Date: Sat, 7 Sep 2002 08:02:37 -0700 (PDT) From: "Neal E. Westfall" <nwestfal@directvinternet.com> To: Giorgos Keramidas <keramida@ceid.upatras.gr> Cc: chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Why did evolution fail? Message-ID: <20020906231918.U44831-100000@Tolstoy.home.lan> In-Reply-To: <20020907012751.GA16913@hades.hell.gr>
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On Sat, 7 Sep 2002, Giorgos Keramidas wrote: > > So let me get this straight. You think you are so self-righteous > > that you think you are not in need of an objective standard of right > > and wrong, and that you just naturally do what is right (right according > > to who?) in any given situation? > > No, I am not self-righteous. I do try, not to do things to others > that I wouldn't want them to do to me. This is the only thing that > one needs to aim to do, when questions like right and wrong pop up. > This is the only thing that is needed for an infinite amount of people > to be able to live together without having to look up to supernatural > beings and entities, in order to be kind to each other. Yeah, right, and "All we are saying, is give peace a chance..." Tell me then, on your polyanna view of human nature, why it is that people *don't* do that? I don't know what part of the world you are from (Greenland?) but here in southern California recently a five year old little girl was kidnapped, raped, and murdered. Some hang-gliders found her body in a field in a rather provocative position. Thankfully, they caught the person who did it. I want to know how you would explain to this man why he ought not do such wicked acts. What do you say to a man who sees no problem with raping and murdering a five year old girl? "Don't do that because you wouldn't want somebody to do that to you"? What do you do when he then laughs at you and spits at you in the face? > To return to the original question, making another human a slave is > not something that I would like another human doing to me. This is > then, by my own standards, as you called them, wrong. And by a person who finds no problem with it, by *his* own standards, okey-dokey. What do you say to that person? > > > How can you even define "respect" and "value others" without > > appealing to some objective standard that gives such lofty goals > > meaning? > > One person can not define or know an `objective standard' alone. The > standard becomes manifest when many persons try to understand what is > best for all of them and each individual separately. What you are talking about is not "objective". What you are talking about is "consensus". If that's the sort of ethics you endorse, when a society comes to a consensus that eliminating a certain minority ethnic group's genes from the gene pool would benefit society, you are on no philosophical grounds for opposing it. All you can say is, "well, the majority has spoken, I guess by definition it is right." > > Without objective standards, you have no right to expect such > > respect from anyone. Fyodor Dostoevsky wrote, "If there is no God, > > all is permissable." Please refute. > > I am not sure that there is a need for a god or other supernatural > entity for humans to socialise and treat each other well. If they do > try hard to avoid intentionally hurting each other, and strive both as > individuals and as a team to catter for the needs both of their > individuals selfs and the team as a whole, is there really a need for > something like this? So what do you say when people to the people who fly 757's into skyscrapers? Neal To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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