Subject:
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Re: Family values?
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Thu, 4 Jan 2001 19:06:44 GMT
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Viewed:
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357 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Dave Schuler writes:
> I can't speak for Chris, but I will point out that as a human invention
> (and in the form we're discussing, a Modern Western Invention at that)
Current "Western" ([American, Western European, Canadian, Australian) as a
functional (as opposed to formal) culture and economic region]) society may have
it's own particular flavor, it's own particular "style" of marriage, but I think
that you'd be hard-pressed to prove that marriage as a formal expression of
permanent commitment before one's society is merely a Western concept.
> marriage does not determine the moral correctness of anything.
The act of marriage is an expression of commitment and aknowledgment of a moral
truth that has been self-evident to the great majority of humanity (through
distance and the stretches of time) since humanity's intellectual and moral
faculties have been sufficiently developed to sufficiently understand and apply
the truth.
Western, Eastern, Southern and Northern alike have understood the gravity of
marriage (as a permanent commitment between the betrothed, no matter the custom
or form of ceremony, and deity or state paid homage before) - it is a moral
understanding that has not faltered in its application amongst the consensus of
peoples and civilizations throughout known human history. I'd say that the
burden of proof is upon the man who would discard the great experience and
consensus of human history and say that marriage as such is but a passing form
of groundless insignificance.
That is, of
> course, unless morality is a human invention, too, in which case something
> is only "morally wrong" until we decide it isn't.
By no means! The historical and personal testimony of human conscience is proof
that morality is no base invention. The conscience may be tutored, may be
refined, may be developed, but it is an endowed faculty of the human condition.
(And let's now pull a needless root before it has time to grow: Some folks
assert that different societies have different moral sensibilities. Nonsense!
Mere surface details! What would a society with a completely different moral
understanding look like? Has any society ever valued cowardice or betrayal of
those to whom a debt of friendship is owed? Has there ever been a truly "other"
society in terms of moral awareness? To paraphrase C.S. Lewis: men have
disagreed as to how many wives a man may have, but no society has asserted that
a man may have *any* wife that he chooses. Yes, the particulars of moral
application have differed, but the bedrock of moral principles (and in this case
the Rightness of marriage) has never shifted.
If, on the other hand,
> "morally wrong" is self-evident in the universe, then marriage still has
> nothing to do with it because marriage is not self-evident in the universe.
But is the application universally applied? That question can't be answered
unless we 1) verify whether or not intelligent life exists anywhere in the
universe outside of Earth (which would be impossible to ever fully know, even if
we contact a trillion other worlds.), and 2) Positively verify that no creatures
in the whole expanse of the universe recognize or understand the importance of
some sort of committed union amongst their kind. If we're going to talk in
terms of a universal level, let's not put our conclusions ahead of our
observations.
> From his prior postings I infer that Chris rejects--as I do--the notion that
> morals are somehow assigned by a higher power. Therefore, morals are either
> self-evident (in which case marriage--which is not self-evident--has no
> bearing on them)
I don't think that your conclusion necessarily follows your premise.
Presumably, a world could exist in which a Higher Power's existence would not be
self-evidently rendered in the sense faculties of lesser beings. But that's a
tangent. I wholeheartedly join you and Chris in asserting that no higher power
assigns morals. What a monstrous idea! Again, by no means! God could no
sooner make bad Good, then he could make a square round. God can do all things
that may be done, but he cannot do the absurd. God does not assign morals
principles, he affirms them! Moral principles of Good (even if God has not
perfectly endowed our faculties as to their particulars and applications) are as
base and changeless, as part a fabric of existence as the very stuff of God
Himself (Itself, whatever, semantics, really, for those sensitive to this.)
God, though perfectly omniscient and omnipotent in all that those terms properly
mean, cannot change the very nature of Goodness. Killing babies will never
cease to be anything but Bad. It would be an impossible absurdity for it to be
otherwise; just as a circle with 4 right angles could be conceived only in
absurdity but never in reality.
or morals are an invention (in which case the rightness or
> wrongness of extramarital sex is only as permanent as the morality du jour).
God help us if morality becomes du jour.
Respectfully, but passionately,
james
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Message has 1 Reply:
 | | Re: Family values?
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| (...) The fact that you suggest the self-evidence of marriage indicates that you and I have two fundamentally divergent worldviews. That's fine, of course, but we need to recognize that certain issues are therefore insoluble between us, and this may (...) (24 years ago, 4-Jan-01, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | Re: Family values?
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| (...) I can't speak for Chris, but I will point out that as a human invention (and in the form we're discussing, a Modern Western Invention at that), marriage does not determine the moral correctness of anything. That is, of course, unless morality (...) (24 years ago, 4-Jan-01, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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