DRFseven

How does the fact that someone was alive prove that person had the right to be alive? If I have your wallet, does that prove I have the right to have your wallet?

I'm not arguing I have the right at all.




Again, you haven't shown me how the right already exists. You have only stated that PEOPLE exist and are leaping from that to the assertion that rights to live exist.

Everybody. Nobody. It doesn't matter; he came to the conclusion that he would kill the man. He did not think the man had a right to live.

Perhaps his behavior is based on mysticism, perhaps not; it's highly likely he believes morals are objective and that he had the moral duty to demonstrate what happens to "traitors."



I don't need to say anything. Since you are the one asserting that rights exist, you must show me that they do, or else you'll have to prove that fairies and unicorns don't exist.



I'm arguing it DOESN'T exist, remember? You can't take away what never existed.

But why? Your only criteria is that if someone exists, s/he has a RIGHT to exist. Other animals are "someones" and they exist.

I'm trying to show you that the fact that they exist proves nothing about rights as illustrated by the fact that the existence of other animals besides humans doesn't seem to you to show that they are ENTITLED to exist, then something is wrong with your reasoning about humans because you use that reasoning for them.



Bingo.

dk

JERDOG: Is it possible ,in your mind, for the claim that all men are created equal to really mean something?
bd-from-kg: Yes. It can be taken as a moral injunction, which is just the way theists take it. Of course it can't be taken literally. But then, Christians don't take it literally either.

dk: In Matthew 28:19 ... Sounds pretty literal to me.
bd-from-kg: The transition form Matthew 28:19 to “All men are created equal” is unclear, to put it mildly.
dk: The commission to the Disciples was to Baptize all nations and “baptism” means entrance into the community of Christ. This can only be construed as a universal right to enter the Kingdom, and everyone in God’s Kingdom comes (literally) under one Law. Obviously many Christians, including the 11 Disciples took their commission quite literally. What do you find unclear?

JERDOG: Theists believe that men are created equal and have equal rights because of god.
bd-from-kg: Nonsense. Historically theists have been among the last to accept the idea that all men are created equal. There is absolutely nothing in the Bible, or in Jesus' teachings, to support this idea. According to the Old Testament the Jews are God's "chosen people". He ordered the Israelites to massacre hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of people because of their race. He also ordered that those with certain deformities must not be allowed into the Temple. The New Testament orders slaves to obey their masters and women to obey their husbands. Is this your idea of "equal rights"?
dk: ...in the parable of The Workers in the Vineyard, Matthew 20:12 ...
bd-from-kg: Once again, I’m mystified as to how this story is supposed to entail “All men are created equal”.
dk: Your comments took the verse out of context to become pretext. The “Parable, Workers in the Vineyard” has been interpreted to mean… all those who answer the call of Christ at any time, first or last, will receive equal benefits in the Kingdom. Again, I don’t see what’s so unclear in any sense (literal, figurative or allegorical sense). But this doesn’t imply “equal rights” in a racial or sexual sense, perhaps that’s what’s you find unclear.

dk: I find your vision of Christianity, history and slavery perplexing.
bd-from-kg: Let’s see. The first anti-slavery statement from a prominent Christian that you can find was made in 1462. And you think the fact that some Christians (after a very long time) came to oppose slavery shows that Christianity is inherently anti-slavery? Get real.
dk: Nonetheless the institution of slavery by the end of the Middle Ages ceased to exist in Western European Christian nations. In the same sense millions of Irish, Italians, Slavs and Germans melted into American Society before 1960 Civil Rights Legislation. I submit the Catholic parochial educational system built by US immigrants in the 20th Century was a great example of a peaceful social revolution completely ignored by social, economic and political scientists. Why?…Precisely because it was outside their narrow secular vision. In the same vein of thought, perhaps the drugs, violence, and riots that accompanied the 1960-70s Civil Rights Movement tainted mainstream Americana more than people can psychologically afford to admit.

(snip)

dk: Civilizations and nations prosper and grow by resolving the problems that arise in time. There are no nations based on NAZI fascism or Arian Superiority because each according to the “order” they imposed found themselves ill suited to overcome the obstacles time presented.
bd-from-kg: Is your point that the true principles of morality assert themselves over the fullness of time because they “work”?
dk: No, my point is that moral language resonates with active intellectual judgments that are self evident. Moral language regulates human conduct suitably, and people understand one another through the laws that govern them. Immoral people can’t understand one another at all, except with violence, weapons and grunt force. People that can’t understand one another can’t work together. Time presents a civilization or nation with new problems… and a civilization or nation either solves the problem or the problem ruins them. An insoluble problem, whether real or imagined, forces a nation to waste increasingly limited resources until the problem becomes a burden that breaks the back of productive people. NAZI Germany burnt itself out in 15 years, the fall of the Roman Empire took a few hundred years. Civilization is great but requires a great deal of overhead. Morality works because it teaches people to understand one another in light of human nature, with human reason. In this sense moral law enables people to participate in future life, and immorality ruins people.

bd-from-kg: How do you know that the principles that “work” are the true principles?
dk: The same way computer languages teach programmers to talk to a machine. Computer languages are written by compliers… that turn out to be in and of themselves pretty complex pieces of software. I don’t know if you’re familiar with compilers, but they are written in their own language, so a C, or Pascal compiler is written in C or Pascal. A LISP or SNOBAL compiler is written in LISP or SNOBAL. By the time the programmers and engineers get the new compiler to work the language has been debugged, so the compiler works. Technically, a compiler teaches programmers how to communicate with a computer to solve problems. In the same fashion morality becomes the essential part of language that instructs people how to communicate with one another. Human language and compiler languages are both written in a language suited to the nature of the communication. Moral law governs how people understand one another in the same way a compiler teaches people to talk to a computer. Moral language is more complex because people are more complex than machines. Moral language gets messed up when people engineer it to favor some preconceived outcome. For example T Jefferson was a really smart guy, and he had real problems with the institution of slavery. Yet he loved being an Aristocratic Slave Owner, so he was compelled to rationalize the institution of slavery. Moral people rationalize to permit themselves to do what they know is wrong. Immoral people justify themselves by inventing language to confuse right and wrong, by dehumanizing other people. For example racists dehumanize blacks (or Christians) as niggers (as fundies), just like NAZIS dehumanized Jews (and most other people) as parasitic inferiors.

bd-from-kg: Hasn’t Christianity, in many cases, simply incorporated moral principles that seemed to work best regardless of what Jesus and the Bible had to say?
If so, in what meaningful sense can such principles be called “Christian”?
dk: Sure Christians do, but they don’t remain Christians very long. There are over 20,000 Christian sects and the vast majority of these sects aren’t Christian at all.

bd-from-kg: What evidence do you have that “true” moral principles are becoming more widely accepted in the long run?
dk: Moral language debugs itself, just like a computer language debugs itself. For example the Roman Empire invented a steam engine to run its bath houses, but never thought to apply it to grind grain, or transportation. Why? Because owning slaves made them feel good. When slaves were freed and rose to a position of influence in the Roman Empire they liked to own slaves. Does this give a slave the right to “kill their master”… No more than being a slave makes a freed slave a suitable slaver. Christianity made dogma the idea, “love your enemies”. The dogma changed the world by forcing Christians to humanize their enemies. Why do modern corporations and industry leaders needlessly pollute when they are killing themselves along with everyone else? The answer is they are immoral, and don’t wish to give up their competitive edge, security blankets and creature comforts. Why do philosophers and lawyers make the law inaccessible? Because it would deprive them of their competitive edge (tenure) i.e. they are immoral. Why is public education in a crisis… ditto. Why is college so expensive… ditto. Why is healthcare so expensive… ditto.

bd-from-kg: It sure doesn’t look that way to me.
dk: You must be bubble boy.
bd-from-kg: If this is true, what need have we for Divine guidance?
dk: Look at guys like George Washington, Abe Lincoln, Al Smith (FDR's mentor), Harry Truman… can you explain where these guys come from? They had little formal education, and against all odds they played a pivotal role to set a world gone mad on a straight course.

bd-from-kg: We can just discern the true principles of morality by observing what “works” over time. (But then, isn’t that pretty much what we humans have always done?)
dk: I have no idea what human beings have always done, nor do know what will happen tomorrow. I agree people are innately flawed therefore doomed to make mistakes they will come to regret. I do not believe this flaw to be fatal in and of itself. Immorality ruins a civilization or nation when good deeds are punished and scandal becomes its own rewarded.

dk: Jews inexplicably have transcended the ages to prosper around the world, a blessing to all the nations of the world.
bd-from-kg: Oh, please. What distinguishes the Jews is that they have resisted assimilation with the surrounding populations for a long time. Whether this is a good or bad trait is unclear. And how have they been a “blessing for the world”? How is the astonishing survival of the group who, of all ethnic groups, should know whether the Christian story is true, and assert adamantly that it is false, a “blessing for the world” from a Christian point of view?
dk: The Jew is a unique person without historical parallel. There have been a lot of people that resisted assimilation across history, and the Jews are the only ones that have persevered against dozens of fallen civilizations.

dk: I have no idea what a non-objectivist might be, perhaps a moral relativist.
bd-from-kg: A non-objectivist is any one who does not believe in objective morality – i.e., someone who does not believe that moral statements have a truth value which is the same for everyone, and is independent of what anyone (except God perhaps) thinks, believes, or feels.
dk: Apart from intrinsic human dignity equal rights have no meaning.
bd-from-kg: I’ve pointed out in several earlier posts how talk of “moral rights” can be interpreted meaningfully without referring to any hypothetical “intrinsic human dignity”. And the term “intrinsic human dignity” can itself be interpreted as referring to aspects of intrinsic human nature that make it universally desirable to follow moral principles such as “all men are created equal”. Otherwise you’re forced to reify “human dignity” into yet another “real” thing that actually “exists”. I guess this is a natural tendency in theistic thinking. IMHO, it reflects an inability to distinguish between things that “exist” only in the sense of being concepts in human minds and things that exist in reality.
dk: I’m not sure what you believe can be distinguished reasonably, emotively, consciously, randomly, subconsciously, synesthesly or blindly. I think moderate realism given the current state of human knowledge makes sense, but I’m not so myopic to confer scientific certainty. Here’s an article I downloaded from MIT that touches on a few iffy propositions. I wonder what you think of David Chalmers work on consciousness, here’s a link you might find interesting.. http://www.u.arizona.edu/~chalmers/online3.html.
Alas, judgment is often the first casualty when science and politics collide.

JERDOG

Just becuase you use the word "not" in your statement does not mean that it is not a positive assertion.

This is not the same as saying elfs and gremlins do not exist.
Gremlins do not exist or posses any identities for us to even have a conversation about. Life does.
Here we are talking about life which obviously exist in front of us. We posses it, we have it, it is each our own.

So the question is not of existence. "Does it exist or not?" The question is. " Do I get to keep what is mine or not?"

By you saying that man does not have a right to exist does not give you the benefit of running away from the onus fo proof.
The onus of proof is on you my friend not on me.
If I say that your car(life) does not belong to you, I have to prove that it does not belong to you. You don't have to prove other wise. I would have to show the proper athourties the title and the VIN number on that paper work with my name and identification to prove that what you claim to be yours is really mine.

If the onus of proof worked like that then I could drag you to court and make you spend thousands of dollars on lawyers over my baseless claims.
That car is not yours!
That house is not yours!
That boat is not yours!


If I went to the police with such a claim they would ask me for the proof not you.

I had my bike stolen once when I was a kid. Luckily we found the bike. But guess what? The police said that they could not return the bike to me unless I proved that it was mine. And we did by showing him the serial number that my dad had written down on a piece of paper and a picture of me on that exact same bike.

So saying that something does not belong to someone is actulay the positive assertion.

If you say that I am not entilted to something that belongs to me rather it is my life or my property, then you are the one that has to offer the proof.

DRFseven

JERDOG, you need to get it straight in your own mind what you're saying. In the above post, you're arguing that you have legal rights. And you do have them; anyone would be a fool to deny it. What I said is that people don't have equal moral rights, moral rights being rights that people think others should have, regardless of law. Some people don't think some people should have some rights, no matter what *I* think people should have, and that is all there is to it. For some reason, you don't seem to be able to understand how, since YOU think all people should have rights, that EVERYONE doesn't think so.

Please explain to me the issue about moral rights for animals. Since you think universal moral rights exist (apparently independent from opinion), I'd like to know how you know they don't exist for other species besides humans. How do you actually NOT KNOW, for example, that only polar bears have the moral right to life? How can you tell that's not true?

JERDOG

No DRFSeven,
I am talking about moral rights in my above post. I have never talked about legal rights here on this entire thread.

A "right" is a moral principle defining and sanctioning a man's freedom of action in a social context. Anything that goes against this is deemed immoral.

Man exist possesing life.(I'm sure you don't argue that) If someone takes that away then that is considered immoral. It doesn't mean that the guy that was killed did not have that right. It means that his right was violated.

Again if I posses something that belongs to me, in this case life. Then a man that can reason will also understand this also thus not violating my right. If he does violate my right, then some people would say the punishment for him would be for his life to be taken also. He went against reason, he was irrational.

It doesn't matter if this happend under a nation with laws that prohibit it or not. It doesn't matter if a god said that it was wrong. The law of nature, the law of identity, existence exist was violated. This law applies to everyone that ever existed and everyone that ever will exist. That is how it is objective reguardles of man made law.


I don't understand where you get this idea that since it is possible for somene to kill someone then that means they do not have a right to life. Honestly I do not understand that part of your argument. Perhaps that is why it seems we are talking over each other.

It doesn't matter what someone else thinks. Just because someone thinks that something is, does not make that something real.
Just because people think that god exist does not mean that god exist.
I may think that I have the right to take your life. But that does not mean that I do have the right. Again I am not talkign about man made laws. I am talking about the fact that man exist.
For someone to say. ' I can take away that which already exist (for what ever reason, other than protection) is an irrational man.
That man defys the law of indentity.
Existence exist.
Man exist.
When we say that man exist we automaticly presuppose that man is alive. If man was not alive he would just exist as a lump of inanimate matter. Therefore the "man exist" part would be irrelevant and with out meaning.
This brings me back to where we were. Man exist with life.
If someone takes that life, they commited an act against the law of indentity. Not the law of man, not the law of any supposed god. But the law on which every peice of evidence rest. Existence.

In a situation where somone was attempting to kill me, I could use the necessary force to stop them. If they died in the process it would not be considered immoral( reguradless of what the law said) because they were the one that initiated the force.

OK now if an animal attacks me in the woods and kills me, then that is not immoral. It may be sad yes, but not immoral. An animal does not have the ability to reason. Therefore an animal can never be deemed moral or immoral in anything that it does because it just acts automaticly by the stimulation of its senses.
Man however has the ability to the perceptual level and then on to the conceptual level. An animal cannot act past the preprogramed senses stimulus that it is born with. Now keeping this in mind I have two links for you to read.
Honestly I do not have the time to go into animal rights. Plus honestly this guy can put it to you a lot better than I can. So read these two in order.

http://www.objectivistcenter.org/obj...p?QuestionID=2

http://www.objectivistcenter.org/obj...?QuestionID=42

Oh yea sorry for the typoes I don't have time for a spell checker and I probably will not be able to respond untill late monday or Tuesday.

DRFseven

Come on, JERDOG, who said this?



It is considered immoral by some; not by others.



You still haven't shown any proof of that statement. How do you know he had that right? X Having Y does not prove X should have Y. Instead of just saying it over and over, how about actually thinking about it and trying to figure out why you think being alive proves one has the right to be alive. Does being happy prove that one has the right to be happy?

The truth is, others grant us those rights; we don't automatically have them



When someone decides you don't have a right to live, that person has ruled out your having that right, because you only have rights based on the opinions of others.

JERDOG

you did

It doesn't matter what they consider there exist only one reality.


Yes I did. I'm sorry if you don't understand.


So what happens if somene says I can live and someone else says I can't?

Or what happens if the catholics in Ireland say that they are the ones that are moral while the protestants say that they are the ones that are moral?

or

Do I realy need to keep explaining how this subjective view has caused pain death and destruction through out history in our world?

bd-from-kg

JERDOG:

Excuse me, but you’re hopelessly confused. The Catholics and Protestants (not to mention the folks who fly big planes into tall buildings) believe that morality is objective. They think that what their God tells them to do is RIGHT, period, end of discussion. This is why (in their view) they feel quite certain that they’re justified in blowing up innocent people. I mean, if God says it’s OK, it’s, OK. Case closed. The Inquisitors were quite certain that they were doing their victims a favor by doing their utmost to save their immortal souls. Objective morality again.

It’s objective morality, not subjective morality, that has caused endless, pointless suffering throughout history. That’s not to say that it must, by its nature, cause pain and suffering, but the fact is that historically it has done so.

JERDOG

How can anything that cannot be verified be objective?
They have a subjective view these people . Their view is based on mysticism. It is not objective if it has nothing to do with reality. Angles gods and demons didn't have any thing to do with reality last time I checked.

Let me be more specific.

OBJECTIVE MORALITY BASED ON REALITY.

Which by the way is the only true morality. :banghead:

Subjectivness, Mysticism, Skeptisism
are the three amigoes of death and destruction of human histroy.

DRFseven

I'm going to assume you were just confused and not deliberately lying in order to try to "win." YOU posted it, JERDOG. The following quote, which is about legal matters, is by you; I submitted it in answer to your claim that you "never talked" about legal matters. Here it is again, in case you need to refresh your memory:

It was in response to this very quote that I said you were talking about legal rights. Incredibly, you responded and said you had never talked about legal rights. Now that I've pointed it out, you claim *I* said it!

Is that supposed to show that you have a right to live? I hope you see it doesn't.



You answered "Yes I did" to my assertion that you have not shown how BEING alive proves the RIGHT to be alive. So show me, please, where you showed it.

What happens is that they illustrate a difference in moral opinion. The subjectivist says "It appears we operate under different moral guidelines; I feel mine are superior and here's why...". The objectivist interrupts and exclaims, "If you don't agree, you're just immoral!"

The two opposing camps, both of them operating under the assumption that morals are objective, attack and kill each other for years and years.

Yes! Please do tell, because, so far, you have shot yourself in the foot.