Real debate on society and morals

General Forums Off-topic Chat
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Okay, this should be interesting. Let’s make sure we keep this clean and intelligent.

I think the first thing we must do is look at the past and view the trends. It appears as though we are moving from a society of morals and beliefs, towards one of instincts and self-reason. The casualness of sex these days is a good example. Although on the surface it looks as though this is a perfectly viable way to live and survive, what is changing in the underpinning of not only society, but our conciousness that allows us to be this way? Being into art, poetry, philosophy, and psychology, I have questioned the state of the human concoius many times.

I tend to believe that by having beliefs and morals, even if illogical from the natural world, it conciously seperates us from the environment, from the animals. The trend these days seems to be a kind of desensitization. But many people view being able to do whatever, such as promiscuity, as freedom that we deserve as part of the ever evolving ‘free world’.

I can logically concede being able to do these things is freedom, but from what? When I try to conceptualize through poetry and art, a topic such as love or life, I come upon a world which steps beyond logical earthly bounds. It is a world in which emotion and beauty creates the fabric of being, and it is this which makes us human.

Through many freedoms we gain, many emotions we loose. Through the diversity of society, many dynamics of culture are gone. The more advanced we get in science, the further we get from faith. Yet even beyond religion, faith is required to overcome any fear. Even just faith in ones self.

A long time ago, scientists were philosophers, and philosophers were scientists. But now a gap between dreaming faith and the physical medium is growing. Science is discovering blindly, with earthly intentions and earthly results. But being human, we merely exsist here with the ability to manipulate. If we continue to expand the gap of philosophy and science, we will continue to become more and more like animals. Not in body, because we are like animals in that way, but in mind.

As we let more and more environmental stimuli control us, we lose more and more self-control. Perhaps through freedom in the physical world, we become prisoners of ourselves.

p.s.~ I’m not endorsing any particular set of morals or beliefs. Only defending the concept and necessity of having such self-constraints.

“The empires of the futures are the empires of the mind.” ~ Winston Churchill

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This also goes many ways, I believe morals belongs tour the individsial not society as a whole or some world. There is one phrase that determan good from bad and that’s “Do onto others as you would have others do onto yourself” The only thing that seperates us from morals and society, is drugs, sex and the age of an adult, things that can’t be proven by science.

There are many examples of morality and society, there’s the copper indians, tribes in Africa and the lost tribes of brazal. The only harm tour the world is everyone trying to find one term of society and morals. It is the difference that strive to be the same that is the most differcult, why not let everyone believe there own ways ?

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Al_Capone: English is not your primary language, right?

Martin

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English is the only language I know, but I was never taught much english in school, if it’s anything that’s proof of public education, is that it fails in the LD catagory.

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Why, what I spell wroung this time ?

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And those are only the most obvious, I probably forgot a couple of others giving that English is the second language that I learned.

Oh, and you spelled wrong the wrong way.

I usually don’t like correcting people’s mistakes givin’ that I do some from time to time myself, but that was just way over the limit of acceptable. Especially mistakingly using “tour” for “to”…

Martin

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Well, I type faster then I think, sometimes I get it, sometimes I don’t.

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To an extent. There must be however, a common set of limits.

Sometimes I want to die, does that make you feel more comfortable. What about how guys treat girls. The level of respect towards females these days by many guys is rediculous. A lot of it has to do with the down turn of common morality.

Drugs are science, however abused by people. Sex can be defined also by science. The age of an adult is a necessary constant in order for many things to be dependant upon, both technical and cultural. However the age of maturity is variable. It is just not feasible to measure and adjust the age of an adult based on the age of maturity for each individual.

In other words… nothing you said in that sentence made sense.

Those are example of culture in society, of which a set of morals is often a significant part of the culture.

In order for what you said to have any bearing, you would have to describe for example, how those speicifc tribes veiwed a topic, such as homosexuality for example, and how those beliefs have shaped their being.

Only because people can not see beyond themselves to the common goal. It’s called selfishness. They use the term ‘freedom’ simply as a self justification.

Believe their own ways, yes, act their own ways, no. You are only thinking from the perspective of the whole impeding the individual, not the individuals impeding the whole. Think about that.

Please be controlled in hitting the reply button. If your not going to take time to analyze your thoughts, at least try to make them ledgible. Use http://www.dictionary.com if you have to. You used three posts to make one point, of which only very little made any contribution to the topic.

9

this is really a sad, sad thread.

i say we just leave all this at that, and forget our differences.

i would rather listen to cubey infernel neurotic rantings than see this.

not that i’m up or a debate, but i’m sick and tired of seeing these threads on elysiun anymore.

eh…i don’t know. maybe this is better than cubey…

grown men fighting over futile things (not futile i know, but our fihgting has lead nowhere, we have no fruits for out labors!!!)…or a little kid whining about his cushy life?

%$&@, this is hard!!!

%|

PS: :stuck_out_tongue: sorta

EDIT: righting a response to the topic, gimme a minute.

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UHmm that depedn on where you live…In USA, canada, europe…I really think that girls are respected as “equal” by most of the men…

But I know that in some “country” (I will not name because I don,t want to get flame but you all know what I’m talkign about) girl are considerate “lower” than men…and this I can’t understand…Why does that in their religion, they kinda need to put them lower then Men??

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UHmm that depedn on where you live…In USA, canada, europe…I really think that girls are respected as “equal” by most of the men…

But I know that in some “country” (I will not name because I don,t want to get flame but you all know what I’m talkign about) girl are considerate “lower” than men…and this I can’t understand…Why does that in their religion, they kinda need to put them lower then Men??[/quote]

The treatment of women is primarly relative to your culture. But particularly here in the US is what I was refering to. Also, I believe that the view of females as equals in their role in society is different from what I was referring to. I was more or less talking about respect and chivalry in the sense of not treating them like a piece of meat. Although girls and women are changing a lot these days, a lot of time inviting the male responses, the guys seem to act more and more like animals looking for a mate.

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take the analogy of the basketball game.

no refs, no rules. your objective with your team is to place the ball in the other team’s hoop, at whatever the cost.

what is the game like? you might as well get into a brawl with the other players. people fight, taunt each other, and generally make the game into (an internet debate?) nothing but men fighting over…what?

there’s no sense in playing if everyone is fighting, whe there is no rules, no morals, no values the system dies. no one watches the game becase there is no game. it turns into unscripted wwf (or e or whatever they call that crap now).

same with life, you might aswell kill yourself now, before your wuality of life sinks to new lows.

sure it’s a good first, maybe eveen more fun, people experiment lightly with just holding the ball, or mybe wrenching it out of another’s hand. then it turns ugly, people begin holding on to other arms to kepp them from making shots, or even moving. then people get really violent, things start to go downhill.

now take marrige for instance. there becomes this thing that marrige is no longer a binding holy agreement. you sign a pre nup, and things are fine…for a few years.

your start fight with your wife, maybe you’ve had a kid, a girl, she’s two. now let’s advance until she’s 8, dad’s off having sex with the neighbor “lady”, his defense? marrige isn’t binding. the two get divorced and fight over who get’s the child…except both of them are fighting because neither one of them want her.

and marrige isn’t a binding agreement, when you went into it, you expected to bail someday. even with a child, and innocent little child with no choice whether mommy and daddy hate each other.

i could go on and on, into drugs, sex, porn, homosexuality, bi-sexuallity, etc. etc.

i’ll spare you.

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I’m not quite sure if I understood all of your statement (acasto’s) but I don’t think for most points you mentioned the situation is much different from the past.
A difference may be that today we talk about things that have been hidden in the past. Take all the aspects of sexuality. Promiscuity, prostitution, illegitimate children, homosexuality, etc. are as old as mankind. We may like it or we may damn it but it is there and it always has been there. In the past, or today in some Islamic countries, you would have been killed or tortured for this, today in the western countries you’re not. And that’s the main difference for me.
What is moral ? Inquisition was highly morally to it’s times. Cutting off hands is still highly morally in some countries. Death penalty is highly morally even in some western countries though this is completely against anything written in the new testament. etc.etc.
Therefor I don’t think we become more and more like animals only because we are showing what always has been there. It’s just more honestly. Neglecting it and hunting people that is worse.
And I doubt that the past has been better in general. A lot of intelligence, philosophy, and science has been used to mistreat people and nature, but we tend to pick up only this aspects of the past that’s seems to be human.
And about lost of self control, I also doubt that the past has been better.
A difference to the past is that we collect more and more knowledge and means to make lasting endangering to our habitat.

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when you say “in the past” what do you mean?

victorian era? darkages, middle ages? before Christ? before the first formation of Isreal?

because it really depends.

Death penalty is highly morally even in some western countries though this is completely against anything written in the new testament. etc.etc.

prove it. because alot of times, one can open the bible and use any verse he pleases to make his point.

when taken fully out of context things can be totally different. many people claim the bible doesn’t support the death penalty. Jesus said take pity on your enemies, pray for them, and love them. Matthew 5:43-48 (not exact, but a loose likeness of the 5 verses.)

unless you can provide to me scripture from the new testament to support your cause, and it is not out of context, then your statements are meaningless. unless you provide to me tangible evidence that your are right, then i won’t believe you. there’s nothing i can’t stand more than someone who claims that something is said int he bible, then can’t show me the scripture to back it up, or can show me scripture that is in context.

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In the reversed order :wink:

I don’t think that it depends in the generalized form as it can be discussed here.

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The difference is, is that even though it occured, it was not commonly accepted. Keeping with dittoheads example, fights do break out in games every now and then, but it’s not accepted. That’s the stabalizing factor.

Cutting off hands and the death penality are not good examples though. Logically they are rather effective. They are a control in the system.

Now an individuals opinion on something like the death penality would then bring it down to a level of morality. However, because our culture (the US) is not based off a specific religion, thus inherent to a specific set of morals, the death penalty is not implimented for moral reasons, but logical reasons.

Going again with the basketball game example, a lot of player get angry and feel like hitting someone during games, but they control themselves because of the stipulations of the game. Even though you may feel like hitting someone, you supress it, and that is not dis-honesty. If you did hit someone because you felt like it, then claiming you were only being honest would simply be an excuse. This would only support my claim of individual selfishness.

This must be re-structured. Because of our intelligence, we are capable of philosophy and science. By our creativity and curiosity, we explore philosophy and science. This then returns to further our intelligence.

So you don’t think if something is widely accepted it occurs more often? As compared to a situation in which because it is not accepted, any occurence is hidden, however many just surpressed all together.

That is why many kids just don’t kick back on their family couch and pop open a beer (unless that is accepted in their home.) With this example, I think it is safe to logically conclude that many kids try or drink alcohol, yet do not to the extent as would occur given it was acceptable.

That is called learning. It makes us more capable to hurt the environment, but doesn’t dictate it. The endangerment of the environment can also be partly attributed to society looking more towards the moment and not the future. The goal is becoming more and more to further one’s self with no thought to the consequences.

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And about lost of self control, I also doubt that the past has been better.

i never meant anything about the past being better. i meant is as worse in some areas. in fact, western civilization in genreal is getting worse.

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Just like I used to think before I was on my meds.

What many see as imprisonment by the world, is merely to hide from the realization that they imprison themselves.

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If it’s only replys tour the US, then forget it, it’s too one sided to define morals by one country or state. But I believe in moral relivitisam and the rest of the US should as well, not to enforce these sudo christanality on everyone. And no adult isn’t define on one magic number, it could be anywhere from 8-marriage or whatever the morals and culture of that society. America shouldn’t be a christian country, it is made of people from all over the world. When you have that many people and culture all mix into one country, it will be more peacefull to leave it tour the indivisial, otherwise you are going to have a Jihad on your hands.

Selfishness is good in my opinion, its better then using morality, free world, civialize world and global Democracy to justicfy global tyranny and dictatorship.

I have no concern for respect or what an indivisial do to one self. But if you want to die you going have to ask yourself, you going to do it yourself or you plan on having someone do it for you and benifiting something good at the same time ?

I didn’t mean science for drugs and sex but maturity of an adult or a consenting age. This is one thing that can’t be proven by science, it’s a matter of culture and morals of one society. It is true that dependency is define by age, but that is also seperate as a consenting adults.

Copper indians and the lost tribes of Brizal share there wives and there children, while in Iran only men can reach adult hood, marry a women any age they choose. “8” according tour the toran is the youngest. The lost tibes of Brizal are only consider an adult after some rictial, they put a sharp steack through the ears, this is mostly age 11, I think, they also have a festable once a year called bored day, which is some mating holiday that any age can take place in.

In Puru, they use coco leaves for traveling up the mountains because the air is so thin up there, while it is western morality that is responsable for the victious brutelity of the people in South America and Puru.

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Going by the bible is the most dangerous act a person can take, because both good and bad can be justify by a bible and that makes me a firm believer of seperation of church and state.