2. I never claimed to have a perfect system all packaged and ready to go, did I? Let's see... no, I claimed that game theory coupled with philosphy might prove a stonger candidate for ethical development than unguided religious discussion starting from what's written in a particular religion's holy book (one not necessarily shared with any number of other religions) and allowed to progress wherever it goes thereafter... which was previously asserted as being the best possible tool.
It's worth pointing out that animal welfare science has produced some really very precise, evidence backed definitions of both suffering and well being. Almost all modern animal welfare law in the UK is built upon such work. My understanding is that the work done by ethologists on this subject translate almost perfectly to humans.
Have you ever studied the Prisoner's dilemma?I'm familiar with it. If your point is going to be "I have and there's no moral insight there," do save it: there's no shortage of philosophical writing about a morality based on some sort of calculated most efficient path to... whatever higher principle you think life or society should pursue. I can even offer you a pithy webcomic on the subject.
More over, it is a very important idea in the development on modern behavioural modelling, and played an important part in the development of our understanding of the genetics of altruism.
But there's no sense passing up (or learning from the failures of) the work already extant in the field. You're describing utilitarianism. (Since you mentioned negative utilitarianism in passing, hopefully it's some hybrid of negative utilitarianism that avoids the unfortunate conclusion that the best course is to kill the entire human race as efficiently as possible, haha.)
You should probably read Utilitarianism. Mill has an accessible style, it's written in direct and modern English, and well, it's exactly what you're talking about. Hell, Mill even credited A Treatise of Human Nature as one of the main influences on his work.
A dead animal does not suffer ;)
I can even offer you a pithy webcomic on the subject.
Huh. That's interesting, does it come from Bentham?
One of the other stewards used the phrase the other day and I followed along with what he was saying, but I didn't realize he was drawing from 19th-century philosophy. He also used the phrase "goat-rope" which I had never heard before, either.
And they say all Teamsters are dumb!
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So when the Muslim extremist murders and commits violence in the name of Islam ... they actually have a theological underpinning for it that does not exist in Christianity.
Does not exist in YOUR version of Christianity perhaps. That's the entire problem with how Christianity sees Islam. Christianity has managed to advance by effectively ignoring most of its religious books and focusing on what is good using enlightenment philosophy to decide what good is. Islam is just barely starting that process. You think its a fundamental difference between their respective holy texts but its not: there's nothing nearly as bad as Numbers in the Qu'ran.
There's more than enough biblical precedent for killing unbelievers, right down to slaughtering infants, in the bible to justify the crusades and the inquisition.
To me, the Qu'ran seemed to draw a distinction between "the people of the book" (Christians and Jews) and the polytheists in terms of when/why/how long you should fight them. The admonitions to "stay within the limits" of warfare was pretty vague, but definitely prohibit the slaughtering of innocent civilians of any stripe.
Being from the south with a lot of yankee and Midwesterner transplant family and friends. Southerners aren’t more racist, but it seems that way for two reasons:
1. There are actually a lot more non-whites down here, so it simply comes up more. Check out the stats. It is easy to seem tolerant when you don’t have to ever practice it.
2. People are more relaxed about it. Sure there are still things you can’t say in mixed company, but among friends a little racism acceptable. It is seen more like any other vulgar term or statement than a reflection of a bigoted attitude.
Northern and Midwestern churches would never (though never say never) make this type of rule because basically everyone is white. If the south was really so much more racist, wouldn’t most of my black and brown friends who have plenty of resources to do so move to another region?
Oh, another thing you may not know. The number of churches in the south is simply ridiculous. There is pretty much at least one on every other block. You can safely assume that the reporter had to pass at least 10 churches that allow interracial marriage on the way to get this story, assuming it was within 5min or less driving distance.
I don't know why I'm responding ... I'm bored I guess.
A) I did not say Christianity was a religion of peace and Islam a religion of violence. In fact I was careful not to make big sweeping statements like that.
B) You're using the Old Testament for the infidel-killing stuff for Christianity. That doesn't theologically fly, sorry. I'm not saying that the Church has not committed its errors in the past, it most certainly has. And it recognizes the errors it has made, time and time again, although no one listens to it because they'd rather continue using things like the Crusades and the Inquisition as their ammunition.
C) I only mentioned my training in Christian and Islamic theology so that I could be understood not to be making stuff up out of thin air. I also specifically stated it didn't make me an expert.
D) I've apologized for derailment and I honestly am sorry ... it was a late night, ongoing thread that just sort of got away from us. Would you like me to say a Hail Mary for penance?
To The Black Raven,
Thanks. I enjoyed reading your post and I can say that for sure we defiantly have different ways of looking at things.
From the way I see it around my area everyone considers themselves American first, Religious second(Baptist, Methodist,etc.etc.) Family third and politics fourth. Naturally this is a generalization so please take it as such.
As far as the law and the church argument, again a generalization but I really can't see any laws being broken that I as a non-legal person am aware of. I know the basics of the laws to keep my butt outta trouble and call a lawyer for the rest. If a church wants to exclude somebody because of race/marriage status/sexual orientation/ etc.etc. then they have every right to do so because they are a church. No other entity that I am aware of can get away with the type of selective membership but to the government here churches are pretty much left to their own membership status choices.
I'm kindda glad of that too. It may seem that churches have too much power and for my personal belief I honestly think they do. I would LOVE to see those multie billion dollar organizations pay their fair share of taxes on all their holding instead of being allowed non or not for profit status and having more wealth than some states but that's about as far as I would want the government to interfere with anyone's faith.
Dumber ox: Response on the civil religious discussion thread.