accept murder as being define as illegal killings, then saying that every society has prohibitions against murder is a tautology. Illegal actions are those which are prohibited. "Doing wrong things is wrong," is not itself a moral. That societies hold some types of killings as unacceptable is not itself enough to justify the argument that there exists a consistent moral belief across every society. "Murder is wrong" is not a moral, it is redundancy. "Slaying a fellow villager (without due cause) is murder" is a moral.

You misunderstood the term moral standard.

Edited, Dec 19th 2011 5:16pm by Allegory

No, I didn't; but as always your condescension is just the best condescension ever.

When I understood we were talking about different things, I said so.

I thought "G_d" was mainly a Jewish thing.