What will our house materialists make of this

But can consent be revoked after a finger, a hand, a foot, an arm? Inquiring minds want to know.

This is a twofer.

That sex leads to strange behavior.

This is, to my mind, not the strangest, either.

Kotzwarraism (autoerotic asphyxiation) is the oddest, in the sense that it is pretty widespread, is understood by young boys, but is unknown to most men. The odd thing, is how do these boys learn about it? Do they stumble across it? Does someone teach it to them?

Either answer seems unlikely, but one of them must be correct. Curiously, Parke Dietz, who published the first medical inquiry into Kotzwarraism, never even asked the question.

Ahh. Avoidance of the issue altogether. Very clever.

Harry:

They listen like thieves.

As one of the house materialists, it seems to me they took literally what the Holy Communion means strictly metaphorically.

Well, Paul, looking at Jeff's post above, now you have your answer.

I had to feed you your daily bone.

Why should the house materialists have to make anything of this in the first place?

A loaf of bread, a jug of wine, and thou...

Jeff:

It's the world you seek to hasten--where consent justifies anything from homosexuality to Michael Jackson's bedmates to cannibalism in one straight line.

"Dahmer and Dahmer": soon to be a major motion picture, starring Anthony Hopkins...

...and Adam Sandler.

oj
If religious folks can resist acting on the logical implications of their philosophy (witch burnings, stoning infidels, etc) then materialists can resist acting on the logical implications of theirs. It appears that philosophy is not destiny, there is room for the well-placed exception to satisfy common sense.

Robert:

Witch burnings, though I personally favor them, are not a central part of Christian philosophy. (There is some Biblical dicta in favor.)

OJ,
Maybe the cannibals can cook their meals on the fire that you burn witches on. Sounds like a win-win to me.

I'd burn the cannibals too.

Robert:

I think you've got that wrong. Religious people who resist impulses to harm do so because they believe they are commanded to do so. The trick is to figure out exactly what those commands mean. I just can't figure out the source of atheist resistance if the impulse is strong enough. Surely you don't believe man is naturally inclined not to do harm.

Let's forget our favourite straw men. I'm walking down a dark street and I come across a particularly loathsome beggar--an unredeemable loser. Not a soul in site. I can give him money, ignore him or kick his face in. How should I approach this? (And I asked what I should do in this one particular circumstance, not how we should all come together to develop a common policy on beggars.)

I just got back from a longish bike ride, so I've had some time to think about this.

Robert is actually on to something. No matter which philosophical system you choose, if you follow it far enough, there lies the unjustifiable.

If you follow rationalist reasoning far enough, there is really nothing to hang the guy on.

But if materialists have trouble with this case, then certainly Jonestown must bring religionists up short.

Since there is no material way to disprove divine revelation, then religionists must understand their faith must admit the occasional mass suicide.

Peter:
I think you conflate Man with a specific instance thereof, a specific man. Man is a popluation that includes a range of values for any characteristic you choose to mention.

The whole population isn't involved in your scenario, just one instance, and that instance is a dice roll. Some men are naturally inclined to be vicious whenever they can. Some men are inclined to kindness no matter the circumstances.

I suspect that all the posters here, regardless of their theological persuasion, are of the latter group.

What you should do in your hypothetical is either a) or b) (you provide no back story; but if he is an alcoholic, and will promptly spend the money on drink then monetary kindness may actually do additional harm)

How you approach this is a measure of who you are, not of which church you go to.

Jeff:

The point being that because of the church you belong to you have no basis to condemn such behavior--it's all just a matter of personal choice and every choice is as good as every other choice.

Jeff:

You missed your best argument. No need to pin Jonestown on me. Why didn't you just point out your concern that I might suddenly have a divine revelation telling me to kick his face in?

Jeff, what can I say? The challenge facing millions of modern secularly-inclined Americans is that they are being taught and encouraged on many fronts (popular culture, progressive education, self-help movement, judicial activism etc.) to see themselves as the ultimate arbiter of what is right and wrong and what is good for them. They are being encouraged to recognize no higher authority than themsleves, not faith, family or community. I assume many of them believe this and succeeding generations will feel freer to act on it. This does not mean they are not pleasant or decent or that they kick beggars in the face, but it does mean too many leave their marriages, don't take care of the children they sire, are at a loss on what to teach their children about life after grade school, reject the burdens the weak place on their freedom, put the aged out to pasture and are going progressively insane on the subject of sex. The bonds of community and common purpose are breaking down, or becoming more superficial. If you aren't worried about where that will lead us, and see nothing but exciting freedoms and choices ahead, well, I tried.

Those who are religious or reverant tend to believe they are here for a purpose that transcends their personal wishes and to feel themselves bound in some way by scripture, tradition, custom, etc. That's all. No visions, no slaughter. Most believe that because they have been raised to, but others figure it out the hard way. None deduce it from scientific truths. Some attend church or temple faithfully and take a keen interest in theology. Others just go their way privately and don't talk about it much. Some can explain it to you, many can't. But they do not walk around receiving direct orders from on High, (except maybe in Harry's county).

This mat really surprise you, but hardly any feel called to establish theocracies, and those who do are generally given medical help. They are not any closer to cults than you are, have not abandoned their critical faculties and they don't reject science. They simply tend to believe that there is an objective difference between right and wrong and that we are capable of knowing it and agreeing upon it or had better act like we are. In other words, they tend to be more willing to defer and follow and sacrifice(no guarantees and not always happily, believe me). Because of that, there should be less need for state regulation, state support and state design.

They pretty much all agree on the Ten Commandments. They pretty much all agree that families have responsibilies to care for members and that we all have duties to community. They really like the Golden Rule too, but it is too abstract to stand by itself. After that, they are all over the place and don't agree on much.

Well, Peter, if among the highest divorce rates we find Southern Baptists (and we do), then what is the actual value of these religions promptings compared with those of the freethinker?

An admonition to be one's brother's keeper doesn't count for much if he does not want to be kept, does it? (I am thinking of several people who attempted to redeem two notorious street people in my county. Each was, eventually, redeemed (sort of), but it was not any such easy matter as choosing to hand out or not to hand out a few coins.

And Orrin is incorrect. Witch burnings were a (you could even make an argument that they were the) central doctrine of Christianity for at least 500 years. It that was an error, it was not a trivial one. Why would anybody take advice now from people who could be so wrong? Unless, he evaluated their current prejudices and found them acceptable on the merits, as he understood them?

But they he wouldn't need them, would he?

If you are born into a society where there is only one religion (like most Muslims), then you do not have to choose. But if you are not, then you have to choose. And on what basis do you do that?

On your own mind and heart.

Witch burnings were right, just as the Blacklist was and rounding up Islamicists is. No society need tolerate those who oppose it. Constitutions aren''t suicide pacts.

Peter
I have no illusions about religious people (I was one myself, remember?). I realize, as you say, that they are a diverse group.

I realize that you feel obligated to do what is commanded to you by god, but I would ask you where do you derive your understanding of these commands? From your conscience, or from a literal reading of the Bible? If the latter, then why are you not burning witches? Have you not read the command not to suffer a witch to live?

If the former, then you are saying that you have an innate sense of morality independent of divine revelation. In which case you can understand where an athiest would derive an answer as to what he would do.

Are there any commands from the Bible that you carry out despite the fact that they conflict with your conscience? That would be the true test of your faith.

Harry:

"Well, Peter, if among the highest divorce rates we find Southern Baptists (and we do),"

Source, please. And no fooling around with declarations of nominal or childhood affiliations. Do me the honour of a little scientific rigour because I think you will be subject to peer review. I'm from Quebec, now largely secular, where huge majorities will happily and rotely declare themselves Catholic. This is the third time you have said this, so let's have the proof.

Also: "Each was, eventually, redeemed (sort of), but it was not any such easy matter as choosing to hand out or not to hand out a few coins."

Your compliant therefore is that religion is wrong because it is not easy or automatic? Wow.

Robert:

You say you were once religious. How many witches did you burn? How many witches did you want to burn? How many witches did it even cross your mind to burn? How many witches were you urged to burn? Do you ever recall anyone in your church or faith calling for the burning of witches? Why are we even talking about such an absurd issue?

Peter,
I was never taught in catechism to burn witches. I was also taught that the Genesis account of creation was a metaphor. Which basically told me that the authority of the Church was not grounded on the Bible, but on the current consensus opinion of Catholic theologians as to what the truth was.

You can't claim that you are obeying God as opposed to your own sense of right or wrong unless you are acting on a literal, un-interpreted reading of the former instead of the latter.

Once I realized that the church was giving me someone else's opinion, and not the word of God, then I decided that I could do that myself. At least I would be accountable for my own moral decisions, and would never use the excuse "they told me it was the right thing to do".

I am actually in strong agreement with Biblical literalists on this. They realize that if you don't take the Bible literally, if you begin to interpret it's text, then there is no basis for claiming that you are in accord with God's will.

Robert:

No offence, but you are not the first one to make that complaint. Some dude named Luther had something to say about that.

Look, this is the 21st century and we live in North America. Objecting to biblical literalism or priestly authority is hardly new. You have found your way, and that is great. But the question remains: What is right and wrong and how do we know what they are?

Peter,
Knowing what is right and wrong will always be a problematic thing. The best we can do is to obey our conscience as informed by our reason and experience, and the accumulated wisdom of our forbears as handed down to us. I wish that there were a revealed truth that we could dependably refer to for guidance, but I don't think that those traditions which claim such revealed truth are what they claim. Not that they don't contain wisdom. It is just that the wisdom they contain is human wisdom, not revealed truth.

Precisely backwards. The individual conscience is an unreliable and selfish thing. We must depend on objective standards that bind all, or trust no one.

All I know is that men are not kosher.

Trying to disprove Christianity via the divorce rate of So. Baptists is like saying God doesn't exist because Neil Armstrong didn't trip over Him after stepping off the LEM.

After all, God might just live on Jupiter.

Robert raises the point some here keep dodging: "It is just that the wisdom they contain is human wisdom, not revealed truth."
There are many Christian sects. By definition none of them completely agree on Christianity. They cannot all simultaneously be right. How do you tell which is wrong? Most of us here would not suffer those who deny witches life. OJ, simply bases his support on the assertion that witches threatened the societies within which they lived.

Now there is an assertion that needs reference.

It is also worth noting that a 19th(?) century theologian, Bacon(?), asserted there really never any witches (or hadn't been during the preceding 500 years, a period when the Church put many witches to the torch; I'm not sure.)

That is a problem.

So these allegedly objective standards are not. They are not standard at any given time, and they change over time. And the reasons they change are material. Review the history of loan interest.

The way around this, of course, is Biblical literalism, the objections to which are manifest. But that they are not new does not mean they aren't valid. Everyone here who is not a literalist is relying both on their own internal moral compass, and and the compasses of those preceding them. As a form of collected wisdom, it is wonderful. But divine revelation, therefore universally applicable, it is not.

Peter:
I didn't pin Jonestown on you. Rather, there is no way within religious philosophy to condemn Jonestown as wrong. Just as within a strict rationalist philosophy, there is no way to condemn the grotesque incident at the root of this discussion. Calling on materialists in particular to explain this sort of thing, therefore, is not unlike the pot calling the kettle black.

As I have noted before, the problems you cite--divorce, failure to parent, etc.--are happening at rates far, far beyond what the portion of secularists in our society could attain, even if they are every bit as depraved as OJ thinks they are.

One conclusion from this might be that worrying about secularism is akin to barking up the wrong tree. I suggest you would be better served worrying about the impact of urbanization, and the anonymity that goes along with it, if you are concerned about finding the true cause of these things.

Jeff:

Did you ask for siumilar proof before the thousands of Muslims were deported post-9/11? No, of course not. Every society reserves to itself the right to treat harshly those who diverge from its norms.

"Every society reserves to itself the right to treat harshly those who diverge from its norms".

OJ, whether you like it or not, witch burning diverges from our norms. You are way off in the woods beyond left field on this one. Should we deport you?

If I were to categorize this statement, I would say that it is a perfect example of multiculturalism. Isn't that what our lefty friends are fond of saying, that we can't judge other cultures by our norms, they have the right to set and enforce their own norms? By your reasoning, the Islamic regimes have every right to persecute Christians. Whatever happened to universal truths that trump cultural norms?

Robert:

We don't burn folks anymore. We deport them. Big deal. The method has changed the principle remains.

When will Robert MacNamara be deported? Or Cynthia McKinney? Or Alec Baldwin?

And, even abroad, Gore Vidal and Susan Sontag continue to torment.

Witch burning keeps coming up because it is the pluperfect test of Christian morality.

Probably none of us believes that witches have any objective power. Some of us also know that it was the Chruch that taught its flock that witchcraft was real and how it worked.

If, having created a monster, it was then allowed or obliged to slay the monster (Orrin's position, even if he does not acknowledge that the moralizer created the sin), then anything goes. The Nazis create (or inflate) the eternal Jew, and having done so, they are entitled, on Orrin's reasoning, to fire up the ovens.

Even atheistical godless communists oppose cannibalism, most of the time. In Leningrad during the siege, squads shot cannibals out of hand.

Harry:

So you're saying there was no such thing as witchcraft?

In saying every society reserves to itself the right to treat harshly those who diverge from its norms risks a self-reinforcing death spiral.

The tighter you define the norms, the greater the number of outliers, and, consequently, the greater the ever so euphemistic "harsh treatment."

One could scarcely ask for a clearer explanation of the results of strictly enforced, objective morality.

It is self defeating.

When I was in college, a friend of mine's mom was a Witch. Having written a number of books, she was quite famous in that realm.

Despite that, a very nice woman. Hard to see how burning her at the stake could improve the world in any imaginable way. I just can't figure out how it would have in 1200 AD.

That's the problem with objective morality. It changes.

Jeff:

We just don't take them as a threat anymore. On the other hand, after OK City was bombed, we crushed a bunch of hapless gun nuts like there was no tomorrow. Societies defend themselves froim perceived threats.

True, a doctrine usually called might makes right.

Some societies even create the threat so they can perceive it. That's a rather different idea from perceiving an actual threat.

And yes, Orrin, I am saying that witchcraft of the sort condemned in the Malleus did not exist until the Inquisition invented it.

Tom C. is so proud of the fact that he recognizes the evil practices of the Soviet Communists. It was the Church that invented show trials.

There was no moral reason to take them as a threat in the first place.

Sure there is, they rejected the prevailing moral views of society.

They accepted the teachings of their moral leaders about the world. No teacher can ask for more.

Christian morality is, on your view, arbitrary.

If so, then it needs to be judged by results. Which you are unwilling to allow.

It's a paradox, isn't it?

"Sure there is, they rejected the prevailing moral views of society."

There you go with multi-culturalism again. Cultures justify themselves, they need not be held to any universal moral views, by your measure. Runaway slaves rejected the prevailing moral views of their society. Were their executions justified?

Robert:

Yes, but so was their running away.

Harry:

Huh?

Which, no pun intended, prevailing moral views of the society did they reject?

If they got burned for rejecting Catholicism, that is rejecting authority, not morality.

Surely the Catholic Church, at least occasionally, over the ages has demonstrated there is a difference between the two.

If you live in a Catholic culture and go around invoking magic, you're begging for it. Don't complain when you get it. Of course it was civil authorities more than Church which went after the witches--it was very much an Enlightenment phenomenon. And only about 50,000 were killed.

So they didn't contravene any morality, but instead begged for it from the Catholic Church because they had the temerity to see the universe differently?

That has to be the most classic example of "blame the victim" I have ever seen.

I think by killed you meant "burned alive."

These are just the sorts of things I look for in moral arbiters.

They did contravene the morality by not recognizing the one God--the sole source of morality. Such people are by definition a danger to society.

Than you can voice a formulation like that, while simultaneously believing in the American Experiment, is a wonderous thing to behold.

And you wonder why some of us are concerned about religious tyranny.

No, I don't wonder. We either will be a moral nation and free or we won't and won't. That seems a worthwhile question to go to war over. It's right for those who oppose morality to be scared.

Your concept of morality is loathsome, and of freedom, bizarre.

One can oppose morality via a thought crime, and you advocate actively suppressing those who commit that crime.

And the difference between you and any other, common, garden variety totalitarianism would be?

People who accept the morality get to be free.