alt.education

"Joe Irvin" wrote:
>"Bob LeChevalier" wrote in message
>news:j4njr3tf6g8jsav5olf2ql9c0ro5nhsfeh@4ax.com...
>>>
>>>Altruism ... acting against his and all on the bank self-interest.
>>
>> Altruism exists in animals.
>
>So what? ... not nearly to the extent as in man.

So. A matter of degree is not a matter of category.

>You point out an exception and you think it makes your case, yet when I do the same it doesn't make my
>case ...

I don't make claims about "all" or absolutes, so single examples don't
disprove my claims. You do, and thus set yourself up to be wrong.

>TJ, GW, Madison, George Mason were slave owners and against
>slavery, yet it doesn't make my case ...

correct.

BTW, I forgot to mention that slavery existed in Christian lands for
around 1700 years before any of those people lived. You claim a
principle of universal morality, and you claim that ALL people know
what is moral because of God-given conscience. So not only to you
have the majority of Southerners to explain away, you have the vast
majority of the history of Christendom.

It is much simpler to accept the explanation that most people saw
NOTHING wrong with slavery, though they might have preferred a
different choice if they were among the slaves (but in ancient Rome,
people sometimes *voluntarily* sold themselves into slavery - it was a
ticket into Rome and offered the possibility that their kids might be
Roman citizens - so they couldn't have felt that slavery was "evil").

It was human rationalization, primarily based on the Enlightenment,
fundamentally areligious rationalization, that introduced ideas that
contradicted the teachings of the church and the examples of slavery
in the Bible. And it still took a few generations before most people
were convinced.

> how about some consistency?

Choose defensible claims, and you might find it easier to defend them.

>>>If that was a cat in the Potomac I don't think other cats would have
>>>jumped in to save it.
>>
>> They have different instincts.
>
>True, they need to be altruistic on a human level to be counted as
>altruistic as humans. ...

By you perhaps. But you don't count, except to you.

>>>I don't, I just know he took action.
>>
>> Therefore, he may have acted on instinct. The fact that most others
>> did not react the same way, indeed makes it likely that he acted on
>> instinct.
>
>What instinct do you call that, that says give up your life for a complete
>and total stranger? Its altruism, something that Darwin couldn't explain.

Darwin couldn't, but his successors have, and they have demonstrated
that their explanation works.

Science doesn't worship Darwin as the giver of all answers to all
questions.

>>>> Hitler probably though he was doing "right" too. We just think that
>>>> his standard of right was wrong.
>>>
>>>If so, he must have wondered why so many people thought he was wrong.
>>
>> Why do you think he knew many people though he was wrong?
>
>They went to war against him was his first clue.

He went to war against them. He didn't give them the choice.

>> Have you been a parent? Kids are intelligent. By the time they are
>> teenagers, they can think of a dozen ways to get around any
>> restriction their parent puts on them. They then decide if it is
>> worth it if they get caught (if they think they will get caught - some
>> kids cannot imagine that their parents could catch them. In many
>> cases they are correct)
>
>Still doesn't releive parents of their responsibility to raise their kids
>and make them obey.

You can give them all the responsibility you want, but parents CAN'T
"make them obey". In most cases there is no legal way that they can
even eliminate the possibility of disobedience; chaining your kids up
in their rooms will get you a jail term.

>>>Lots of people would disagree with you ... abortion issue ... after 30+
>>>years it hasn't been settled.
>>
>> Of course it has. The right wing just hasn't accepted that it has
>> lost. It has.
>
>The right wing is/are people.

They've lost.

All they can do is make decisions for themselves, not for others.

>>>IMO, the issue would have been settled years
>>>ago, if the decision would have been left to the State govts.
>>
>> Not hardly.
>
>How can you know that?

You would have had 50 different decisions, and people would simply go
across state lines to find the decision that they wanted. Just like
homosexuals not from Massachusetts have gone there to get married.

>>
>>>>>> Hindu or Buddhist moral beliefs are not the same as Christian moral
>>>>>> beliefs. Nor are Jewish moral beliefs the same.
>>>>>
>>>>>Like what ... they all believe murder is wrong,
>>>>
>>>> For one thing, they may define "murder" differently.
>>>
>>>Murder is murder is murder.
>>
>> Did the US murder thousands of Iraqis?
>
>No.

So murder isn't always murder.

Hitler probably believed something akin to you about the people he
went to war with.

>> Did the colonists murder most native Americans?
>
>Probably.

Actually, I don't think they did. Most natives were killed by
disease, that the colonists did not know that they were the cause of.

By the time of the "French-Indian War" they knew, as they launched
smallpox-laden blankets over the walls of Indian villages. But North
America may have been 75% depopulated by then.

>>>Well, the NT let us bail on some of the dietary laws. ;)
>>
>> That is your personal belief.
>
>No, its in the Bible.

It is your personal belief that this "lets you bail". I believe "not
one jot or tiddle" overrides what someone else said.

>>>> There are a couple of the ten which all the religious AND
>>>> NON-RELIGIOUS agree on, which means that they have nothing to do with
>>>> religion. Of course they may define what falls within the bounds of
>>>> the standard differently. A Pacifist Quaker understands "thou shalt
>>>> not kill" differently from most other Christians.
>>>
>>>If they agree on the few they must have something to do with religion.
>>
>> No. Because atheists also agree with them.
>
>That still takes nothing away from what I said, just because atheists happen
>to believe it also.

If atheists agree (belief is the wrong word), then it has nothing to
do with *religion*.

>> I'm talking about the thousands of people killed by our bombs and
>> missiles?
>
>Yes, our bombs/missiles/armed forces killed probably thousands, but didn't
>murder them.

Rationalization.

We knew our actions would kill innocents, and we did it anyway.

>> Of course, by what right did we kill a single Iraqi?
>
>They failed to live up to the cease fire agreement so hostilities were
>resumed.

Did those infants that we killed fail to live up to the cease fire
agreement?

Hitler apparently felt that since some Jews broke his laws, that it
was moral for him to kill them all. You apparently agree, so long as
"hostilities are resumed".

What gave us the right to impose the cease-fire in the first place,
and to decide that "they" had failed to live up to it?

>> War is murder.
>
>Murder happens in war ... some wars are just wars and killing is accepted.

I thought you were opposed to humans deciding what is moral. Just
because it is "accepted" doesn't make it "right" - at least by your
prior statements.

And I don't think that most of the Iraqs "accepted" it. So now you
are forced to invoke "might make right"

>Murder isn't the aim of the US armed forces, but killing the enemy is.

Declaring someone the "enemy" then is legitimizing murder.

>> God said "thou shalt not kill", but he commanded Israelites to kill.
>
>Murder, I think it was ... God is transcendent who are we to question God.

Human.

>God doesn't have to answer to humans

Of course He does.

>... ask Job.

He got lucky with Job. Most people would have abandoned faith in God
long before.

>Some things we just don't know.

But you'll happily invoke the Bible and pretend you do anyway.

The Bible gives no knowledge - just words.

You can argue that God's inspiration gives you knowledge, but God can
do that without the Bible (unless you don't think he is all-powerful).
And given that people have claimed that God's inspiration and the
Bible have given them all sorts of contradictory "knowledge", it quite
arguably isn't really "knowledge" even then.

What you might have is "faith". I have faith myself. But I don't
confuse faith with knowledge.

lojbab