Conscientious Alternative to Mormonism

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_Drifting
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Re: Conscientious Alternative to Mormonism

Post by _Drifting »

just me wrote:
mikwut wrote:Themis,

Torturing babies for pleasure is immoral. Murder is immoral, etc..

mikwut


But, see, this is still a problem. Was it immoral for Moses to have all those babies and children and women and men murdered? Was it immoral for Nephi to murder Laban?


Was it immoral when God murdered a world full of women, children and babies except the small number of people in Noah's immediate family?
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_sock puppet
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Re: Conscientious Alternative to Mormonism

Post by _sock puppet »

mikwut wrote:Themis,

Torturing babies for pleasure is immoral. Murder is immoral, etc..

mikwut

Why? is the question.
_mikwut
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Re: Conscientious Alternative to Mormonism

Post by _mikwut »

Hello Just Me,

But, see, this is still a problem. Was it immoral for Moses to have all those babies and children and women and men murdered? Was it immoral for Nephi to murder Laban?


The first is a problem for certain Christians and the latter for Mormons. I am neither.

mikwut
All communication relies, to a noticeable extent on evoking knowledge that we cannot tell, all our knowledge of mental processes, like feelings or conscious intellectual activities, is based on a knowledge which we cannot tell.
-Michael Polanyi

"Why are you afraid, have you still no faith?" Mark 4:40
_mikwut
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Re: Conscientious Alternative to Mormonism

Post by _mikwut »

Drifting,

Was it immoral when God murdered a world full of women, children and babies except the small number of people in Noah's immediate family?


What does that have to do with anything I have said?

mikwut
All communication relies, to a noticeable extent on evoking knowledge that we cannot tell, all our knowledge of mental processes, like feelings or conscious intellectual activities, is based on a knowledge which we cannot tell.
-Michael Polanyi

"Why are you afraid, have you still no faith?" Mark 4:40
_mikwut
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Re: Conscientious Alternative to Mormonism

Post by _mikwut »

Sock,

Why? is the question.


From my position it is because individuals have intrinsic value by their creator. How about yours?

mikwut
All communication relies, to a noticeable extent on evoking knowledge that we cannot tell, all our knowledge of mental processes, like feelings or conscious intellectual activities, is based on a knowledge which we cannot tell.
-Michael Polanyi

"Why are you afraid, have you still no faith?" Mark 4:40
_sock puppet
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Re: Conscientious Alternative to Mormonism

Post by _sock puppet »

mikwut wrote:Sock,

Why? is the question.


From my position it is because individuals have intrinsic value by their creator. How about yours?

mikwut

Because individuals have intrinsic value, period. And additionally as to torturing babies for pleasure, suffering torture as a 'societal' cost always outweighs the societal 'benefit' of the pleasure of another, particularly one whose pleasure depends on someone's suffering. A god is not necessary for morality.
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Re: Conscientious Alternative to Mormonism

Post by _mikwut »

Sock,

Because individuals have intrinsic value, period.


Just because you say so?

And additionally as to torturing babies for pleasure, suffering torture as a 'societal' cost always outweighs the societal 'benefit' of the pleasure of another, particularly one whose pleasure depends on someone's suffering.


I am not asking about laws or societal 'benefits' however you define value for that, I am questioning individual duty to be moral.

A god is not necessary for morality.


The issue is what morality without him?

mikwut
All communication relies, to a noticeable extent on evoking knowledge that we cannot tell, all our knowledge of mental processes, like feelings or conscious intellectual activities, is based on a knowledge which we cannot tell.
-Michael Polanyi

"Why are you afraid, have you still no faith?" Mark 4:40
_just me
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Re: Conscientious Alternative to Mormonism

Post by _just me »

mikwut wrote:Hello Just Me,

But, see, this is still a problem. Was it immoral for Moses to have all those babies and children and women and men murdered? Was it immoral for Nephi to murder Laban?


The first is a problem for certain Christians and the latter for Mormons. I am neither.

mikwut


Ah, I see. How about all the millions of people who practiced infanticide. Was everyone prior to humans deciding that was a bad thing immoral? Why didn't they all get the memo that killing babies you can't take care of is immoral? Or was it moral then and it just isn't moral now?

How do we figure this out?
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_MCB
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Re: Conscientious Alternative to Mormonism

Post by _MCB »

mikwut wrote:The issue is what morality without him?

mikwut
Respect for humanity, and the Earth we live on.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_K ... evelopment

Level 1 (Pre-Conventional)

1. Obedience and punishment orientation

(How can I avoid punishment?)

2. Self-interest orientation

(What's in it for me?)
(Paying for a benefit)

Level 2 (Conventional)

3. Interpersonal accord and conformity

(Social norms)
(The good boy/good girl attitude)

4. Authority and social-order maintaining orientation

(Law and order morality)

Level 3 (Post-Conventional)

5. Social contract orientation
6. Universal ethical principles

(Principled conscience)

Mormonism does its best to keep people stuck in the early stages of moral development. Do you see many Mormons thus described?
In Stage six (universal ethical principles driven), moral reasoning is based on abstract reasoning using universal ethical principles. Laws are valid only insofar as they are grounded in justice, and a commitment to justice carries with it an obligation to disobey unjust laws. Legal rights are unnecessary, as social contracts are not essential for deontic moral action. Decisions are not reached hypothetically in a conditional way but rather categorically in an absolute way, as in the philosophy of Immanuel Kant.[17] This involves an individual imagining what they would do in another’s shoes, if they believed what that other person imagines to be true.[18] The resulting consensus is the action taken. In this way action is never a means but always an end in itself; the individual acts because it is right, and not because it is instrumental, expected, legal, or previously agreed upon. Although Kohlberg insisted that stage six exists, he found it difficult to identify individuals who consistently operated at that level.[14]
Maybe Uchtdorf approaches it- but he is a convert.
Huckelberry said:
I see the order and harmony to be the very image of God which smiles upon us each morning as we awake.

http://www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/a ... cc_toc.htm
_mikwut
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Re: Conscientious Alternative to Mormonism

Post by _mikwut »

Hi Just Me,

Ah, I see. How about all the millions of people who practiced infanticide. Was everyone prior to humans deciding that was a bad thing immoral


Yes. Just like those before relativity were scientifically inaccurate - our societal acceptance wanes and grows - development is possible.

Why didn't they all get the memo that killing babies you can't take care of is immoral?


Who said they didn't - have you ever experienced denial for things you have done that are immoral?

Or was it moral then and it just isn't moral now?


The objective morality was always the same.

How do we figure this out?


I have stated I believe we are endowed with faculties that provide for those answers. Many of them of are basic to our constitution, do you really think you have "figured out" or gone through a process of deliberating about torturing babies is wrong or do you just apprehend that basically and fundamentally. I just perceive it. Our rational abilities can then connect to the basic intuitions/perceptions we have to solve personal and societal moral situations. What I am stating is believers have substantially greater reasons to trust the moral intuitions than nonbelievers and don't face the same level of absurdity.

mikwut
All communication relies, to a noticeable extent on evoking knowledge that we cannot tell, all our knowledge of mental processes, like feelings or conscious intellectual activities, is based on a knowledge which we cannot tell.
-Michael Polanyi

"Why are you afraid, have you still no faith?" Mark 4:40
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