Subject:
|
Re: Why these news groups were created
|
Newsgroups:
|
lugnet.off-topic.debate
|
Date:
|
Mon, 27 Sep 2004 14:46:12 GMT
|
Viewed:
|
2160 times
|
| |
|
|
In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Andrew Engstrom wrote:
| |
Dave Schuler has demanded that I name
names (regarding . I thought I would refrain from this in order to be
respectful and unaccusing. If you want names, these people have made my point
for me very clearly in the following excerpts.
Dave Schuler:
| |
Then you’ve been lucky not to have been exposed to reality, since you have >
been given such an inadequate set of tools for dealing with it.
|
|
A word in defense of this statement; Andrew offers this as an example of me
asserting that I have access to infallible truth. At face value, I can see how
my statement can be interpreted that way, though it is not an interpretation
with which I agree.
I have stated clearly several times in this debate and others that I do not
believe in any objective, absolute standard of goodness or evil, nor do I
believe that “absolute truth” is accessible to us except in mathematical terms.
It would be tiresome to have to append this disclaimer to every statement I make
simply to ensure that the reader does not mistake my comment for an assertion of
absolute truth. If someone asks me how my sandwich tastes, and I say “It is
delicious,” I hope the reader can recognize that I am not claiming to have
discovered Absolute Deliciousness.
The quote above came from this
post, in which I responded to Jason Coronado’s assertion that he had grown up
in a loving environment that taught him “that right and wrong are absolutes and
nothing is relative.” This teaching is so wholly in conflict with available
evidence that I concluded that Jason is fortunate to have been spared the
discomfort of realizing that his black/white worldview is not equal to the task
of dealing with reality.
It is my argument that there is no evidence to support the assertion that
absolute good or evil exists, and we (as non-absolute beings) do not have the
means to access (or evaluate) any claims of absolute truth. It was my intent to
assert that Jason’s black/white worldview is inadequate for dealing with the
much more complex gradient of preferenced-based values; this latter system is
more consistent with my experience of reality. Since Jason himself
acknowledges that it was an
exaggeration to claim that “nothing is relative,” I conclude that Jason also
recognizes that reality demands a more complex metric than right/wrong.
Dave!
|
|
Message is in Reply To:
 | | Re: Why these news groups were created
|
| (...) Agreed, sir, but my point is simply that these people feel this way, whether they are being oppressed or not, and that is what they are reacting to. (...) Again, I agree, but in every case in life (not just this), a judgement call has to be (...) (20 years ago, 25-Sep-04, to lugnet.off-topic.debate, FTX)
|
151 Messages in This Thread:
(Inline display suppressed due to large size. Click Dots below to view.)
- Entire Thread on One Page:
- Nested:
All | Brief | Compact | Dots
Linear:
All | Brief | Compact
|
|
|
|
