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#21 |
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Very Grave Indeed
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But doesn't that make the laws of the land generate at least indirectly from the people?
After all, you elect your president democratically, you elect your house and senate representatives democratically, and your local politicians are answerable to the desires of their consituancy. If the vast majority of Americans thought stealing was A-Ok it woudln't take long for laws against it to be repealed, since that same majority could and supposedly would fail to re-elect people who didn't accede to their wishes. |
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#22 |
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If the majority of the people who democratically voted for senators who had ideas about stealing being okay, because they are the ones who are able to propose laws, then yes stealing could be omitted as being against the law.
But then again, IMO, the democratic system is crumbling. Politics is a foggy field of marketing and liars. |
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#23 |
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Very Grave Indeed
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You aren't supposed to vote for people who have ideas about things that you don't agree with. if you elect such a person, you are indicating that you support their ideas, so it's you saying it too.
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#24 |
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But political leaders today typically lie to get elected.
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#25 |
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Very Grave Indeed
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Well someone's disillusioned about the political process before even being able to vote.
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#26 |
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Yes
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Well, maybe when you realize the inherent meaninglessness to every single thing in "existence" you'll stop having to ask questions that we've all thought about eons ago in existences before your time.
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#27 |
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Very Grave Indeed
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If every thing in existence is meaningless, then the fact that these questions have been thought about before is meaningless, so your objection is also meaningless.
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#28 |
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Yes
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Obviously
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#29 |
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That kinda killed that question.
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#30 |
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Very Grave Indeed
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#31 |
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FFR Player
Join Date: Apr 2007
Posts: 106
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Going back to the original question, I don't think anyone really 'made up' a moral code. Organized it, yes, but the only people who could really be attributed to making our moral code are, at the moment, Mr.Evolution or God, depending on your view (or in mine, possibly both). As far as people who organized it, one well known person was Hammurabi, who made the Code of Hammurabi (http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/31800.html). If I'm not mistaken, it was the first recorded set of laws (that we know of) stating that a person must be punished equally according to the crime he committed (I might be wrong about the 'first' thing). In other words, if you cut off someone's hand, so must yours be cut off.
But even the people who made lists of laws weren't just making things up. They were going by what they saw as 'wrong' or 'right'. So where do our views of wrong and right come from? One explanation is evolution. Our species has learned over time that there are benefits for saving each other. If two team up, they are stronger than one, and both members of this team gain something from the 'friendship' if you can call it that. Over time, the animals that made relationships were the ones that came out on top. So over time, it was ingrained into the brains of our species not to do certain things, like kill each other. Another view is the "God" view. That there is some being who created us with these moral codes that we are supposed to follow. There are also some who believe both, that God controlled evolution to work out so that we could become like we are today. Being a Christian, I kind of lean towards the third one, however I view evolution as less of a 'definite' and more of a "the best explanation that we currently have". My views on morals and why we have them are quite a bit different from many others, and I'll probably end up going into that later, but at the moment, I want to post what I've got written here :P. |
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#32 | |
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Very Grave Indeed
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In the evolutionary animal world, spending resources that could be used for the betterment of the strong and the young/developing to keep the sick and elderly alive is a counterproductive action, and yet as a culture we pride ourselves as morally superior for our efforts to care for the elderly, and that's just one example. |
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#33 | |
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Also, evolution is science, God is a construct. One cannot work within the other, so your third argument (God controlling evolution) is scientifically (and constructurally) impossible. |
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#34 | |||
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Join Date: Apr 2007
Posts: 106
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Quote:
The part where my argument fails a bit is in all the extensive laws made by governments. These, I think, are less evolutionary and more governments thinking through things. But at the base of it all seems to be our sense of Morality, and Guilt. If we didn't feel like it was wrong to kill or that anything could be gained from not killing, chances are we wouldn't care so much for obeying other laws. Again, with the sick and elderly thing, our brains might say something like "This person is going to die. Dying is not good. This person may still be of some help to society." In my view, it's God that gave us, possibly through evolution, our sense of morality. Quote:
But think about if you did. Would you feel too good after killing someone? Personally, even if the person was attacking me, I would probably feel sick for months. So I guess I meant more that "don't kill" is written into our brains somewhere, not that it is wrong in everyone's point of view. Quote:
That being said, here's the Wikipedia article for Intelligent Design: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligent_design And it's not just an uncommon, third party thing. I mean, it certainly is less common than the other two views, but it has a featured article on Wikipedia. |
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#35 | ||||
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Admiral in the Red Army
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For you folks who want to touch on religion/science, we already have a thread for science and religion's potential incompatibilities and the implications of such a compatibility or lack thereof.
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#36 | |
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As for what I'd feel if I did, I don't know. I've never killed anyone. I could feel trumphant, because I removed the threat, I could feel happy (same reason), or I may even feel a since of guilt, because I took a life. But I don't know. I think it would be a good idea to survey people who have killed in self-defense. Also, I don't think "don't kill" was written into our brains without parents and lawbooks. You see, in the military (everyone's, not just ours), people's capacity for killing be increased to the point where they don't even have to think about it. If "don't kill" were written into our brains by evolution, as "sex", "food", or "air", we'd never be able to get rid of the hesitation. Soldiers would still hesitate and think about it before they killed someone. Disclaimer: Not ragging on the military in any way, I love em, don't take my examples the wrong way. Sure, intelligent design isn't just like The Church of The Flying Spaghetti Monster (that is to say, a fringe theory which makes no sense at all), but at the same time, on its face, it does not make sense. And here you may insert all or more of the common arguments against higher powers... why doesn't everyone believe, etc., etc., etc., etc., etc. but I won't, because I think you already know what the arguments are. At this point, I really don't want to debate Intelligent Design's viability as a theory, but rather its relevance twoards morality, which is thus: For this argument (or piece of it), we will assume that Intelligent Design is valid. So, why didn't God have "don't kill" written in all of us? What about murderers? Why would he put something so major in an ink that is relatively easy to remove? |
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#37 | |
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Very Grave Indeed
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#38 |
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Admiral in the Red Army
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Is being morally only to get into Heaven truly moral though?
I mean, if a person is a terrible person, but behaves morally because they believe it to be their only way into Heaven... would that person be morally right? It seems to me that a person like that is lying to themselves... and this god who is all powerful, what's the point of the supposed test? He is not bound by time or space, he knows what sort of person we are, what kind of moral ideals we'll hold. Why does the test need to play out?
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#39 | ||
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Very Grave Indeed
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I can explain the logical process to anyone who doesn't see it but basically, either we have no free will, or God is not in fact omniscient. And since whether we have free will or not, we have an incredibly persistant impression of free will, I'm more inclined to conclude that God is not omniscient, and that the test is actually a test and needs to play out because God does not know what the outcome will be. |
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#40 | |||
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Admiral in the Red Army
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And since he is not bound by time or space, he can just observe us in the future. Think 4th dimensionally. While we're just being born, he could skip ahead to the future and look at what we've done with our lives, then go back in time and pass judgment on us for things we hadn't yet done. He's ****ing God. He can time travel, bro.
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