[Peace-discuss] Obama gets another one right

[John W.]

Point NOT taken.  These two debates have raged for many, many years.
There's no such thing as a "full" reply.

John W.


On Thu, Jan 29, 2009 at 11:40 AM, Ricky Baldwin <baldwinricky at yahoo.com>wrote:

:-)  Point taken.
>
> Ricky
>
>
> "Speak your mind even if your voice shakes." - Maggie Kuhn
>
>  ------------------------------
> *From:* E. Wayne Johnson <ewj at pigs.ag>
> *To:* Ricky Baldwin <baldwinricky at yahoo.com>
> *Cc:* John W. <jbw292002 at gmail.com>; loriserb at loriserb.info;
> peace-discuss at anti-war.net
> *Sent:* Thursday, January 29, 2009 6:28:46 AM
>
> *Subject:* Re: [Peace-discuss] Obama gets another one right
>
> Perhaps it would have been good to have taken the time to have constructed
> a full reply.
>
> Ricky Baldwin wrote:
>
>  Maybe it's a good thing I don't have time right now to give a full reply
> to this, but I find that I cannot let it pass.  Too many friends taking the
> brunt of this nonsense about "morality" - perhaps that's what we need to
> find a cure for, Wayne: this so-called "morality" that is so blind and
> ignorant and fearful that it mainfests itself as hate, bigotry, support for
> centuries of brutal oppression.
>
> I once had a conversation with my grandmother about gods and devils.  In
> those days I was young and naive and believed in everything my family taught
> me about gods and devils, as well as morals.  I still believe what they
> taught me about morals.  I asked my grandmother, if a person hears an
> inner voice (or reads a tract, for that matter) how is a well-meaning human
> being to know whether it is the voice of angels/god/Jesus or the voice of
> devils?  By what the voice says, she told me, by what the voice says.
>
> I am not a religious person, so I generally do my best not to lecture
> religious people on religion.  I have a big mouth, however, and I am very
> mindful of ethics - and as in this case I feel obliged too speak up against
> evil.  This bigotry against people whose *desires* are different (of all
> things!) is evil.  It is as evil as racism, as woman-hating (whatever you
> want to call it), as the hatred of heretics and witches.
>
> Not only is it not based on the biology it claims - anybody who has ever
> had dogs should know this, or quite a few other animals, anyone who
> knows much about actual and not idealized animal behavior, that is, humans
> or other animals, incl. mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians (see
> "Biological Exuberance" for an excellent cataloguing of non-missionary-style
> animal sexual behavior) - but, most importantly, it is not based on the
> *morality* it claims.
>
> Friends, morality cannot derive from gods or other supernatural beings or
> the fear or love of them, any more than it derives from human legislation.
> The question my old philosphy teacher (actually, my mother's - I was a guest
> in the class, playing hookey from school) raised to make his students think
> - Is the Good good because God wills it, or does God will it because it is
> good? - can have only one moral answer, if we accept the premises.  Our
> gods, if we have any, must always be judged by our morality and not the
> other way around.  My hillbilly grandmother knew that much.
>
> This is contrary to certain teachings in the Torah, the Bible,
> the Koran, like the story of Abraham and Isaac.  So be it.  Our fellow human
> beings are more important than these texts, upon which in any event I
> understand that many adherents disagree.
>
> Ricky
>
> "Speak your mind even if your voice shakes." - Maggie Kuhn
>
>
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