[Peace-discuss] Bellicose rhetoric???

[Brussel Morton K.]

Huh? Lots of nonsequiturs for one sentence, or is it? --mkb

On Nov 11, 2008, at 9:39 PM, E. Wayne Johnson wrote:

> Ratiocination is good.
>
> It's that sometimes t3h ratio between rampant ratiocinators who  
> ratiocinate routinely and non-ratiocinators who rarely ratiocinate
> but routinely rant about ratiocinations seems irrational.
>
>
> Morton K. Brussel wrote:
>> All this preaching on this list!  Perhaps I can insert the opinion  
>> that "God" (or gods) are totally empty concepts, explaining  
>> nothing, but giving rise to endless ratiocination.  --mkb
>>
>>
>> On Nov 10, 2008, at 10:35 AM, C. G. Estabrook wrote:
>>
>>> God is not a necessary component of morality for the simple  
>>> reason that God --
>>> the answer (which we do not know) to the question, "Why is there  
>>> anything
>>> instead of nothing?" -- is not a component of anything.
>>>
>>> God is not a thing in the universe -- we can't point to something  
>>> in the
>>> universe as the reason for the existence of the universe -- and  
>>> God and the
>>> universe don't add up to two. (Two of what would that be?  Two  
>>> things?  But God
>>> is not thing in the universe, etc.)
>>>
>>> Morality is a component of human nature (for the existence of  
>>> which God of course is the reason, as for everything), as grammar  
>>> is a component of
>>> language. Just as an intelligent visitor from Mars would think  
>>> that all humans
>>> were speaking one language with regional variations, so human  
>>> ethics might be
>>> regarded as the rules (or grammar) for humans' being together --  
>>> with
>>> some interesting regional variations... (That's what makes horse  
>>> racing, or at
>>> least philosophical argument -- and literature.)
>>>
>>> Well over a thousand years of Christian philosophical reflection  
>>> took it as a
>>> commonplace that the Decalogue is not a set of rules imposed from  
>>> outside, as it
>>> were, that might have been different, but rather rational  
>>> conclusions from
>>> reflection on what it is to be human.  (They did think it was a  
>>> little hard to
>>> derive the 3rd/4th Commandment -- there are different numbering  
>>> systems -- this
>>> way.)
>>>
>>> Christian theologians thought that, although ethics could be  
>>> descried rationally, that took effort (and time) -- hence all  
>>> that literature -- and so God generously provided in the Ten  
>>> Commandments as it were an operating manual ("documentation," we  
>>> would say) for being human.
>>>
>>> More on this from me (quoting others), if you want, at "The  
>>> Subversive
>>> Commandments," <http://www.counterpunch.org/ 
>>> estabrook03292005.html>.  --CGE
>>>
>>>
>>> John W. wrote:
>>>> ... I'd be more interested in hearing one or both of you Bible  
>>>> scholars explain to Jenifer why God is a necessary component of  
>>>> morality.  Or conversely, how one can be moral without a belief  
>>>> in God.
>>>> John Wason
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Peace-discuss mailing list
>>> Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net
>>> http://lists.chambana.net/cgi-bin/listinfo/peace-discuss
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Peace-discuss mailing list
>> Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net
>> http://lists.chambana.net/cgi-bin/listinfo/peace-discuss
>>
>>
> _______________________________________________
> Peace-discuss mailing list
> Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net
> http://lists.chambana.net/cgi-bin/listinfo/peace-discuss