The Pope

[Pure]

please readers--you who aren't bored to death-- note that Roxanne is unable to state and defend a coherent position on any of the moral situations that have been mentioned (including by R herself), from force, to treatment of rape victims, to the most recent examples i posted. it's all machisma and breast beating, coupled with insults.

 

[Roxanne Appleby]

please readers--you who aren't bored to death-- note that Roxanne is unable to state and defend a coherent position on any of the moral situations that have been mentioned (including by R herself), from force, to treatment of rape victims, to the most recent examples i posted. it's all machisma and breast beating, coupled with insults.

Please readers, who certainly are hanging on every word, Pure is asking that I propose a standard, when he believes that no standard is possible. If no standard is possible, what's the point of me proposing a standard?

And I'm not offering any insults. I'm pointing out a gaping hole in your moral relativism, and it just feels like an insult to you.

 

[past_perfect]

Please readers, who certainly are hanging on every word, Pure is asking that I propose a standard, when he believes that no standard is possible. If no standard is possible, what's the point of me proposing a standard?

I would call that circular logic. If you can maintain that a standard is possible and that there are specific reasons for that, you would have to state it/them irrespective of your opponent's viewpoint. Then he in turn would have to offer a convincing rebuttal to your view.

If you are as sure of your position as I presume you are, you shouldn't have any problems responding adequately to that either.

In other words, he is not asking you to defend his beliefs, but your own - if you concede that is not possible, you'd admit defeat, or introduce a new element of relativism I haven't been able to glean from your previous statements.

 

[Roxanne Appleby]

I would call that circular logic. If you can maintain that a standard is possible and that there are specific reasons for that, you would have to state it/them irrespective of your opponent's viewpoint. Then he in turn would have to offer a convincing rebuttal to your view.

If you are as sure of your position as I presume you are, you shouldn't have any problems responding adequately to that either.

In other words, he is not asking you to defend his beliefs, but your own - if you concede that is not possible, you'd admit defeat, or introduce a new element of relativism I haven't been able to glean from your previous statements.

Very reasonable, PP. What you can't be expected to know is that this is just the latest in a long round of matches between Pure and I on this issue. I have proposed a standard many times, most explicitly here, Is moral relativism in conflict with the West's "humanist project"? , in particular posts 1, 60, 89, 124, and 125.

Also, please note the contradictions posted by my adversaries here. They deny any standard is possible (and only ask that I propose one so they can knock it down), but then they make moral assertions that certain things are good or evil based on - blank out. They want it both ways - to stake out moral positions, but deny that any moral standard is possible.



PS. Here are the links. The second, No. 60, is where I most explicitly propose a standard.
https://forum.literotica.com/showpost.php?p=15387275&postcount=1
https://forum.literotica.com/showpost.php?p=15407085&postcount=60
https://forum.literotica.com/showpost.php?p=15425996&postcount=89
https://forum.literotica.com/showpost.php?p=15445670&postcount=124
https://forum.literotica.com/showpost.php?p=15454268&postcount=125

 

[Pure]

tut tut

R on her opponents,

They want it both ways - to stake out moral positions, but deny that any moral standard is possible.

Grossly distorted. I deny that Roxy has any 'objective' proof of the universal validity of her Victorian standards of morality, esp. those that prescribe benevolence only for the deserving poor with right ethics, the down-in-the-cups Republicans.

I question the 'objective' basis of her alleged concerns with raped third world women given that she denies legal remedies to women harassed on the job or fired for not 'putting out'; and would deny them any legal recourse if they're being paid half of what men are for the same work; or if they're fired upon becoming pregnant.

Roxy, from her fundamentalist leainings, is somehow of the view that if I hear my neighbor moving his lawn at 6 am Sunday, I can't go call him out for his inconsiderateness,

unless I've found Reason supporting my standards for proper times of lawnmowing,

and unless I have, in my own mind, convincing reasons for thinking the Cosmos applauds my action as furthering human civilization.

 

[Roxanne Appleby]

R on her opponents,

They want it both ways - to stake out moral positions, but deny that any moral standard is possible.

Grossly distorted. I deny that Roxy has any 'objective' proof of the universal validity of her Victorian standards of morality, esp. those that prescribe benevolence only for the deserving poor with right ethics, the down-in-the-cups Republicans.

I question the 'objective' basis of her alleged concerns with raped third world women given that she denies legal remedies to women harassed on the job or fired for not 'putting out'; and would deny them any legal recourse if they're being paid half of what men are for the same work; or if they're fired upon becoming pregnant.

Roxy, from her fundamentalist leainings, is somehow of the view that if I hear my neighbor moving his lawn at 6 am Sunday, I can't go call him out for his inconsiderateness,

unless I've found Reason supporting my standards for proper times of lawnmowing,

and unless I have, in my own mind, convincing reasons for thinking the Cosmos applauds my action as furthering human civilization.

Just more dodging and weaving, changing the subject and attacking the person who's posing thorny challenges to the manifold contradictions ineherent in moral relativism.

 

[Pure]

R's pearls,

R: It is man's nature to want to live and enjoy life.

Upon this premise you can build a universal reason-based ethics that is very useful in living our daily lives.

P: Promises promises. R hasn't got beyond mass murder in the alleged derivation she says she's capable of performing. And even that one didn't go so well. (See my post above, #97, today, 9:41am EDT, on the futility of the rational argument against genocide. It is ignored by R, of course.)

We await with bated breath.

Besides, this is a lady who can't think of convincing reasons not to kill and eat the neighborhood stray dog. Or to use any public funds to feed the neighbor's baby if she's not properly motivated to work.

 

[Roxanne Appleby]

R: It is man's nature to want to live and enjoy life.

Upon this premise you can build a universal reason-based ethics that is very useful in living our daily lives.

P: Promises promises. R hasn't got beyond mass murder in the alleged derivation she says she's capable of performing. And even that one didn't go so well. (See my post above, #97, today, 9:41am EDT, on the futility of the rational argument against genocide. It is ignored by R, of course.)

We await with bated breath.

Besides, this is a lady who can't think of convincing reasons not to kill and eat the neighborhood stray dog. Or to use any public funds to feed the neighbor's baby if she's not properly motivated to work.

As I said, they only want me to propose a standard so as to provide a target. Then they proceed to make their own moral assertions without specifying any standard on which these are based, while simulatneously denying that any standard is even possible. The moral relativists promote their confused and contradictory concepts with tremendous energy and mountains of words, but in the end they just want to tear things down, not try to build anything. They cannot tolerate any confident expression of a belief that life has a purpose, a belief in individual efficacy, or a belief in truth, beauty, and goodness. They believe that such expressions must never be allowed to stand, but must be challenged and denied wherever they appear and in whatever form.

 

[Roxanne Appleby]

We interrupt the contentious and most likely pointless exchange between Roxanne and Pure to bring you a message from the subject of this thread, the Pope. Seriously, the dilemma Pure and I are sniping over is profound, and smarter people than either of us are wrestling with it. The Pope is one of these. This is from an article about his speech:

The offending quotation was a small part in a chain of argument that led to his main thesis about the close relationship between reason and belief. Without the right balance between the two, the pontiff said, mankind is condemned to the "pathologies and life-threatening diseases associated with religion and reason" -- in short, political and religious fanaticism.

In Christianity, God is inseparable from reason. "In the beginning was the Word," the pope quotes from the Gospel according to John. "God acts with logos. Logos means both reason and word," he explained. "The inner rapprochement between Biblical faith and Greek philosophical inquiry was an event of decisive importance not only from the standpoint of history of religions, but also from that of world history. . . . This convergence, with the subsequent addition of the Roman heritage, created Europe."

The question raised by the pope is whether this convergence has taken place in Islam as well. He quotes the Lebanese Catholic theologist Theodore Khoury, who said that "for Muslim teaching, God is absolutely transcendent, his will is not bound up with any of our categories." If this is true, can there be dialogue at all between Islam and the West? For the pope, the precondition for any meaningful interfaith discussions is a religion tempered by reason: "It is to this great logos, to this breadth of reason, that we invite our partners in the dialogue of cultures," he concluded.

It's unlikely I will agree with any resolution this or any other Pope proposes to this dilemma, but I respect anyone who makes a good faith effort to try, instead of just tearing down.

 

[Pure]

The Pope's lecture

is the topic of the following thread, which has excerpts, summary, and the url for the talk in its entirety.

https://forum.literotica.com/showthread.php?t=460806

 

[Joesephus]

Thanks for the link to the actual text

There are of course some very subtle points being made. I've found the discussion here to be very enlightening. I have studied Islam and Christianity but only around my general courses.

What does bother me is that one side of this discussion seems to want to shut down all expression except their own. It is the "my way or the highway" that leads to guns and bullet.

I'm not Catholic, but to call for the assination of the pope because of this speech is scary to me.

 

[Jenny_Jackson]

The thing that everyone is missing on this thread is that there is no such thing as either "Islam" or "Christianity". There are MANY "Islams" and just as many "Christianities".

A mormon is different than an Episcopalian is different from a Catholic is different from a Baptist and so on. In the same vane, there are just as many tribal "denominations" of Moslems.

When you talk about Moslems in the context of this thread one needs to differentiate Shites, Sunnies and so on. Some of these tribal demonimations are hostile, some are not. Many of those who are not hostile hold beliefs that are not much different than the general Christian beliefs.

It's sad that there is so much misunderstanding about this point, not just here, but also in our government. The idea that we, as a nation of laws, can take one-third of the population of the Earth and classify them as "The Axis of Evil" is childish, inappropriate and just wrong. Then you wonder why the middle eastern moslems hate us?

The Papacy stopped being a world power several hundred years ago. But the Vatican still trys to act as if it still is. In the Pope's speech, he should not have used words that he now claims he does no agree with. However, when said, those words were used, they were spoken as ideas borrowed from a distant predicessor that he agreed with. The was no denunciation of the words or ideas at the time, only after the controversy began. That is suspicious.

I do not hide the fact that I have no love for the Papacy. And I will go on record here as saying I have no respect for the current Pope, as I see him as untrustworthy for a number of reasons.

 

[Roxanne Appleby]

Although there are many flavors of "Islam" and "Christianity" and these can be parsed many ways, I think it's useful to focus on where the "mainstream" of each faith is, albeit how far you can go with this may be limited. Our interest is really the extent to which the "mainstream" of each faith has reconciled itself to modernity, or to reason, to use the Pope's formulation. Clearly, Christianity is much further advanced in this regard.

Now I don't mean to be insulting, and I actually do respect this pope because he's wrestling with important issues in what I believe is a sincere and good faith manner, but when you get right down to it, and to use non-compromising language, we're talking about a 1st century superstition (Christianity and a 7th century superstition (Islam). Yes, that may be oversimplified, because there's a lot of deep-thinking philosophy built upon those foundations, but epistemologically those foundations themselves are no more valid than this one.

 

[Pure]

i think if ms. rocks has the answers to so many of life's ethical problems she should start a thread where she teaches her wisdom with examples-- sort of like the columnist "the ethicist" in the NY Times magazine.

her certainty would draw followers, and perhaps she could avoid the mistakes of her mentor, ms rand, who cast out all those who disagreed with her 'objective truths' and 'rational' approach to all of life's issues.

or, she would follow the path of her mentor and other bearers of the objective truth and declare all those who disagree to be morally corrupt. those who persistently disagree being evil enough to warrant rationally justifiable excision from the body politic (consult chrysostom, the various medieval popes, and calvin on this topic).

overall, those intolerant of error who gain any power over others often turn out to be intolerant of the bearers of error, esp when the errorists persist in their ways and views. the truth guardians have increasing difficulty finding any reason the errorists should not be shut away or put down. (witness the hangings of Quakers by Puritans in the Massachusetts colony; Calvin's executions)

 

[O'Mac]

The thing that everyone is missing on this thread is that there is no such thing as either "Islam" or "Christianity". There are MANY "Islams" and just as many "Christianities".

A mormon is different than an Episcopalian is different from a Catholic is different from a Baptist and so on. In the same vane, there are just as many tribal "denominations" of Moslems.

When you talk about Moslems in the context of this thread one needs to differentiate Shites, Sunnies and so on. Some of these tribal demonimations are hostile, some are not. Many of those who are not hostile hold beliefs that are not much different than the general Christian beliefs.

It's sad that there is so much misunderstanding about this point, not just here, but also in our government. The idea that we, as a nation of laws, can take one-third of the population of the Earth and classify them as "The Axis of Evil" is childish, inappropriate and just wrong. Then you wonder why the middle eastern moslems hate us?

The Papacy stopped being a world power several hundred years ago. But the Vatican still trys to act as if it still is. In the Pope's speech, he should not have used words that he now claims he does no agree with. However, when said, those words were used, they were spoken as ideas borrowed from a distant predicessor that he agreed with. The was no denunciation of the words or ideas at the time, only after the controversy began. That is suspicious.

I do not hide the fact that I have no love for the Papacy. And I will go on record here as saying I have no respect for the current Pope, as I see him as untrustworthy for a number of reasons.

I'll agree with quite a bit of that, actually. Especially how our media and social or political leaders find it so easy to paint an entire demographic with the same brush. There's like, what? 72 tribes of Islam I think. Each with differing points of view with regards to dogma and traditions. The same goes with Christianity and various other faiths around the world. This is the big problem I have. All too often the moderates and extermists from entirely different beliefs seem to get clumped together into one large group.

I'm not Catholic and have no loyalty to the papacy, but I respect the fact that most Catholics do and beleive in papal supremacy. I don't but hey, I could be wrong. And that's the sorta outlook I view faith in general. Maybe the Bhuddists have the right idea. Maybe the Orthodox Christians do. Or maybe the Jews. Maybe the Scientologists have the best understanding. I just have my beliefs and I constantly change them based on new experiences and knowledge.

 

[Roxanne Appleby]

i think if ms. rocks has the answers to so many of life's ethical problems she should start a thread where she teaches her wisdom with examples-- sort of like the columnist "the ethicist" in the NY Times magazine.

her certainty would draw followers, and perhaps she could avoid the mistakes of her mentor, ms rand, who cast out all those who disagreed with her 'objective truths' and 'rational' approach to all of life's issues.

or, she would follow the path of her mentor and other bearers of the objective truth and declare all those who disagree to be morally corrupt. those who persistently disagree being evil enough to warrant rationally justifiable excision from the body politic (consult chrysostom, the various medieval popes, and calvin on this topic).

overall, those intolerant of error who gain any power over others often turn out to be intolerant of the bearers of error, esp when the errorists persist in their ways and views. the truth guardians have increasing difficulty finding any reason the errorists should not be shut away or put down. (witness the hangings of Quakers by Puritans in the Massachusetts colony; Calvin's executions)

I don't know - Maybe I'll start a thread in which I just demean and sneer at all those who disagree with me.

You realize, of course, that in your certainty that there can be no certainly you actually commit many of the sins that you accuse those who offer something real to believe in of having the potential to commit.

Question for readers: What is the purpose of ethics and morality for those who believe this life is valuable in itself? There is one, you know – it's not just a parlor game for law professors and judges.

 

[Pure]

same old tape,

if you're going to be Lit's ethicist, Ms. Rocks, you have to learn to be clear and accurate:

R: in your total certainty that there can be no certainly [certainty] you actually commit many of the sins that you accuse your adversaries who try to find something real to believe in of having the potential to commit.

P: You might consult an English teacher regarding your syntax.

This piece of garble is apparently the tired old (alleged) refutation of Dummies' Extreme Skepticism, the skeptic being assumed to be so stupid as to say, "I know for certain that nothing can be known for certain."

As I said before, I'm pretty certain, based on what you've said before, including in the canonical posts of yours about 'foundations,' that you have no good 'objective' reasons or rational basis for your moral/ethical stance, even for the simplest of cases you've selected to show your stuff. Nor, based on my experience do I have any reason (I'm pretty sure) to expect you will come up with any in the future.

You imply that those who _want to survive and enjoy life_--theirs-- will have some reason not to exterminate their neighboring tribe or their group of social "undesirables". However, that I want to continue my life does not logically imply that I want you to continue yours. So your claim is, on its face, utterly fallacious, and flies in the face of what we know about humans' conduct, historically.

I have further illustrated in a dialogue how you (probably) cannot supply a good 'reason' for abstaining--based on human equality-- to someone bent on genocide of 'inferior specimens.' It is not a simple task to demonstrate that 'inferior specimens' are not so, esp. when you have a group, say, African Slaves in the US in 1840 who have been *treated* as inferior, and oppressed--and who thus appear of inferior attainments and even criminal tendencies (e.g. Roma).

Indeed it was the view of Thomas Jefferson, no slouch in intellectual gifts or scientific knowledge, that Black people (African slaves or even free men) were generally of less-than-standard intelligence.

I'm glad you have something to believe in. No doubt it suits your needs. I'm glad too, when others find something to believe in. However in many cases, including yours and the Pope's, I see no objective, rational foundation for those beliefs (no reason to assume they are rationally-based, timeless and universal truths about human beings)--I'm pretty sure there aren't any such reasons for those cases.

 

[Roxanne Appleby]

Oh no, you're no "dummie," Pure. You would never step into such a transparent trap as, "I know for certain there can be no certainty." You will add inumeralble hedges, qualifications, escape hatches, a mountain of rationalizations, vast assemblages of words. But boil them all down and guess what? It comes down to, you are certain, because there is nothing in this universe that could convince you that there can be any certainty - not even the certain fact of your own existance.

 

[Pure]

thank you for clarifying my thinking for me. though i'm not certain you have.

your posting is an attack on a group, and without substance on the ethical issues.

 

[Roxanne Appleby]

You are correct that I attack, not a group though, but on the infinitely destructive idea that there can be no standard of right and wrong, and no morality. It is ultimately an attack on my purpose in life, which is to enjoy my life. And on yours too, for that matter, whoever reads this.

 

[Pure]

R's attack

R: You are correct that I attack, not a group though, but on the infinitely destructive idea that there can be no standard of right and wrong, and no morality.

wow, that's pretty destructive. shades of the Pope on 'mortal sin.'

as a matter of fact, and so far as I recall, most of the exterminators of large numbers of humans have been those who profess to have the objective truth, and to be pursuing 'objective good.' the ones who talk like ms rocks. Popes, crusaders, Stalin, Calvin, Goerring.

i cant think of any largescale murder (>100) by anyone who says, 'there's no right and wrong, so I/we do as I/we please.' But I await with bated breath for the list.

---
Just to anticipate: Rocks is going to say, "But objectivists alone HAVE the objective truth and haven't mass killed anyone. And according to us, all the folks on your mass murder list are actually subjectivists and relativists. You must go by *our* determination, on objective grounds, as to who's objective and who's subjective."

ho hum. bring it on.