Strangers who want to discuss your lack of "faith"?

[bunny]

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It would seem strange to me if you are encouraging people to act against what they think is moral.

[/ QUOTE ] So you are a moral relativist and a Christian? Isn't that funny.

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Err no, though moral philosophy was something of a blank spot in my education... [img]/images/graemlins/confused.gif[/img]

[wtfsvi]

I think it is perfectly reasonable to encourage someone to act against what they think is moral, if you think they are wrong. As an extreme example, lets say you could chat with the hijackers to be on september 10th 2001. Would you encourage them to not go through with it?

edit: That example was too extreme to get my point across optimally I guess, but I'll let it stay since I wrote it. I hope you can see what I mean.

[bunny]

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I think it is perfectly reasonable to encourage someone to act against what they think is moral, if you think they are wrong. As an extreme example, lets say you could chat with the hijackers to be on september 10th 2001. Would you encourage them to not go through with it?

edit: That example was too extreme to get my point across optimally I guess, but I'll let it stay since I wrote it. I hope you can see what I mean.

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Clear enough. I think I have misexplained my position. I would try and persuade someone to change what they believed was moral if I disagreed with it (because I would think they were wrong - objectively). What I meant is that, if you are in a position of believing act A is moral, then you should do it. I dont see how anyone can act differently. I was not suggesting playing no part in persuading others how to act.

So yes I would try and persuade them it was immoral. My point is that if they believed flying a plane into a building was the right thing to do, how could we expect them to do something else? Would you commit murder if I sat you down and patiently explained to you that it was actually the moral thing to do, leaving you unmoved and still believing it wasnt?

[wtfsvi]

Ok. Simple miscommunication then. If we swap the word encouraging in the statement I quoted with expecting, I agree with you.

I doubt you would come out and say that if I made a post about how horrible I thought the actions of the hijackers on september 11th were, though. That it was silly of me to expect them to act against what they thought was right.

I think it's reasonable to assume that when someone critizises someone elses's actions on moral grounds, they are really critizising the morals behind the actions.

[luckyme]

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Irrespective of what you think they should base their moral decisions on, do you agree they should act according to their mystically derived moral beliefs, if they're not "having a lucid moment"? Or at least that they dont have any other choice? It would seem strange to me if you are encouraging people to act against what they think is moral.

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An analogy - if various people scattered around the world believed their moral beliefs came from shaking chicken bones or from the voices they heard or .... why should anyone think they SHOULD act in accordance with that?

Do they have a choice? Of course. They weren't born thinking their morals were mystically derived or came from the 8-ball shake-an-answer, at some stage they decided to attribute their morals to what they read into some text or to trust the voices or the pattern of chicken bones or the BALL.

Other people have set those choices aside so there is no reason to think they also don't have a choice, they make it each time they attribute their moral positions to something external.

luckyme

[bunny]

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An analogy - if various people scattered around the world believed their moral beliefs came from shaking chicken bones or from the voices they heard or .... why should anyone think they SHOULD act in accordance with that?

Do they have a choice? Of course. They weren't born thinking their morals were mystically derived or came from the 8-ball shake-an-answer, at some stage they decided to attribute their morals to what they read into some text or to trust the voices or the pattern of chicken bones or the BALL.

Other people have set those choices aside so there is no reason to think they also don't have a choice, they make it each time they attribute their moral positions to something external.

luckyme

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So you imagine one of them sitting there, completely convinced that the chicken bones mean it is immoral to have an abortion and then, despite the fact that they fully believe it to be wrong - as strongly as any morally held belief of yours - they should act against it? They should knowingly do something believing it to be bad? I cant imagine that - even if they had got as far as acknowledging their method of determining morality was flawed, they would still think it was immoral. If I believed something was wrong I wouldnt do it - someone pointing out to me that I had made mistakes previously wouldnt change that - they'd have to persuade me I was wrong in this specific belief that the act was immoral.

[Lestat]

bunny- This is an area of contention I've had with you that I've meaning to get to...

I think I understand what you mean when you say we don't choose our beliefs. For instance, if I hold my mouse over the floor right now and let it go, I could not choose to believe anything other than it would fall to the ground.

Where I think you are in error is in not recognizing that ALL beliefs are learned. No one is born believing in God or in one religion over another. They are taught to do so. Now granted if nothing ever comes along to externally shake the believer into a moment of clarity, the belief will likely continue unabated. This is true whether it's someone who has the relatively benign belief that Christianity mainly promotes love, or the jihadist who holds the more lethal belief that all infidels must die.

However, the more extreme the belief, the more opportunities for lucid moments as luckyme suggests. Most Christians (and Muslims for that matter), go their whole lives without every questioning their beliefs (what they've been taught), because.... Why should they? Their beliefs just don't interfere often enough with their every day life or other people's every day live's. They are for the most part, benign.

I also contend that I could *change* my belief that my mouse would hit the floor if you could find a way to provide strong enough evidence to suggest that the next time I dropped it, something else would happen.

Beliefs are learned and they CAN be changed and acted upon in an opposing manner.

[bunny]

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bunny- This is an area of contention I've had with you that I've meaning to get to...

I think I understand what you mean when you say we don't choose our beliefs. For instance, if I hold my mouse over the floor right now and let it go, I could not choose to believe anything other than it would fall to the ground.

Where I think you are in error is in not recognizing that ALL beliefs are learned. No one is born believing in God or in one religion over another. They are taught to do so. Now granted if nothing ever comes along to externally shake the believer into a moment of clarity, the belief will likely continue unabated. This is true whether it's someone who has the relatively benign belief that Christianity mainly promotes love, or the jihadist who holds the more lethal belief that all infidels must die.

However, the more extreme the belief, the more opportunities for lucid moments as luckyme suggests. Most Christians (and Muslims for that matter), go their whole lives without every questioning their beliefs (what they've been taught), because.... Why should they? Their beliefs just don't interfere often enough with their every day life or other people's every day live's. They are for the most part, benign.

I also contend that I could *change* my belief that my mouse would hit the floor if you could find a way to provide strong enough evidence to suggest that the next time I dropped it, something else would happen.

Beliefs are learned and they CAN be changed and acted upon in an opposing manner.

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I agree that they can be changed, I'm just not sure why someone would ever be expected to act contrary to what they believed to be right.

Sure - you can persuade someone to change their belief. You can even persuade them to change how they form their beliefs. I dont advocate leaving everyone alone - I think you should (!) try and persuade others to act in a way you consider moral. That doesnt change the fact that I expect people, when the time comes, to make whatever choice they deem moral. Furthermore, I dont see how I could expect anything else.

Perhaps a different analogy? (Since they always seem to clear everything up...)

I have the option to shoot someone just before he commits an awful act which will kill five innocent people. You and a friend are trying to persuade me to behave morally. You think I should kill the guy, your friend thinks I should never commit murder. Sure you will both present arguments, try and persuade me, bargain with me, whatever you do. At the end of it all, dont you think I should do whatever I think is right?

[luckyme]

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An analogy - if various people scattered around the world believed their moral beliefs came from shaking chicken bones or from the voices they heard or .... why should anyone think they SHOULD act in accordance with that?

Do they have a choice? Of course. They weren't born thinking their morals were mystically derived or came from the 8-ball shake-an-answer, at some stage they decided to attribute their morals to what they read into some text or to trust the voices or the pattern of chicken bones or the BALL.

Other people have set those choices aside so there is no reason to think they also don't have a choice, they make it each time they attribute their moral positions to something external.

luckyme

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So you imagine one of them sitting there, completely convinced that the chicken bones mean it is immoral to have an abortion and then, despite the fact that they fully believe it to be wrong - as strongly as any morally held belief of yours - they should act against it? They should knowingly do something believing it to be bad? I cant imagine that - even if they had got as far as acknowledging their method of determining morality was flawed, they would still think it was immoral. If I believed something was wrong I wouldnt do it - someone pointing out to me that I had made mistakes previously wouldnt change that - they'd have to persuade me I was wrong in this specific belief that the act was immoral.

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A child may believe that their mom is the source of all moral choices and in a loose way it is true. Later the teenager may be certain that a awesome instructor is the fount of moral knowledge. Then chicken bones. Then a book attributed to Allah.

Where I disagree with your way of framing this is that you want to grant their delusion and then argue from within it. Good luck. Just as the Mom, etc, the way out is to get them to realize that the bones are not a source of anything.
The one thing we can have confidence in is that allowing their source as valid leaves them trapped in it.

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- as strongly as any morally held belief of yours -

[/ QUOTE ] ...can't think of any that are 'held', but I'll leave that for another thread.

luckyme

[bunny]

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- as strongly as any morally held belief of yours -

[/ QUOTE ] ...can't think of any that are 'held', but I'll leave that for another thread.

luckyme

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I redflagged this - but when I tried to type out a luckyme-applicable wording it turned into one of the longest sentences on record. Consequently, I decided to leave it and hope you'd know what I meant. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]