Where did morals come from?

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
[Q]Originally posted by Kidicious

There is no 'basic' morality in a society where people have unequal power and special economic interests.

Yes there is. It's just that the exceptions are "justified," either for the greater good or by some religious or ethical reasoning.

We don't really disagree. I'm just saying that when you 'justify' something. That that's your morality, whether it's wrong or right.

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker

Originally posted by Kidicious
I see. All that campaigning and speeches for nothing.

Not for nothing; to convince America that Bush represents their morality.

Even if Bush doesn't, and he enforces something different, he won't change their morality. He'll just force them to live under a morality not their own (which is obviously possible).

It goes beyond conservatives convincing conservatives that they are conservatives. The purpose is to make people conservative. I think that's pretty obvious. I mean otherwise the content of the speeches would consist of things like "I'm a conservative because I want to cut your taxes" not things like "I want to cut your taxes because government doesn't deserve it, you do." It's not hard to presuade someone that you are politically alligned with them. You can just send something out in the mail for that. You don't need any presuasive political talk at all.

I'm not talking about one person. I'm talking about groups. People have various degrees of power in a society. Those with power have more power to influence people's morality.

Power in general really doesn't translate into power to change the underlying morality of society. People who do change that are often effectively powerless. Jesus, for example.

Jesus wasn't powerless. He was very influencial. Money and position aren't the only source of power, but they are source.

[Ben Kenobi]

Berzerker:

Eating the apple was sexual - procreation. That's why they knew they were naked and wore fig leaves.

So you do not believe they slept together before the fall?

No. The issue was not procreation, eating the apple is disobedience from God. The serpent told them they could be gods themselves, which is why Eve and Adam disobeyed.

The "Serpent" harkens back to the Sumerian god, Ea or Enki, who was responsible for our creation. Even in the Bible it is the Serpent who is responsible for Adam and Eve having children, not God. He was mad because they had sex and conceived. He didn't want his Garden being over run with humans...

You can go with this connection, or with the simple point made by Christianity that Satan is the serpent, and that Satan can take many forms.

The serpent is not just another god taken from another religion, there are essential Christian characteristics to the serpent in the garden not found anywhere else.

I'm curious as to who told you that eating the apple was about procreation. It makes no sense. Nakedness is one thing. To know that nakedness is 'wrong' is quite another. If adam and eve knew that they were naked, it does not follow from that, that they would need to cover themselves up.

Now, you consider the sin of adam to be procreation. This makes little sense. Why, if adam sinned by procreating, would God command them to do so as soon as they got out of the Garden?

[Berzerker]

Ben -

So you do not believe they slept together before the fall?

The apple represents the "wisdom" to procreate. I don't know if they slept together before the fall but it's clear they did not have children until after eating the apple.

No. The issue was not procreation, eating the apple is disobedience from God. The serpent told them they could be gods themselves, which is why Eve and Adam disobeyed.

Do you think God just wanted to see if Adam could follow His order? There was a consequence of eating the apple, a consequence God didn't want to see realised. After Adam and Eve are kicked out of the Garden, what's the very first thing we see happen? Adam and Eve conceive a child followed by another.
They "created" life, hence they were like God...

You can go with this connection, or with the simple point made by Christianity that Satan is the serpent, and that Satan can take many forms. The serpent is not just another god taken from another religion, there are essential Christian characteristics to the serpent in the garden not found anywhere else.

Like what? According to Jesus, the serpent represents wisdom. What does Eve say about the apple? It is a source of wisdom. In the Sumerian religion, Ea is the God of wisdom and he is represented by the serpent. In the Sumerian religion it is this serpent god who is responsible for humanity becoming wise and proliferating, the same role played by the Serpent in the Garden.

I'm curious as to who told you that eating the apple was about procreation. It makes no sense.

It makes perfect sense, I learned of this through reading Genesis and it's Mesopotamian sources - comparative religion.

Nakedness is one thing. To know that nakedness is 'wrong' is quite another.

Nakedness refers to the knowledge of procreation, and this knowledge was "wrong" simply because God did not want humans proliferating in his garden. What did God tell his colleagues once he discovered Adam and Eve's newfound wisdom? Did he tell them we must punish them for dis-obedience? No, he told them we must punish them before they partake of the tree of life and become even more like the gods. The same motive for punishing humans is found in the Tower of Babel story, humans attempt to reach Heaven and this angers God.

If adam and eve knew that they were naked, it does not follow from that, that they would need to cover themselves up.

It would if this knowledge of "nakedness" angered God.
This "nakedness" refers to a certain kind of knowledge, the knowledge of procreation. Somehow God discovered that Adam and Eve had acquired this knowledge inspite of their attempt to hide it from him.

Now, you consider the sin of adam to be procreation. This makes little sense. Why, if adam sinned by procreating, would God command them to do so as soon as they got out of the Garden?

God didn't command them to procreate, they did that on their own.

[Kidlicious]

God is almighty Berz. Everything that he wants to happen, happens.

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara

Originally posted by Kidicious
Societies have their own rules about killing and taking things.

Has there ever been a society where it's okay to steal? Has there ever been a society where it's okay to murder?

Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan.


It was okay to steal, providing that you 'stole' from France, the Netherlands, Soviet Russia, Poland, China, Hong Kong, Korea, Indonesia, et cetera.


You could also steal from German citizens who were not Aryan- Jews, Romanies, Socialists, and so on.

You could murder selected groups and individuals- both societies created whole groups of slaves whose lives were irrelevant, and whole groups of subject peoples who could be used as disposables in medical experiments and in Nazi Germany of course, they could also dispose of humans who were mentally or physically not up to scratch by their standards.

The Nazis also dismantled and stole whole factories and indistrial units in occupied countries, shipping them back to the homeland.

Pirate societies, such as Formosa, when occupied by Coxinga, and Madagascarand various other islands in the Caribbean and Indian Ocean in the 17th and 18th centuries existed by stealing- either from the inhabitants of nearby states or from commercial shipping.

Even Napoleon the Lawgiver ransacked huge amounts of goods and artworks from occupied states- Venice is still awaiting the return of pillaged artworks taken from the defeated Republic centuries ago and residing still in the Louvre.

So in short, societies have at various times decreed it's all right to steal, providing you do it 'properly'.

[Arrian]

And how did Imperial Japan and Nazi Germany fare? Not well.

I think that was Che's point.

-Arrian

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by Arrian
And how did Imperial Japan and Nazi Germany fare? Not well.

I think that was Che's point.

-Arrian

I don't think it was- it was o.k. to steal and murder, providing you did it to selected groups, the 'enemies' of society, or to conquered peoples.

It didn't mean that the ordinary Japanese and German wasn't a law abiding citizen, or that there weren't rafts of laws forbidding or restricting a whole host of things, but those laws could be overridden or abrogated or suspended as the case arose.

[Arrian]

I don't think it was- it was o.k. to steal and murder, providing you did it to selected groups

Sure. But once those selected groups included powerful foreign countries, things went south in a hurry.

-Arrian

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by Arrian


Sure. But once those selected groups included powerful foreign countries, things went south in a hurry.

-Arrian

Which doesn't negate my original point- they simply attacked (stole from) the wrong people- it didn't mean that stealing from or killing certain groups was suddenly wrong in Nazi Germany or Japan.

[David Floyd]

Kid, I've got a question.

You believe that each society either has or could have different morals.

Fair enough.

The logical question, though, is whether or not you believe that each moral standard is equally valid, objectively speaking. That is, does any one society's moral standard have an objective claim to being more correct/valid, or are they all pretty much the same?

If they are all the same, then it's pretty tough for you to criticize Nazi Germany from a moral standpoint, and if that's the case, then objectively speaking, there was no moral basis for the Nuremburg trials.

The only way around this is to say that the overriding moral principle is that might makes right. This not only destroys the belief that all morals are equally valid, because we just found an overriding moral principle, but it also makes the concept of morals pretty much irrelevant anyway.

Now, on the other hand, maybe you believe that there IS some way to judge a society's morals, other than on the basis of might makes right. Granted, you seem to have been arguing against this, but I could have misunderstood you, and I'm interested in a clarification.

So which is it? Do you want to admit that ultimately you believe "might makes right" is the overriding moral principle, or do you want to admit that there is some other overriding moral principle?

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by molly bloom
Which doesn't negate my original point- they simply attacked (stole from) the wrong people- it didn't mean that stealing from or killing certain groups was suddenly wrong in Nazi Germany or Japan.

Yes, but my point is, once a society allows such wholesale behavior, it is not long for the world. Either its own people or its neighbors will do away with it. The point I was making is, once such a society begins violating the basic rules of humanity, it undermines its own ability to survive.

[David Floyd]

The point I was making is, once such a society begins violating the basic rules of humanity, it undermines its own ability to survive.

I actually agree with you, but where do you think those "basic rules of humanity" come from?

[Imran Siddiqui]

where do you think those "basic rules of humanity" come from?

The $64 Million Question. Unfortunetly no one has been able to claim the prize yet .

[David Floyd]

Staying away from the "from God" response (because that's rather useless in this kind of discussion), I'd personally lean toward Berz's argument about universal shared desires (big surprise there, huh?).