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The escape from discontentment and suffering ultimately involves wisdom which dispels ignorance. Creation/activity (kamma) is a symptom of discontentment, and nibbana - the absence of discontentment and suffering - logically involves no kammic activity or creation.
In contemporary society, where humanitarian values are no longer exclusively tied to religion, but to predominantly secular ideals like human rights.
Hey hey jane
Human rights. Who is the authority on human rights?
Cheers you
Certainly not some deity imagined by ancient middle-easterners, that much is for sure. The Abrahamic deity has a horrible track record, in spite of all stories revolving around Him having been written to paint Him in the most positive light (to the original audience). Mass murder, slavery, staged executions to make people comply, murdering people for base motives such as jealousy or self-aggrandisemen
(in the sense of some person, office, institution, or other entity holding unassailable power to tell others what's what).
Like languages, moralities are simultaneously intersubjective cultural products and "lenses/patterns" that are connected to observable reality.
A morality that was too disconnected from the necessities of human society would be too dysfunctional to survive even a single generation, but there is a lot of space to disagree with each other beyond that threshold.
For example, treating women as property, foreigners as mortal enemies, or LGBT* people as abominations to be executed or jailed doesn't lead to societal collapse, even after millennia.
And yet, I'd argue that as a species, we've come to learn from the mistakes of the past and gradually improved the way we interact with each other - adapting and growing as we go along.
There is a reason why slavery is illegal in every state around the globe (even if criminals still keep slaves),
why the death penalty has been abolished in virtually every modern state (even if religious backwaters still hold on to socially accepted revenge),
and why monarchies and aristocracies have been disappearing at an ever-increasing rate.
But more to the point: I don't think morality is a question of authority
Marx was a great thinker who accurately extrapolated how capitalism would turn out, just by looking at what was present in his own time: globalised markets, ever-larger corporations amassing immense power, a growing rift between a minuscule percentage of profiteers vs. a large number of have-nots, the erosion of the middle class, even environmental degradation and destruction.Hey hey @Jane_the_Bane
Marx famously held the opinion that “democracy is the road to socialism”.
What you think?
There is nothing false or misleading about the "wonders" visited upon the Egyptians as a demonstration of power, or the execution by stoning of the man who collected kindlewood on the wrong day of the week, or letting bears maul kids for mocking a prophet, or ordering the death of children of livestock in the name of "purity", or... well, the list is long.I diagree with this misrepresentation. What you are doing is giving a false or misleading account of the nature of God to make it easier to attack.
For the most part, because they are in line with my own moral convictions - and I would break them even under threat of death if they violated these (for example if, say, a new Nazi regime declared it my legal obligation to deliver some minority to their death).Why do you follow the laws of your land?
Taking comparisons to mean one is the xerox copy of the other is not exactly a sign of intelligence.Morality and languages are not linked. Morality is what is right or wrong. Language is a vehicle for communication.
I'm fairly certain that's exactly what I described in this last series of posts.So morality must be connected to the necessities of human society. How so?
And none of them are *legally* slaves.There Are More Slaves Today Than at Any Time in Human History
As I said, modern societies, not countries governed by religious barbarism or totalitarian dictatorships. You WILL find the odd exception (Japan), but by and large, the death penalty has been on the way out since the early 1900s.58 countries retain the death penalty in active use, 102 countries have abolished capital punishment altogether,
As opposed to 100% absolutist monarchies in ca. 1750. I'd call that an enormous improvement, especially if we take into account that ceremonial monarchs are just symbols for the most part, and not in possession of political power.There are 43 or 44 countries that have monarchs as the ceremonial or the real head of the state.
But focusing on your particular quotation here: I would say that only democratic socialism (i.e. public schools, public health care, public fire fighters, public roads, retirement funds, etc.) can fulfill the promises of democracy as a society governed by the interests of ALL citizens, as opposed to the plutocratic quasi-feudalism of a system compromised by corporate lobbyism and private profit interests.
There is nothing false or misleading about the "wonders" visited upon the Egyptians as a demonstration of power, or the execution by stoning of the man who collected kindlewood on the wrong day of the week, or letting bears maul kids for mocking a prophet, or ordering the death of children of livestock in the name of "purity", or... well, the list is long.
For the most part, because they are in line with my own moral convictions - and I would break them even under threat of death if they violated these (for example if, say, a new Nazi regime declared it my legal obligation to deliver some minority to their death).
Likewise, I would not bother to wait at a red pedestrians traffic light on an otherwise deserted road, even if the law unequivocally declares that it is my legal obligation to do so.
Laws are only as good as the purpose they serve. They are not an end in themselves.
Taking comparisons to mean one is the xerox copy of the other is not exactly a sign of intelligence.
Apart from the fact that languages can contain and embody whole value systems, the similarities between these two do not extend to them having exactly the same function.
Different languages do not agree on the way they conceptualize the world. They set different boundaries for what constitutes certain colours, for example, and you cannot freely translate everything from one language to the next - even if both are relating to the same perceptible reality we all experience with our senses.
Likewise, different moralities do not agree on what constitutes right or wrong - even if both draw upon the same social necessities and WILL have a certain "overlap". Virtually all societies have got a concept of unlawful killing, i.e. murder and manslaughter, but they differ greatly on what constitutes LEGAL killing.
Does splitting the head of your enemy with an axe constitute an act of manly heroism, or does it make you a murderer?
Does mowing down dozens of foreigners make you a criminal or a war hero?
The answers to that are quite distinct from culture to culture.
I'm fairly certain that's exactly what I described in this last series of posts.
And none of them are *legally* slaves.
Yes, it's bad.
And yes, capitalism and the colonialist heritage have got much to do with the perpetuation of such evil.
But no, it's NOT the same as erecting a legal system that specifically declares people to be cattle.
As I said, modern societies, not countries governed by religious barbarism or totalitarian dictatorships. You WILL find the odd exception (Japan), but by and large, the death penalty has been on the way out since the early 1900s.
As opposed to 100% absolutist monarchies in ca. 1750. I'd call that an enormous improvement, especially if we take into account that ceremonial monarchs are just symbols for the most part, and not in possession of political power.
*raspberry*
Most of your replies are... well, not literally monosyllabic, but WAY less elaborate than anything I type out, and often amount to little more than "nuh-uh". In light of this, I find your insistence that I owe everything that you ask some kind of special consideration and am in some way compelled to answer to be almost hilarious, if a little insulting.
And I really do think there's not that much room to discuss when your position boils down to:
"Our god is a god of love; he just gets angry at times and it's not his fault."
You do realize what that sounds like, don't you?
"Earl is not like that, he's a really nice guy. It's my fault for provoking him. He didn't WANT to break three of my ribs and give me a concussion."
Look, the best you can do to defend the literary character you believe to be real is by arguing that a deity is so far beyond our understanding and so different from ourselves that to judge Them by our standards is as nonsensical as morally condemning human beings for killing billions of germs.
That's okay, that's an argument you can make. But then don't turn around and judge Him in positive terms, either. "God of love" becomes a ridiculous epithet once the wrathful butchery starts. Like "Good Father Stalin".
And you are genuinely dishonest when you list 44 monarchies (almost forty of them CONSTITUTIONAL) as "proof" that statecraft hasn't fundamentally changed over the course of the last 200 years. That is just cringeworthy, man.
In 1780, virtually every state out there gave nearly unlimited power to kings and their aristocrat vassals.
Today, universal suffrage is virtually ubiquitous, with the exeption of seven states (five of them Muslim, four of these on the Arabian peninsula) - if we count the Vatican, which holds very little real power in spite of the Pope's status as an absolute monarch.
Buddhism is more about the state of the inner mind than it is about outer actions.So to escape the wheel one must stop suffering, suffering is action and action is in conflict with nirvana?
Cheers
Buddhism is more about the state of the inner mind than it is about outer actions.
I slightly reword your question to be more inline with the Buddhist trajectory, at least in how I understand it. I adding a couple of words and changed the word "action" to "thought. It now looks like this:
"So to escape the wheel one must stop experiencing things as suffering, suffering is thought and thought is in conflict with nirvana?"
That's turned into a pretty good Koan!
Thanks for your help.
If you answered just ONE post of mine with as meticulous a reply as I do yours (especially as far as YOUR OWN positions are concerned), I might actually be interested in discussing further with you. But for the most part, your "nuh-uh, here's my next question that you MUST answer right now!"-approach is just laughable.Hey hey jane.
So i guess this is you giving up. You cannot reply to my post, you just like to make statements. Your position is weak and this rant of yours a desperate attempt.
You have some unanswered questions you need to address before we can continue.
Cheers
If you answered just ONE post of mine with as meticulous a reply as I do yours (especially as far as YOUR OWN positions are concerned), I might actually be interested in discussing further with you.
But for the most part, your "nuh-uh, here's my next question that you MUST answer right now!"-approach is just laughable.
If that makes you feel as if you've "won", be my guest.
I have little interest in continuing this conversation, and it's ultimately not up to you or me to decide who had the better argued and more consistent position - that is for other readers of this thread to decide, individually.
Your apologetics leave much to be desired, and you STILL won't even concede that there's a difference between 100% absolutist monarchies and 0 democracies in 1780 vs. 3.59% absolutist monarchies vs. 58% democracies (some of which happen to keep a monarch as a symbolic head of state) in 2018. I might even add autocratic states that aren't monarchies to the mix, and it's STILL only 13% on your side of the tally.
"Nah, there's no difference at all. Nothing to see here. Now answer my next question or I declare myself the winner!!!!!11
(Also, my god is a god of love, he just gets angry at times. It's not his fault.)"
My experience with you was the same as...Hello and thank you for your reply
I would prefer to wait for @ananda to respond, anyways our previous conversation has not finished.
Would you like to reset and we start fresh?
If you answered just ONE post of mine with as meticulous a reply as I do yours (especially as far as YOUR OWN positions are concerned), I might actually be interested in discussing further with you. But for the most part, your "nuh-uh, here's my next question that you MUST answer right now!"-approach is just laughable.
My experience with you was the same as...
Actually I engaged your question and made a Koan out of it.Hey hey my dear
Then why do you engage me?
Actually I engaged your question and made a Koan out of it.
I don't know. I just saw that if I reworded what you wrote to be more inline with Buddhist thinking that a Koan would pop up. And it did. What do you think of it?Hey hey friend
So why did you feel you needed to do that?
I don't know. I just saw that if I reworded what you wrote to be more inline with Buddhist thinking that a Koan would pop up. And it did. What do you think of it?
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