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Old 01-01-2009, 09:29 AM   #49 (permalink)
Inuzuka Skysword
Existential Egoist
 
Join Date: Jan 2007
Location: Pennsylvania
Posts: 1,468
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Originally Posted by sleepy jack View Post
I'm going to address this again later; god and morality are not two things I can personally think about in the exact same manner because they're clearly different things that have to be approached with entirely different arguments.
A rational man tries to be rational in ALL AREAS. You can be rational in morality, and in religion. To say that sometimes rationality works and sometimes it doesn't is a flawed argument. If you argue for reason at all you must regard it as an absolute.

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Selfish, by definition, isn't doing what you do by your own justification. I don't know what dictionary you've been reading but all these and my own basically say selfish is caring for ones self.

selfish - Definition from the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary
selfish definition | Dictionary.com
First of all, the dictionary corrupts the word due to all the Marxist and religious propaganda. Rand, in her books, defines selfishness as "concern with one's own interests." The reason being, you can be concerned with your own interests and still care about others. If it is in your interests to help someone and you do, then you are totally disregarding their interests, but you still care about that person. If you care for your own self (to use your definition) and your own self takes interest in somebody, isn't it in your interests to do things for that person? You can not simultaneously care for your own interests and somebody else's interests at the same level because that it impossible. My point is, if you will do do anything, you are selfish. If you put your mind above everyone else's, you have automatically said, "I care about myself more than everybody else." For me to do something because I freely will it, then that means I have done it in a rational and voluntary way. I am ultimately responsible for that action, hence, I control my own body. This is selfishness just like not giving to charity. I want to keep what it mine and do what I want to do with it.

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See, you're comparing religion and morality again despite your constant claims you're not trying to. They're two entirely different things! Religion can be argued from a scientific and historical perspective to disprove that. All history proves to us is that ethical standards are constantly progressing and morality is ever-changing (which makes it hard to be objective if its constantly evolving.) It used to be acceptable to hit your wife, own slaves and shoot a man if he questioned your integrity. It isn't anymore and I don't know how you'd even begin to apply science to morality seeing as everyone has their own individual thoughts and it would be a constantly progressing study that never stayed the same and couldn't be replicated in study because the people you're studying wouldn't be the same.
@Bold: They were all following the wrong morality. See, you are making it sound like what you believe is an objective morality is a combination of everyone's moralities at the time. However, the reason to not even own slaves is because you violate what Rand has described as the non-aggression axiom. More on this can be found here: Non-Aggression Axiom. My point is, the objective morality is objective because it is logical and rational. Would you say flying turtles exist just because 99% of the earth says they do? No, because that doesn't prove it is right. In the same way the objective morality is not based on a combination of everyone's morals at the time. Everyone can have the wrong morality at wrong time. The objective morality still remains the same.

As far as religion goes, you are missing the strongest argument against it, which is whether it is rational for me to waste my time believing in it. All the scientific proof in the world just shows that religion is improbable, but the argument isn't over. Now you use rationality to say that because I don't believe in flying turtles or live garden gnomes, I can't consistently say I believe in a God. The only consistent way to believe in God is to render reason false, and at that point the person can go curl up in a corner.

I use religion because that is what, to most people, is considered one of the weirdest things out there. Don't get caught up on the topics I used. I used them because they all have the same general fallacy. My point is to show why reason must be consistent throughout a rational man. It is simply the definition.

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If you look at that with that much scope then of course it appears selfish because you're valuing your own over everything else but giving to everyone in need is impossible (unless you have enough to give) so of course you have to limit your charity to what is probable. There is reason and justification for being charitable (which isn't a synonym with selfish though in this case I guess it is) in that case.
It is still selfish though. If you were selfless, you would give until you had nothing left and then starve to death because your life doesn't even matter to yourself.

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You LET it happen which is making it consensual, if you do nothing to stop being raped (because you're "selfless" even though you're grossly misinterpreting what being selfless means) it isn't rape anymore it's just sex.
Do you know what a Frankfurt Scenario is? I would post a link, but I can't find any good ones.

Basically Frankfurt scenarios are when a person, in a position where he would be forced to do something, does so voluntarilly. So does he do it by free will? After thinking about this, you would be right here. Since the ends does not justify the means, and he willed to be in the situation, it is free will.

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Oh boy we've been over this and I don't feel going over it again. Do you know why the country failed before congress had the power to levy taxes? Maybe you should study American history before running around proposing Anarcho-Capitalism. It offers all the answer as to why your idea of a government would completely and utterly fail.
I am not proposing anarcho-capitalism. That is a completely different subject. I am proposing laissez faire capitalism because it is the morally right thing to do, making it practical. Secondly, America never had a laissez faire economy, so American history does not even apply here. I can however tell you that America's creativity and production boomed when the economy was more free.

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And you think the polar opposite, a selfish concern only for yourself, is any better?
Yes, because it proposes a society where the hard worker is rewarded.
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