What is the greatest moral issue in modern society?

OldWiseGuy · Jun 4, 2020

muichimotsu said:
I didn't say it was forced by the state, I said the mentality is the same, even if you're making it voluntary, the motivation you're focusing on is obedience to a law rather than understanding the spirit of that law, to use the Biblical turn of phrase

The mentality isn't the same. There is no "duty to the state" involved. The duty is a moral/ethical/spiritual one.

Look up the definition of agape and you'll see what I mean. It contains the element of duty. Agape is also distinct in that involves more thought than emotion. Agape is the thinking person's love.

muichimotsu · Jun 4, 2020

OldWiseGuy said:
I believe that such protests are shallow, ineffective, all-for-show, expressions of self-aggrandizement, where the protestors think they are more important than they actually are. They contribute little or nothing to the causes that they are demonstrating for. Worse yet they cause many more to step back than to step forward regarding these causes. They often do more harm than good.

You can think that, you're not necessarily right. The problem is manifold, it's not going to be solved purely by the protests, I don't think anyone is suggesting that, it's a step in the direction of motivation for change elsewhere. Not everyone can protest, even if we weren't also in a pandemic that people seem to want to de-emphasize as if it's just gone away or going away when we don't necessarily know that

muichimotsu · Jun 4, 2020

OldWiseGuy said:
The mentality isn't the same. There is no "duty to the state" involved. The duty is a moral/ethical/spiritual one.

Look up the definition of agape and you'll see what I mean. It contains the element of duty. Agape is also distinct in that involves more thought than emotion. Agape is the thinking person's love.

The duty is the problem here if that's all you emphasize, I never said it was a duty to the state, you insinuated that into what I was criticizing, the authoritarian mindset

Agape is selflessness, it is not submission or slavish obedience, which is the line of thought you're advocating, much as you try to spin it as altruistic or moral. If all you care about is whether someone obeys, then you're not encouraging anything remotely resembling critical thought or reason, you're assuming the truth of what you argue for instead of honestly looking at it and thinking that maybe there's more than merely the obedience you advocate.

Meta-ethics is a thing, maybe you could look into it a bit instead of throwing out the same argument with a new coat of paint? You're basically suggesting divine command ethics; certainly sounds like it anyway

OldWiseGuy · Jun 4, 2020

muichimotsu said:
The duty is the problem here if that's all you emphasize, I never said it was a duty to the state, you insinuated that into what I was criticizing, the authoritarian mindset

Agape is selflessness, it is not submission or slavish obedience, which is the line of thought you're advocating, much as you try to spin it as altruistic or moral. If all you care about is whether someone obeys, then you're not encouraging anything remotely resembling critical thought or reason, you're assuming the truth of what you argue for instead of honestly looking at it and thinking that maybe there's more than merely the obedience you advocate.

Meta-ethics is a thing, maybe you could look into it a bit instead of throwing out the same argument with a new coat of paint? You're basically suggesting divine command ethics; certainly sounds like it anyway

I'm suggesting duty as inspired by God's spirit.

OldWiseGuy · Jun 4, 2020

muichimotsu said:
You can think that, you're not necessarily right. The problem is manifold, it's not going to be solved purely by the protests, I don't think anyone is suggesting that, it's a step in the direction of motivation for change elsewhere. Not everyone can protest, even if we weren't also in a pandemic that people seem to want to de-emphasize as if it's just gone away or going away when we don't necessarily know that

These are mindless, useless protests, that have been going on since the 1960's. The liberals believe that they are the sole arbiters of social problems, but that the conservatives must solve the problems they have identified. That dog won't hunt.

muichimotsu · Jun 4, 2020

OldWiseGuy said:
I'm suggesting duty as inspired by God's spirit.

So just a special kind of duty? That boils it down even more to divine command ethics: obey or suffer the consequences because God is sovereign, practically speaking. How is that a rational position instead of just a simple system rooted in threats?

muichimotsu · Jun 4, 2020

OldWiseGuy said:
These are mindless, useless protests, that have been going on since the 1960's. The liberals believe that they are the sole arbiters of social problems, but that the conservatives must solve the problems they have identified. That dog won't hunt.

Yeah, I'm sure everyone thought the protests were worthless that led to people getting rights to vote when they already had them. Smacks of the privilege you don't appear to understand you have: which is not socioeconomic privilege, that's incidental, it's cultural and systemic, running much deeper than just how you're born into wealth or such, which could happen with anyone regardless and irrespective of race

Way to strawman: conservatives of any stripe create the problems because they want to maintain the status quo, suggesting that liberals are hypocrites is easy when you mischaracterize them as acting like they know better rather than being able to actually argue their position. Not everyone can do it well, that doesn't mean the position that, say, "Women should have the right to vote," or "black people shouldn't be under segregation" are wrong at all

OldWiseGuy · Jun 4, 2020

muichimotsu said:
So just a special kind of duty? That boils it down even more to divine command ethics: obey or suffer the consequences because God is sovereign, practically speaking. How is that a rational position instead of just a simple system rooted in threats?

Now you are arguing religious beliefs.

JIMINZ · Jun 4, 2020

muichimotsu said:
Ah, the immature quip, indicative that you don't have an argument, just rhetoric and a script that I'm not going to fall into. Too bad for you

Um.
I don't need an argument.
I have Christ.

timothyu · Jun 4, 2020

In today's self entitled world it matters very little what the original protest was about. Self interest has splintered this latest movement into various fragments all with people tooting their own horns over their own causes.

Halbhh · Jun 5, 2020

muichimotsu said:
not necessarily using an objective methodology: fancying yourself a scientist does not make you one no matter how much you talk it up

Can you see the example in your words of what I've been trying to tell you about -- useless (and often also false) characterizations -- here you try to paint falsely that I "fancy" myself a scientist, as if science was unusual thing hardly anyone could do instead of simply the work to understand how nature works.

Practically everyone can be a scientist, at times, and it's nothing mysterious.

Science is simply investigating how things work. Karl Popper quality science isn't hard at all to do. Anyone that has even just an average ability can do this.

It's not elite, but it's effortful.

But your routine ad hominem (trying to make a question about the person instead of the objective issue) -- that's your self-harming practice I'm trying to point out to you, so that you could gain a little self-awareness and take a step in a better direction.

durangodawood · Jun 6, 2020

Unofficial Reverand Alex said:
Of all the issues in modern society, what is the greatest?....

The deliberate efforts to alienate people from reality and destroy their discernment of reality.

After that, probably the human caused degradation of living systems on a planet wide basis.

timothyu · Jun 6, 2020

durangodawood said:
The deliberate efforts to alienate people from reality and destroy their discernment of reality.

Our reality is not God's reality. We consider a self serving and self determining attitude to be our default reality. God says focus on others, a reality alien to our own. Right?

ViaCrucis · Jun 6, 2020

The greatest moral issue in modern society?

Well, how about we look to see what people around the globe have been protesting for the last week or so. That might give us a clue.

What else though?

- Climate change
- Global poverty
- Global hunger
- Lack of access to clean drinking water
- Lack of access to proper medical care
- Systemic oppression against minorities and the poor

-CryptoLutheran

MehGuy · Jun 7, 2020

On a personal level I'd say emotional masochism. Something that results in victim culture and even worse the hoarding and gatekeeping of victimhood. Also where masochism is sadism isn't far away. Our hyper political and turbulent culture can probably largely trace its roots to this.

Although more realistically in terms of most importance I'd say apathy about global warming.. but like whatever man..

OldWiseGuy · Jun 18, 2020

ViaCrucis said:
The greatest moral issue in modern society?

Well, how about we look to see what people around the globe have been protesting for the last week or so. That might give us a clue.

What else though?

- Climate change
- Global poverty
- Global hunger
- Lack of access to clean drinking water
- Lack of access to proper medical care
- Systemic oppression against minorities and the poor

-CryptoLutheran

Why impute immorality to these people? They have enough problems.

Caliban · Jun 18, 2020

Unofficial Reverand Alex said:
Of all the issues in modern society, what is the greatest?

I had this question as an assignment in my Christian Morality class, and I thought it would be good to share it here. I had a friend who put down that the greatest moral issue is that we keep talking about moral issues without actually doing anything about them. I liked that idea, and when I had another assignment I wrote in the class (about a controversial moral issue), I decided to write about the societal acceptance of laziness.

I think laziness could rightly be defined as at least 1 of the greatest moral issues in modern society. It is a fundamental problem, because the more laziness is accepted, the less will be done about any moral problem. I see it all the time when people waste hours on YouTube, Snapchat, or any of the vast entertainment platforms that are available today. What would happen to mental health problems, and moral issues throughout the world today, if people put aside this entertainment in favor of doing something that brings accomplishment to their life? Not the entertainment is bad in and of itself, but when entertainment becomes a way of life, we miss out on so much!

So what do you think?

With such diverse opinions in the world and growing secularity, there can be little consensus on what constitutes a problem. Even when people agree a particular issue is a problem, they often disagree strongly about solutions. Everyone thinks poverty is a moral failure, but there are so many different approaches that the problem remains intractable. Some see it as a personal moral or spiritual problem, others a community based problem involving greed and conservative thinking.

The growing trend of Humanism appeals to many, but many religious people think it is a scourge. This is why so many philanthropic foundations exist. People have decided to help and do so each day. Not every nurse needs to be a social justice warrior or stand outside Planned Parenthood. They might donate to their favorite cause however.

I think social media is a net positive for highlighting injustice and moral failure. It helps connect people to needs more than it distracts.

JIMINZ · Jun 18, 2020

ViaCrucis said:
The greatest moral issue in modern society?

Well, how about we look to see what people around the globe have been protesting for the last week or so. That might give us a clue.

What else though?

- Climate change
- Global poverty
- Global hunger
- Lack of access to clean drinking water
- Lack of access to proper medical care
- Systemic oppression against minorities and the poor

-CryptoLutheran

Wait 10 min. and there will be another "greatest moral issue in modern society." That people around the globe will be protesting until the next, "greatest moral issue in modern society" 10 Min. after that, and so on.

Society has no clue about anything moral, they just do what feels good at the moment, regardless of the consequences.

Caliban · Jun 18, 2020

JIMINZ said:
Society has no clue about anything moral...

Does that qualify as arrogance or hubris?

JIMINZ · Jun 18, 2020

Caliban said:
Does that qualify as arrogance or hubris?

TRUTH!!!!

What is the greatest moral issue in modern society?

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