Five Questions for Statists

a reply to: schuyler

Though I may be misunderstanding, it seems to me you are saying morality is relative, not absolute, and that each generation gets to define what morality is to them. But I remain confused. On the one hand I don't believe there is any morality without "us" to define it. In the Earth's natural state, there is no morality any more than there are any "rights." People define them.

I remain confused also. I think that there IS an absolute morality, just one that is interpreted by people, which for practical purposes makes it relative. See? Confusing.

I think that morality used to be defined by the tribe and members of the tribe just went with it, hardly if ever questioning it. I think this extended into the larger groupings as time went on. But basically whatever those moral guidelines were, they continued until that tribe or whatever came into contact with another group that had a different set of morals. More or even less defined.

But one of the things I think was lacking back then was the sense of individual freedom. It was "THIS IS THE WAY IT IS' and no one even questioned it. Any other way was wrong, was deadly. To do so would threaten the survival of the tribe. True or not, this is what defines for me the situations we see all around us today . This vestigial sense that it has to be THIS way and not THAT way.

So for me, in this day when all our tribes are in contact with all our other tribes we fight over whose sense of morals is right. And I think, none of them because all of them were drawn up originally for one tribe or religion, which were created to help one specific set of humans to survive. WhoEVER drew them up.

So at this point, I look out and try to find my tribe. And what I see is not ten or twenty or even a million people. The tribe I see is not confined to the forest or the desert. It is not confined by rivers or oceans. The tribe I see is our whole species. And what I see is that our whole tribe is in grave peril. And I see no god or holy men to lay it all down for us. And that leaves it all up to us. Do we continue to play by the morals of Christianity? Do we continue to play by the moral compass of Islam? Both are abhorrent to the other. Both are relative while both claim to be absolute.

So which is it? Absolute or relative. An absolute moral system depends upon an absolute authority. That absolute authority might end up being TPTB and once those of us who think otherwise are out of the way then all the rest of the people can go on about life never questioning the moral values established to help the world wide tribe to survive as well as possible. This is not my version of how I would like to see it happen.

Or, that moral standard can start with you and me. With this guy and that guy. Can we agree that we are not enemies but rather individual members of one large tribe that sits on the precipice and is looking over into the void of extinction and we better come up with some really really good moral values soon.

Nearly all of these questions are valid when substituting "nation" instead of "state".

originally posted by: schuyler

originally posted by: Azureblue
a reply to: schuyler

It does not matter who defined moral, its the same either way but perhaps you should empower yourself to make that decision.

Its not coincidental that you think that someone other than your self has the right to make this decision in your mind. This is what the ptb have done to you and millions of others in this world today, DISempowered you through the making of politician made law that says to do this , dont do do that or else !! and so you begin to think wwweeeeeeelll thats the law int it, spose I have to do as they say.

I don't pretend to un derstand why you reached those conclusions, especially that assuming I think that "someone other than [my]self has the right to make this decision." I'm trying to get people like you to define just what morality is, and all I get are vague ideas like "objective morality" which remains undefined. Without people thinking it up, there is no morality at all. Is a tiger moral? No, it just does what tigers do. In fact, nature, without humans, is "red in tooth and claw" (William Blake), a pretty nasty place in terms of equal rights for herbivores.

When you look at what people have done prior in this situation, you get stuff like this, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that we are endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable rights, among them, life liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."

Now why would they invoke a "Creator"? It wasn't because of religion. It was to say that there is something bigger than humans simply defining morality for everyone else. They invoked a 'higher power' specifically to get humans out of the equation. THAT is the purpose of the phrase.

And all we get here is this idea that "morality," or rather, immorality, can be defined as "anything that interferes with a 'natural state." But the "natural state" of humanity can hardly be defined as civilized. And once you get there you begin to see what morality may be. It does not exist until you have relationships BETWEEN other people. In other words, "morality" is the code that defines relationships; it is otherwise meaningless. So I completely reject the idea of an "objective morality."

There is no such thing.

In that sense I would describe morality is the little voice inside us all that tells what is right and what is wrong. This of course is influenced by religion, family upbringing, national culture etc.

What gets up my nose big time is that the morality always seems to get measured using the human sexuality measuring stick and no other measuring stick. This seems to be common among religions to either a greater or lesser extent.

Surely, there are other measuring sticks to use. Why is sexual identity, preference and desires used as the near sole measure of human morality? Notice that anything associated with military and violence never seems to get included in any measure of morality until its pushed and only then there is only token acceptance and recognition that a there's a moral dimension to it.

If consenting adults want to engage in sexual activity for the pure enjoyment of it then why should they not?