Human rights and Vivaldi
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Ok as things stand now, I'm going to get banned anyway (for having a different opinion) so this will be my last post on the subject.
I already got caught up way to deep in this argument so it's time to leave it alone.Just want to make clear that it was never my intention to offend anyone and if I somehow broke the CoC with my rant, then I'm sorry for that.
It really looks like life has become a one way street and everybody has to conform to certain socially accepted ideas.
I'm simply not like that and will never conform to whatever society or social media dictates. No BLM, no LGBTQI.Cheers all.
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@escorpiom Opinions don't get anyone banned. Attacks on racial, ethnic, religious groups do get persons banned. If you were going to be banned for something you have written, it already would have happened
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@escorpiom , everyone is free to present his opinion for debate, as is normal with respect to free speech. But in a debate you also have to accept that your opinion may be wrong, if the evidence and arguments so indicate. Being wrong, no one is banned in this forum, this only happens in the cases, subject to the rules of conduct: treat others with respect, as simple as this.
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@Ayespy So you believe in absolutes, regardless of majority opinion, or culture. I believe this, too. However, who gets to decide good and evil? There's no supreme deity dictating it. It is left to man. If not the majority, then who? While I enjoy these arguments from time to time, I don't think a channel moderator should be this involved in such discussions.
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@kgwelch Right and wrong, good and bad, are actually influenced by local opinion and culture - in that, if an act has no inherent impact on survival, it is wrong to do it if it upsets people, and right to do it if it makes them feel safe, secure, calm or glad.
Wearing a beard or not has no intrinsic value - but it may sit well with some cultures and not with others. When in Kazakhstan, do as the Kazakhs do. That's good manners, and that's good. It's good not because the rules say so, but because it improves the well-being of others with whom you have to interact. Calling someone "old man" in one culture may be derisive, and a mark of respect in another culture. Use good manners. That's good. Don't eat with your left hand among Muslims or in India or Africa/Egypt. That would upset people and be bad, though it has no intrinsic effect on the universe at large
Poisoning the ocean, even if popular or a scriptural mandate in a particular culture, is bad. It is destructive to the survival potential of the planet. For acts that have intrinsic value, it is mores, not acts, which must change, when mandated acts are destructive.
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@JohnConnorBear You would be OK with my expressing my opinion if I didn't wear the "Moderator" badge? I'm sure that what I say concerning good and evil, right and wrong, is objective reality (not a moral code or some holy dictate), but in the context of online forums it is, of course, my opinion and unenforceable and therefore irrelevant to my moderator status. Your last sentence strikes me as off-topic, and inapt. I don't understand why you made it unless you are just chafing under the fact that the forums are moderated - for which, sorry/not sorry. Remember, mods in these forums are just common users who volunteered to help and whom the community admins felt they could trust not to make things worse. We're the neighborhood watch, not the cops.
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@JohnConnorBear , opinions are always debatable, because certainly there is no absolute truth and each one has his own particular way of seeing the world, stemming from his experiences, education and the environment. Good and evil are not always clearly definable either, but between this and certain events there is a clear difference.If someone kills another person, simply for the color of their skin or for being homosexual, for no other reason than this, it is not just simple opinions that we can see in a neutral way saying that this just as respectable as someone who cares about the person as such and not their color or sexual condition. It is clear that in all groups there are psychopaths and racists, but for this reason, this cannot be transferred to the entire group, and the just thing is then to simply debug personal responsibilities.
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@JohnConnorBear So definitions are the sticking point. You define Good and Evil using the bible, and I define them using an ordinary dictionary. My definitions have no religious point of reference.
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@JohnConnorBear , understand me well, of course a murderer is always a murderer, but this has nothing to do with what I have said, but I am talking about people who kill themselves for mere raxist and homophobic reasons, no matter if they are a person of color who kills a white person or vice versa, these are discriminatory reasons. If it goes over in a group that must ensure the safety of citizens, the thing acquires an even more condemnable tint. If it is a whole state, things like the holocaust happen in Germany, where everyone was killed for being 'different', for racist reasons, homophobes or simply for having a different opinion than the 'official' one, admittedly supported, since you mention it for the clergy, who should precisely watch over Christian morality (which they themselves have never done).
In the United States the KKK still has quite a few influences in many official spheres and this has to end, precisely because of a minimum of ethics and, if you want, Christian morality. -
@JohnConnorBear "The very principle of "human rights" is that every person, being "human", must be treated like anybody else in the same context and that treatment is "the right way to do things", then it is "moral"."
Exactly this, but precisely for this reason, one cannot be neutral when committing atrocities because some think that human rights are only for whites and heterosexuals, which is obviously a wrong and also dangerous position, as it could be seen in Nazi Germany and the treatment they received that they were not considered to be pure Aryan, homosexual, diminished, for not being in agreement with the Fรผhrer, etc.
Neither moral nor ethical is simply false and a crime against humanity. This is why it is important not to be 'neutral' in these things, because we know from history how it begins, but never how it can end and the United States is on a very dangerous path. -
@JohnConnorBear Religion, by all means, has deeply influenced our language. But it cannot be allowed to blind us to what acts tend toward preserving life on the planet and what acts tend toward ending it. As that is my view, I hew toward the definitions of words that reflect existence rather than feelings and opinions and dogma about existence.
A food is "good" if it nourishes and does not harm you - not because a religious tradition defined it as "good."
The inability to differentiate reality from opinion is one of the primary failings of human thinking.
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@JohnConnorBear You approve then, of humanity actively extincting species wholesale, including, potentially, humans? Like you don't think it might be a good idea to avoid killing off the bee population so that we may continue to grow food?
You introduce and extend meanings and implications into my statements that have no bearing whatever on my actual thinking - lecturing me about some fiction like an "eternal present," etc. You apparently imagine me to be quite stupid and short-sighted because I strip the complexity out of ideas or something.
You know what makes people stupid? Complexity. In my professional life, folks commonly refer to me as a "genius" (no, that's not made-up. They really do) only because I see to the heart of things and can simplify ideas that they cannot otherwise understand.
Again, you harp on the supposed futility of human decision-making. It must be a very hopeless world you live in - nothing can be done about anything, so there's no point in trying to understand and do "right." I choose to approach life differently.
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@JohnConnorBear You are stuck on a term which you are misinterpreting. This "preserving."
Do you understand the concept of survival? You just used it yourself, for instance, "survival of the fittest" (a corruption by Spencer of Darwin's theories in Origin of Species).
Assuming you said "yes," you understand survival, then tell me what role you believe that concept has in the human drama. Where does it rank in the hierarchy of values?
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@JohnConnorBear Jesus. Just answer the question. Where does "survival," as in staying alive, not dying, rank in the hierarchy of human urges?
You still keep giving "preserving" a totally different meaning from how I am using it. I am not talking about what you keep saying I am talking about. Here is how I "preserve" the life of a puppy: I feed it. I do not step on it. I do not beat or electrocute it. I do not poison it. I give it water, exercise, and clean air. In that way, I preserve the puppy and its life. I do not put it in stasis, freeze it, pickle it, take a picture and hang the picture, tie it tightly into a single spot or position, or any similar move. With my input it lives, it thrives, it does not die. If it becomes ill, I treat it or take it to the vet and get it treated. I vaccinate it. I keep its coat in good shape. I give it things to chew which are good for its teeth. I am preserving its life. Has any of this meaning to you?
You are right. You don't know me or anything about me, but you keep pasting your impressions of what I must be like over me. Your impressions are vastly far off the mark.
Where, in the hierarchy of human urges, does survival rank? Very important? Most important? Not important at all? Key? Irrelevant? Nice to have? Where does it rank?
Please answer that question if we are to have any discussion at all.
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@JohnConnorBear Going to bed. Dogs and horses in the morning, hospital after that, then I'll be on line. Apx 12-13 hours.
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@JohnConnorBear It seems your replies scurry down more blind alleys than a pack of drunk rats.
Here's the deal about survival. It is both the most basic and most senior drive of living things , including human beings. After all, if you're dead, nothing else matters. So in order for any desire or activity or accomplishment of a person to exist, the person must exist. They must be alive/not dead, that is, they have to be surviving (preserving their life), not the opposite. Not dead.
And the survival of people requires the survival of not only their fellows/tribes/societies, but also of the planetary biome - hence the vested interest people have in the health of other species, families and phylae. So when I speak of "preserving life" on the planet, I'm just talking about surviving into the next minutes, hours, days, years. If the species is to persist, so must a healthy biosphere. And day to day, every person is able to choose whether to support or to oppose life and living things. No one may determine the ultimate outcome of things, but one may always determine whether one is pushing in this direction or that direction. If such choices are meaningless, then human existence writ large is pointless - and there is no reason to seek your meals, your salary, your house, your family's well-being because, after all, none of it means anything in the end. It would be all the same if one were to step off a tall building.
People won't do this as a rule, because they are attached to the idea of breathing, acting, procreating, etc. Ie, surviving.
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@JohnConnorBear You dont recognize your own nihilism turned back at you. I do not embrace futility theory. In my world, human decisions matter.
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