IDENTITY=Behavior There are no CAUSELESS crimes or innocent evils

by Terry 89 Replies latest watchtower bible

  • Terry
    Terry
    Hellrider: In that case, why are they responsible for their actions And responsible how? In a an absolute "moral" sense? Obviously not (according to your view), as the "right-doers" have only more intelligently adapted to social norms, social constructs!

    You seem to think morality floats like a cloud or wafts like a breeze through our lives. Morality is merely practical behavior. It is nothing more special than a social contract which keeps us off each other's toes and insures we don't end up in jail. It isn't handed to us ad hoc by a ghostly hand from the sky.

    Not farting in an elevator isn't a divine bit of knowledge. It is just a practical, common sense approach to getting along and not branding yourself as a lout.

    But I don`t give a shit about "social norms", social constructs , and if that is all morality is, if that is the basis for how you deem people to be "accountable" for their acts, then your condemnation is worth nothing.

    We all hold each other responsible and accountable because we must. In the long run, your neighbor cannot be allowed to run roughshod over you. You draw the line where your property begins and his ends. If not, you might find your neighbor planting a garden in your rose bed and driving your car and stealing your lawnmower!

    Top dog eats first. Why? Top dog bites bottom dog when bottom dog tries to steal the juicy bits first.

    Society always has Top dog. In America we try to limit who is allowed to be Top Dog by merit and an elective process of representation. Often, Top Dog is just a lying politician. But, that is rather beside my point right now.

    Condemnation without power is mere opinion. Condemnation with power (law and courts and prisons) is accountability.

    You may not like it--but, my friend, there is no way around it.

  • Terry
    Terry

    But what is this "we" that you speak of? While it would be impossible to communicate in English without using such terms as "I" and "we", aren't these terms just metaphors? Is there some essence within us that is free from cause, an "unmoved mover" as I stated in my previous post? I don't see how this is possible.

    You are perhaps suggesting there is an ultimate answer to all life's questions? I think not!

    A ball rolls downhill. You don't need science to inform you of that. Not understanding gravity (and who does?) is neither here nor there. A ball rolls downhill.

    Human knowledge is only useful when we employ what we know to better our condition, status and prospects for a life well lived.

    If you want to know who you are; you are asking the wrong question. "I" and "we" aren't metaphors at all. Why would they be? Nothing exists which does not possess identity. "I" possess identity because I exist as a particular. My particularlity (if I can be permitted to use such a clumsy word) consists of my behavior, mostly.

    It doesn't matter what I am thinking. What matters is what I do. Why? Because what we DO is who we are.

  • Terry
    Terry
    DantheMan: Is there some essence within us that is free from cause, an "unmoved mover" as I stated in my previous post?

    Essence?

    That is a mental construct; a constituency. Is a cake only really flower, eggs, baking soda, sugar, etc? Reductionism misses the whole point.

    Causality is a rather silly preoccupation.

    Do you eat because you are hungry? Does hunger cause you to eat? Why are you hungry? Does your body inform you of the need for fuel because energy levels are low? Is the body mechanism of hunger caused by a lack of energy? That would mean that NOT having something is a cause itself. A negative produces a positive?!!

    Nonsense. Causality cannot be isolated. When we attempt to do this we fool ourselves so badly we create a riddle that wastes our time.

    Everything exists interdependantly and always has!

    People have no problem accepting the idea that GOD ALWAYS EXISTED. But, they get a terrible cramp accepting that the energy/matter/space/time of our universe ALWAYS EXISTED.

    When you see that existence does NOT HAVE A CAUSE you are on the right basis for understanding that there cannot be A FIRST CAUSE for anything.

    We as persons, identities, powers with consciousness are not CAUSED by just ONE thing which is the BE ALL and END ALL.

    Existence isn't an on/off switch in a vaccuum.

  • Terry
    Terry
    People who do good works do not expect society to separate them from their charity and rationalise away the merit of their deeds. They are viewed as good people not people who do good because they are unable to help themselves.

    WOW! Gorgeous thinking!!

  • writetoknow
    writetoknow

    If we lived in another world not so long ago in earth time we would all be kill for expressing thoughts so openly. I wonder how that affected their behaivor? If you were raise a Jew I wonder what your thought pattern we would have been. If you were raise a black person in the 1800 I wonder again what a person thought pattern would be?

    We hate excuses strange phenomenon I never meant a person that was as hard on themself as their fellow-human when it comes excuses. I have yet to meet a person when they have a problem that doesn't want understanding and compassion.

    Some interesting studies where a prison of woman were treated with diet alone and their personalities changed. We all have a diet of crap from the media it has no affects on people? If that were true then how have we went from a nation that used to spank kids to a nation that now fines it offensive to do so?

    Every generation of the human race has been formed by the times they lived in for good or bad. Even Christains from the time of Christ. Any body with a half brain have meant people that have been reformed, transformed by faith or going to school or experiences.

    The organization of JW's judges everyone to death accept themselves strange it seem to me that when one leaves they only thing the lose is God they keep the death part for everyone else. Perhaps thats what drews us to a judgmental organization in the first place?

    For the judgment is merciless to those who have practied no mercy, whereas mercy triumphs over judgment.

  • fifi40
    fifi40

    So Terry

    Hypothetically if your daughter is molested (God forbid) and later on in life she has emotional problems, suffers with depression and the like, gets pissed up and drives a car and (God forbid) kills somebody, or gets high on drugs because she is having a hard time coping with life and neglects her kids, do you want society to lock her up and throw away the key or would you want her to do her time and then be entitled to help to sort her life out.

    As for child molesters Terry, and sometimes you hit below the belt, because you use the worst possible type of evil to cover all aspects of crime............................ you give me the gun and I'll shoot them!

  • bluebell
    bluebell

    My father sexually and mentally abused me. He was sexually and mentally abused by his aunt and then sent into care when it was found out and stayed in childrens homes until he was 16 at which point he had to make his own way in the world.

    Does his upbringing excuse him for what he did? NO

    Would many of the bleeding hearts in this world still be as liberal if it was THEIR home being broken into, THEIR family being murdered, THEIR family being raped/molested/abused?

    I have been abused, yes it effects the way I live my life and how I think and how I feel about myself and others. BUT having been abused, I would never wish it on anyone, I will never understand why someone who has been abused decides it's okay to give another person as much pain and heartache as they have had.

    I loved the point that was made earlier - society does not seperate a persons deeds that are good from the person and say they can't help being good.

    From a VERY young age you are taught what gives you pain and what gives you joy. You then decide whether you treat people in a way to give them either joy or hurt.

    If a kid hits another kid there is no way you can tell me that they didn't understand that they were going to hurt them! Maybe they didn't understand HOW much, but they know full well they are giving that other kid pain.

  • sammielee24
    sammielee24

    Enviornment has an impact. But, short of having an anvil fall on your head and damage your brain you have the same personality after encountering obstacles.

    And by whose expert opinion? If a personality is defined as

    1. The quality or condition of being a person.
    2. The totality of qualities and traits, as of character or behavior, that are peculiar to a specific person.
    3. The pattern of collective character, behavioral, temperamental, emotional, and mental traits of a person

    then it stands to reason that a personality is a group of behaviours peculiar to that person. Change the environment and the personality changes. Hand a child a life altering event and you have changed their behaviour that is their personality.

    In addition, when you effectively traumatize a child in infancy, then you simply cannot begin to know what that child may have become. You cannot judge a childs behaviour or their personality based on what they appeared to be at birth and disregard the events and circumstance of their lives that make them into the being they are. To say that a child of 1 retains the same personality after a rape, for me, doesn't equate to common sense. You have no way of knowing the personality of the child prior to the rape - you can only see what she becomes afterward. Thus you may choose to observe and determine personality based on your perception of the invidiual at that moment only. sammieswife.

  • Narkissos
    Narkissos

    The logic of responsibility, judgement and punishment rests on a lot of unproven and likely unprovable assumptions, "free will" being not the least of them. Even deeper lie the problematic notions of identity and possibility.

    Every time you say you would not do what someone else has done... either you're right and henceby forsake any right to judge him/her, because you admit to being different and unable to do what s/he was, obviously enough, able to do; or you're wrong and otherwise forsake such a right, because you admit you might do the same thing under his/her circumstances.

    What exactly would be left of "you" with another genetic, cultural, economical, parental, educational deal than that which actually made "you"? Nothing or close to nothing.

    In a sense, I am ready to suscribe to the assertion "we are what we do". But what most people miss is that, by suppressing the imaginary distance between "what we are" and "what we do" we also suppress all and every logical ground for judgement.

    Justice and expertise in weighing "responsibilities" (which are as old as mankind) are little more, I think, than the sugar coating of other basic social needs, especially collective protection: our real concern is to turn the harmful harmless through education and/or "cutting off" (be it banishment, imprisonment or death penalty); moral education and "exemplary punishments" pursue the same goal, as a deterrent for future harmful conduct on the part of the not (yet) guilty. This is (and has ever been) the true objective of society in what we "punishment" -- the other, socially repressed, motivation of "punishment" being private revenge, which society confiscates from the victims for its own goals (including favouring a globally less harmful world than the rule of clanic vendetta).

  • Hellrider
    Hellrider

    One of your best posts ever, Narkissos.

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