moral relativism
i recently posted some thoughts about the basis of moral codes for agnostics at able2know.com. click this link to access it. i'd be pleased to get some feedback on it.
posted by yitwail at 10:28 PM
Sunday, May 01, 2005
About Me
- Name: yitwail
since someone requested a bio, i guess this will have to do, while i ponder what to reveal and what to withhold.
Previous Posts
- nondualists
- As promised, the new kid on the block, who answers...
- able2know.com update
- idle pursuit
- here's to fox news
- here's to anonymous
- Sun Hudson followup
- extraordinary measures
- new kid on the block
- million dollar spoiler
9 Comments:
>>>Whether you think it is right or wrong IMO is just based on what society tells you what to think.<<< So, if society tells you that killing Jews and other "subhumans" is just fine, then it's OK. Or if society tells you that, say, folks of race X are undesirable, then they're fair game.
If there are no absolutes (which there can't be unless there's an Objective Referent), then might makes right.
or killing infidels, or witches, or heretics, as happened not so long ago in the west, and still goes on among Islamic extremists. fortunately, societies "evolve"--if you'll pardon that word. and when there's a question of a clash of cultures, eg. jews vs. everyone else, it seems, suppression isn't the only possible outcome, so individual members of society can still influence the outcome. as i suggested elsewhere, this would be facilitated if there were some universal human rights that could be agreed upon.
PS: i haven't had time to investigate the "human rights" issue; i'll have to take it up some time. but thanks for the input; no one at able2know bothered to comment on my statement, which was the result of several days of contemplation, unless you count the fellow who paraphrased it without acknowledging me--is that sincere flattery or plagiarism?
I also challenge the implication that lack of faith causes holocausts. the supposedly Christian US did not intervene in WWII until Japan attacked Pearl Harbor. not only that, there's the incident where a boatload of Jewish refugees was refused entrance into the US. the Christian european nations did resist--only after being invaded first--but even then, some maintained neutrality, while others collaborated--not to mention allegedly Catholic fascist countries. finally, what were all the Lutheran and Catholic germans doing to prevent the Holocaust?
No need to pardon the use of the word "evolve" in reference to the development of a society, JK! :) Disagreement with Darwin's fairy tale has nothing to do with legitimate concepts of other kinds of evolution.
>>>challenge the implication that lack of faith causes holocausts<<< Who said anything about faith? (Unless you're alluding to somebody else's comment there at the forum.) The only thing I was saying was that it's impossible to have agreement on the FACT that there are absolutes or what they are, if all we have is our own human knowledge/preferences. All humans are fallible and mortal and definitely NOT omni-benevolent, so none of us has the necessary objectivity or Ultimate Authority to impose our value system (or lack thereof, as the case may be) on others. (That they use violence to try to impose them on others is of course a fact; but that does not objectively justify or legitimate their imposition.)
Why would somebody who doesn't believe in an Objective Referent get bent out of shape about any kind of supposed moral failings or moral horrors? Logically, if there is no Objective Referent, then it's your preferences vs. the next guy's. Just bec. you think that Person A or Society B or Group C were derelict, doesn't mean they were; it's simply your own opinion.
And now, to turn for a moment to the example you gave: you are conflating apples and oranges. First of all, biblical Christians would be the first to acknowledge that along with all humanity, they fall short of The Perfect Standard (sometimes, that's bec. it's not clear how exactly to deal with something; it's not always sluggardliness or moral cowardice or indifference).
That's what ROMANS 3 is all about (and precisely why we need His Substitutionary Atonement and Substitutionary Perfect Life): "All fall short of the glory of God." Failing to perfectly uphold absolutes in no way cancels out the existence of those absolutes.
Secondly, you are using the term Christian too broadly, in what I call the "cultural" sense. All those who lived/ruled in Germany and the U.S. and Britain, etc. who weren't Jewish or Muslim or Hindu or whatever weren't automatically Christian. (And do you forget folks like the Ten Booms? There were other true believers like that who also risked their lives to help persecuted Jews.)
One is only truly Christian if one is in Christ. One doesn't qualify for the position simply by being born into a certain nation or family or town; nor by going to church occasionally or regularly; nor by being philanthropic; nor by speaking in tongues; nor by not drinking/smoking/doing drugs/fornicating/viewing pornography.
>>>what were all the Lutheran and Catholic germans doing to prevent the Holocaust?<<< Methinks we need to be careful not to be sanctimonious or judgmental: first, what have you done to prevent the war in Iraq (which I assume you disapprove of?) or the one in Kosovo? What have you done to prevent the slaughter of over 40 million innocent babies?
Now, mind you, I ask those questions in NO way to fault you, but rather to show you that even in a democratic society, where you can put down the president, picket, send telegrams, make phone calls, give money to opposition groups, write scathing books, make condemnatory movies, etc.---even in that kind of a society, you have virtually nil power. How much less, then, in a totalitarian society.
(Little illustration: I once knew a guy whose mother's father was German. He didn't like Hitler. One evening, in the hallway of the place where he was attending a party, the man stood in front of a painting of Hitler and mumbled "You bastard! This bloody war is all your fault!" Somebody overheard him and denounced him to the Gestapo. He spent the remaining 2 years of the war in Gestapo prisons, where he was tortured, beaten and starved. Once released, he never regained his health or recuperated from the abuse.)
Nor did the Germans as a whole know the details about the Shoah. Sure, they knew that a c.c. was no picnic, but they basically understood it to be a hard labor camp.
[Footnote: before the famous July 20th plot----Stauffenberg, et al---there were 100 other attempts at Hitler's life.]
Furthermore, you are no doubt familiar with this curious (and tragic!) phenomenon: the Hungarian Jews were not rounded up till 1944. Earlier that year, however, escapees from Treblinka & Auschwitz (cf. Vrba and Wetzler, but there were also others, less famous) informed the leaders of the Hungarian Jewish community about what was going on. To no avail: the leaders thought the men were exaggerating or insane, or what have you. The "tales" they told were too incredible, too ghastly to believe. The leaders did nothing to prepare/protect the Jewish population.
PS: You say that societies evolve, but do they? When I look at history, all I see is development to a pinnacle of civ, then descent into the pit of decadence. Odd pattern, but unavoidable, it seems...
societies do evolve, in the sense of changing gradually. also, darwinian evolution doesn't imply any sort of progress. for one thing, the vast majority of species that ever existed are extinct. also, there are organisms such as symbionts and parasites that cannot survive independently, because they have lost needed organs. an example is the tapeworm, which lacks a digestive system.
i omitted one of the most revolting incidents of WWII:
Kielce
City in southeast Poland. Jews first settled there in 1868 and numbered 24,000 by 1939. The city was the site of an anti-Jewish pogrom on July 4, 1946, when an angry mob, incited by the rumor that Jews (recently returned home after the war’s end) had killed Polish children for their blood for use in Jewish rituals, killed 42 Jews and wounded 50 others. This myth that Jews practiced ritual murder had been widespread and longstanding in both Eastern and Western Europe.
that's from www.notowitz.com
i realize it takes more than nationality to be a Christian. i wasn't passing judgment on Christianity, but questioning the premise that moral absolutes prevent genocide. indeed, i didn't prevent the war on Iraq, but at least i voted against Bush twice. also, as you've stated, i'm not Christian, so i can't be guilty of hypocrisy for not practicing Christian ethics. the large majority of Americans supposedly are Christian, and they haven't prevented war in Iraq either.
Yes, Kielce was tragic (tho I don't think it comes anywhere near the ghastliness of the Shoah as a whole---it is simply one more in a series of pogroms thruout the millenia).
As for the ritual murder myth: it simply illustrates the importance of sticking to the WORD. The Catholic Church historically discouraged/penalized knowledge of the WORD. Had those Poles been nurtured on it, they'd have known that the Bible and its writers/VIP's were all Jewish.
It reminds me of the AIDS epidemic: in a mandatory seminar where I worked, the nurse told us that the AIDS virus had initially been transmitted to humans thru tatooing using the infected Simian blood. Imagine: had those natives known and followed the precepts of the Big 10C (as spelled out by DEUTERONOMY & LEVITICUS), they'd never have tatooed themselves, thereby sparing the human race! How incredibly widereaching and "relevant" His WORD is!
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