Mario, I'm sorry for the delay in replying, but I guess I missed your reply in the mailers. I only found it today whilst trying out the new and much-needed Search function on the goanet archives...
Mario observes: Aristo, "God forbid"??? :-)) I'm glad to hear you believe in God :-)) > So, let me get this straight. According to your keen analyses, the Golden Rule is useless because a masochist may get his kicks by harming others, and a rapist may preemptively rape a woman he would like to be raped by? > Since rape is a crime of violence, not lust, does it make a difference whether these people are "attractive"??? But I digress. > Based on your logic, which illogically assumes that masochism and violence against women are normal conditions, is a rock-solid rule invalidated because a psychologically deranged person or a sociopath rapist may turn it on it's head? > Aristo replies: Rape is a crime of violence, instigated by lust (No, I have not done exstensive studies nor do I have statistics to prove it, but it is my gut feeling). True, masochism is not a normal condition, I submit, but violence against women are not confined to the psychologically deranged. A sane person too can commit the same. Further, it is you and the likes which illogically assumes that Aitheists and Agnostics with no moral codes are prone to be violent and immoral when you have rejected claims that human beings are prone to non-violence and morals due to evolutionary instincts, if i can correctly recollect from previous posts (Do correct me if I am wrong on this). So lets consider this as a hypothetical situation: a law-less era in time, where violence and immorals are inbred, and ones actions are only justified by the moral codes in place. A sane person is not inhibited by the rock-solid Golden Rule/Ten Commandments Combo to commit violent crimes against women. In fact, I am confident that this era in time did exist in our history. Yet, you still evade the fact that the Rock-solid combo is, in fact, not so. My only assertion was that Sai Baba's COULD BE! Mario observes: Then what happens to Sai Baba's "Help ever, hurt never", when the very same masochist you are concerned about may harm someone, by our standards, because he truly believes he is helping him or her, by his standards? Or the rapist may run around raping women by pretending he is "helping" them by giving them pleasure? > Aristo replies: Again, I agree about the masochist. But a SANE person who tries to justify raping a woman with the "Help ever, Hurt Never" rule would have a tough time, as the women would be struggling and screaming "NO! Please stop, you're hurting me!!". Gosh, I cannot believe that I have to actually spell this out for you! And obviously, "Hurt never" precedes in importance to "Help ever". Gosh! Mario observes: On what logical basis did you conclude that Sai Baba's "masochist/rapist conundrum" was more valid than the Golden Rule's "masochist/rapist conundrum"? To get back to the rational debate we were having before Aristo burst on the scene, if organized religions and other groups, like the atheist Jains and the Buddhists, have microscopic loopholes that masochists and rapists can orgasmically squeeze through, then how does Aristo know what truck-sized loopholes may exist in the home-made moral codes that unorganized individual atheists may open for themselves, any time they choose to? > Aristo replies: Im truly sorry for 'bursting' into your catfight, but my only intention was to give a direction towards a constructive end, wherein we can evolve a universal moral code, home-made or not. I only suggested the home-made moral code, it is upto you and others to search for the truck-sized loopholes. Mario observes: My only point has been that when people formally sign on to a moral code formed by centuries of accumulated wisdom and experience, there are far more checks and balances on their conduct, not to mention consequences beyond the law, when compared with an unorganized individual atheist's recent and home-made moral code, which may be excellent, but may also not be, and according to one learned Goanetter, may also be "provisional":-)) Aristo replies: Again, codes formed by centuries of accumulated wisdom and experience DO have loop holes (which you constantly evade by calling others illogical). While I do not doubt your good intentions, you must acknowledge that there is a disconnect with the Rock-solid Combo with todays world. I find this an interesting topic, as I wonder how should Agnostic and Atheistic parents raise their children. When a child does a socially accepted "bad" deed, and you tell the child not to do so, the child asks "Why?" Generations before today escaped with the answer, "Because God is watching you and he will punish you if you do so". But in today's growing Agnostic/Atheistic world, what do you say? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: /pipermail/goanet-goanet.org/attachments/20060705/f494cf89/attachment.html _______________________________________________ Goanet mailing list Goanet@lists.goanet.org http://lists.goanet.org/listinfo.cgi/goanet-goanet.org