Jim Henderson wrote:
> By definition (I use the OED 2e for my definition here), Ethics is the 
> science of Morals - also defined as "the moral principles by which a 
> person is guided" or "The rules of conduct recognized in certain 
> associations or departments of human life".
> 
> Within that definition, I'd say Patrick hit it on the head as to what it 
> is.
> 
> FWIW.
> 
I wasn't completely serious and apparently not entirely clear about that 
(falsely assuming that the 'minor details' would be a dead giveaway). I 
still think that my solution would fit the bill too, if ever it were 
possible ;) .

What prompted the culture remark is that I think it is debatable whether 
e.g. 'chew every mouthful at least 5 times' or even a rule that a man 
should leave the elevator as soon as there is only him and a female left 
is an ethical rule or just a cultural. Most countries and families have 
strange rules that are incomprehensible for an outsider because there 
seems no moral ground for it other than that is the way they do it. 
Patrick's definition would include all those as well. I'd like to 
reserve the concept of ethics for more important and more general rules, 
but that may be me.

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In article <475### [at] hotmailcom>, a_l### [at] hotmailcom 
says...
> Patrick Elliott wrote:
> > In article <475### [at] hotmailcom>, a_l### [at] hotmailcom 
> > says...
> >> nemesis wrote:
> >>> Patrick Elliott <sel### [at] rraznet> wrote:
> >>>> That is why, in public, I let the
> >>>> people that are good at this stuff make the statements. They are *fa
r*
> >>>> better at it. And some, like Greta Christina:
> >>>>
> >>>> http://gretachristina.typepad.com/greta_christinas_weblog/
> >>>>
> >>>> do so with a profound grace and choice of words that often leaves me
> >>>> absolutely astounded.
> >>> looks like a slut and sounds like a slut.  oh wait, she's actually a 
pro... :P
> >>>
> >>> That was a loong rant, sir. 
> >> Indeed it was. I don't think that helps to get the message across. 
> >> Perhaps Patrick would also benefit from watching some Marx Brothers 
> >> movies ;)
> >>> The thing atheists don't seem to grasp is that they
> >>> sound just about as annoying and boring in their anti-religion rants 
as
> >>> religious fanatics in their convert stories...
> >>>
> >> As just another atheist I'd like to point out that atheism is a religi
on 
> >> too. Many deists think that an atheist is someone who is not convinced
 
> >> that God does exist (or worse: not yet). They are wrong. I *believe*
 
> >> that God does not exist and I mean that in the same way as a Christian
 
> >> or Muslim or whatever believes the opposite. I.e. I *know* that God do
es 
> >> not exit moreover my ethical values are fundamentally based on the non
 
> >> existence of God. If it turned out she did exist after all, I would ne
ed 
> >> a couple of weeks to rethink my ethics.
> >> We atheist have no reason to form churches and that means that we have
 
> >> no religious leaders. Sadly that means that our believe is less 
> >> protected than the church forming religions. That is already subtly 
> >> noticeable even in the Netherlands. In the US it seems to be much wors
e, 
> >> and under the inspired leadership of the current president it has 
> >> apparently even reached the level of discrimination. I think that was
 
> >> one of the more important points of Patrick.
> >>
> > Speak for yourself. 
> I did.
> 
> > You are what some of us call "hard atheists", and we 
> > do consider you as much a believer in unfounded woo as the other side,
 
> > even while you are on ours. 
> us, we, ours?
> > In fact, atheists run the gambit from those 
> > that just provisionally reject **churches**, but sort of kind of believ
e 
> > in some stuff that might lead to god, if anyone could ever prove that
 
> > one was believable, to those like myself, who provisionally reject 
> > **any** gods, both because none of the definitions make any sense, and
 
> > because there doesn't seem to be any valid reason why there needs to be
 
> > one, to those that, like you, insist that there absolutely can't be one
, 
> > which is *not* a rational conclusion. So, you want to claim you are 
> > religious, on the grounds that your own view is purely emotional, not
 
> > rational, then go ahead, but please, call yourself something else, 
> > because we have enough problems with the idiots that **want** to insist
 
> > atheism is a religion (never mind that the very definition of religion
 
> > means, "belief in the stuff atheists pretty much all reject as 
> > unbelievable".), without you giving the wackos something to quote mine
> > as some sort of ammunition for why secular views should be rejected 
> > **instead** of theirs.
> 
> Sorry Patrick for not using the words with exactly the same meaning as 
> you. I just wanted to make absolutely clear that being an atheist is 
> simply part of who I am. It is in every cell of my body, in every 
> thought that even remotely touches ethics, in how I interact with others
 
> and in all my scientific work. In short it is part of me the same way as
 
> believe in a God is for some others, that is why I said it is a 
> religion. If some moron rejects that word because in his views that 
> implies that it has to be unfounded, so be it. If you think it is an 
> irrational emotional thing, think again. Besides if you think that for a
 
> true believer in God that is only for emotional reasons and that that 
> can't be rational, you can not be more wrong than that.
> 
Its possible to use reason to reach entirely invalid conclusions, if 
your initial data is invalid in the first place. That is why religion is 
considered "faith". That said. I am sure there are atheists that do base 
things entirely on faith, in as much as they don't understand, or lend 
credence to ideas, which are not verifiable. Such people can be quite 
annoying, in that they tend to exaggerate what atheism means. And you 
are kind of doing the same thing.

A religion requires some fairly specific things. A) a unifying concept 
of what is true, b) a core set of ideals, including a moral code, which 
are not just shared, but held as sacred, c) an organized effort of 
enforce those ideas, and d) at least some basic consistency with respect 
to what one *should* believe. At one time Christianity as a whole fit 
that standard, but today, it fails in some criteria, but it still has a 
basic unifying set of ideas, not the least of which being that their 
holy book means something. Atheism... At its most basic level says 
nothing more than, "I reject current definitions of your god(s)." There 
is nothing ***in*** that statement which implies a central dogma, a 
specific moral code, an organized movement, a consistency of what things 
one should or shouldn't reject (other than gods), etc. People can just 
as easily think that UFOs and Astrology make sense, and be atheists. One 
cannot, fundamentally, be religious, without agreeing with **dozens** of 
basic premises or facts, and automatically rejecting a wide number of 
others. You are conflating one single statement/idea with a huge range 
of ideas that you *associate* with your own reasons for not believing in 
a god. And that is no better than the silly argument that religious 
people make, that atheism **is** the same as stalinism, maoism, etc, 
because those people had a mess of invalid and insane ideas, and 
happened to claim that they also didn't believe in god.

My rejection of gods is *informed* by the rest of the stuff I know 
and/or believe, but its not the only avenue to that result, nor do I 
claim that someone *has* to follow my path to get there, or that there 
is only one true version. Well, I think that getting their just because 
someone told you to think so is invalid, in that it lacks the core 
reasons and conclusions that "lead to" the idea, and is in fact no 
better than religion. And it can lead people to make conversions from 
one unfounded belief, based on what someone else told them, to another, 
with no more evidence or reasoned basis. But, that is a rejection of 
*how* they got to their belief, not the fact that they have it.

Let me put it another way. If, by your definition, atheism, which only 
demands that you either reject, or strongly suspect the nonexistence of, 
gods, is a religion, then by that loose a definition, there is not one 
single thing **anyone** believes that isn't religious, and you might as 
well stop claiming that the word actually means anything useful at all. 
Because the argument you give is either a) too vague to specify any 
clear reason for atheism to *fit* religion by any halfway strict 
definition of it, or you are projecting **your** views and definitions 
of how you got to that belief on the whole of those that have it. And in 
that case, you have **created** a religion, by insisting that only your 
path, definitions and/or arguments qualify to judge if it is/isn't one.

You can't have it both ways. The one makes everything a religion, and 
the other... demands that I accept your definition of what atheism is, 
and thus agree with your insistence that it qualifies as a religion. All 
I have to do is show that you can believe something that "isn't" in your 
definition, and still qualifty, to disprove the premise. If you want, I 
am sure I can even find people claiming to be atheist that disprove it 
by invalidating "both" of our definitions of how you become one, or what 
conclusions you need to reach to state that gods are unlikely (or 
impossible).

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void main () {

    if version = "Vista" {
      call slow_by_half();
      call DRM_everything();
    }
    call functional_code();
  }
  else
    call crash_windows();
}

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In article <4755293c$1@news.povray.org>, tim### [at] comcastnet says...
> > I already granted that I was reading an English translation and therefo
re 
> > was several steps removed. That "kill" isn't what it says in the old 
> > testament isn't really the point - the point is that Jesus, for example
, 
> > can't reasonably be said to provide context for the meaning of the ten
 
> > commandments, nor can Pope John Paul III, or etc etc etc.
> 
> 
> Matthew 22:34-40
> But when the Pharisees heard that He had silenced the Sadducees,
> they gathered together. Then one of them, a lawyer, asked Him a question,
> testing Him, and saying, "Teacher, which is the greatest commandment
> in the law?" Jesus said to him, " 'You shall love the LORD your God
> with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.' This is
 
> the
> first and great commandment. And the second is like it: 'You shall love
> your neighbor as yourself.' On these two commandments hang all the
> Law and the Prophets."
> 
Yep. Just to confuse things even farther. lol

It doesn't really help matter much either, since the later presumes you 
*do* love yourself, so will not try to kill other people, because you 
can't stand killing yourself, or other insane behaviors. Not to mention 
it doesn't say much about things like little white lies, etc., where you 
know they would make *you* feel better, so use them to make others feel 
better, ignoring the possible consequences. And so on.

As someone else said in this thread. You would think an all powerful god 
could manage to avoid making confusing statements that you can interpret 
any way you like, and make sure everyone, including the ones that 
*might* be intentionally, or incidentally, confused, wouldn't be. lol

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void main () {

    if version = "Vista" {
      call slow_by_half();
      call DRM_everything();
    }
    call functional_code();
  }
  else
    call crash_windows();
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In article <475528dc$1@news.povray.org>, Sabrina Kilian <"ykgp at 
vtSPAM.edu"> says...
> I was not suggesting that scientific reasoning was bad. The connection I
> was making was that both the very religious and the ardent atheists make
> the same judgment about the other group: They are wrong and worthy of
> scorn. What does that judgment actually gain either group, though? It
> doesn't convince anyone else, it doesn't invite discussion. It just
> alienates anyone who might have a question.
> 
Some, and maybe a few vocal ones, might use similar arguments to 
religious people, but even people like Dawkins are ***very*** clear in 
their books that they reject such arguments. They are worthy of scorn 
not because they are wrong, they are worthy of it because, as a rule, 
they use the same debunked arguments over and over and over and over 
again to defend themselves, they lie about what everyone else, 
especially atheists, say and/or mean, they think complaining and 
accusing their detractors of persecution qualifies as argument, and even 
when they lose so completely that someone blind and hearing impaired can 
tell they lost, they will insist they where unjustly harrassed, or that 
they really did win, and any day now the unbelievers are going to admit 
it.

I don't scorn these people because I think they are completely nuts 
(though I do pitty them for being unable to think rationally, at least 
the ones that don't just brush off 150 years of evidence based 
exploration as, "stuff I didn't bother to learn and won't read about, 
because I don't need to know any of it"), but because they absolutely 
refuse to learn anything, accept that they might be wrong, or do any 
kind of experimentation or tests to prove their views. Mind you, there 
are minor exceptions, like the studies done that showed that people who 
"knew" they where being prayed for died more often than the ones that 
didn't know they where, which was quickly glossed over with *facts* from 
other *studies* that showed some minor positive result (returned by 
invalid, non-double blind testing methods, such as placing the "less 
sick" in the group to be prayed for *intentionally*).

Like the one clown on the View people are talking about today, who 
previously stated she wasn't sure if the earth was flat or not, and 
*now* insisted that Jesus predated the Greeks, while talking about one 
of their philosophers (the same ones I posted in thus thread the saying 
from). Umm. If you are going to argue for your world view, wouldn't it 
be useful to, you know, start by having a clue what your own religions 
history is?

And just to be clear, the argument that atheists don't read Bibles, or 
study them, so are just like these people, won't hold water. About 50% 
of the ones I know started as Evangelicals or Fundies, and realized how 
insane the people around them where. And even the ones that are not, 
probably *own* more copies of the Bible, in various translations, and 
books about the history of it, and some people that make carriers out of 
studying it. Its not like your average atheist is as clueless about the 
Bible as most of these people are about just about anything from basic 
biology to why it makes no sense for the sun to be orbiting the earth. 
Ignorance is practically a mantra to the far right, and the DI made it 
clear years ago that its whole purpose was to replace "all" of science, 
and anything else that could be based on "materialism", instead of 
"revealed truth", with Biblical explanations. And that, I have no 
problem imagining, would including rewriting world/US history to claim 
everything positive was envisioned, predicted or inspired by God, and 
that everything else was the work of the devil.

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    if version = "Vista" {
      call slow_by_half();
      call DRM_everything();
    }
    call functional_code();
  }
  else
    call crash_windows();
}

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In article <475### [at] hotmailcom>, a_l### [at] hotmailcom 
says...
> Sabrina Kilian wrote:
> > Patrick Elliott wrote:
> >> In article <4753d58b@news.povray.org>, Sabrina Kilian <"ykgp at 
> >> vtSPAM.edu"> says...
> >>> Atheists can fall into the same trap, the difference being that the
> >>> perceived sin is a lack of scientific reasoning. I forget if it was
> >>> Dawkins or someone else who made a statement that amounted to religio
n
> >>> being a genetic hold over or even a mental illness.
> >>>
> >> Just for the sake of argument, show me any case where blind faith that
 
> >> something is true has every turned out to be right,
> > 
> > That I like pizza and* sushi, but not both at the same time. I've never
> > actually tried both at once, but I'm pretty willing to bet that I would
> > not enjoy it.
> > 
> > *technically, xor. But this is the English language.
> > 
> >> save by pure 
> >> accident, and more to the point, how any other case has *not* been bas
ed 
> >> on seeing evidence, forming a theory based on that evidence, and then
 
> >> testing, in some fashion, if that conclusion was *actually* correct, o
r 
> >> needed modification... We start out with science, experimenting with o
ur 
> >> world and figuring out what works and doesn't work, and forming 
> >> **justified** opinions about why and how. Then, about the point where 
we 
> >> start talking people start telling us that some things are better 
> >> explained by the Easter Bunny, Santa Claus and Jesus. I can't imagine
 
> >> *why* atheists would think scientific thinking was the corner stone of
 
> >> rational thought... Snort!
> Patrick, you completely lost me there.
> >>
> > 
How so. Its basic cognitive development. We start out trying to touch 
everything, to figure out what it is, and how to use our limbs. We then 
progress to levels of understanding of complex associations, like that 
an object is the "same" object if it passes behind something, and that 
it didn't just teleport to get there. And so on. Nothing we do, unless 
we just blindly accept it from someone else's statements, is derived in 
any other way than via trying it, figuring out if it worked, then 
explaining why based on a) observation of the result and b) past 
experiments.

Faith derails this, in that it insists that a thing it true, just 
because someone *says* so. The only faith in science might be that you 
could, if you had the right tools, test anything it claims, and see if 
it *does* work as advertised. But, that isn't "blind faith", its 
justified faith. Religions tend to reject the later, and insist that the 
former is not only the only *true* means to enlightenment, but that 
blind faith is automatically more trust worthy.

Your pizza example isn't really valid, since I am sure you have 
justifications for thinking that you wouldn't like the combination, so 
its not *blind* in any shape or form, its based on past experience and a 
projection of the likely outcome. Blind faith tells you what an outcome 
*must* be, then demands that you not only reject evidence of the 
contrary position, but also implies that the very idea that you might 
test it, or seek evidence is invalid, by definition, since it would no 
longer, at that point, be *blind*.

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void main () {

    if version = "Vista" {
      call slow_by_half();
      call DRM_everything();
    }
    call functional_code();
  }
  else
    call crash_windows();
}

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In article <4755d791@news.povray.org>, nos### [at] nospamcom says...
> Is self-faith blind?  I dunno; maybe not blind per se, but it is 
> certainly coloured by one's experiences.
> 
You are making the same mistake he did. "Blind faith", as religious 
people describe it implies that a thing simply **is**, and that the very 
act of testing it, or trying to find an explanation, is sinful and/or 
destructive. After all, how can it be blind, if you can prove it via 
evidence? That they can't do this either is hardly the point, its the 
definition they insist on, and they will deny to their last breath that 
its not valid, whether they evidence you provide suggests its true, or 
false. To them, it doesn't matter, its simply ***always*** true. Its 
this very cognitive dissonance and incomprehensible mind twisting 
warping of logic and reality that led several people I talk to on 
science sites to conclude that faith, as the religious insists on 
defining it, is poison, and got them looking for answers "outside" the 
faiths they where once in. At which point they realized that the people 
around them where, if anything, crazier than they previously thought 
they might be. lol


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    if version = "Vista" {
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    }
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  }
  else
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}

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In article <475### [at] hotmailcom>, a_l### [at] hotmailcom 
says...
> Patrick Elliott wrote:
> > In article <4753b011$1@news.povray.org>, dne### [at] sanrrcom says...
> >> Tim Cook wrote:
> >>> Ethics is almost entirely 
> >>> arbitrary, aside some fundamental survival derivatives.
> >> I would disagree, but that's OK.
> >>
> > I would disagree too. You don't learn ethics by someone *telling* you
 
> > that its bad, you do so by testing the boundaries of what, first, you
 
> > parents allow, then society, and concluding, based on evidence, that 
> > there are **consequences** for acting unethically. Its only arbitrary i
n 
> > the sense that "sometimes" the rules are based on irrational projection
s 
> > of imaginary consequences, or misinterpretations of the magnitude, 
> > nature, existence or even the actual cause of real consequences.
> > 
> That is not ethics, that is culture. You learn ethics by finding out why
 
> the universe exist and what it's ultimate goal is. Use that as a basis 
> to explain mankind's existence and its final purpose. From that you can
 
> derive what you as a person should do. At least that is how I did it 
> (granted, I still have to fill in some minor details).
> 
One of us is using a completely crazy definition of what "ethics" means, 
and since yours is nothing like what *anyone* I have ever talked to 
uses, I don't think its mine. Just saying...

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    }
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  }
  else
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In article <4754d57a$1@news.povray.org>, dne### [at] sanrrcom says...
> Tim Cook wrote:
> > Darren New wrote:
> >> I thought that was the point of religion, yes? If you actually start
 
> >> talking about *why* one set of morals is better than another, then 
> >> you're not longer talking about religion, but science. I have no bones
 
> >> to pick with that approach.
> > 
> > Ethics is not science. 
> 
> Actually, to clarify, what I was talking about was science. If you ask 
> why certain morals are better than others, you can actually make 
> hypotheses and measure it.
> 
> You can say "Greed is better than altruism, because it creates more 
> wealth". Or "altruism is better than greed, because it distributes 
> wealth better."
> 
> What one has to take on "faith" is that happiness is a good thing, i.e.,
 
> that there's an actual ability to measure which morals result in 
> "better" outcomes than others. Even this, however, can be debated, since
 
> obviously some people will say "obedience to God's will is far more 
> important than life or happiness."
> 
> So in that sense, yes, it's not scientific. But then, science doesn't 
> answer *why* elementary particles can have half-spin values also. :-)
> 
Some one did some studies on the subject about happiness, using 
psychological definitions of what qualified, and came to the conclusion 
that once people where clothed, feed and sufficiently protected from the 
weather, there was **no** measurable difference in "happiness" between 
one group and another, but that having more money didn't necessarily 
generate *greater* happiness. So, its been scientifically tested, though 
one might argue about their definitions of "happy". Though, one might 
thus argue that talking about happiness is far less relevant than many 
other factors, since it seems more or less unaffected by "most", if not 
all, of those other factors. As for the later one, which god, what is 
obedience, and how do you prove its important at all, let alone "more" 
important. Once again, when you start digging into their arguments, the 
assertions made assume, or declare, things that are fundamentally 
undefinable, in any useful context, and thus also untestable.

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    }
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  else
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In article <slr### [at] bisqwitikifi>, bis### [at] ikifi 
says...
> On Mon, 3 Dec 2007 18:41:27 -0700, Patrick Elliott wrote:
> > http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2007/12/02/winning_athiests.jpg
> 
> That image is just as ignorant waltzing to the victory as
> are many of the arguments of christians.
> 
> God is able, but whether he's willing is a matter more
> complex than of "yes" and "no". It is a "yes", because
> he will do it at his own pace, and it is a "no", because
> he will do it at his own pace.
> Saying that he is malevolent because of that is just ignorant,
> and neglects the possibility that God's reasoning can be
> something no human can even comprehend.
> 
> Humans tend to overestimate their own ability. It is the same
> regardless of how intelligent one is. A cat cannot comprehend
> the simple concept of "pointing at something with the finger",
> no matter how you try to teach it. (Well, at least I haven't succeeded.)
> Similarly, it stands reason to assume that there may be a similar,
> but even greater gap between the mental capabilities of a human
> and the God. A human cannot be made to comprehend some concepts
> that are trivial to God, without extraordinary measures.
> And if you take omnipotency to the issue -- God could possibly
> do it, but would the human still be a human after that? And what's
> the point? The human only needs to have faith in God. God doesn't
> need the human's approval in his actions.
> 
> 
Perhaps. But the problem with this argument is that I am reasonably sure 
my *cat* can prove I exist, to its, and other cats, satisfaction. 
Arguing that something you can't prove exists at all **might** be 
outside the comprehension of mere humans not only isn't all that useful, 
it invalidates pretty much **any** argument that anything we claim to 
know about it could be accurate either, including what its supposedly 
telling us to do. You can't win the argument with that. All it does is 
place God in the position of being something so fundamentally intangible 
and beyond our understanding that, almost by definition, the atheist 
arguments about the validity of our definitions of God, or what is/isn't 
just/valued/sinful, etc. to one, must be considered more likely than the 
unbelievable premise that you can't comprehend such being, label its 
attributes, or in any other way "define" what it is, does, or wants, but 
at the same time, it somehow "told" us those very things.

I.e., if you can't get your cat to point to thing, why would a God so 
far beyond our comprehension to make the example valid, have any more 
luck getting us to do anything at all? And more to the point, unlike the 
cat, how the heck would we know he/she/it was the one doing so?

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void main () {

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Tim Attwood wrote:
>> I already granted that I was reading an English translation and therefore 
>> was several steps removed. That "kill" isn't what it says in the old 
>> testament isn't really the point - the point is that Jesus, for example, 
>> can't reasonably be said to provide context for the meaning of the ten 
>> commandments, nor can Pope John Paul III, or etc etc etc.
> 
> 
> Matthew 22:34-40
> But when the Pharisees heard that He had silenced the Sadducees,
> they gathered together. Then one of them, a lawyer, asked Him a question,
> testing Him, and saying, "Teacher, which is the greatest commandment
> in the law?" Jesus said to him, " 'You shall love the LORD your God
> with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.' This is 
> the
> first and great commandment. And the second is like it: 'You shall love
> your neighbor as yourself.' On these two commandments hang all the
> Law and the Prophets."

I fail to see the relevance.

I was speaking of the ten commandments, as given to Moses. Certainly, 
something that comes later can dispute or clarify such commandments. But 
  I don't know what context God's words to Adam could have that isn't in 
Genesis, given there was nobody else in the entire world at the time.

Jesus says which of the commandments are more important. How does that 
help Moses interpret them? How does that help anyone before Jesus 
interpret them?

(This is turning into a pretty silly discussion at this point. :-)

-- 
   Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
     It's not feature creep if you put it
     at the end and adjust the release date.

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