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tar

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Everything posted by tar

  1. Zapatos, There is a middle ground. I accept the reality that I have sexist tendencies, but I am using the word as it is currently defined. I just don't agree with the definition. SwansonT states that it is well defined what harassment in the workplace consists of, and I have taken the courses, and know the definitions. I just make a distinction between the wrongness of demanding sex for employment, and the wrongness of making someone feel uncomfortable because you think they are sexy. I would never abuse your family or a child... however I have been known to have sex with females. None, other than my wife, for the last 35 years...yet I retain the right to harmlessly flirt and enjoy the presence of women. I like women better than I like men, in general, and am therefore not a hater of women. I in no way look to own women or tell them what to do. I am the kind of sexist that every once in a while forgets my place and opens a door for a woman. Regards, TAR
  2. So, if it is true that women are weaker than men and therefore at their mercy, then it is also true that good men and women have an obligation to protect the weak from the oppression of the strong. This is already the law, and the moral grounding upon which our society is built. It was that way in 1953 when I was born, and it is that way now. I was not wrong in 1963 when I was 10...that is society was not wrong then and now and needs to be fixed. I am not now, and never was part of the problem. Not unless you think the whole place needs to be redone.
  3. iNow, So you are saying that a woman is not safe in America and that is wrong. It depends completely on which grocery store you are walking into and on the clients in the grocery store. There are neighborhoods where women can walk down the street at night, and there are neighborhoods where they can not. Don't blame society in general for particular problem areas. And don't be afraid to note the age, race and sex of the more dangerous clients. How a person is raised and how much they respect women will make a difference. One should beware of old white rich guys who have enough power to buy their pleasure, as one should beware of a young Spanish gang member who has enough knives and fellow gang members, to force your submission. Regards, TAR
  4. Zapatos, Perhaps a little, but I was brought up to respect women and I in no way treat women as chattel as is done very obviously in many cultures and done more so in say the Spanish culture than the Northern European culture. Please notice that it is me, standing in the way of society, in your mind. That I am the problem, being from the 60s. Well I am also from the 70s and the 80s and the counter culture revolution. I have seen free love and free sex and drugs and rock and roll and anything goes. It is important indeed for you to know that Harvey Weinstein is treating women like chattel and we all need to reel in those tendencies, but you are wrong to think I am part of the problem...and simultaneously considering you have solved the problem by calling me out. It is very dangerous for me to speak my mind in politics. I always get neg reps. But neg reps are important, because it tells people they are doing it wrong, that they are displeasing someone with what they are saying. But suppose I also want women to be treated with respect and dignity and not be objectified. How does it make me part of the problem, to look at a picture of a woman in a bathing suit, that she put on, for me to see her in? What I am trying to point out, or trying to say, is that we are all human, and all have the same desires and needs, in general, and our society has put together a system where we all have equal power under the law, to vote, to pursue happiness and to worship our own god and to respect and protect each other, no matter who we are, or where we come from. And that telling me all of a sudden, that I am part of the problem, means you just manufactured the problem, and it is no longer me, you wish to please. There is some other standard, that I have not been consulted on. Regards, TAR
  5. zapatos, when I say allow, I mean I exactly do not impose my will on others I let them know what would please me and what would displease me and let them chose which course to follow. You say I am part of the problem, meaning that I am an old white sexist male. Well suppose I am. It is still your choice as to whether you want to please or displease me. Being an old white sexist male is not a crime. It is not wrong to be me. Regards, TAR
  6. Is there no one on your planet that has any obligations?
  7. They absolutely do. What planet are you from?
  8. Zapatos, Granted. But I know that. I can only guess what makes other people happy. I can not understand why someone would do something I would not do, yet I allow them to do it, and look for the reasons why they might do it. Personally I am against my daughters ever being strippers or nude models or porn movie actresses or prostitutes or escorts and against them getting into any abusive relationship. But I let them live their lives, with only the knowledge that they know what would please me or displease me. The rest of the world has no obligation to please me. I can suggest a woman should not become a porn star, if she does not want to be a sex object, but if she becomes a porn star and somebody looks at her breasts while she is walking down the street, she has lost quite a bit of credibility when she comes over to me and slaps my face, for being a male pig. My daughter has come to us with complaints about workmates and bosses, not harassment complaints, complaints about how someone is not doing their job, or about asking her to do something she does not think is the way she would do it. We normally tell her that that is the way it is. You have to put up with inept people, and just do your job, and you have to put your ego in your back pocket when it comes to your direct supervisor and the owners of your business. iNow, The article you posted talked about how a woman has to always smooth things over and take the non-confrontational route, and this is exactly what we all must do, all the time. Males often work for males, and have to suppress their testosterone appropriately and take orders. I would be very afraid in a prison of the big muscled dude that wanted to make me his sex slave. So I make sure I never wind up in prison, bunking with a big muscled dude that wants to make me his sex slave. SwansonT, I do not now or ever condone bullying or sexual assault or spousal abuse with a "wink". I do however believe that people can put themselves in high risk situations for certain inevitabilities and need to make their own risk reward calculation as to whether they should be in the situation. I know people who do drugs. I do not. I think it is stupid that they do, because of the risks. I used to drink, I gave it up. I used to smoke and gave it up and now think it ill advised that my wife continues to smoke, and a close cousin drinks too much wine. But they can do what makes them happy. They know the risks. You often berate me for conflating ideas, but in the case of sexual harassment, it is society that is currently confused as to what they are trying to say, and they are conflating rape with me enjoying a pair or breasts on a young lady, and confusing a boss demanding sex for a raise with me telling a dirty joke or telling a woman that her dress was my favorite color and looked very nice. During the election cycle Hilary made a big deal about how sexist Trump was, because he called a winner that let herself go, fat. To me, everybody missed the objectifying women boat completely and continue to miss it. The fact that women were parading around in swimsuits and beautiful dresses was the institutional objectification. And it is too ingrained in our society that we don't even see it. Well look. Look at news show where four people are sitting in full view on a stage. The two men will be in suit and tie with their legs open and the women will be in dresses with their legs crossed. Looks matter on TV. The ugly and fat are usually seen as ugly and fat and the thin and beautiful are seen as thin and beautiful. I am thinking that Weinstein and Redford would not have received the same outrage for the same transgressions. Zapatos, Additionally I do not understand why people watch devil movies, and movies with gratuitous violence. I am somewhat disgusted with our society when I flip though the upper channels, looking for a good movie and see scene after scene of torture and murder and depravity. I am somewhat bewildered when a commercial for some stupid things come along and the next week everybody has one. So yeah, there is a big gap between me knowing what other people are thinking, and what makes them happy, and what I think they should be thinking and what I think they should be doing to make other people happy, but that piece of paper has two sides. You neither know what motivates me, what morals I hold, what disgusts me and what fills me with joy. Regards, TAR
  9. iNow, As much as you would like to think I am a child rapist or something, I am nothing of the sort. I am a regular, well raised, polite guy with a happy wife and two grown daughters. In raising my daughters I used to tell the joke that raising a boy was easier to do than raising a daughter. With a boy you had to be concerned with where one penis was. With a girl you had to worry about where every penis in town was. I understand the article to some extent, but do not think it is accurate to say a woman is at a constant disadvantage. There are dad's like me around that would and did protect my daughters from "people like me" and the power thing is not unique to women. I am just as scared of a big hairy rich and powerful brute like Weinstein having his way with me as you are. I am actually not afraid of that at all, but If he was my boss, I would not want to cross him. Not afraid of being sexually assaulted, but afraid he would make my job miserable if I crossed him. When I was at my last job, I had for many years found fault with my company's president's agenda. After I got laid off and rehired I changed my tune and decided that whatever my president's agenda was, was my agenda. It is not so much courage, but stupidity that causes one to bite the hand that feeds them. Power in this country might very well accrue to more old white males than any other demographic, but you have to do some work, take on some responsibility, have some education and talent, be trustworthy and capable to get into the leadership positions and the industry leadership positions, where wealth and power can accrue. Or steal it or inherit it, or back into a good spot somehow. For women that get into an industry where naked lineup auditions are possible, should give them a hint for what it is they are in for. I am not saying that anybody that gets raped is asking for it, I am saying that sex and money and power is a two way street, and women that use their sexuality to make money and accrue power, are not innocent victims of a bias system, they are willing participants in the game. My main thesis these days is that humans like to please each other. I like looking at a pretty girl, and a pretty girl likes me looking at her and gets pleasure from it. I have this theory, because girls like to look good for young men. Maybe not old guys like me, then I am a dirty old man, leering at them, but when I was a chiseled stud coming out of the Army, girls enjoyed my attention and complements. I remember swimming in a pool at a conference where several of the women in the group where watching me swim. Later I found out that the suit I was wearing was sort of flesh tone and thin and it looked somewhat like I was swimming naked. I wore the suit again the next night and enjoyed the fact that women enjoyed the fact. Regards, TAR
  10. Airbrush, Much of the rules on sexual harassment have to do with "unwanted" sexual contact and even the mention of sex where it makes someone uncomfortable. Crude jokes are considered sexual harassment, and are lumped in with a boss demanding sex or you facing dismissal if you reject the advance. A person in a position of wealth and power often uses that wealth and power to get what she or he wants. A dominated person is dominated because they have submitted to the other's power. Rock stars have groupies because the groupies are attracted to the celebrity. You are not in a position to say that everybody that Trump ever made a sexual advance toward, rejected the advance. Or to say, that he ever proceeded after being told to stop. One accuser I remember from the election cycle, said the flight attendant told her Trump was in first class and had found her attractive, and want to know if she was interested in sitting with him. She went up and he fondled and kissed her...for a rather substantial period of time. Which part of that story sounds like a sexual assault to you? Now she can say it was. Then she could have not gone up, or could have stood up and gone back to her seat at any time. Regards, TAR
  11. Airbrush, I understood Trump's "locker room talk" apology, having been in many locker rooms and having been in the Army. The access Hollywood tape was from a decade ago, when he was not on the road to the presidency but an entertainer. He after all, did not grab anybody by the privates that did not want to get grabbed by the privates. He just said that since he was a star, people would let him do that to them. Everybody here knows the stories about couch casting. Sex is for sale in Hollywood. I saw a very crude show on cable about the porn stars awards, best this kind of sex that kind of sex awards. The recipients were scantily clad and spoke very crudely. It would be almost a badge of honor for one of these folks to suggest they were so desirable sexually as to have used that power to get a leg up in the industry. The main stream Hollywood culture is only a little bit North of this kind of standard. After all, sex sells, and in the magazine and advertising and film industry, the better looking get the jobs. If two young ladies had identical looks and identical acting prowess and one put her hand on the casting director's shoulder and the other stood 6 feet away, the approachable one, might have an advantage in the hiring decision. Or consider casting for a movie with a sex scene and one candidate bears her shoulders and the other puts on a thick sweater. If you are a starlet and you purse your lips and show off your figure, are you not asking to be the object of desire? Regards, TAR And Hillary's outrage at having a powerful man in the oval office using his power to gain sexual favors, is addressed at Trump's access Hollywood talk, when it more appropriately should be aimed at her husband's actual acts. In the actual Oval office. With the power of the presidency being overtly used to get a blow job.
  12. Eise, I read the article in between doing other things over the period of a few days, and like always read it with my own colored glasses on. As I made the assumption that the OP had read a work celebrating gay scientists that had Nietzsche in it, and did not know the work was BY Nietzsche and had nothing overtly to due with being gay, I am obviously prone to taking a fact and carrying it forward, when the fact is not even true. So a point by point discussion on the article is hard for me to recount, because I took it in the context of the thread, which I already had possibly misunderstood Nietzsche's and the OPs intent, but you suggested the article was another take, and I saw some of the same arguments against God, that I saw in Nietzsche and the OP and in the arguments on this board against faith and belief and I think them all weak arguments, or unrequired and contradictory. Here is why. If there is no god, then when we follow our conscience, it is not because we wish to please god. If it is, then it is our image of God that we wish to please, which cannot be an anthropomorphic guy sitting in the clouds, because we have looked and he is not there. So this unseen other that we wish to please has to be some conglomeration of actual beings in objective reality, that would live or die, be happy or sad, depending on our behavior. Since ideals, are game, but need someone to hold them, we only have, as our potential judges, other living things, and a general godlike agency that might care if we grow a garden or blow the place up. So to argue that there is no god, or that god is dead is unrequired. I already am proceeding with the non existence of god as a stipulation. But that leaves, still the whole rest of objective reality to please. The whole rest of the world to aim to protect and agree with, be responsible for and responsible to. Your conscience is still extant, whether there is or is not a god to enforce any rules, because there is not a god, and the rules stlill need enforcing. A police force cannot watch every citizen, all the time. Every citizen needs to police themselves. So where the intellectual conscience is not logical is to pretend that somebody, anybody, smart as they are, artist that they are, philosopher that they are, can arrive at a set of morals that pleases only their own internal model of the world, and discounts ALL else. So a humanist cannot say they are following an ideal principle of proper behavior, while at the same time saying that the way everybody else is behaving is wrong. This, because, the only place to get proper behavior is from the world around you. It cannot spring forth magically from a dream or insight. Regards, TAR
  13. indeed, sorry I took the headline and extrapolated from there. It was that flowery talk and passages like this How repulsive pleasure is now, that crude, musty, brown pleasure as it is understood by those who like pleasure, our "educated" people, our rich people, and our rulers! How maliciously we listen now to the big country-fair boom-boom with which the "educated" person and city dweller today permits art, books, and music to rape him and provide "spiritual pleasures"—with the aid of spirituous liquors! How the theatrical scream of passion now hurts our ears, how strange to our taste the whole romantic uproar and tumult of the senses have become, which the educated mob loves, and all its aspirations after the elevated, inflated, and exaggerated! No, if we convalescents still need art, it is another kind of art—a mocking, light, fleeting, divinely untroubled, divinely artificial art that, like a pure flame, licks into unclouded skies. Above all, an art for artists, for artists only! We know better afterward what above all is needed for this: cheerfulness, any cheerfulness, my friends—also as artists: let me prove it. There are a few things we now know too well, we knowing ones: oh, how we now learn to forget well, and to be good at not knowing, as artists!
  14. dimreepr, A human being cannot do being human wrong. That is a perfect way of saying one person is hardly in a position to suggest another person is doing it wrong. This goes directly to the OP in both directions. It is not correct to say that one who inspects someone else's behavior and finds it lacking is operating on a higher than human level, like Nietzsche and the OP suggest is the case when one philosophizes correctly and arrives at a synthesized morality. Nor is it correct to establish morality for someone else, based on dogma and the ire or love of an imaginary judge. The OP read Nietzsche in the context of celebrating gay scientist's thinking. To me, this implies a we vs. them attitude, where it is important to please Nietzsche and gay scientists, and find fault with anybody other, especially those who would not be pleased by your being gay. I do not even know if Nietzsche was gay, I am merely going by the idea that if your morality goes against the churches morality, it is OK because the churches morality is bullocks and one can be good by manufacturing a set of rules and following them. I have no problem finding fault with the Bible and its edicts. It is a work of literature, written by man, for man. It is antiquated in many regards, yet timeless in others and should not be discarded out of hand, just based on the fact that god is dead. I operate on the basis of the understanding that God is an anthropomorphized universe. I operate on the understanding that when I talk to god, I am just doing it figuratively and am really talking to objective reality, in reality. Sometimes its the weather, sometimes its the stars, sometimes its nature and plants and animals I associate with, and sometimes its the order and beauty and workability of the place that pleases me...but most of the time, the part of objective reality that responds to me directly and acts most like me, is other people. So I look to them to do this existing thing with. To please them and utilize the many many things they have done for me over the centuries, to allow me to be comfortable and happy and fulfill my needs. Saw a commercial last night, I know not what it was for, but it had the line that you don't realize how many people care about you. It is other people that we are wired to please. And this is good for us, and good for them. You therefore cannot logically synthesize a morality that puts you by yourself, above and separated from those wicked, uninitiated humans. You can't do it in a cave, or while you are sleeping. Morality has to be constructed as a team sport. Regards, TAR
  15. Eise, I did read the article, and I understood his arguments and the arguments of Derek Parfit. My comments came after understanding, and finding weaknesses or contradictions or unrequired lines of reasoning, in their arguments. Much of what is discussed on this board in terms of religion and politics leans in the direction of finding a rational alternative to God. I get the arguments, but they are not required in my case, or to fit my worldview, because I have already become an atheist and I am not good because I fear boiling oil if I am bad. I am good, because I want to please you, my dead grandfather, my dad, my wife, my daughters, my mayor and president, my friend who is a philosopher, my friend who is a real estate agent, my friend that is an elderly catholic woman...etc.p To me, this is enough. Those people are objective reality to me, and to you, and to everyone else on the planet. My philosopher friend is a scholar in residence at a university that hundreds of thousands of people have attended. He taught me logic and how to think and the Socratic method. He has taught countless others how to think. There is no danger of me falling into the pit you describe, I don't even have the definition of factually true that you have, as I am not on one side or the other of the science denier arguments. I am on both sides in most debates, because I look at where people are grounding their arguments, and enjoy seeing where they find footing in the same places I do, and I enjoy pointing out the chasms people should avoid, and the bridges they can use to get across chasms I have encountered and mastered. I am personally very much guided by the thought that even if I find nirvana, or the secret to life, or become one with Jesus or find the god particle, or derive the mathematical law that governs all interactions...the rest of the world will go right along pretty much undisturbed by my findings. That is because what happens in my head does not affect the waking world, until I do something about it, or say something about it. That is the realm of subjectivity. It applies equally to Krauss understanding what the universe will be doing in 600,000,000,000 years, or Mohammed listening to the Angel Gabriel. Subjectivity in my definition, has to do with having an insight. Objectivity has to do with sharing it. Moral judgements require a judge. It is fairly simple, when you think it through, to get to the bottom of your conscience. You just have to ask yourself who you are trying to please. Regards, TAR
  16. a guru on a mountain top can reach nirvana and be one with the world, with involving me, who actually is part of the world this guru feels he is now one with To love humanity you have to love all, including all those people who are doing it wrong in your estimation. I read a take on German philosophers of the time, including him, that quoted him indicating that he had this obligation to do the thinking for others that they could not do for themselves.
  17. DrP. yeah, those wolf spiders are rather awe inspiring, dropping off the ceiling and making a thud on the bed or rug I must admit I was always taught to leave spiders alone as they ate more bothersome flies and biting insects, but I squished one (dime size) that fell to the slate on my front porch after I detached her web from the window near my front door my wife called me over to be creeped out by. "Should" have left her as a Halloween decoration for the trick or treaters in a few weeks. Regards, TAR I know dimreepr, but I am following the idea that the OP and Nietzsche felt they were of a higher order of human, able to philosophize in the proper manner to arrive at the "right" way to be. And I am thinking that this elitism is not directly compatible with attempting to please others with your behavior. In my efforts to address the opioid crisis in my town and county, I have run into a lot of people that feel they know how to fix other people, what other people are doing wrong, that they would not do. What other people "should" and should not do. Few have made the realization that I have made, that we all want to feel good, and normally dopamine does the job, because it flows when we do it right, when we match the world, when we we win, when we survive, when we bring pleasure and comfort to ourselves and our loved ones. And that drugs that simulate victoryk and feeling right and feeling alive, are making us feel that way, without the reason. But if my theory is correct, morals are based on engaging in behaviors that please an unseen other. This conscience is not anything in and of itself, but is tied completely to pleasing objective reality. Therefore it is not up to you to tell other people how to do it right, it is up to you to seek the behaviors that will please those around you. That is, if we are talking about morals, and what one should do, what one ought to do, and on what basis one should do it, it is probably better to find out what would make the other happy, rather than to think you can teach them to be happy your way. Not that your way might not indeed work for them, but it is not your happiness we are after here, it is the unhappy person we should be looking to find a way to please. Regards, TAR
  18. dimreepr, I don't think, in general it is a good stance to think you are right, and other people need fixing or teaching. Goes back to the idea, that the more things that would need to change in order for you to be right, the more likely it is that you are trying to make the world match you, rather than attempting to behave in such a way that pleases the world. You usually have good indications of whether another individual, or group of individuals, is for you or against you. This creates a situation where all of humanity is not a singular person that you can behave in such a way toward that pleases everyone, all the time. Regards, TAR
  19. dimreepr, Well yes, but what of those humans you wish to displease? There are 7 or 8 billion humans, currently alive, each with a different will, different background, different favorite teams, different family members, different religions, philosophies, associations, companies, nations and rules. They are not all doing stuff that pleases you, some are in fact displeasing you actively. North Koreans want to kill Imperialist Americans for instance. How do I get them on my team? Regards, TAR
  20. dimreepr, Well agreed. But putting yourself in the shoes of an unseen other, might occur in the rTPJ, in your head, but this does not mean the unseen other is you. There actually are objective judges to please. Me, you, Area54, iNow, CharonY, dead philosophers, prophets of gods, scientists, mathematicians, Trump, Hillary, Sanders, Putin, some guy drinking wine in France and some woman washing her clothes on a rock in the Ganges. Objective reality is replete with humans, dead, alive and imaginary that we "should" please or displease, depending on the membership of the teams we are on. Regards, TAR
  21. Eise, I read that long article over the last couple days, and find there is a recurring need in humanists to discount god and bolster objective reasons to be moral. Funny to me, that a humanist is in possession of the answer, yet still looks for some objective verification. Some ideal residing in Plato’s heaven, or derivable from logic. The answer is, in my mind , grounded firmly in one’s need to make those they care about, happy. In the case of humans, those unseen others that one desires to please, are human like, whether dead, alive, to be born or fantasies. And since we know what makes us happy, it is not difficult to put ourselves in someone else’s shoes, and make a good guess at what would make them happy. This morality is easy to trace from family to tribe to nation. And as nations grew the religion and law and ethics grew with them. It is fool hardy, in my estimation, to consider religion has done it wrong, and another framework will do a better job in making each other happy. Since it is pretty obvious, that there is no God writing the laws, that Moses brought down rules from the mountain that would serve to make us treat each other better, was already a humanist manifesto. But, thinking there is a judge, that is not human, that would seek to make humans happy, is not likely. There is no particular need a spider has to make a human happy. So I reject arguments that seek to prove that morality is objectively true, without God, because God is just, in one take, the putting of our individual judgements into a collective basket that we can refer to as a human, an unseen other, that we wish to please. Example. I was watching a famous atheist talking about the irrationality of belief in God, and what he was saying was visibly hurting an elderly woman in the audience. Little did this famous atheist know he was breaking the primary humanist law, that one should seek to please humans on your team. It is the grounds upon which morality is built. Regards, TAR
  22. Dave Moore, I don't think your ,infallible logic is correct. Might be personal preference, but to think there is no outside reality, and its all constructed in your mind is stupid, in my opinion. Makes zero sense, especially since you are talking to members of your objective reality on this board. What for instance is your mind made out of, and where is it located, when did it begin and when is it likely to end? To have an answer you need objective reality to provide you with a time and place to be, which implies immediately that there are times other than now, and places other than here, that exist, regardless of what we think about those other places and times. Objectively true stuff is what our universe is made out of. Our point of focus consciousness sees it all and hears it all, and smells it all, and feels it all and tastes it all, as it come to our senses, and we build an analog model of the place, its history and present, and forecast its future behavior within the synapses and folds of our objectively real brains. Your infallible logic might unearth the fact that the universe does not actually exist within you brain, (the brain does not have enough space for the whole place) but that there is a world to internalize is obvious to me, and to you, and I know for a fact you have not generated the planet I am sitting on, so you can not possibly logically prove the place does not exist, for me, with or without your involvement. Try this. Imagine your great great grandfather thought the world existed in his mind and there was no actual universe outside his head. Then he died, and the world is still here for me and you and the others on this thread. Your base philosophy is sorely lacking, not made of infallible logic, but so full of logical holes as to be a stupid, unworkable, unrealistic worldview. So you might have some trouble understanding that morals, and morays and expected behavior are BECAUSE we want to please objective reality. First you have to adjust your worldview to allow that you have someone other than yourself that you wish to be in agreement with. Regards, TAR
  23. CharonY, Interesting to me, in regards to the OP's desire to read various translations but not read various takes on the translations and not consider Kant's ideas and the various ideas circulating at the time, is he did not go on to say that the best understanding of Nietzsche might be gained by reading his works in the German he wrote them in, or in discussing Nietzsche with a trusted thinker who has read his works in German. I have the luxury of knowing a philosophy professor that has read Nietzsche in German, whose take on his thinking, and the relationship to the thinking of the day and to today's thinking would be far superior to any take I could generate by reading several translations and not looking to anybody else for understanding. I did read the other day, while thinking about this thread and your above comment, that Nietzsche and other thinkers of the day, had a certain feeling that they were a higher order of human, and that they were needed and looked toward to pull everyone else up to their level. There is a certain aristocracy or elitism that I feel is a piece of this morality picture. That it is "better" to please the king, than to please yourself, so to speak. The difference between bad and evil is important. Bad, displeases the king. Evil displeases God. Regards, TAR
  24. Dave Moore, I gave you an up vote because I like your general thinking. However, I would like to offer some answers to questions you raise as unanswerable, and offer a general objection to your conclusion, that the question is just not a scientific question, or one that can be answered by objective inquiry. While there is obviously not a morality particle that we can capture and study, weigh and measure and predict the behavior of, there is a human brain, and brain chemistry, that can be looked toward, to see certain predictable behavior. Not that our morality is determined, but that the pieces of our personal behavior, build up, over time to create larger things. Things emerge when groups of living things interact. In the case of birds you might have flocks, or fish you might have schools, or antelopes you might have herds, or humans you might have clubs and associations and churches and universities and businesses and a world court, with rules of behavior attached. In the case of the bear and her cubs there is not an over arching "good" and "bad" that puts the life of her cubs ahead of a human life. We as humans are served by killing the bear that has eaten a college student (which actually happened a few miles from where I type this.) It is actually "good" to maintain your way of life, and support those who support you. From this simple fact, a morality actually can be derived. It actually has been derived, as is evident from the Bible and the Koran and the ancient Chinese writings, the constitutions of the nations of the Earth, and the mission statements and company charters that go with every club and association and school and business that we have. Ethical standards are what one member expects of the other. And these expectations can be agreed upon for "good" reason. Regards, TAR
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