Wesley: I stabbed you. I should apologize for that. But I'm honestly not sure how. I think it'll just be awkward. Gunn: Good call. Wesley: Okay.

'Time Bomb'


Natter 43: I Love My Dead Gay Whale Crosspost.  

Off-topic discussion. Wanna talk about corsets, duct tape, or physics? This is the place. Detailed discussion of any current-season TV must be whitefonted.


-t - Mar 30, 2006 1:36:54 pm PST #7389 of 10001
I am a woman of various inclinations and only some of the time are they to burn everything down in frustration

Weren't some old texts recently found that required some reinterpretation of existing translations, or seemed to imply that some things we thught were original were later additions?

I'm sure I could vague that up a little more if I really tried


Strega - Mar 30, 2006 1:45:30 pm PST #7390 of 10001

The trouble I'm having is that I'm not sure what people mean by moral duty or moral beliefs. Or morality, period. It's possible that I have moral beliefs, and just call them something else, but it makes this conversation sort of surreal. Moral and immoral aren't words I use seriously. I do use "good" and "evil," but they basically mean "characterized by empathy" or "showing a lack of empathy," and nothing beyond that. Useful adjectives, but not... well, nouns, I suppose.

But I'm a behaviorist running dog, so there's that.


billytea - Mar 30, 2006 1:47:55 pm PST #7391 of 10001
You were a wrong baby who grew up wrong. The wrong kind of wrong. It's better you hear it from a friend.

And an internal tug-of-war for most of us, jerking us back and forth between "Fuck this noise, I'll go find myself someplace that agrees with me on this and to hell with these bigoted assholes" and "Fuck this noise, this is my church too, and they don't get to weasel around and try to passive-aggressively make me feel so uncomfortable I leave on my own.

As long as either way, this noise is getting some action.

I think I've seen a picture of a turtle attempting to mate with a crash helmet, does that count? Or only if the love that dare not [turtle noise] itself is consumated?

I've seen a bull elephant seal trying to mate with a VW Beetle. Bull elephant seals, I have to report, are into teh rough sex. VWs, not so much.

You don't think, like BT posits, that morals can determine religious beliefs?

I saw billytea's point last night, and I'm glad you highlighted that bit ita, because I do largely agree with that assertion too, even though it's coming at the issue from the opposite direction.

I would like to say that I do believe that one's morality and one's religious beliefs will interact and connect in myriad ways. Furthermore, I do indeed hold that morals can determine religious beliefs. But what I said went a bit further than that to. I was saying that I reached the position that I realised I would hold my moral beliefs independent of any religious beliefs. Whether I was Christian, atheist, Wiccan, a Muslim or a Satanist, my morality would be the same. It would, of course, determine something of the kind of Christian / atheist / Wiccan etc I could be. (Is that part of my religious view? It's certainly part of my worldview, it certainly would relate to and would affect my religious view, but I tend to think calling it part of my religious view is not the most accurate way of putting it.) But my ceasing to be a Christian, while initiated by this realisation, was not determined by it.


§ ita § - Mar 30, 2006 1:47:59 pm PST #7392 of 10001
Well not canonically, no, but this is transformative fiction.

Morality is a code to me. Code of desired behaviour, either in you or someone else.

Amoral is without a code. Immoral is against the code I prefer.

Good and evil, on the other hand, get a lot fuzzier in my lexicon. They act a lot more absolute.


msbelle - Mar 30, 2006 1:49:53 pm PST #7393 of 10001
I remember the crazy days. 500 posts an hour. Nubmer! Natgbsb

I was all ready to leave for the day, and then I went and started a client download from the FTP server. Stoopid Stoopid Stoopid me.


§ ita § - Mar 30, 2006 1:50:55 pm PST #7394 of 10001
Well not canonically, no, but this is transformative fiction.

Do you have to be there for the end of the download?

I'm getting a migraine. Wanna go home.


Rick - Mar 30, 2006 1:54:30 pm PST #7395 of 10001

Of course killing his son did not go against all Abraham knew about the world. Child sacrifice was not uncommon at the time in that region.

I’m not sure why similar demands for child sacrifice by polytheistic gods are relevant here. The story clearly is written to show that Abraham faces a difficult dilemma. Indeed, the story is chosen to represent the most difficult dilemma that a person could face: Submit to God’s will or protect my child? Abraham is admired because his submission to God is so complete that he is willing to kill his son. If killing his son were a mundane request, then the story would have no meaning. You might as well have Abraham hear a thundering voice saying “I AM YOUR GOD AND I DEMAND THAT YOU GO UP ON THE MOUNTAIN AND ENJOY THE VIEW FOR AWHILE! MAYBE PICK A FEW BERRIES! I COMMAND IT!” Then Abraham could have founded three major religions on the basis of his very reverent berry picking.


msbelle - Mar 30, 2006 1:58:34 pm PST #7396 of 10001
I remember the crazy days. 500 posts an hour. Nubmer! Natgbsb

yeah, I need to disconnect and shut down before I leave.


§ ita § - Mar 30, 2006 2:01:29 pm PST #7397 of 10001
Well not canonically, no, but this is transformative fiction.

I need to disconnect and shut down before I leave.

Ah, that's annoying. We're allowed to lock our workstations. Though they don't love it.


billytea - Mar 30, 2006 2:02:24 pm PST #7398 of 10001
You were a wrong baby who grew up wrong. The wrong kind of wrong. It's better you hear it from a friend.

Good and evil, on the other hand, get a lot fuzzier in my lexicon. They act a lot more absolute.

Yup. A philosopher called Moore proposed an argument in the early 20th century (that I find fairly compelling) that the definitional content of the term 'good' can't be specified, because whatever someone proposed as a definition can be questioned whether that really is good in all cases. If not, then it might be regarded as good by people, and they can call it good and we seem to understand what they mean (more or less), but it doesn't really do as a definition of good.

I tend to view it similarly to Heisenberg's uncertainty principle. The more absolute we treat good and evil, the less we can profitably talk about what they actually mean. (Funnily enough, I'm also then quite comfortable in regard good and evil as being absolute, and one of my favourite philosophical works is called "Good and Evil: An Absolute Conception", but this isn't about trying to say that this or that is good.)