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The judgment made to arrest two men for kissing is hardly automatic. Indeed, it's oxymoronic to suggest so. Examine how that judgment is arrived at: First, t

by dasht 17y ago

The judgment made to arrest two men for kissing is hardly automatic. Indeed, it's oxymoronic to suggest so. Examine how that judgment is arrived at: First, there is a background of a lot of theistic teaching regarding elaborate theories of morality. Second, there are elaborate machinations of the state and the clerics that make it possible to even conceive of arresting the men. You and I, I hope you agree, would find the arrest immoral even while those performing it would insist on its high morality. The difference is that you and I have to agree on little other than what we see happening to reach our shared conclusion, while the defenders of the arrest rely on an elaborate analytics of morality. That's actually one of Hitchens' main themes: that the elaborate analytics or morality, most especially the analytics given forth by all of the worlds theologies, don't create morality but rather often the opposite. Do the Mutaween know right from wrong? Or the the other groups that you mention? I don't think that there is one answer that applies to the whole group just as there is no one answer that applies to all atheists. Some see it. Some don't. As Hitchens might put it, I can not seriously entertain here, among civilized people, that such an arrest is moral. And I observe that such an arrest is a byproduct of the actions of a theology that claims for itself a unique and privileged understanding of morality. As a (half-gruesome) thought experiment, consider presenting to a pre-verbal child of any culture the image of two men kissing, and the image of dog abuse. Which do you think will more consistently upset the child?

AmaroqWolf 17y ago
I can counter your argument by saying simply: A homophobe would only have to see the same thing you do (the men kissing), and would draw a completely different conclusion than you do without the aid of religion. That's why you can't rely on emotional or intuition-based morality. The same situation can cause different emotions in different people. When you're born, both your conscious and subconscious minds are blank slates. When you choose values and accept premises, those go into your subconscious since your conscious can't hold everything you know at once. Emotions are the result of lightning-quick value-judgments performed by your subconscious mind. The subconscious is like a computer that your conscious programs, and your emotions are a constant printout. Because of this, your emotional reactions to various situations depend on the values you've accepted and the premises you hold. When you and someone else agree that it is wrong to arrest a gay man for kissing someone, based on your emotional reactions, it's because you both share western values such as individual rights and the separation between church and state. This allows you both to -feel- that the arrest is immoral. But someone who deeply disvalues homosexuality or deeply values a religion that is intolerant to homosexuality will -feel- -instantly- that the act of two men kissing is vile and the arrest is just and righteous, or at least preferable to allowing the men to kiss any longer. THIS is why morality has to be based on facts. Why it must be grounded in reality. A person's wrong premises can easily make them -feel- that an evil act is righteous. Morality must be objectively defined and validated in order to stand up to peoples' whims. Instead of trusting morality to a person's feelings and intuitions, you should examine the nature of reality and of human beings and determine, based on the way we are, what we should do. I already linked this in another comment, but I'll link it here too. It's an essay Ayn Rand wrote that does just that. It examines the facts that give rise to man's need of a moral code, and then justifies, based on reality and man's nature, the proper moral code for man to practice. (Rational Egoism.) http://www.aynrand.org/site/PageServer?pagename=ari_ayn_rand_the_objectivist_ethics http://www.aynrand.org/site/PageServer?pagename=ari_ayn_rand... If you don't agree with this essay, at least you can take from it an example of how to justify a moral code firmly grounded in reality, instead of in someone's -feelings- of right and wrong. Even if such feelings did default to a correct moral code, they would still be unreliable due to how easily they can be overridden. Having an objectively defined moral code will not only allow you to be -certain- that you are doing the right thing, but you'll have intellectual ammo to back up your code when it is attacked. "I feel this is right" is insufficient to defend any moral code, even if it is the right moral code.

by dasht 17y ago

AmaroqWolf 17y ago

I can counter your argument by saying simply: A homophobe would only have to see the same thing you do (the men kissing), and would draw a completely different conclusion than you do without the aid of religion. That's why you can't rely on emotional or intuition-based morality. The same situation can cause different emotions in different people. When you're born, both your conscious and subconscious minds are blank slates. When you choose values and accept premises, those go into your subconscious since your conscious can't hold everything you know at once. Emotions are the result of lightning-quick value-judgments performed by your subconscious mind. The subconscious is like a computer that your conscious programs, and your emotions are a constant printout. Because of this, your emotional reactions to various situations depend on the values you've accepted and the premises you hold. When you and someone else agree that it is wrong to arrest a gay man for kissing someone, based on your emotional reactions, it's because you both share western values such as individual rights and the separation between church and state. This allows you both to -feel- that the arrest is immoral. But someone who deeply disvalues homosexuality or deeply values a religion that is intolerant to homosexuality will -feel- -instantly- that the act of two men kissing is vile and the arrest is just and righteous, or at least preferable to allowing the men to kiss any longer. THIS is why morality has to be based on facts. Why it must be grounded in reality. A person's wrong premises can easily make them -feel- that an evil act is righteous. Morality must be objectively defined and validated in order to stand up to peoples' whims. Instead of trusting morality to a person's feelings and intuitions, you should examine the nature of reality and of human beings and determine, based on the way we are, what we should do. I already linked this in another comment, but I'll link it here too. It's an essay Ayn Rand wrote that does just that. It examines the facts that give rise to man's need of a moral code, and then justifies, based on reality and man's nature, the proper moral code for man to practice. (Rational Egoism.) http://www.aynrand.org/site/PageServer?pagename=ari_ayn_rand_the_objectivist_ethics http://www.aynrand.org/site/PageServer?pagename=ari_ayn_rand... If you don't agree with this essay, at least you can take from it an example of how to justify a moral code firmly grounded in reality, instead of in someone's -feelings- of right and wrong. Even if such feelings did default to a correct moral code, they would still be unreliable due to how easily they can be overridden. Having an objectively defined moral code will not only allow you to be -certain- that you are doing the right thing, but you'll have intellectual ammo to back up your code when it is attacked. "I feel this is right" is insufficient to defend any moral code, even if it is the right moral code.