Strange how different are thinkers on morality and literature from post-modern thinkers

Here'a real dialogue with a smart guy who holds to a post-modern life stance

He has earlier declared that all books and morals are subjective and relative.

In a long detailed response, I explain that on the contrary, the study of literature is to find out what the author intended in his work.
Myself, American literature and world literature teacher:

We teachers studied literary criticism for years including the various schools. Our goal is similar to the biological sciences—to find out what is real and accurate.

However in the humanities and social sciences, it's more difficult to get at the accurate meaning than in the hard sciences.

Even in the latter, consider that the evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould came to very different conclusions than some other famous biologists based upon the evidence.
For instance, his conclusion based on the facts is that deep time in biology is based in Chance!

He stated that IF reality could come again, the human species probably wouldn't even show up. We humans are here by cosmic “luck.”

In contrast evolutionary biologists Jerry Coyne and neuroscientist Sam Harris hold that existence, particularly for all humans and our actions would be exactly the same because everything is determined.
Allegedly, according to Harris, even IF the cosmos came again, all of us humans would do exactly the same because we are “puppets” of the cosmos.

Though, as I already said, it is more difficult to find what is true in literature and criminal justice, etc., the reason to study these fields is to find out what is objectively meant.

Subjectivity is to be avoided.

Most people find there is an objective qualitative difference between Shakespeare's plays and popular literature and the media.

For example, some of Ernest Hemingway's short stories are amazingly powerful and complex, far better than most stories, TV shows, and movies. Hemingway scholars are agreed that he hated Christianity, that his famous short story "A Clean Well-Lighted Place" is objectively brilliant and is a scathing attack against religion.

Post-Modernist:
Although I didn't agree with you on a fair number of things, I had held you in higher esteem than to think you would brazenly try to pass yourself off as knowledgeable about something which you can't fail to know that you know nothing about.
You didn't even want to educate yourself before responding, so you could have plausibly pretended to have known something about it. Instead, you insulted my intelligence by trying to pass off horseshit.

Daniel Wilcox
Hmm...3 universities, 5 school districts, post-graduate work, many years of teaching literature, attending post-grad conferences, etc. all taught us "horseshit."

I'll keep the horseshit;-)

Post-Modernist
Keep digging. My estimation of you just keeps going down. Either you have a problem with honesty, or senile dementia is setting it.

Either way, I'll avoid you in the future, as you're not worthy to debate.

Daniel Wilcox
Understanding the meanings of literature and basic reading comprehension tests don't register "like" or "dislike" but the ability to comprehend the texts.

Students study Shakespeare's plays because they are far better than studying inferior popular writing.

Finding what an author means when he writes is to discover the accurate view. Subjectivity needs to be avoided.

Post-Modernist
Just do me one favor, and answer the question...

Daniel Wilcox
I did answer your question and gave you two specific examples--the plays of Shakespeare and Hemingway's famous short story, "A Clean-Well-Lighted Place."

We teachers taught those for many years.

Please give me the name of a scholar who disagrees and I will read his point of view.

I also pointed out that reading comprehension tests aren't subjective.

We are seeking the accurate meanings.

Post-Modernist
The accurate meaning? According to who?
Are you trying to say that you think the point of literary criticism is to try to figure out what meaning the author was intending the reader to understand?<br>
Have I got that right? I want to give you more than ample rope with which to hang yourself.

Daniel Wilcox
In a short story, one has the author's conscious intent--the themes.

One also has the author's unconscious intent. One can see this very much in Hemingway's writing as I pointed out.

One can also check with the actual statements by the authors themselves of what they meant.

Then we need to remember the perspectives of us readers, our varying cultures versus the society and culture in which the story was created.

This is where most schools of literary interpretation come in.

Then there is also the factor, that sometimes a story (by conscious intent or not) is intentionally ambiguous. Or the story has, intriguingly, contradictory themes.

This is the basis for the outstanding work of Great Books Program which came out of the University of Chicago.

Like in any field whether philosophy or evolutionary biology or literature, there will often be disagreements about what the actual meaning is.

But, except for post-modernists, most scholars do think there is real meaning in the facts, essays, songs,and stories of humans.

Otherwise, why bother?!

Likes and dislikes don't need to be taught.

Remember my original example from the hard sciences--of how Gould's conclusions are very different from Harris and Coyne’s.

Yet all 3 do think that evolution has actual identifiable characteristics; they just haven't reached the point of figuring out which of them is correct, or if there are other possible explanations.


Ditto for literature, justice, and social sciences.
Subjectivity needs to be avoided.


In the Light,

Daniel Wilcox

Human History is Mostly an endless TELL of what NOT to do...

Our moral sensitivity about good versus evil on various actions didn’t come to us via tradition, revealed religion, our taste buds, the desire of our eyes, or some personal quirk, and certainly not from human instinct or matter and energy.

Moral concern, moral realism, is a transcendent “ought,” not a subjective “like” or “dislike.”

When it comes to the moral compass we are talking objective, transcendent truth. (Well, many humans are).

Other millions of modern people claim that morals, like personal preferences, are subjective, relative whether of the individual or a group or a nation.

But I wouldn’t characterize my own moral struggles of the last 67 years as battling over what I like or dislike. For instance, I like salmon, but can’t stand cow tongue (which I was required to eat as a kid growing up in Nebraska because we got over half a cow each year from our grandfather, and had to eat even the rubbery tongue and the gross tail). To each his own, when it comes to “like.”

In contrast, immoral actions (and attitudes) such as slavery, war, torture, molestation, rape, inequality, oppression, prejudice, greed, lust, promiscuity, jealousy, gossip, theft, lying, dishonesty, porn, obscenity, profanity, coveting, jealousy, selfishness, egotism, gossip, human sacrifice, cannibalism…most people will agree, (at least when these actions are done to them) that they are wrong.

In most cases of human moral choice, humans of the present generation don’t need to reinvent the moral wheel of truth. We’ve had the basics of moral realism since the some society’s early bronze age rules, and the Jewish 10 Commandments,
since Buddhism’s moral precepts, since Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, 1 Corinthians 13, James, and many other passages from other holy books for thousands of years!
Where is the failing then?

In the carrying out of the moral truths, in the applying of the truths we expect others to observe in how we ourselves behave.

True sometimes, our moral blindness leads us astray such as when the Christian leader Robert E. Lee, for instance, spoke of how we should love our enemies as Christ said, yet was himself largely responsible for hundreds of thousands of humans being slaughtered, and many hundreds of thousands being wounded (and by devout Christians in the North who refused to let Southerners secede)!

What was their excuse?

Lee did this in defense against the invading army, the Union forces who invaded his state, his county, his home (even stealing family treasures).

Or when Christian Americans slaughter nearly half a million human civilians and declare this justified!

Or when Christian manufacturers put Bible verses on the barrel of assault guns which are used to kill others! Or when...

Or when ‘revealed religious leaders state that they should love their enemies personally, but that they ought to hate and destroy their enemies for God and country.

Yes, there are multi millions of cases back through religious histories including creedal Christian history which show humans of good will who violated the most basic of moral laws because they did it in the name of Jesus or...

And then there plenty of modern secular leaders who claim there are no moral truths.

In contrast, there are flawed moral leaders like Martin Luther King Jr. who state moral law is transcendent (fMLK—"I’m here to say to you this morning that some things are right and some things are wrong. Yes, eternally so, absolutely so. It’s wrong to hate. Yes, That’s right. It always has been wrong and it always will be wrong. (Amen) It’s wrong in America, it’s wrong in Germany, it’s wrong in Russia, it’s wrong in China. It was wrong in 2000 B.C., and it’s wrong in 1954 A.D. It always has been wrong, (That’s right) and it always will be wrong.

"(That’s right) It’s wrong to throw our lives away in riotous living. (Yeah) No matter if everybody in Detroit is doing it, it’s wrong. (Yes) It always will be wrong, and it always has been wrong. It’s wrong in every age and it’s wrong in every nation. Some things are right and some things are wrong, no matter if everybody is doing the contrary. Some things in this universe are absolute….And so long as we adopt this relative attitude toward right and wrong, we’re revolting against the very laws of God himself. (Amen)… This universe hinges on moral foundations… God has made the universe to be based on a moral law.” from “Rediscovering Lost Values”)

How can we know--prove--for sure that some actions are inherently evil, some transcendently good?

We can’t, unfortunately. We can’t prove the truth of moral realism. We can’t know. Not in the sense of factuality such as that 1,000 plus 1,000 equals 2,000 or in the sense that we can verify that the earth is a sphere, not a flat land.

In fact, even more disconcertingly, there is some experiential evidence which seems to deny the truth of moral realism.

But (with the exception of some hard Atheists, some Augustinian-Reformed and Islamic leaders), the vast majority of humans at present do think slavery is inherently evil—that the claim and act of “owning” another human being as a tool, as an object (rather than a person with inherent worth) is very immoral. Such an institution as slavery denies equality. But we need to keep in mind that for thousands of years equality wasn’t considered truth. Even as recently as 150 years ago famous Calvinist theologians such as R.L. Dabney wrote extensively (even after the Civil War ended!) showing that there was nothing wrong with slavery.

Furthermore, secular leaders and scientists have long held that “equality” doesn’t exist in nature, that existence is based on “survival,” this most famously stated in the theory of natural selection.

Simply observe how cats treat birds or what happens when dogs, even on leases spot each other in the street—seldom any equality. It’s usually about power, not sharing.

Even in the Jewish Bible the law emphasized that if an owner of a slave beats his slave so the slave dies a couple of days later, there is to be no punishment of the owner because the slave was his “property” Exodus 21:20-21 NAB

And the Torah emphasizes that a Hebrew slave owner has the right to pass slaves down to his kids (Leviticus 25:44-46 HCSB. But what then?

If there is no basis for objective ethics in nature and religious books often give the wrong answers, how do we go about living morally?

We discover and moral truth in a way like a tiny coral lives atop a coral reef:-)

In this existence we billions of human primates are but small finite coral on a great barrier coral reef which holds back the onslaught of Nature’s typhoon rampages, human instinctive desires bloated by selfishness and pride.

Deism, Fundamentalism, Friends-Brethren, key Scriptural passages on moral realism in such as 1 Corinthians 13, the Sermon on the Mount, James, etc.

Of course, this coral reef perception/awareness isn’t always upward and beautiful. As cited above, spiritual blindness can mislead us such as when Christians over the centuries have slaughtered millions of other humans in the name of Jesus Christ (such as when creedal Roman Catholic Bernard of C., who was known as the speaker of love called on Catholics to slaughter in the name of Jesus and when Martin Luther called on the princes to kill, slay, and “wash their hands in the peasants’ blood.” And, when most Christian leaders burned heretics at the stake, etc.

And, currently when “born-again evangelical Christians” advocate immoral actions in the name of politics which are contrary to Jesus’ clear moral truths. Still, over all in every generation, some humans do experience the blessed hope of moral realism and share moral good actions and oppose all the immoral and unjust actions.

Let’s take a more specific look at the issue of equality and how I ended up, a tiny living coral in the early 1950’s coming to a strong stand for equality, even though so many millions of Christians during that time actually were very against equality. And, even today in the 21st century the Russian Orthodox Church opposes human equality and justify the slaughter of innocent Ukrainian civilians!

It’s all about looking backward down the reef of moral realism.

Secondly, this question is one of theodicy, too.

We could ask why God didn’t supply humans with accurate moral guidance from the beginning some 200,000 years ago?

But then, God. also didn’t give us knowledge of disease and how to overcome it, and thus protect billions of humans from excruciating deaths in epidemics such as the Black Plague.

For whatever reason, God requires us human primates to seek, and study, and find solutions on our own. Moral realism is a ‘coral reef’ experience to be sought with reason, experience, intuition, and history.

Like Martin Luther King pointed out, “I refuse to accept despair as the final response to the ambiguities of history. I refuse to accept the idea that the 'isness' of man's present nature makes him morally incapable of reaching up for the eternal 'oughtness' that forever confronts him.”

In the LIGHT,
Daniel Wilcox

Guest Blog from Professor Roger Olson: "What if humanity could be saved only by torturing children to death?"

from An Ethical Dilemma Posed in a Stephen King Novel
SEPTEMBER 29, 2019 BY ROGER E. OLSON

"What if…the world, humanity, could only be saved from total obliteration by torturing children to death?

"Spoiler alert! If you intend to read King’s latest novel The Institute you may not want to read this as it contains some details about the plot. I will not, however, give away the ending.

The Institute is not your typical King novel if there is such a thing. It’s not exactly a horror story although it is a horrifying story. It contains some sci-fi elements and some violence but it’s nothing like “It” or “The Shining” or “Pet Sematary.” I would compare it more with “Mister Mercedes” or even “The Stand” in terms of tone.

"Like most of King’s novels and short stories it carries within it an ethical dilemma. What’s the right thing to do in a grievous situation where there does not seem to be a right thing to do?

"Of course, there’s often the hero who intuitively knows the right thing and does it.

"But here is the intriguing question embedded in The Institute: If the world, humanity, the whole of nature on earth, could only be saved by kidnapping and torturing children with the inevitable result that they die, would doing that be ethically justified?"

READ THE REST OF PROFESSOR ROGER OLSON'S ETHICAL REFLECTION BASED UPON STEPHEN KING'S NOVEL, THE INSTITUTE at:

https://www.patheos.com/blogs/rogereolson/2019/09/an-ethical-dilemma-posed-in-a-stephen-king-novel/


In the Light of Moral Realism,

Dan Wilcox

Errors in Thinking

https://www.relationshipwithreason.com/tools/bg/Bo/rwr/Ywjo2n9t/Does-Society-Need-the-Threat-of-Hell-and-the-Promise-of-the-Reward-of-Heaven
This article is an example of how a brilliant Atheist leader and a popular Christian leader can both be in serious error in their thinking and in how they present their own lifestances.

Dennis Prager isn't a lucid, careful, rational thinker so I'm not surprised his explanations are so very wrong and historically inaccurate.
BUT I am shocked by the weaknesses in the article by Bo Bennett, PhD, Social Scientist and Business Consultant, since he has a website showing the dangers of biased rhetoric and fallacious thinking.

VERSUS:

#1 ERROR: Bo Bennett claims that "In short, to make a claim of objective morality, we all need to make a subjective call which makes morality only objective in theory and subjective in practice."

No! We don't need to make a "subjective call" to recognize that racism, rape, molestation, slavery, dishonesty, abuse, and the slaughter of innocent civilians, etc. ARE always wrong.

Atheists, even brilliant successful atheists, claiming that ethics are only "subjective" is the very reason to reject atheism as a true, reliable view of reality.

#2 ERROR: Bennett claims that because "delineating murder from "justified killing" is highly subjective...we will never know...morality is functionally subjective."

On the contrary, this confuses the practice of seeking complete objectivity in ethics with a philosophical claim that there is no objectivity in ethics. We as humans may not be able to be totally objective, BUT WE CAN DRAW CLOSER AND CLOSER TO THE GOOD, THE TRUE, AND THE JUST.

For instance, Bennett brings up the fact of the various degrees of killing, which according to him then makes killing subjective!

No, IT DOESN'T.
When courts work to figure out whether a killing was premeditated, intentional, impulsive, accidental, they AREN'T claiming that it's ALL functionally SUBJECTIVE.

On the contrary, the reason that criminal justice systems work at a snail's pace, are very methodical, are so very detailed, do so much onion-peeling, and sometime disagree with other courts, is that the c.j. leaders are striving to be as objective as possible.

One of the last times I got called to jury duty, both I and another teacher were disqualified from the jury because we were "teachers." Evidently, since the suspect was a teenager, the defense attorney or prosecutor thought we would be "subjective" in our bias as teachers.

Just because, humans sometimes can't know for sure in their quest for total objectivity, DOESN'T mean that therefore slavery, molestation, rape, etc. are ONLY "subjective" wrongs!

Not being able to be totally objective doesn't mean therefore all is "subjective."

How irrational!

If we are NASA scientists and plan to send a probe, again, to Pluto, we strive to be as objective in math and ethics as we can possibly be.

If we fall short, IT DOESN'T mean that math and ethics are "subjective,"
but that we didn't attain the complete objectivity that we seek in that particular goal.

We may still have been able to get the probe out to Saturn, even if one scientist and a mathematician were in error, or even worse were dishonest in their calculations!

Besides, Bennett, then even contradicts his own views. In his article he puts up a poster which says, "If the only thing keeping you from being a horrible person is your religion, you are already a horrible person."

Of course, if as Bennett claims ethics are only "subjective," then whether or not a person is ethically "horrible" is subjective!

If ethics are "subjective," then it's rather strange that Bennett who claims to be a rational individual, claims that religion is wrong and reason is good.

It is the view that justice, truth, and goodness really exist which is the basis for various criticisms of religion and secularism failures.

See if you spot some of Bennett's and Prager's other weak reasonings.


In the LIGHT of Truth, Justice, and Goodness,

Daniel Wilcox

True Ethics in the Midst of Left and Right Hypocrisy

Seeking true ethics is one of the most difficult tasks any of us human primates can do.

And it becomes much more difficult when human leaders display hypocrisy and contradictions when speaking of ethics.

Consider that so many Christian leaders are now avidly supporting leaders (such as Roy Moore and Donald Trump) who have allegedly committed gross unethical actions...

And that so many secularists are claiming that all ethics are “subjective,” “relative,” only “personal” or cultural “preferences,” only a matter of “like or dislike,” that slavery, rape, slaughter, dishonesty aren’t objectively wrong. And that there are no human rights. According to these atheists, rights, equality, liberty, etc. are “myths.”

Is it any wonder that millions humans are confused when it comes to the questions of "ought"?

Or consider the strange anomaly of so many religious leaders in 2017 claiming that various immoral or unjust actions are only wrong because such actions contradict what God has commanded, Divine Command Theory. If God changes his commands (as the Deity often did in the past), then true ethics change.

Worst of all many Christian, Muslim, and Hindu leaders claim God--before the universe began--pre-planned every murder, every rape, every molestation, every natural evil disaster for God's-self! And if you question such a gargantuan horror, they ask who do you think God is?!

God can do whatever he wills because God is God!

Forget such horrific beliefs.

Eliminating those majority views at least narrows the multi-pronged choices staring at us at every moment when we need to choose.

Now for coming the New Year of 2018, Let's seek the Light, seek the Life, seek the Good, seek the Just.

But how does one do so? The difficulty, the Good, is in the details.

One online commentator challenged me to provide a better method.

First, it would appear to most people who study history that neither religion nor atheism hasn't provided a good code of ethics. On the contrary such ideolgoies have committed mass slaughter and supported everything from slavery and dishonesty to theft and torture, to discrimination and persecution. No, Christianity hasn't provided a reliable ethical guide. Check out books such as Jesus Wars and The Great and Holy War: How W.W. l became a Religious Crusade by Phillip Jenkins. And read the critical commentaries on Islam and its horrific history.

Second, the human conscience (except in sociopaths) declares we are to do right, to do the good, but doesn't usually clarify what or how. In fact in history, the most evil actions were committed not by immoral choosers, but by conscientious, dutiful humans!

Let's get an eagle's overview of the mountainous region of ethics:

#1 Probably, the spiritual side of the Enlightenment has achieved the most ethically.
Since then a majority of humans have come to give, at least give lip service, to the ideals of human rights, equality, justice and to condemn the slaughter of innocent humans, poverty, prejudice, torture, slavery, and so forth.

Reason has shown to be more true, more effective, more real than any religious dogma ever was.

However, even in reason and transcendent claims there are doubts and problems and dilemmas. Fortunately, most humans seldom have to deal with the extremes such as the trolley car dilemma and other difficult choices.

Indeed, I wonder why so many ethical skeptics immediately jump to the most extreme difficult examples when the subject of morality is brought up.
In general, for instance, it would seem that honesty and justice are reliable goals, even if in a few severe situations, one might choose an action of dishonesty or injustice in order to save human lives.

But if I moved back to the Middle East and soon was faced with a dire threat by HAMAS or Hezbollah, and chose to lie to protect innocent Jewish civilians,
my lie still wouldn't be true.

Later after human rights organizations got the innocent individuals safely out of the clutches of "Godly" religious organizations, I ought to then print an acknowledgment of my dishonest statement, explaining that I know all lying is wrong, and that I had only told the lie to protect innocent lives.

Too often humans quickly jump to the immoral choice--declaring it good--when encountering a difficult trial. For example Americans constantly condemn Muslims in the Middle East for using torture and terrorism, but quickly defend the U.S. government when it tortures and slaughters.

Let's take non-religious leaders' most extreme example: Ought a good human--if there are no other possible options--murder or rape to defend innocent people?

No.

When making ethical choices, the means is part of the end. When you pick up the immoral ethical stick on one end you get the other, too, even if your intentions are good.

Just for the sake of illustration, what if a U.S. Seal could only save a young Syrian or Afghan girl from being tortured and murdered by Muslim jihadists by pretending to attack and rape her?

Such an undercover individual might choose to rape the girl because he thinks raping her isn't as evil as letting the Islamic State thugs behead or stone her.

HOWEVER, his act of rape--even though done with good intentions--still will harm the girl and is very wrong.

One evil in response to another evil doesn't make a good.

Never.


In the Light,

Daniel Wilcox

Despairingly UN-funny: MOORE and LESS

Probably no one needs more sordid details about 32-year-old Alabama district attorney Roy Moore's alleged molestation of a 14-year-old girl. Or that Moore told the young teen's mother that he would watch out for her!

So, let's skip to some very Kurt-Vonnegut sort of commentary on this moral debacle, neither moore nor less:

Infidel753 already has made a number of very strong points on his web blog. For instance, he wrote, "What's striking to me is how closely the divide over Moore on the right correlates with the religious/secular divide. The very people who generally exhibit an outright obsession with Christianity's sexual taboos are going all out to defend a man plausibly accused of sexual misbehavior..."

It's even more absurd than that. Because in the past Christian leaders obsessed on Bill Clinton (and others) "sexual misbehavior" BUT
all of those ethical choices were
with adults.

Even Christian leaders' past defense of Newt Gingrich (who twice committed adultery, once when his wife at the time was dying of cancer!:-( isn't as bad as this current hypocrisy.

This Christian defense of Moore is much more like the Roman Catholic leaders' responses to priests having sexual relations with young teens.

How could anyone defend such immoral, unjust actions against innocent young teens?!

How can so many Christian defend a famous Christian leader, former Alabama Supreme Court Judge who in the past, when a 32 district attorney, committed alleged sexual relations with a 14-year-old and made unethical advances to other teen girls.
(Of course, his legal 'out' is that he, Moore, didn't go all the way. BUT
that was also true of the priests who molested young teens.)

So really nothing new here.

Christian leaders have been defending fellow Christians who engage in serious sexual misconduct for many years.

BUT WHAT DOES surprise me is the nearly complete condemnation of Ray Moore's actions by secularists (after you ferret out their hostility to right-wing politics).

Heck, many secularists claim that sexual misconduct--even rape!--isn't really wrong.

Instead they assert that all ethics are "subjective," even raping, enslaving, slaughtering!! All ethics are only "personal preference" or opinion.

Some even claim that various unethical actions are only about "like" or "dislike."

According to these secularists, enslavement,
slaughter,
rape,
dishonesty,
little girl mutilation, etc.
are no different than liking (or not liking) coffee or tea or soda.

ON THE CONTRARY:
All humans need to promote the view of the Humanist Manifesto III, the UN Declaration of Human Rights, the Enlightenment view of thinkers such as Thomas Paine--
that humans have "inherent value."

THAT ethics are real!

THAT molestation, sexual misconduct, statutory rape and adult rape are ALWAYS wrong.

Deeply troubled in this "ocean of darkness" that corrupts and poisons the religious and secular world today.

Daniel Wilcox

The Lowest of the Low--Denial of the Reality of Ethics

It would seem that Divine Command Theory of conservative Christianity which claims that an action is only wrong or right if God declares it so is the worst form of ethics.

How much lower can one get than to proclaim that ethnic cleansing, the slaughter and rape of enemies, the abuse and torture of others, the enslavement of humans is good or justified because the Almighty says so?

For a long time, it appeared that DCT was the worst of the worst.

Thankfully most secular human leaders (in the U.S. at least)—regardless of their particular worldview--emphasized human rights, justice, equality, fairness, generosity, tolerance, the Bill of Rights including free speech, freedom to change and criticize religions and ideologies, etc. (to one degree or another).
BUT all that has changed.

Now many secular leaders are claiming there are no human rights, no objective ethics, that all ethics, even opposition to rape and enslavement are only "subjective" constructs"!

When did the abhorrent tilt to relativism come about?

(It’s enough to scare the living daylights out of any human rights worker, any Civil Rights leader, any one involved in law enforcement, any normal citizen who is concerned with real ethics.)

Look at this strange exchange this week on the Internet:

Atheist blogger Neil Carter wrote, "our moral systems of guidance are no more objective than the compass Jack Sparrow carries around with him on his many misadventures.2 And that furthermore, that is perfectly okay."
--

Human Rights Daniel Wilcox: This is completely untrue. Rape, slaughter, slavery, molestation, abuse are ALWAYS WRONG. Human rights, justice, goodness, equality, etc. are always right.

For instance, the Humanist Manifesto III states, (like the Enlightenment, and human right organizations now such as Amnesty International) that "We are committed to treating each person as having inherent worth and dignity, and to making informed choices in a context of freedom consonant with responsibility.”

Note emphasis in the Manifesto on words such as
"Inherent worth"
"freedom"
"responsibility".

Humans don't make up ethics; they aren't "constructs" as Neil Carter claims.

On the contrary, ethics are discovered, are "inherent" in reality.
--

Neil Carter also wrote, "...humanists of every stripe can agree that human beings should never be treated as someone else’s property."
--

Note the danger of Carter's words:
"can agree"

But agreement has nothing to do with whether some action is good or bad!

And true ethics aren't based in any "can."

They are always "ought."

Besides, various humanists have justified not only enslavement, but the slaughter of civilians, torture, inequality,
and even claimed that infants aren’t “persons”!

And that, therefore, an infant, since it isn't a "person," it may be killed up to one year old!!

And that some animals have more value than some human infants!

Tragic. How confused and downright wrong such thinking is.

Even if humans changed their minds and declared various immoral actions no longer immoral and okay, they wouldn't be moral.

This sort of relativistic thinking is the extreme danger of nonobjective ethics.
Lots of humans in the past and now declare terrible actions good.

That has nothing to do with whether or not they really are good.
--

An Atheist:
“That we find near universal agreement about moral statements does not in any way refute their subjectivity.”
--

Human Rights Daniel
Humans don't make up ethics; they aren't "constructs."
--

An Atheist:
“They most certainly are. Ethics are abstractions that comprise many different factors. How we were raised, natural empathy, selfish desires, how importantly we value fairness, thoughtful consideration... all of these and more are used to develop what we would call "ethics."
--

2nd Atheist:
The legal definition of rape has changed during my lifetime. It wasn't until 1993 that marital rape was made illegal in all 50 states. So before then was marital rape moral or immoral?"
--

3rd Atheist:
"What any given culture puts into the bucket of "wrong" is inherently relativistic."
--

Human Rights Daniel:
No.

Ask Enlightenment leaders such as Thomas Paine, ask the UN Declaration of Human Rights, ask The Human Manifest III, ask Amnesty International, ask Martin Luther King Jr. and other Civil Rights workers, etc.
--

4th Atheist
"Appeal to authority. FAIL.

As you have been told here for years by many people much smarter than me:
There is no such thing as "objective ethics" or "objective morality". There is only ethics that most of us like or accept as part of our current social structure, just like every other society that exists or has existed."

"Have you stumbled upon a set of ethical observations equivalent to Newton's laws of motion, or the laws of thermodynamics in physics? Then your objective morality doesn't exist, and you should really stop embarrassing yourself by insisting it does simply because you're frightened of the idea of it not existing.

You like the ideals espoused in the Humanist Manifesto? That's nice. But don't pretend this is somehow an objective document. The fact that you (and most other people) might like the ideas within it does not make it objective."
--

5th Atheist:
"If you could devise an objective moral framework, i.e. one that objectively answers all moral questions under any circumstances, then you could have objective morals, on equal footing with mathematical truths. Of course, nobody has ever succeeded in creating such a framework.

Moreover, if these objective morals in certain cases would differ from your own subjective morals you would most probably reject the objective framework and go with your own subjective morals anyway. So, an objective moral framework (if even possible) is only useful if all people (inter)subjectively agree to the moral outcomes of the framework."
--

Atheist Blogger Neil Carter:
"My point is that all morals systems are constructs, even the ones we can agree on. And I'm pretty sure all humanists will agree that rape is bad."
--

H. R. Daniel Wilcox:
Whether humanists "agree" that they are subjectively against rape, has nothing to do with whether or not rape is really wrong.

Morals aren’t “constructs.”

Consider that the vast majority of orthodox Muslims believe in inequality for women, and think that ex-Muslims ought to be punished.

That isn't okay.

Those humans are objectively wrong, are immoral in their beliefs and actions.

Most Americans think that if the U.S. government tortures and slaughters civilians that is justified.

But that doesn't make it okay.

Many American Christians think that human rights ought to be denied same sexual couples!

But that doesn't make it okay.

Amnesty International has worked for human rights for many years. AI thinks every human has human rights. That human rights are real,
not "subjective" "likes."

Human rights aren’t “constructs” but are inherent in reality. Every human is born with rights which are “inherent” and “unalienable.”

No way are ethics "subjective" and made up by humans.

Even if every human on the face of the earth said that in some cases slavery, rape, slaughter, racism are okay, those actions still wouldn't be moral.
--

6th Atheist:
"Rape is bad" is not actually a moral statement without defining what "rape" means. And when it comes to the definition of rape there is no consensus, not even among humanists. Does rape require penetration, or could it include other sexual acts? Can it be rape if the perpetrator was convinced that it was consensual?

Can it be rape if there was no violence involved? Does rape within marriage require stronger evidence? Can the behavior of the victim be a mitigating factor? Etcetera.

ETA: I would (subjectively) answer these questions with yes, yes, yes, no, almost never. Others would (subjectively) come up with other answers.”
--

Look at the central statement again by the 4th Atheist:
“As you have been told here for years by many people much smarter than me:
There is no such thing as "objective ethics" or "objective morality". There is only ethics that most of us like or accept as part of our current social structure, just like every other society that exists or has existed.

Have you stumbled upon a set of ethical observations equivalent to Newton's laws of motion, or the laws of thermodynamics in physics? Then your objective morality doesn't exist, and you should really stop embarrassing yourself by insisting it does simply because you're frightened of the idea of it not existing.

You like the ideals espoused in the Humanist Manifesto? That's nice. But don't pretend this is somehow an objective document. The fact that you (and most other people) might like the ideas within it does not make it objective.”
--

And this is the view of many modern thinkers at present. Consider the views of the Israeli historian Yuval Noah Harari in his famous book, Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind.

He states that "equality," "liberty," and human rights are "myths."

--
:-(

When did so many modern thinkers turn against the Enlightenment, and start claiming that ethics are “relative,” “subjective,” only human “constructs,” and rejecting the view that human rights are “inherent” and “unalienable”?

When did such humans begin to think that even rape and slavery are only subjective preferences or “dislikes” or “likes,” not really inherently evil actions?!

Deeply Troubled,

Daniel Wilcox

Discussing CUSSING

ALERT: These urls and articles (and my responses) deal with the question of whether or not swearing, slurring, profaning, verbally attacking, etc. are amoral, only mores, or a question of ethical truth.
In the process some of the commentators use obscenities, profanities, and racial slurs.

This time around, the cursing started with the President Elect in a past video tape of him from Hollywood. 'We’ll show ‘em.' And he did.

Usually, I don’t print out obscenities in my articles any more than I put feces on the table at breakfast or dinner.
HOWEVER I do understand that sometimes academics use the actual words because they want to emphasize the exact nature of the particular words they are talking and thinking about.

Other writers use them because they are attempting to portray real humans how they really speak in conversation.
They aren’t approving or showing disapproval ethically.

Other thinkers use cuss words, racial and sexual slurs, etc. freely in their writing (and their speech) because they are committed to ethical relativism, and so put their finger forward from the first.

http://philosophybites.com/…/rebecca-roache-on-swearing.html

https://aeon.co/…/where-does-swearing-get-its-power-and-how...

Rebecca Roache on Swearing

What, if anything, is wrong with swearing? Rebecca Roache discusses the philosophy of swearing in this episode of the Philosophy Bites podcast.
Warning. This episode contains quite a lot of swearing.
Listen to Rebecca Roache on Swearing
Read Rebbeca Roache's blogposts on the Uehiro Centre Practical Ethics blog
--

MY RESPONSES:

http://infiniteoceanoflightandlove.blogspot.com/2016/01/purity-of-mind-and-heart.html

http://infiniteoceanoflightandlove.blogspot.com/2011/05/pure-and-profane-speech.html

http://infiniteoceanoflightandlove.blogspot.com/2016/01/part-3-what-is-purity-of-heart.html

Later, I am going to write an in depth article to lecturer-in-philosophy Rebecca Roache, President Elect Donald Trump, and others, so this is only my basic abstract.

For those interested check out new blog articles in the soon future on my blogpost, where I write brief articles, and very long ones (which only literature teachers, historians, philosophers, etc. will be interested enough to suffer through:-)

Shoot! This is post is already getting fairly long.
(Notice, “shoot,” my favorite intense word back when I was a fundamentalist kid;-)


In the Light of Goodness, Truth, and Beauty

Daniel Wilcox

Moments of Beauty

Years ago, a short reflection by William Saroyan
dramatically captivated me, vivid words of remembrance--
on the beauty and uniqueness
of small pebbles and stones
that he had found on
the California shore.

Saroyan, (as I warm in the remembrance), spoke of small moments of beauty,
natural objects of serendipity, alluring things of transcendence...
that he set on his writing room shelves,
and felt their
wonder
when the sun shone on them.

From then on, inspired, I collected all sorts of pebbles, agates,
rocks, sea-glass, and shells whenever we visited the coasts.


I became a beachcomber of beauty, a voyager through the washed-up-and-down of life.

A drifter and sea stroller who walks along sand dunes and shores looking for things, even riff-raff...

riffraff (n.)
late 15c., from earlier rif and raf "one and all, everybody, every scrap," also "sweepings, refuse" (mid-14c.)...from raffler "carry off"...or from raffer "to snatch, to sweep together"
Online Etymology Dictionary

Even now here on my computer desk and other shelves, rocks, pebbles, and shells
lay still waiting for another I-It encounter:-),
the aesthetic depth which sometimes
transcends itself
into the wonder!

Which reminds me of another key pebble of beauty for living--
that we humans are washed up
on the shore of existence,
surrounded and crowded
by circumstances we didn't choose.

But the wonder of our human neural plasticity
is that we each get to choose
how we respond to life's circumstances
and we get to create anew, contribute a verse,
as Walt Whitman versed.



O Me! O Life!

Oh me! Oh life! of the questions of these recurring,
Of the endless trains of the faithless, of cities fill’d with the foolish,
Of myself forever reproaching myself, (for who more foolish than I, and who more faithless?)
Of eyes that vainly crave the light, of the objects mean, of the struggle ever renew’d,
Of the poor results of all, of the plodding and sordid crowds I see around me,
Of the empty and useless years of the rest, with the rest me intertwined,
The question, O me! so sad, recurring—What good amid these, O me, O life?

Answer.
That you are here—that life exists and identity,
That the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse.

by Walt Whitman
--

Beauty Created by Choice

And, then, there are the more folksy versions of that point:

Oyster Choice

There once was an oyster tale to tell,
Of beach sand that got into his shell;

'Unjust' a grain; it gave him great pain.
Oysters got feelings though they're so plain.

Did he curse...go mum and clam, or claim
The lively sea shouldn't so maim?

'No,' said he laying in his shell,
'Since I can't remove, improve it, I shall.'

Thus a mean grain of sand that hurt so
Became a beautiful pearl aglow.

--Adapted, Author Unknown
--

Another creative exploration of happenstance, serendipity, beauty, and lifestance
occurs in William Saroyan's powerful little play, The Oyster and the Pearl:

SCENE: Harry Van Dusen's barber shop in O.K.-by-the-Sea, California, population 909. It's an old-fashioned shop, crowded with stuff not usually found in the barber shops...
Harry himself, for instance.

He has never been known to put
on a white barber's jacket
or to work without a hat
of some sort on his head:
a stovepipe,
a derby,
a western,
a homburg,

a beret,
or a straw,
as if putting on these various hats somewhat expressed
the quality of his soul, or suggested the range of it.












On the walls, on shelves,
are many odd and ends,
some apparently washed up by the sea,
which is a block down the street:

abalone and other shells, rocks, pieces of driftwood, a life jacket, rope, sea plants. There is one old-fashioned chair.

When the play begins, Harry is seated in the chair. A boy of nine or ten named Clay Larrabee is giving him a haircut.
Harry is reading a book, one of many in the shop.

CLAY: Well, I did what you told me, Mr. Van Dusen. I hope it’s all right. I’m no barber, though. You want to look at it in the mirror?
(He holds out a small mirror.)
HARRY: No thanks. I remember the last one.

CLAY: I guess I’ll never be a barber.
HARRY: Maybe not. On the other hand, you may turn out to be the one man hidden away who will bring merriment to the tired old human heart.

CLAY: Who? Me?
HARRY: Why not?
CLAY: Merriment to the tired old human heart? How do you do that?

HARRY: Compose a symphony, paint a picture, write a book, invent a philosophy.
CLAY: Not me! Did you ever do stuff like that?

HARRY: I did.
CLAY: what did you do?
HARRY: Invented a philosophy.

CLAY: What’s that?
HARRY: A way to live.
CLAY: What way did you invent?

HARRY: The take-it-easy way.
CLAY: That sounds pretty good.

HARRY: All philosophies sound good. The trouble with mine was, I kept forgetting to take it easy. Until one day. The day I came off the highway into this barber shop.

The barber told me the shop was for sale. I told him all I had to my name was eighty dollars. He sold me the shop for seventy-five, and threw in the haircut. I’ve been here ever since. That was twenty-four years ago.

CLAY: How old were you then?
HARRY: Old enough to know a good thing when I saw it.
CLAY: What did you see?

HARRY: O.K.-by-the-Sea, and this shop.
(He gets out of the chair, goes to the hat tree, [and puts on one of the many hats hanging there.]
--
CLAY: Well, anyhow, thanks a lot. I guess I'll go down to the beach now and look for stuff.

HARRY: I'd go with you but I'm expecting a little Saturday business.
CLAY: This time I'm going to find something really good, I think.

HARRY: The sea washes up some pretty good things at that, doesn't it?
CLAY: It sure does, except money.

HARRY: What do you want with money?
CLAY: Things I need.
HARRY: What do you need?
CLAY: I want to get my father to come home again...

HARRY: Now, wait a minute, Clay, let me get this straight. Where is your father?
CLAY: I don't know.
...............

(Clay with something in his hand, a smaller boy named Greeley with a bottle of sea water, and Roxanna with an assortment of shells.)

CLAY: I got an oyster here, Mr. Van Dusen.
Greeley: Miss McCutcheon [the young new teacher] claims there ain't a big pearl in it.

HARRY: (looking at Miss McCutcheon) Is she willing to admit there's a little one in it?
GREELEY: I don't know. I know I got sea water in this bottle.

TEACHER MCCUTCHEON: Mr. Van Dusen, Clay Larrabee seems to believe there's a pearl in this oyster he happens to have found on the beach.

CLAY: I didn't happen to find it. I went looking for it. You know Black Rock, Mr. Van Dusen? Well, the tide hardly ever gets low enough for a fellow to get around to the ocean side of Black Rock, but a little while ago it did, so I went around there to that side. I got to poking around and I found this oyster.

...............
Excerpted from The Oyster and the Pearl by William Saroyan

What has washed up on your shore today?






What beautiful pebbled moments of wonder?

Photo by Jeanna Doty




Or what irritant, ache, troubling circumstance, or tragedy
has gotten lodged in your oyster mind and heart?

What creative choices can you make to turn this problem into a precious stone/moment/agate?


In the Light,

Daniel Wilcox

"I Dislike Red..." Versus The Case for Human Rights

Sounds good doesn't it? Human rights Justice, Equality, Honesty...

But almost every day in public, on the Internet, in books, in conversations, many human thinkers declare that ethics aren't objectively true,
have no basis in reality but are only subjective opinions,
temporary personal feelings,
and are only constructed by the human brain. No brain, no ethics.

Some claim that ethics are subjective and descriptive, not "ought" at all, because all existence is determinism from the Big Bang, so humans have no alternative choice.

Such smart thinkers have made these sorts of claims:

--I think coffee is tasty, and I think the Holocaust was wrong.

--Slavery is no more wrong than my dislike of the color red.

--Rape is a personal preference.

--The Nazis weren't absolutely wrong to execute others in the Holocaust.

--Morality is subjective.

--Murder and torture aren't always wrong.

--Ethics are only subjective likes and dislikes.

--Raping, molesting, and killing aren't wrong, but only "unpleasant."

--You are being an asshole if you think morality is objectively true.

--Objective moral truths don't exist.

--Altruism is a "misfiring" of evolution, "Darwinian mistakes."

--It is necessary to kill hundreds of thousands of civilians now in order to save our soldiers later.

What grossly immoral and irrational statements, such as comparing one's like or dislike of a drink with the torture and execution of 10 million innocent human beings:-(!

And claiming there are no human rights or no real justice.

I hope such relativistic individuals never serve on a jury where I live.

Contrary to what they are claiming, in a criminal trial, humans seek to be as objective as possible, to eliminate all personal preference and subjectivity, all "likes" and "dislikes," and to find out the truth and administer justice.

One time when I was in a jury selection process, another teacher and I were dismissed by the defense attorney, maybe because he thought we would be too hard on an older teen accused of abuse.

Ideally, he and the prosecuting attorney and the judge and the rest of the jury were there to achieve the most real and most fair justice possible.

Where does this increasing belief by atheists and others, that ethics aren't based in reality come from?

I'm not sure, but it is bafflingly incorrect.

Imagine trying to send a probe to Pluto like NASA did if everyone thought that math is a "self-construct," or "subjective," or a "personal preference," or only a only a group feeling or agreement!

Even more strangely, some of these thinkers who claim that ethics have no basis in reality also claim that math is a construct of the brain and will disappear when humans go extinct.

NO.

Long after we humans have ceased to exist, the cosmos will still continue to function by math.

Indeed, some mathematicians even think that reality is essentially math!

Even if all conscious life ceased the good, the just, the true, would still exist in the same way that mathematics would still exist even if there was no one to compute.

And where ever there is again somewhere in the cosmos, conscious self-aware rational creatures, they will consider reason, honesty, justice, courage, equality, generosity, fidelity, etc. as good and true,
and
irrationalism, dishonesty,injustice, cowardice, racism, greed, adultery, and disloyalty as bad and false.

As Martin Luther King Jr. stated strongly in his "Rediscovering Lost Values" speech, "The first is this-the first principle of value that we need to rediscover is
this-that all reality hinges on moral foundations."

"In other words, that this is a moral universe, and that there are moral laws of the universe, just as abiding as the physical laws."

"...some things are right and some things are wrong. (Yes) Eternally so, absolutely so. It’s wrong to hate..."

But, in contrast to this moral realism and related ethical truths based in the Enlightenment, many atheists and materialists, Divine Command Christians and Muslim leaders
claim that given a different situation and time,
slavery, slaughter, dishonesty could be what is good!

No wonder so few humans and governments actually practice human rights at present.

For at least 250 years, since the time of Thomas Paine and other rational thinkers, many humans have held that equality and human rights are true, and that inequality and the mistreatment and killing of others is wrong.

And the UN Declaration of Human Rights came out nearly 70 years ago, yet now most governments still don't practice human rights and so many American thinkers are denying their reality.

Consider this dialog:

Daniel:I don't live in Saudi Arabia, but it is wrong for every parent there and everywhere to mutilate female girls.

I don't live in Palestine/Israel, but it wrong for every human everywhere to slaughter innocent civilians such as the Palestinian young man who attacked a 70-year-old Jewish woman.

I don't live in Iran, but it is wrong for every society everywhere to deny freedom of speech and freedom of religion like the Iranian Government is doing.

Relativist: If ethics are objective, then why are they NOT wrong there in those countries?

Daniel: Because ethics are "ought," not what "is."

That's like asking why didn't people in the 14 century do calculus or launch space shuttles or cure malaria! Or for that matter why don't all humans do trigonometry?

The reason that millions of Muslims in Saudi Arabia and Egypt, Palestine, etc. still mutilate little female girls is for the same reason that many Americans still justify torture if it is done by us or are prejudiced--BECAUSE
they aren't living up to the reality of true ethics, but are still following some false immoral beliefs.

It's like asking why didn't humans stop the Black Plague? Because they followed false beliefs, and instead blamed Jews and witches and others for the millions of horrific deaths.

Only in the case of ethics, it's more complicated because a medical doctor can recognize germs and stop them, but that doesn't mean that every doctor will do what he ought!

Case in point: brilliant German doctors used their expertise to do immoral experiments on thousands of Jewish individuals. Russian scientists sent sane people to mental institutions and injected them with drugs.

Objective morality and human rights mean that genital mutilation is never right. In the here and now, everywhere. And if there is a conscious, reasoning, ethical alien race somewhere in a far off galaxy, it is wrong there, too.

Ethics and human rights are a constant challenge of what "ought" to be done. Ethics are transcendent, not instinctive.

Another example which shows that ethics aren't subjective:

Recently, a few famous journalists faked their reports, used plagiarism, and gave false information intentionally.

Notice, journalism authorities, newspapers, and the courts didn't say, "Well, ethics are subjective personal preferences, so no problem. Do your own thing."

No, the journalists were penalized, because dishonesty isn't a "subjective personal preference."

Not at all.

Another increasing problem in colleges and schools--cheating!





Is the cheating seen as a "personal preference" by the university, like it's only a student's favorite drink or favorite color?

No way. Students are often expelled for such immoral actions.

Honesty, human rights, justice, peace, kindness, compassion, etc. are objectively true--what "ought to be."

--

From Philosophy Basics:
"Moral Realism (or Moral Objectivism) is the meta-ethical view (see the section on Ethics) that there exist such things as moral facts and moral values, and that these are objective and independent of our perception of them or our beliefs, feelings or other attitudes towards them. Therefore, moral judgments describe moral facts, which are as certain in their own way as mathematical facts.

It is a cognitivist view in that it holds that ethical sentences express valid propositions (and are therefore "truth-apt" i.e. they are able to be true or false), and that they describe the state of the real world. It contrasts with various types of Moral Anti-Realism, including non-cognitivist or expressivist theories of moral judgment, error theories, fictionalist theories and constructivist or relativist theories.

Moral Realism has the advantage of purportedly allowing the ordinary rules of logic to be applied straightforwardly to moral statements, (so that we can say, for example, that a moral belief is false or unjustified or contradictory in the same way we would about a factual belief). It also allows for the resolution of moral disagreements, because if two moral beliefs contradict one another, Moral Realism (unlike some other meta-ethical systems) says that they cannot both be right and so there should be some way of resolving the situation.

Critics have argued that, while Moral Realism may be able to explain how to resolve moral conflicts, it cannot explain how these conflicts arose in the first place. Others have argued Moral Realism posits a kind of "moral fact" which is non-material and unobservable (in the way as objective material facts are observable), and therefore not accessible to the scientific method.

Plato and (arguably) Immanuel Kant and Karl Marx were moral realists, as well as more contemporary philosophers such as G. E. Moore and Ayn Rand..."
http://www.philosophybasics.com/branch_moral_realism.html

--


Consciousness, ethics, aesthetics, math, reason, human rights, justice, altruism, etc. are 'inherent' and 'transcendent.'

They are objectively true.

Reason, the Good, the True, the Just, the Beautiful are eternal.

In the Light,

Daniel Wilcox

The Seductive Nature of Subjectivity in Ethics

The acceptance and use of subjectivity in ethics by humans almost always leads to the escape clause by which "we" and our actions are the just and necessary exception to traditional moral rules. Often those who adopt this way of ethics even claim their actions are the most loving.

Yes, lying is usually morally wrong, but in some cases, it is necessary and the most loving act to do. For instance, I needed to lie...because...

Yes, suicide is sometimes good, because my act will bring about good for others.

Yes, torture is morally wrong for the enemy to do, but because we, the Americans, are the good guys it may be necessary for us to do this to those who are bad.

President George W. Bush: "Another technique was waterboarding, a process of simulated drowning. No doubt the procedure was tough, but medical experts assured the CIA that it did no lasting harm."

"Had I not authorized waterboarding on senior al Qaeda leaders, I would have had to accept a greater risk that the country would be attacked. In the wake of 9/11, that was a risk I was unwilling to take."

Merriam-Webster Dictionary: torture-- “the act of causing severe physical pain as a form of punishment or as a way to force someone to do or say something.”

UN Convention Against Torture: “torture” means any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession… when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public office or other person acting in an official capacity.
U.S. Constitution: no “cruel and unusual punishment”
And it is against the Geneva Conventions.

Presidential Candidate Ted Cruz: “Under the definition of torture, no it’s [waterboarding's] not” [but] I would not bring it back in any sort of widespread use.”

"His sufferings must be that of a man who is drowning, but cannot drown." -Lt. Grover Flint, Philippine-American War
waterboarding.org
--

Suicide:

“The self-immolation of Norman Morrison had been a violent act of love
that brought
diverse people together in strange and unexpected ways. It connected them
through a bond of unimaginable sacrifice that reached from Washington to
Vietnam, from the heart of peace to the heart of war.

Moreover, there must have been many more, including in Washington, whose consciences were
awakened by Norman's self-immolation, even in the Pentagon."
Norman’s Triumph: The Transcendent Language of Self-Immolation
by Nicholas Patler
Quaker History, Fall 2015

On the contrary! Violence can never be an “act of love”!

Especially not lethal violence--the intentional killing of others or one's self.

Violence even in its denotative meaning is to “violate” whether the violence is against others or self-inflicted.

What a misuse of linguistics! War isn’t peace, suicide isn’t a "violent act of love"…

Remember Martin Luther King Jr.'s powerful spiritual words, that one seeks peace by doing peace, never by lethal violence.

A Quaker stating that suicide is a "violent act of love" sounds like the absurd language of the U.S. government, “we had to destroy the village to save it.”
"'It became necessary to destroy the town to save it', a United States major said today.
He was talking about the decision by allied commanders to bomb and shell the town
regardless of civilian casualties, to rout the Vietcong.
Major Describes Move."
New York Times. 8 February 1968

And consider the horrific thinking of Joseph Fletcher, professor
of Christian Ethics at Episcopal Divinity School, who even advocated
the slaughter of many thousands of civilians including children
by atom bombs as a loving act!

Furthermore Fletcher had this to say about killing Down’s Syndrome children:
"People [with children with Down's syndrome]... have no reason to feel guilty about putting a Down's syndrome baby away, whether it's "put away" in the sense of hidden in a sanitarium or in a more responsible lethal sense. It is sad; yes. Dreadful. But it carries no guilt.”

“True guilt arises only from an offense against a person, and a Down's is not a person."
Bard, Bernard; Joseph Fletcher (April 1968). "The Right to Die".
The Atlantic Monthly: 59–64.

Fletcher supported abortion, infanticide, euthanasia, and eugenics.
Wikepedia

ALL in the name of "love," of course....


Work against this "ocean of darkness,"

Daniel Wilcox

Howard H. Brinton's Insights and Warnings: the Modern World/Quaker Movement 64 Years Later

"Unless man [humanity:-*] can develop his[her] interior dimensions in such a way as to form a dyke against the floods from the world without, he will become engulfed in the world of nature and sink back to the subhuman level whence he long ago emerged."
Howard H. Brinton, Friends for 300 Years, 1952

How true this warning has become. In his brilliant book in 1952,
Friends for 300 Years, Brinton demonstrated not only insight
but prophetic foresight as to the future dangers of lopsided and
even delusionary philosophy/religion/ethics.

Surely, I need not document in detail more than I already have
(in the past few months of commentaries and reflections on this
blog) how modern American society--despite a few advances
including upholding rights for all humans--has seeped tragically
into relativism and subjectivism in ethics,
how so many smart educated humans
now claim that ethics are only
"personal preferences."

As bad as the 1950's were in many ways, most Americans including
Friends thought that there was objective good and evil, ultimate
truth, and that the Light is real, not a subjective experience.
Not so for many now in the darkening end of 2015.

Whew...that's the bad news.

But Brinton in the book offers
the complex answer of the Good News
as well.

According to Brinton, there are 4 key essentials in true religion:
"The best type of religion is one in which the mystical, the evangelical, the rational, and the social are so related that each exercises a restraint on the others.

--Too exclusive an emphasis on mysticism results in a religion which is individualistic, subjective, and vague;

--too dominant an evangelicalism results in a religion which is authoritarian, creedal, and external;

--too great an emphasis on rationalism results in a cold intellectual religion which appeals only to the few;

--too engrossing a devotion to the social gospel results in a religion which, in improving the outer environment, ignores defects in the inner life which cause the outer disorder.

In Quakerism the optimum is not equality in rank of the four elements. The mystical is basic. The Light Within occasions the acceptance or rejection of a particular authority, reason, or service." (pages 203-205, Friends for 300 Years by Howard H. Brinton, Pendle Hill)
--

While agreeing with Brinton so much in this book, I do disagree with his last statement--that "The mystical is basic. The Light Within..."

I'm not disagreeing with him or any other thinker in the sense that ultimate reality doesn't precede the rational but that for so many Quakers and other humans now, "mystical" has become another "empty-bucket" word which means a million different things. And has become primarily to mean something individualistic and postmodern.

If everyone were to use the term "mystical" in the Merriam-Webster Dictionary sense, then I would agree:
"Full Definition of mystical
1
a : having a spiritual meaning or reality that is neither apparent to the senses nor obvious to the intelligence...
b : involving or having the nature of an individual's direct subjective communion with God or ultimate reality..."


In the Light,

Daniel Wilcox

--
*How dated 60-year-old books seem now with their un-egalitarianism language. It isn't surprising when one sees it in most books, but to see the old usage in a Friends' seminal work does shock, since Friends have emphasized equality to one degree or another for over 365 years. On the other hand, the "man," and "he's" were linguistic convention, probably something that Brinton didn't even notice.

Seeking True Ethics in the New Year

Besides such a wonder-working miracle--finding true ethics--I will also explain the future of the multitverse in the billion-year'd future and what stone age men thought about women;-)

Seriously, seeking true ethics is one of the most difficult tasks any of us can choose. Given that so many non-religious leaders in 2015 (and before) have stated that ethics are only "subjective," "relative," "personal preferences," and not "real," is it any wonder that many humans are confused when it comes
to the questions of "ought"?

Or consider the strange anomaly of so many religious leaders in 2015 claiming that various immoral or unjust actions are only wrong because such actions contradict what God has commanded, Divine Command Theory. If God changes his commands (as the Deity often did in the past), then true ethics change.

And even worse, so many church leaders claim God will call you to commit immoral actions.

Worst of all many Christian, Muslim, and Hindu leaders, again, claimed God--before the universe began--pre-planned every murder, every rape, every molestation, every natural evil disaster for God's-self! And if you question such a gargantuan horror, they ask who do you think God is?!
God can do whatever he wills because God is God!

To Hell/Abyss/Sheol with all such terrible claims.

Eliminating those majority views at least narrows the multi-pronged choices staring at us at every moment when we need to choose.

Now for the New Year:-) Let's seek the Light, seek the Life, seek the Good, seek the Just.

But how does one do so? The difficulty is in the details.

On Christmas Eve one online commentator challenged me to provide a better method than the Christian religion has provided in the last 2,000 years.

First, it would appear to most people who study history that religion hasn't provided a good code of ethics. On the contrary it has done a horrific job supporting everything from slavery and slaughter to discrimination and persecution. No, Christianity hasn't provided a reliable ethical guide. Check out books such as Jesus Wars by Phillip Jenkins or some of the recent critical commentaries on Islam.

BUT
that doesn't mean anyone else has come up with a sure method of finding what is "oughtfully" true.

The human conscience (except in sociopaths) declares we are to do right, to do the good, but doesn't usually clarify what or how. In fact in history, the most evil actions were committed not by immoral choosers, but by conscientious, dutiful humans!

Let's get an eagle's overview of the mountainous region of ethics:

#1 Probably, the spiritual side of the Enlightenment has achieved the most ethically.

Most humans have come to at least give lip service to the ideals of human rights, equality, justice and to condemn the slaughter of innocent humans, poverty, prejudice, torture, slavery, and so forth. Reason has shown to be more true, more effective, more real than any religious dogma ever was.

However, even in reason and transcendent claims there are doubts and problems and dilemmas. Fortunately, most humans seldom have to deal with the extremes such as the trolley car dilemma and other difficult choices.

Indeed, I wonder why so many ethicists immediately jump to the most extreme difficult examples when the subject of morality is brought up.

In general, for instance, it would seem that honesty and justice are reliable goals, even if in a few severe situations, one might choose dishonesty and injustice in order to save human lives.

After all, if I moved back to the Middle East and soon was faced with a dire threat by HAMAS or Hezbollah, and chose to lie to protect innocent Jewish civilians,
my lie still wouldn't be true.

Later after human rights organizations got the innocent safely out of the clutches of "Godly" religious organizations, I ought to then print an acknowledgment of my dishonest statement.

Too often humans quickly jump to the immoral choice--declaring it good--when encountering a difficult trial. For example Americans constantly condemn Muslims in the Middle East for using torture and terrorism, but quickly defend the U.S. government when it tortures and slaughters.

Let's take non-religious leaders' most extreme example: Ought a good human--if there are no other possible options--murder or rape to defend innocent people?

No.


When making ethical choices, the means is part of the end. When you pick up the immoral ethical stick on one end you get the other, too, even if your intentions are good.

Just for the sake of illustration, what if a U.S. Seal coulc only save a young Iraqi girl in Ramadi from being tortured and murdered by raping her?

Such an undercover individual might choose to rape the girl because he thinks raping her isn't as evil as letting the Islamic State thugs behead or stone her.

HOWEVER, his act of rape--even though done with good intentions--still will harm the girl and is therefore wrong.

Cliche warning: One evil in response to another evil doesn't make a good. Never.



#2 Keep in mind that many ethical truisms from the ancient past don't need to be jettisoned, probably not even questioned.

Contrary to what various thinkers such as Michael Shermer and Valire Tarico state, the 10 Commandments of Jews, Christians, and Muslims are a very good start toward seeking true ethics, especially when updated with the new ethical insights of the Enlightenment.

10. Don't covet. Don't inordinately desire what belongs to another person.

Sounds like a good start toward community and well-balanced mental/emotional health for each individual.

9. Don't lie. Honesty is the basis of so many other ethical truths. Heck, Enlightenment actions such as scientific method and reason can't even work if adherents practice lying.

8. Don't steal. Think how many wars and conflicts would never occur if humans didn't steal. The tragic events in Palestine/Israel would never have happened if in the past (and at present) Jews, Muslims, and Christians hadn't stolen.

7. Don't commit adultery. In Shermer's new book, The Moral Arc, advocating good ethics based on reason, he writes that this commandment "doesn't take into account the wide variety of circumstances in which people find themselves."

What sort of weak reasoning is that?!

Ethical codes are meant to guide us, not to excuse us, and aren't to be controlled by circumstances in which we "find ourselves" but to CHANGE those circumstances and change us!

On the contrary, circumstances often lead humans to "lose themselves." Think of how many famous leaders in the last 30 years have "lost themselves" and caused all manner of harm to others because they committed adultery.

Consider how many families have been broken apart because one spouse was disloyal/betrayed the other.

Trailrunner iRunFar/Bryon Powell

To be continued--


In the Light,

Daniel Wilcox