Precisely. What we need to do is punish everyone for the actions of some people who willingly break the law... by creating more laws! That'll show them.
Yes, I have. But I don't have any evidence that shows how many of them are teenagers (or children) and how many are not. And, even if most of them are teenagers, that doesn't necessarily mean that they are doing everything because of "teenage angst."
And all this just for the sake of the likes of Justin Bieber and Shakira and Hollywood so they can profit for the crap they do.
That's just it, though. They probably aren't going to profit from this. At all. Not only that, but I doubt they'd see much profit out of people who are, at most, potentially (only potentially) causing a loss of potential profit. Some of those people might not even have any money to begin with, and others won't even have a chance to buy the content anyway (in some cases, perhaps).
Who's to stop anyone from adding widescreen TV, cellphones, jetskis, etc to the list?
People that don't want having those things to be considered rights.
As for your contention that any and all rights can be taken away, that unfortunately has been the opinion of too many recent governments, and a judiciary unwilling to challenge such a notion.
I don't think that the loss of rights has been due to people having that opinion. Rather, it's due to people who are willing to take away (or violate) peoples' rights. You can easily hold the opinion that any right can be taken away and still defend those rights.
Yes. The situation could be worse. Therefore, those speeds are good! "Good" is subjective. Perhaps he just doesn't find those speeds acceptable at all. And I don't know why you're assuming that he is young just because of a small preference.
Sounds like you know for sure that this is a legitimate question. Otherwise you'd have no such uncertainty, no such willingness to admit the question.
Are you absolutely sure?
Science is the ability to prove to anyone who performs the same set of procedures in a way they cannot easily deny.
Well, we both understand that, at least. But when it comes to something like the existence of absolute morals, I will ask someone for scientific proof.
If that isn't the case, you aren't talking about love.
How do you know this? What if someone is in love but cares what their neighbor believes? Why is this not a possibility? Can you be absolutely certain that it isn't?
you still have to have something that caused the Big Bang.
Can you be absolutely certain?
How do you begin to explain this in any sort of ultimate manner that doesn't create problems of its own?
I don't think that there's any explanation without those problems (including just saying that some god did it).
The difference is whether you believe legitimacy is the same as popularity.
I certainly don't believe that appeal to popularity is a good argument. I don't believe that facts change merely because of what lots of people believe.
If there were no other way to be, then moral relativism would be true.
I'm not following you. I don't see how being in an environment where lots of people believe something determines whether or not a magical moral fairy exists.
What I know is that their system of thought is
Can you be absolutely certain?
b) self-contradictory
Right. Because a lack of knowledge implies that there is a contradiction somewhere. Are you absolutely certain that absolute morals exist?
That is all I need to know about them in order to decide whether to think as they do.
That's not all you need to decide if they are fearful or not.
Regarding atheists, they hide behind "burden of proof is on you!"
Which ones? You're making generalizations again. I usually expect the burden of proof to be on whoever states something as a fact.
to avoid coming up with their own answers as to how the hell this universe even began
I usually just say, "I don't know, but I'm not going to try to come up with random theories about it and call them correct just because I can't think of anything else."
This is cowardice and I won't call it other than it is.
"Cowardice"? You're making assumptions about the thinking process of others again.
The fact that an absolute something must exist which in turn determines each "relativistic" other-thing is a necessity.
We're talking about absolute morals. I don't believe that they exist, but I do believe in other absolute truths. I see morals as nothing more than opinions.
It can mean they are inconvenient to *you* and act against only *your* interests.
Precisely. You don't like what they are doing, so you try to stop them.
Then maybe you can see why there is such confusion here.
Not really. I think it's all pretty simple. Really, I'm not receiving any degree of proof from any of your posts. Do you have any? Otherwise, it's unlikely that I will agree with you about this subject.
Unless you can prove that it is real, I don't see how you could know it for certain. Of course, I choose not to waste my time questioning everything around me.
Morality is this way. It is not a logic problem.
I disagree. I think it is a "logic problem." If you can't prove the existence of absolute morals, then I really think you shouldn't state their existence as a fact. Just like with god. I don't know about you, but when it comes to the existence of something, I choose to rely on actual evidence to determine whether or not I believe in it.
Trying to do it that way is like trying to divide by zero and declaring that since you cannot do that, all of mathematics is invalid or isn't real.
I didn't claim that. I merely said that I wouldn't believe it.
There is definitely an absolute truth
Can you prove that?
If you say there is no absolute truth, I have one question for you. It is a simple question: are you absolutely sure?
How can you be sure of anything? The point is, you'd probably go insane if you questioned everything. I choose not to. I don't see a contradiction anywhere. Even if I can't be sure, that does not mean that there is an absolutely "correct" set of morals established by some magical being (or however the "correct" set of morals is decided).
I could ask you if you were absolutely sure about a lot of things and then declare that there is some contradiction, but that really doesn't prove much at all.
It is not because there are no criteria by which judgment could be made.
I didn't say that you can't act against those who you personally believe are doing wrong. And I didn't (intentionally) say that I knew for a fact whether or not absolute morals exist. I just said that there's no evidence either way and I choose to believe that there are no absolute morals because morals, to me, do not seem to be any different from normal opinions.
The real fear of relativists everywhere is that an absolute standard means that various groups of people can be ranked in terms of how closely they adhere to it, that some would be inferior to others leading to a kind of pecking order.
Well, I don't know how you know how all relativists feel, but that isn't how I feel. I simply don't believe in absolute morals because there's no evidence for their existence (and morals seem like opinions). And what you just said could apply to atheists as well (while we're generalizing).
I don't really feel any sort of fear about this topic.
What they fear has already transpired.
What? So the existence of absolute morals has been proven? I wouldn't say that a bunch of people with similar moral codes banding together would make the moral relativists that you describe afraid. No one said that people can't act against those they believe are doing wrong.
Then all you're engaging in is intellectual masturbation.
I disagree. I was merely trying to correct you on a point that I felt was wrong.
This is not some theoretical philosophical debate with no consequences.
I think this is irrelevant.
Unless you include yourself, you're being totally disingenuous and intellectually dishonest.
I think you may have misunderstood me. What I was trying to say is that moral relativists can easily have morals and yet still believe that there are no absolute morals that are more correct than all the others.
I can see that this discussion can go no further, as you simply want the freedom to do whatever you want without any restrictions but what you decide to place on yourself.
What? There's no evidence that I know of that proves the existence of absolute morals. That doesn't mean that they don't exist, but what it does mean is that if you try to state their existence as a fact, I probably won't believe you unless you present scientific evidence that proves their existence to a degree that I find satisfactory.
You'd be OK with that?
No, but I wasn't talking about me. Moral relativists can have their own moral code. Moral relativists simply don't believe in absolute morals (example: no one is inherently wrong for believing that it is okay to kill people for no reason). In other words, they're simply opinions. Believers of moral relativism don't necessarily believe that you can't act against those you believe are doing "wrong," either. Unless I misunderstood you somewhere.
B) We could restrict minor children's freedom to be out late at night until such age as the majority of them are mature enough to understand the wrongness of their immature behavior and the risk of death/maiming/serious injury it incurs upon themselves and others.
What "wrongness"? That's subjective. And it's clear that that doesn't work. Otherwise, there would be no adult criminals.
And, as I said, I will not support the idea of restricting the freedom of everyone for what a few people do.
If it's self defense, then I'd have no problem with it. Keep in mind that criminals are a minority (even if in some situations it doesn't seem that way).
I'm not in favor of banning cars, knifes, or pretty much anything just because some people abuse them. By this logic we should be punishing everyone on the planet merely because there's a chance that they could be a criminal. Well, unless you believe it should only be done to kids for some reason, but I'm not doing to agree with that at all.
"Good" is (in my opinion) subjective. To some people, the behavior you describe might be seen as "good." I'm fine with stopping people who I deem as doing "bad," but when all someone is doing is something that would be seen as "normal" to most of the population (such as doing one's hobby), I am against it.
Second of all, not all kids are doing that. Just like not all people are criminals. Criminals are a minority. I believe that they should be stopped as they come. I don't believe that we should punish everyone for their behavior (when possible).
We can talk about rights all we want, but the fact here is that what we're experiencing here is the criminal element stripping our rights away.
Sorry, but I disagree. Both scenarios technically take your rights away. And I'd rather the criminals do it to me than have the rights taken away from innocent people who never did anything "wrong" to begin with.
to the point of being irrational about it.
"irrational"? No, it is a preference. There's nothing inherently illogical about emotions or preferences.
Does some kid being out at 12 at night seem more important than not getting mugged and assaulted out of the blue in what you would think is a nice area because there are literally people around everywhere?
Yes. I'd rather not put a ban on something just because some people may or may not abuse it.
Except that those are two different scenarios. On one hand, they don't want police enforcing a curfew. On the other hand, they want police to take care of the few people that actually commit crimes. The latter has little to do with the former.
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Whether or not it's valid or good is subjective. I'd rather not have censorship just to "stop" a few criminals.
Precisely. What we need to do is punish everyone for the actions of some people who willingly break the law... by creating more laws! That'll show them.
I doubt a moral person
What set of morals are we speaking of here? The average persons' morals? That was quite vague.
Naturally, this is all socialism's fault. I know this because I dislike socialism. Anyone who disagrees with me is simply completely incorrect.
Yes, I have. But I don't have any evidence that shows how many of them are teenagers (or children) and how many are not. And, even if most of them are teenagers, that doesn't necessarily mean that they are doing everything because of "teenage angst."
I think a lot of their "pain" is teenage angst.
Yes. Most of them are teenagers. And I can prove it, too! They're teenagers because I said so.
Until someone more knowledgeable helps them out, that is.
And all this just for the sake of the likes of Justin Bieber and Shakira and Hollywood so they can profit for the crap they do.
That's just it, though. They probably aren't going to profit from this. At all. Not only that, but I doubt they'd see much profit out of people who are, at most, potentially (only potentially) causing a loss of potential profit. Some of those people might not even have any money to begin with, and others won't even have a chance to buy the content anyway (in some cases, perhaps).
Well, that clears things up, then.
Who's to stop anyone from adding widescreen TV, cellphones, jetskis, etc to the list?
People that don't want having those things to be considered rights.
As for your contention that any and all rights can be taken away, that unfortunately has been the opinion of too many recent governments, and a judiciary unwilling to challenge such a notion.
I don't think that the loss of rights has been due to people having that opinion. Rather, it's due to people who are willing to take away (or violate) peoples' rights. You can easily hold the opinion that any right can be taken away and still defend those rights.
Yes. The situation could be worse. Therefore, those speeds are good! "Good" is subjective. Perhaps he just doesn't find those speeds acceptable at all. And I don't know why you're assuming that he is young just because of a small preference.
Rights means something that's yours and morally cannot be taken away.
What does "morally" mean in this context? But, really, I'd say that any and all rights can be taken away.
Sounds like you know for sure that this is a legitimate question. Otherwise you'd have no such uncertainty, no such willingness to admit the question.
Are you absolutely sure?
Science is the ability to prove to anyone who performs the same set of procedures in a way they cannot easily deny.
Well, we both understand that, at least. But when it comes to something like the existence of absolute morals, I will ask someone for scientific proof.
If that isn't the case, you aren't talking about love.
How do you know this? What if someone is in love but cares what their neighbor believes? Why is this not a possibility? Can you be absolutely certain that it isn't?
you still have to have something that caused the Big Bang.
Can you be absolutely certain?
How do you begin to explain this in any sort of ultimate manner that doesn't create problems of its own?
I don't think that there's any explanation without those problems (including just saying that some god did it).
The difference is whether you believe legitimacy is the same as popularity.
I certainly don't believe that appeal to popularity is a good argument. I don't believe that facts change merely because of what lots of people believe.
If there were no other way to be, then moral relativism would be true.
I'm not following you. I don't see how being in an environment where lots of people believe something determines whether or not a magical moral fairy exists.
What I know is that their system of thought is
Can you be absolutely certain?
b) self-contradictory
Right. Because a lack of knowledge implies that there is a contradiction somewhere. Are you absolutely certain that absolute morals exist?
That is all I need to know about them in order to decide whether to think as they do.
That's not all you need to decide if they are fearful or not.
Regarding atheists, they hide behind "burden of proof is on you!"
Which ones? You're making generalizations again. I usually expect the burden of proof to be on whoever states something as a fact.
to avoid coming up with their own answers as to how the hell this universe even began
I usually just say, "I don't know, but I'm not going to try to come up with random theories about it and call them correct just because I can't think of anything else."
This is cowardice and I won't call it other than it is.
"Cowardice"? You're making assumptions about the thinking process of others again.
The fact that an absolute something must exist which in turn determines each "relativistic" other-thing is a necessity.
We're talking about absolute morals. I don't believe that they exist, but I do believe in other absolute truths. I see morals as nothing more than opinions.
It can mean they are inconvenient to *you* and act against only *your* interests.
Precisely. You don't like what they are doing, so you try to stop them.
Then maybe you can see why there is such confusion here.
Not really. I think it's all pretty simple. Really, I'm not receiving any degree of proof from any of your posts. Do you have any? Otherwise, it's unlikely that I will agree with you about this subject.
That does not make your love less real.
Unless you can prove that it is real, I don't see how you could know it for certain. Of course, I choose not to waste my time questioning everything around me.
Morality is this way. It is not a logic problem.
I disagree. I think it is a "logic problem." If you can't prove the existence of absolute morals, then I really think you shouldn't state their existence as a fact. Just like with god. I don't know about you, but when it comes to the existence of something, I choose to rely on actual evidence to determine whether or not I believe in it.
Trying to do it that way is like trying to divide by zero and declaring that since you cannot do that, all of mathematics is invalid or isn't real.
I didn't claim that. I merely said that I wouldn't believe it.
There is definitely an absolute truth
Can you prove that?
If you say there is no absolute truth, I have one question for you. It is a simple question: are you absolutely sure?
How can you be sure of anything? The point is, you'd probably go insane if you questioned everything. I choose not to. I don't see a contradiction anywhere. Even if I can't be sure, that does not mean that there is an absolutely "correct" set of morals established by some magical being (or however the "correct" set of morals is decided).
I could ask you if you were absolutely sure about a lot of things and then declare that there is some contradiction, but that really doesn't prove much at all.
It is not because there are no criteria by which judgment could be made.
I didn't say that you can't act against those who you personally believe are doing wrong. And I didn't (intentionally) say that I knew for a fact whether or not absolute morals exist. I just said that there's no evidence either way and I choose to believe that there are no absolute morals because morals, to me, do not seem to be any different from normal opinions.
The real fear of relativists everywhere is that an absolute standard means that various groups of people can be ranked in terms of how closely they adhere to it, that some would be inferior to others leading to a kind of pecking order.
Well, I don't know how you know how all relativists feel, but that isn't how I feel. I simply don't believe in absolute morals because there's no evidence for their existence (and morals seem like opinions). And what you just said could apply to atheists as well (while we're generalizing).
I don't really feel any sort of fear about this topic.
What they fear has already transpired.
What? So the existence of absolute morals has been proven? I wouldn't say that a bunch of people with similar moral codes banding together would make the moral relativists that you describe afraid. No one said that people can't act against those they believe are doing wrong.
Then all you're engaging in is intellectual masturbation.
I disagree. I was merely trying to correct you on a point that I felt was wrong.
This is not some theoretical philosophical debate with no consequences.
I think this is irrelevant.
Unless you include yourself, you're being totally disingenuous and intellectually dishonest.
I think you may have misunderstood me. What I was trying to say is that moral relativists can easily have morals and yet still believe that there are no absolute morals that are more correct than all the others.
I can see that this discussion can go no further, as you simply want the freedom to do whatever you want without any restrictions but what you decide to place on yourself.
Straw man. I never claimed that at all.
What? There's no evidence that I know of that proves the existence of absolute morals. That doesn't mean that they don't exist, but what it does mean is that if you try to state their existence as a fact, I probably won't believe you unless you present scientific evidence that proves their existence to a degree that I find satisfactory.
You'd be OK with that?
No, but I wasn't talking about me. Moral relativists can have their own moral code. Moral relativists simply don't believe in absolute morals (example: no one is inherently wrong for believing that it is okay to kill people for no reason). In other words, they're simply opinions. Believers of moral relativism don't necessarily believe that you can't act against those you believe are doing "wrong," either. Unless I misunderstood you somewhere.
B) We could restrict minor children's freedom to be out late at night until such age as the majority of them are mature enough to understand the wrongness of their immature behavior and the risk of death/maiming/serious injury it incurs upon themselves and others.
What "wrongness"? That's subjective. And it's clear that that doesn't work. Otherwise, there would be no adult criminals.
And, as I said, I will not support the idea of restricting the freedom of everyone for what a few people do.
If it's self defense, then I'd have no problem with it. Keep in mind that criminals are a minority (even if in some situations it doesn't seem that way).
I'm not in favor of banning cars, knifes, or pretty much anything just because some people abuse them. By this logic we should be punishing everyone on the planet merely because there's a chance that they could be a criminal. Well, unless you believe it should only be done to kids for some reason, but I'm not doing to agree with that at all.
"Good" is (in my opinion) subjective. To some people, the behavior you describe might be seen as "good." I'm fine with stopping people who I deem as doing "bad," but when all someone is doing is something that would be seen as "normal" to most of the population (such as doing one's hobby), I am against it.
Second of all, not all kids are doing that. Just like not all people are criminals. Criminals are a minority. I believe that they should be stopped as they come. I don't believe that we should punish everyone for their behavior (when possible).
We can talk about rights all we want, but the fact here is that what we're experiencing here is the criminal element stripping our rights away.
Sorry, but I disagree. Both scenarios technically take your rights away. And I'd rather the criminals do it to me than have the rights taken away from innocent people who never did anything "wrong" to begin with.
to the point of being irrational about it.
"irrational"? No, it is a preference. There's nothing inherently illogical about emotions or preferences.
Does some kid being out at 12 at night seem more important than not getting mugged and assaulted out of the blue in what you would think is a nice area because there are literally people around everywhere?
Yes. I'd rather not put a ban on something just because some people may or may not abuse it.
Let's just ban everything and punish everyone, then. It's easier that way.
Therefore, they do not exist.
There is no good reason
According to you. However, "good" is subjective. Some people might find "good" reasons to be out at that time period.
Except that those are two different scenarios. On one hand, they don't want police enforcing a curfew. On the other hand, they want police to take care of the few people that actually commit crimes. The latter has little to do with the former.
How do you expect innovation without business?
Yes. Because innovation is totally impossible without business.