Reply to: One third of British muslims "Have some sympathy for the motives of Hebdo killers"

[NotAllThere]

Why was the thread title changed. No freedom of speech in this forum?

As already noted, I changed it for reasons of accuracy. Do you think the new subject is not accurate? When your teacher corrected your homework, did you consider that an infringement of your (illusory) "freedom of speech"?

[d000hg]

Why was the thread title changed. No freedom of speech in this forum?

Why on earth should there be FoS in a private internet forum? That's why people get banned.

[Eirikur]

Why was the thread title changed. No freedom of speech in this forum?

[vetran]

Waste of money.

why if you do/don't think an accident of birth entitles them to rule why should the same accident mean they are more likely to be killed and we will do nothing about it.

[xoggoth]

That's why we spend a lot of money keeping them safe.

Waste of money.

[xoggoth]

well heck this country had a lot of laws (and still does) based on a 1st century dude and his many apprentices with funny hats

No it doesn't, unless you are losing "based" very loosely. Some of what we believe is still founded in Christianity but only in terms of general moral principles and customs. It has all been open to question for decades/centuries and much has rightly been abandoned, we no longer prosecute homosexuals, tell people what religion they should follow etc.

Our MPs are not sitting in the commons debating the meaning of bible passages to create laws. Islamic nations are very different in that the interpretations of the Qu'ran and Haddiths are often strongly enforced and often in detail that prevents any more rational, more effective measures being tried.

[tomtomagain]

BTW has nobody thought to knock off the royalty?

Yes. That's why we spend a lot of money keeping them safe.

[NotAllThere]

... it's not like pi or the speed of light, which are woven into the fabric of the universe...

Not in the view of many physicists.

There's no reason why the speed of light (in a vacuum) - actually the fine structure constant - should not have a different value in different parts of the universe. Or indeed that it should have the particular value that it has. Max Tegmark (for example) says this suggests, on the basis of the Copernican principle, the existence of a many different universes. Lee Smolin, on the other hand, considers this so much horse feathers.

Pi is not woven into the fabric of the universe - unless you think space is Euclidean everywhere. Pi and e arise from mathematics, not from anything physical.

Anyway, that doesn't affect your argument

*Morality is a man-made concept (i.e. it's not like pi or the speed of light, which are woven into the fabric of the universe).
*Therefore morality applies to men & women as man (i.e. not animals)

I'm not convinced that the second statement follows from the first. Morality as a man-made concept could be chosen to apply to animals. It depends which man made the definition of morality.

[NotAllThere]

Actually it's some sympathy with the motives of...

Point taken.

[vetran]

I sympathise with the goal of the IRA. I don't like the killing but I can understand how it was used as a tool to influence.

BTW has nobody thought to knock off the royalty?

yes because we constantly prevented them from using legal means to change their rulers, I mean we have never let any of them go and have a referendum.


The reason no one voted for self rule is they knew at least the British were less likely to drag them out and kneecap them.

[Goatfell]

I sympathise with the goal of the IRA. I don't like the killing but I can understand how it was used as a tool to influence.

BTW has nobody thought to knock off the royalty?

Yeah, tried that. They're like weeds, you think you've wiped them out, then they sneak back in from your neighbours.

..

[lilelvis2000]

Actually it's some sympathy with the motives of...

I sympathise with the goal of the IRA. I don't like the killing but I can understand how it was used as a tool to influence.

BTW has nobody thought to knock off the royalty?

[lilelvis2000]

I agree. It does not help to blame all members of a any group for what some are doing. We need to make very effort to bring moderate Muslims into society in terms of jobs, representation in official positions etc.

..the very significant number who think laws should be based on the supposed sayings of an 8th century figure and the high percentage of Muslim majority nations where such ludicrous principles are actually imposed, people are quite correct to feel that their future is being threatened.

We need to stop this ridiculous oversimplification of all race issues that attempt to solely blame the white British. Racism is human nature and all peoples suffer from it.

well heck this country had a lot of laws (and still does) based on a 1st century dude and his many apprentices with funny hats.

I would suggest a simpler solution would be to ban anything written by Murdoch and his cronies and that Lord Rotherwhatever.

Indeed very difficult to stop subconscious prejudice. I don't like the term 'racist' or 'race' or 'racism' as technically there is only one single race of humans. This whole 'race' thing is a hold over from slavery and the empire.

[SpontaneousOrder]

Things that happen in the world are down to human nature and human nature is much as that of social animals in general.

That's the bit I'm mainly getting at. There is a difference between a human animal, and a human man. We're all born as animals, but we (uniquely in the animal kingdom as far as we can tell) must choose to be men. If we don't choose to act like men we live like animals. And the extent to which we distinguish ourselves from animals is proportional to the extent to which we choose to act like men (i.e. choose to leverage our unique faculty of reason to live prosperous and happy lives - as opposed to living by base instinct like animals do, in animalistic conditions as animals do).

Animals don't have morality. Men do. Therefore what is moral is that which is good for humans who choose to be men.

[SpontaneousOrder]

I'd say you have to believe in god for the word evil to have any meaning.

I don't think so. I know its a very common argument from the faithful folk - "where do you get your morality from if there is no god?", but presumably you (unless I misremember you not being a believer) still believe in a concept of morality?

But... maybe you think that morality does come down to rationality, in which case i agree. Rational behaviour is moral/immoral, while obeying divine commandments, or not, is considered good/evil?

I formulate (if I can use that word?) it like this:

*Morality is a man-made concept (i.e. it's not like pi or the speed of light, which are woven into the fabric of the universe).
*Therefore morality applies to men & women as man (i.e. not animals).
*Our ability to reason is what makes us more than animals, and therefore we must choose to be men (rather than human animals).
*Therefore what is good is that which is good for man qua man (the source of morality). What is bad is that which is bad for man qua man.

BUT... With that being the case a mentally 'defective' psychopath could be acting entirely rationally (for a psychopath) while acting very bad in the context of man qua man.

Therefore rationality is only moral insofar as it is good for a man - qua man - as opposed to simply a human animal. I.e. an act cannot be moral if it acts to destroy or negate the very source of morality.

Therefore, if we want a concept of morality (because we value it) then it cannot simply boil down to rationality - and we can't simply exclude people who behave irrationally from what we consider to be men (qua man), as it's just begging the question.

Therefore the terms 'good' and 'evil' are valid without needing some divine power's authority - the reality of the universe & the reality of human nature are their own authorities.