[dylansalt]

I have a little saying of my own;

"Judge not another until one has walked at least a mile in his/her shoes"

Regards

Dylan;-)

[Mike Cash]

I have a little saying of my own;

"Judge not another until one has walked at least a mile in his/her shoes"

Regards

Dylan;-)

Nice if one goes in for moral relativism and a lack of standards. I find Matthew 7:20 a more useful pithy aphorism.

[Ratmagiclady]

Some of his other posts give indications of other similar revelations. But there is very little to indicate he has implemented anything from his epiphanies.

Well, that's probably why there's a constant market for them.

One handle is about as good as another, I suppose. I just think it's funny he bemoans netnyms while maintaining a stable full of them himself. I'm Mike Cash here and here and here and here and here as well as in various places where I've left comments on blogs and whatnot. My real name, and my real personality, subject to caveats mentioned below.

The discussion earlier came to mind when I saw this:

Shortpacked! webcomic by David Willis -- Toys Are Serious Business

[J.Scott]

... But even the difference that generates primarily consists of curtailing my natural penchant for gratuitous profanity.

That and bawdy bar-songs are the earmarks of an an old salt.

Once a sailor - always a sailor.

[Mike Cash]

The discussion earlier came to mind when I saw this:

Shortpacked! webcomic by David Willis -- Toys Are Serious Business

I can relate to that, except mine was juvenile Flickr Mail harassment from an obvious sock puppet account named "mikeca$h", pretending to be from a foreigner in Japan who is annoyed with my patronizing POV, but for some reason could provide no examples of that, choosing instead to try to get my goat by claiming he has long been stealing my photos and passing them off as his own.

What an incredible coincidence that it happened within an incredibly short time of Cody learning just how much abuse an unmoderated group can dish out.

There have probably been more juvenile and transparent shenanigans in the history of the internet, but none spring to mind.

[dylansalt]

Nice if one goes in for moral relativism and a lack of standards. I find Matthew 7:20 a more useful pithy aphorism.

Hi Mike

The particular verse you quote is Jesus teaching about religious hypocrisy which was abundant with the Pharisees and Sanhedrin during those times and really has nothing to do with our humanity i.e. who we can become or how we end up thinking due to certain life experiences that we all have to go through and endure.

E.G. Compare two different people's outlooks of the world - one who grows up in the rich northern suburbs to one has grown up in the ghetto or to one who was born into a loving nurturing family as opposed to one born in a abusive, drunk,drug family.

Sometimes we do need to stand back and try and have a little empathy.

Regards

Dylan

[Mike Cash]

Hi Mike

The particular verse you quote is Jesus teaching about religious hypocrisy which was abundant with the Pharisees and Sanhedrin during those times and really has nothing to do with our humanity i.e. who we can become or how we end up thinking due to certain life experiences that we all have to go through and endure.

The key phrase I had in mind was, "by their fruits ye shall know them".

E.G. Compare two different people's outlooks of the world - one who grows up in the rich northern suburbs to one has grown up in the ghetto or to one who was born into a loving nurturing family as opposed to one born in a abusive, drunk,drug family.

Sometimes we do need to stand back and try and have a little empathy.

I have no complaints about empathy; it is one of our more noble human traits, to be sure. But the capacity for empathy does not preclude a capacity (and sometimes a necessity) to have standards and judge in accordance with them.

[er1kksen]

Shouldn't standards be built on actual experience, i.e. "walking a day in their shoes," so to speak (at least having some interaction with them)? Sure, you can make judgements on people you have no experience with, but you're likely to be wrong.

[Mike Cash]

Shouldn't standards be built on actual experience, i.e. "walking a day in their shoes," so to speak (at least having some interaction with them)? Sure, you can make judgements on people you have no experience with, but you're likely to be wrong.

So juries in murder trials should consist of twelve murderers?

[Ratmagiclady]

So juries in murder trials should consist of twelve murderers?

Jury of your peers: UR doing it wrong.


For starters, even if that weren't silly and dismissive, assuming that 'murderers' would be a jury of someone's peers in a murder trial presumed the defendant is already a 'murderer.'

I don't know how people can claim to be 'moral absolutists' when they're always comparing everything that's done to what someone else does or what they imagine someone doing, or fear someone else doing in the future would be, and say, "That's worse, therefore I'm right to do this."

I don't know how many times I've had conversations with people against 'moral relativism' (ie any sense of real and immediate situational ethics) that go something like this, "Hey, stop hurting me, this is unjust!" "Oh, yeah, you'd get worse in Iran, let me tell you." *Therefore thinking it's Ok to do what's obviously wrong and continuing.*

Black-and-white-all-or-nothing-for-me-or-against-me thinking doesn't take away 'moral relativism' ...it just displaces it.

I'm pretty sure that passage of yours read "They shall know *you* by your fruits." That much is certainly true.

People who decry 'moral relativism' and claim authority over others by choosing whatever convenient passage out of their own book suits their prejudices don't have 'absolute morality' ...too often, in fact, they end up with absolutely nothing but authoritarianism. Simply claiming power based on a book which can and has been used to say darn near anything.

People in America can be wearing a polyester-blend track suit, chowing down on a bacon cheeseburger and tossing the pigskin around, saying, 'The Bible says you're an abomination.'

You can be like, "Actually, the same passage says you just hit the capital crimes trifecta. You're doing three things that are supposed to be equally 'abominations,' at least if any of us walks into the sanctum of the Temple of Jerusalem.'


"Different culture. The part about *you* is the Word of God, though."

Moral relativism? Ya think?

No means at all to evaluate their own actions, or at least plenty of ready excuses to bypass that process, that's what I see as the 'fruits' of thinking in that way and calling it 'absolute morality.'

What it is is simplifying ad absurdum. "If everyone was like you, there'd be no babies. (Obviously, I don't believe straight people exist, being the subtext? ) Therefore there should be none. So it's OK to do you injustice and harm. "

Not only is there no capacity for empathy or compassion in there, this 'absolutism' people talk pretty much does away with the necessity to *self-evaluate.* If there is 'absolute right' and 'absolute wrong,' all you have to do is believe really hard that your 'side' of something is absolutely righteous, and 'prove' it by claiming someone else somewhere is flawed, thus must be 'absolutely wrong.'

But it leads to nonsense. Bush says he reads the Bible, so everything he does is 'right,' and treasonous to question, no matter how stupid, corrupt, or mean-spirited, or how much of the national wealth he squandered ...Obama comes into office and he must be Stalin or Hitler, put a moustache on him, suddenly re-learn the word 'deficit' ...argument done.

'Moral absolutists,' to top it all off, teach each other that the consequences of not being Absolutely Righteous are too horrible to contemplate, so never contemplate it, just make the hypocrisies into *dogma,* pass it off as 'God wills this, not me.'

Doesn't seem very 'moral' to me.

People read that book of yours, and decide "By the literal, absolute authority of this translation of this passage which only actually talks about men, by rights I can kill you and it's your fault, (That's what 'their blood shall be on them' means in that other culture those words are from: of course, the 'new, modern' translation they're trying to teach in some circles now overcomes this little awkwardness by simply *adding lesbians* to the 'literal interpretation.' ) so it's 'mercy' if I just assault and/or oppress you, if I think somehow it'll 'save your soul' from not believing the Ultimate Love In The Universe wants you killed and tortured forever and ever for what you are. Err, choose."

That's what I think of the 'fruits.'

[er1kksen]

No, obviously not. Being a murderer is different from being a member of an unfamiliar culture or lifestyle; if a particular individual makes murdering their culture or lifestyle, then that's an extreme case and outside the scope of pithy aphorisms.

It would, on the other hand, make sense for a jury trial for a white upper-class individual who has committed murder to include at least a couple individuals from a similar demographic and background, as well as individuals from completely different backgrounds to provide a variety of perspectives.

Of course, that's just dealing with the broader cultural/general lifestyle aspect of "walking in another's shoes" before passing judgments, and doesn't take into account the unique events and influences of each individual life.

It should be noted that I don't disagree with the use of some level of stereotyping in order to assess personal safety in a potentially dangerous situation (stereotypes typically come from something, after all), but choosing to walk on the other side of the sidewalk at night to keep some distance between yourself and that shady-looking individual in a rough part of town is different from making character judgments on that individual based on their appearance or brief and casual interactions.

[Mike Cash]

Save your anti-Christian prejudices for someone else, RML; I'm a devout Atheist. And please don't go making assumptions about me hating homosexuals based on nothing more than your own prejudices. It is unbecoming.

[Ratmagiclady]

Save your anti-Christian prejudices for someone else, RML; I'm a devout Atheist. And please don't go making assumptions about me hating homosexuals based on nothing more than your own prejudices. It is unbecoming.

Actually, I wasn't being 'anti-Christian.' I was objecting to those of any religion who simply dismiss other people's lives as 'moral relativism' and then assume crazy ideas like 'a jury of your peers' or 'innocent until proven guilty' are insufficiently 'morally absolute.'

And let's not forget *you* are the one who brought up your idea of your religion... as an authority. Now you whine it's not fair game for debate, even if you say that very same authority says, 'good teachings will be known by their fruits?'

[Mike Cash]

I have a nice, reasoned, rational response which points out the hypocrisy you're engaging in, but if you got lost in the simple three sentence reply above and managed to come out the end of it thinking Atheists have a religion, then there would be little point in confusing you further by posting it.

[Ratmagiclady]

I have a nice, reasoned, rational response which points out the hypocrisy you're engaging in, but if you got lost in the simple three sentence reply above and managed to come out the end of it thinking Atheists have a religion, then there would be little point in confusing you further by posting it.

Actually, if you're quoting the Bible as an authority 'against moral relativism' it doesn't actually make much difference whether or not you actually believe in the spirituality of what you're teaching.

I'm sure a lot of people using the whole fundamentalist thing in politics and undermining human rights don't actually believe in it, either. There are plenty of atheist Christians out there: some go through the motions cause they like the authority, don't, but still preach all the same assumptions, whether they're disbelieving in a very specific God from basically the same worldview or not.

Of course, if you're a card-carrying Atheist, maybe you ought to realize that 'moral absolutism' tends to be exactly the thing that makes you a well-nigh untouchable in politics these days, as much as anyone. The very people who want to put the Ten Comandments in courthouses and claim equal justice under the law is contingent upon obeying those commands, notably the first one, they may not even be able to *recite* these things they want enshrined as the 'real foundation of American law and rights,' but they'll go on about 'moral relativism' being some kind of *immorality.* Why? Cause it's easy. So they stigmatize everyone who doesn't talk the talk. Again, that's unless, of course, you're willing to lie about it.

If you were on trial for something, not that a 'jury of your peers' breaks down this way, but wouldn't you rather there were people on that jury who aren't assuming you're inherently 'immoral?'


It's really not my business whether or not someone's a 'believer.' Kind of a Christian assumption that whether or not you believe in a particular God is the important thing about the world, anyway: heck it's pretty much *part* of that religion to go around asking, "Is there this one God like we say, thus meaning we can say we have absolutes, or is there nothing?"

I happen to be of the belief that there's a lot more. Understanding it, especially when it comes to pursuing Justice, does *not* come by trying to claim, "My standards are absolute and universal. I will apply them everywhere."