Philosophies: Liberalism vs. Conservatism

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Na.

Hey snakeboy, did you know that you can combine multiple consecutive posts into one?

You know, i am glad that we here on WP like to co-exist with kind discussions about politics/religion/philosophy. But, i have to admit, that i will never surrender my heart to ideologies that have been put upon me. No one has the right to coerse another for their beliefs because it is or isn't in fashion or because it has been that way for many years. I believe that many things are cultivating, meshing, bubbling into some sort of conglomeration that will some how benefit mankind, and replace old things that once were problematic: Like religion. Religion has caused so much strife in our world. But i am antaganizing religious fanatisism when i say it, so i will close out my rant with this discourse; As long as the nation doesn't satiate the state, the state will destabilize and immanently disintegrate.

So, you are positing that there is a right to do evil? Where can a right to do wrong even come from? You suppose liberality to be good by making your claims the way you do.

I wasn't arguing discrimination but rather that politics is bound to morality. A christian from a christian perspective is better than everything else, and how can you ask a person to vote outside of their perspective? It is like asking someone to do a physics problem in a completely different universe. Basically, my stance is that people do not reveal the moral ideas they hold very explicitly and this is more often found in secularism than religion even though both are frameworks with founding premises.


So? The KKK is an extreme conservative group. Really, it was not taken from the KKK so much as it existed before the KKK did. The US has often wavered in its religious ideas with some court cases being based upon the idea that we are a Christian nation and other proclamations claiming otherwise. Conservatives emphasize that former and see the latter as abnormal. Well, yes, one can argue that conservatives and the KKK are best buds, but taking an argument that strained is like arguing that democrats support Marxism.

You are aware that not everyone thinks ethics is determined by religion. You must realize that the Bible condones many things deemed unethical by modern society. Seeing the track record of evil done in the name of religion, I certainly do not trust any religion to be the final arbiter of morality and ethics. If you can’t accept a secular code of ethics maybe you should go live in Saudi Arabia.

Last edited by marshall on 25 Nov 2007, 8:02 pm, edited 2 times in total.

I am aware that the world has many thoughts and that some are consistent and that some aren't. I know that the Bible condones things that modern society doesn't. Ethics is determined by assumptions and religion IS one of the assumptions that determines ethics as religion tends to assert values. Technically, your argument starts off on flimsy premises as you argue that because religion has done evil we must reject religion, however, you have not proven the existence of evil. You then finish with a rather sloppy conclusion and ultimately because you are not seeing my argument. I argue against all moralities, even yours, the reason I spare religion is because at least they have the humility to admit that faith plays a role.

people do not deserve the right to challenge the rights of other people.

I agree that ethics has assumptions. There’s nothing in the universe that doesn’t require assumptions. However, I wouldn’t say ethics is determined by religion, but rather religious morality is determined by ethics, customs, and prejudices that are largely from the past. I don’t think it is good to have an ethical code that is rigidly bound to some authority from the past. Often religions claim something is immoral without giving any reason for the claim other than prejudice.



If you want to play semantics I’ll try to be more clear. What I meant by “evil” is what our current society considers evil. I wasn’t making any claim that I alone define what is evil.



I don’t have a problem with religion claiming that faith plays a role. I just have a problem with religious people being hypocritical and claiming that they have a code of absolute morality/ethics when they themselves are not even clear. Any religious code of morality requires subjective interpretation. If it was so obvious why are there entire schools dedicated to the theology and moral interpretations of specific religious books? I don’t get why you accuse people with no religion of “make up their own rules” when you in fact do the exact same thing.

Last edited by marshall on 22 Nov 2007, 2:47 am, edited 2 times in total.

I'll also add that the modern conservative party is not so much a proud christian group that it is more of a hate group against those who are not christian.

I mean I'm aspie, but I will not support an aspie if he were running for office or even for an activist leadership position and ranting hate speech against NTs and telling them that their laws should require them to learn to decipher code, program computers, read an entire enclopedia edition and attend conventions (half that stuff I haven't done, I was using a sarcastic, stereotypically aspie example here to get my point across).
I don't see why these conservative Christians can't do the same, seperate pride from hate.

Raggedy's problem is that he sees being a Christian conservative who doesn't have the ability to question anything put before him as his one true path to salvation. He may think in terms of grey, but under it all, it's 'all you negroes to the back of the bus', and that insular thinking is what makes him so unpopular here. Parakeet should know better too, but seeing as he has faalen for the deceipt of the religious conservative movement (more akin to bowel movement), he obviously can't see the wood for the trees either. And what's even funnier when you come to think of it is the fact that the only ones who really give a stuff about the argument at all are those from the US, which onlyt really make up a small percentage of Internet users; the rest of us really don't care.

BTW Raggy, try giving Blue Mink's 'Melting Pot' a listen. Or is it too close to the truth that your conservative mind can't fathom it?

Ragtime...you couldn't have stated it better! Bravo!! !! !

That's like saying money and/or guns are evil. Religion (in its most simple definition) is a set of beliefs that a person holds to be true. What breathing person doesn't have a set of beliefs? Even the statement "Religion has caused so much strife in our world" is a symptom of its author's atheistic religion (as if the author is above those who don't believe what he believes).

What's evil is human nature (pride) and the love of money (gets people used and abused).

It's not religion in and of itself that is the problem, it is how different people interpret it to justify their own selfish agendas that is the real issue.

It's skepticism i must admit. Religion has always been the underlying cause of money laundering and the creation of weapons like guns. As long as man has the scapegoat of religion to use to his disposal, we won't have a free society. Remember when a couple of months ago congress was going to ban the right to free speech that demonizes anothers lifestyle, religion, sexual-orientation, and/or freedom of expression? That bill has sort of disappeared, but that is not the last time we will hear of it. It is a necessity to censor those who are willing to slander anyone for being weak or different, and i don't like the sound of censorship, but don't go to troops funerals with signs telling them that god is mad at the US and punishing us for our "perversions" that we allow to co-exist peacefully with us.

Last edited by Averick on 22 Nov 2007, 10:31 am, edited 1 time in total.

Yes, which is one of my points. If it all requires assumptions then how can we say that we are absolutely right and that they are absolutely wrong as we cannot prove something we must assume. I hardly care where religion itself comes from, however, it is a current source of ethics. The analysis of religion's origins does not seem fruitful to me though because it does not matter in terms of settling the philosophical element of the problem.


Yes, and who says that our current society is correct or that its definition must be unwaveringly used? Our current society's ideas change and have been changing and people in this society are very different in their positions so to me, what people consider to be evil is about as important as what they consider to be delicious as both are as flimsy.


Hunh??? I never said that religions didn't have subjective interpretation; I just said that I thought that non-religious absolutism was a stronger force with less self-examination. I know that there are variances in their teachings, however, another element of this ends up being the underlying philosophies within their examination. My message though just is for humanists who have not thought about philosophical truth much.