hey greensophia still in sophie's world?

GREENSOPHIA! Still there?
you wrote
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The school that I graduated from does not have any theology class or whatever on its curriculum but what I remember about Aquinas is his effort to reconcile philosophy (specifically Aristotle’s Ф) with Christianity. He says that philosophy and religion are not contradictory and that in fact these two reinforce each other. For him, there are two ways or paths to a moral life: the Bible (religion) and reason (philosophy).

But anyway ok… you argue: “now, if conscietia is fallible, then there can be no absolute conscience, therefore, there is no absolute morality. there can be no absolute thing if that thing or a part of it is fallible.” I don’t agree with this… it is a fallacy. You see morality is not a part of conscience so whether the latter is fallible or not, it does not affect the nature of the former. Conscience is the alarm bell of humanity; it rings and sends warning when we disobey the law of God. Further, the mere fact that there is a part of conscience that is absolute and that recognizes God’s law which is of course absolute, proves the existence of the absolute morality that I am talking about. Now, do you get me?

Ok, on your next argument. “conscience, you say is the basis of your universal morality.” I did not say this, Mr. Bangi. You misunderstood what I said. I meant the other way around: morality is the basis of conscience. Read my fist comment again if you don’t believe me. Ah, there it is again. “now, if such inner voice, or conscience varies from one locality to another, then morality varies as well. thus making morality not universal.” Aside from the fallacy that I pointed earlier I can see here that you are making the conscience one sided by arguing such. Wait, do you believe in Aquinas when he said that conscience is composed of two “parts”? I believe that conscience, if not absolute, at least possesses a part that is absolute and if ever there are indeed two parts of it I believe that the “absolute part” of the conscience is far more powerful than the other one which is affected by man’s environment. I do not deny the influence of one’s environment and culture on one’s thinking but surely there must be a limit to it. You said so yourself: “no thing must have come from nothing.”

The law of God is the basis of some of the laws that we have now, it is the starting point. “not all criteria morality had come from God alone…” So, you somehow believe that there are laws that come from God? What do you call those laws then? Do you not think that if those laws came from God then they should be absolute?

Death penalty is a man-made law and for me it goes against morality for they are making themselves like gods. They don’t have any right to take any one’s life (however heavy the case that is against a man) since they are not the ones who created life itself. There are other forms of punishment that can teach humans to abide the laws and certainly death penalty is just too much a punishment for a human being. Only God can take a life without committing a sin. Now, regarding your last illustration… hmmmm.. ok. It is a very sensitive issue when it comes to IPs. You see they have their own laws there, indigenous laws that are made by their forefathers. Further, IPs usually are non-Christians but they also believe that there is a God or gods for that matter. They are too inclined with their own culture and beliefs and I do not say that this is wrong. I have high respect for these people and I admire them for their beautiful culture. But my own view on tribes that kill as a way of life (I know my anthropologist teacher in college will disagree with this and I may be branded as ethnocentric) is that their conscience had been put off for they practice killing for centuries already. Yes, it is ethnocentrism but this is my stand and I will stick with this for I believe that no one, no group, and no culture is above the law of God. And who knows if they do not feel guilty by killing a person? And maybe they do that because of necessity; maybe they do not have enough food which means that they do not voluntarily kill a person. It is hard to tell. Let me give you another example. A was killed in a far away village where “killing is a way of life”. But A is not a part of that village; he was just this lost man from a city. Now, is that fair? How then can you reconcile the beliefs of a village from that of the city? Thus, there must be a law that is universal to man and that is the law of God.
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Hi, I’m back. Sorry for the long lull, things became so ugly these past two months. First, I would want to say that my hunches are stronger now as to who you are. But I will act as if they are not. I am enjoying this anyway. So where were we again?

The conscience thing. I have misread it. You were right, I have read it otherwise. with carelessness, I have read that your argument the other way around.

You should forgive me because after I have read your latest post again this time, I failed to seize my self from laughing. Apparently, there is nothing more to debate on because it is clear that you are just hiding behind the bushes for the sake of writing something. We do not have to become cryptologists to conclude as such.

Case one: (boy oh boy did I miss this) you said that “the mere fact that there is a part of conscience that is absolute and that recognizes God’s law which is of course absolute, proves the existence of the absolute morality that I am talking about. Now, do you get me?”

Ok, leme try to define absolute to you again. Absolute for me is the state of being conclusive and non-rebuttable. Complement of my Webster’s dictionary, absolute means whole, complete, having unrestricted power, not conditioned by any or dependent upon anything else. Philosophy defines absolute (if I could remember) as existing independently of any cause outside itself and our sense perception. Still with me?

Now, having written so, absolute morality is morality that is conclusive, non-rebuttable. It is a concept of good that is not subject to restrictions, which entails interpretations by mere mortals. It is a concept of moral and immoral that is existing independently of any cause outside itself. Meaning, it is a concept of good that deviates from question of “what makes good good?” and “what makes evil evil?”

Ok, I think I am deviating form the first case that I have pointed out.

Based on what you have written, the mere fact that there is a part of conscience that is not absolute makes conscience non-conclusive, rebuttable, and therefore relative. Now, God’s law, you said is absolute. But only in the level of God. Conscience, you said recognizes God’s law, and you recognize that a part of conscience is not absolute, and then therefore, the existence of morality, which is pegged on God’s law that is being recognized by a non-conclusive conscience, makes the morality relative. Still with me?

Case two: you said “I believe that conscience, if not absolute, at least possesses a part that is absolute and if ever there are indeed two parts of it I believe that the “absolute part” of the conscience is far more powerful than the other one which is affected by man’s environment”

The issue not what is more powerful and what is weaker, the issue is the absolutism of the matter at hand. Now if you believe that the absolute part is stronger, then you recognize that a part of conscience is fallible, thus taking me back to my earlier argument, conscience is relative. And again, morality which came from God’s law that is further recognized by conscience is relative to what the conscience thinks as fallible or infallible.

Ok, let us move one from conscience since I have misread you r argument as saying that conscience is the root of morality.

Case three: you said that “I do not deny the influence of one’s environment and culture on one’s thinking but surely there must be a limit to it”

What is there to debate on? This statement means that you recognize that there is no limit as to environment and culture’s influence on the people’s perception of good and evil. Fishes are caught in their mouths my friend.

You said “must” meaning there should be. Dualism dictates that there is no “there must be” if there is no “there is no.” you’re still with me? Ok, for your convenience I would define “must.”

Must is something that should be. According again to my dictionary, must means to be obliged or compelled to, something that should be done. Now, you said that there must be a limit as to environment and culture’s influence on people’s perception of good and evil. There must be. So you recognize that there isn’t a limitation to the influence. Now what happens to the people’s perception of good and evil that is not covered by the limitation that you were talking about? Correct! They are subject to environment and culture’s influence, which again will bring me to my original argument that environment and culture are relative, thus making morality, which is dictated upon by these two factors, is relative to the environment and culture that they were influenced by. Don’t blame me, you’re the one who made that argument, I just destroyed it and exposed your stand. And apparently we are on the same side. Imagine that.

Case three: you said that (which I have earlier rebutted) “The law of God is the basis of some of the laws that we have now, it is the starting point.”

Who is God in this? Catholics and protestants have Jesus Christ as their god; Muslims have Allah as their god; Buddhists have Buddha as their God; hinduists have Vishnu, Shiva and I forgot the other one, as their gods; Rizalinians have Jose Rizal as their god, atheists have their selves as their gods, and IP’s have their anitos as their gods. So whose god are you talking about?

The law of God for Catholics is not necessarily the same as the law of Allah. They are different, which explains Christians love life, characterized by God’s teaching “thou shall not kill,” and Moslems, on the other hand, are open to death, which is characterized by their willingness to die and kill for Allah and Islam. To Christians, to kill leads the faithfuls to hell because it is a sin, to Moslems, to kill for Allah and Islam leads them to paradise because killing and dying is allowed in the context Jihad. Killing and Dying are still killing and dying. You get what I mean? Saba and caradaba (did I get the spellings right?) are still bananas. Indian mango and manggang kalabaw are still mangoes. So now I ask, greensophia where is morality’s absolutism in this?

Religion can never be a requisite to morality’s absolutism because there is no one God. If there is no one God, then the absolute law of morality that you are arguing came from God depends on whose god are we talking about. Therefore, the global society does not hold in itself the universal concept of good and evil because the global society is divided among Catholics, Moslems, Buddhists, Hinduists, etcetera etcetera etcetera.

Case four: you said that “Death penalty is a man-made law and for me it goes against morality for they are making themselves like gods. They don’t have any right to take any one’s life (however heavy the case that is against a man) since they are not the ones who created life itself. There are other forms of punishment that can teach humans to abide the laws and certainly death penalty is just too much a punishment for a human being. Only God can take a life without committing a sin”

What is your point in this? I do not see any parallelism between this argument and the matter at hand. I am sorry to say my friend, but this is way too verbose.

Ok I see a small connection. You said that “Death penalty is a man-made law and for me it goes against morality for they are making themselves like gods”

Nothing must have come from nothing. So where do you think man-made laws come from? Certainly not from my armpits.hehe just kidding. So where? Mad-made laws came from natural laws. Now where did natural laws came from? Morality. Now where does morality came from? God (according to you). Now who is this God? Why do some catholic countries don’t have death penalties? Because their God said that killing is bad. Now why do Arab nations have death penalties? Because Allah is not God that Catholics knows, who gave the Ten Commandments. Now, this is a product of relative morality. If there is a universal morality, then why there is no universal man-made law? Sure, man made laws came from morality, otherwise, man made laws would not have precedents, thus making it unenforceable among the people.

And according to you: “law of God is the basis of some of the laws that we have now, it is the starting point” law of God is the basis of man-made laws indeed. And law of God is the concept of universal morality that you are talking about. You see? How come the laws of man, which came from the law of God become so diversified if there a universal concept of good and evil? Still with me?

Moving further on your argumentation.

Case five: you asked “A was killed in a far away village where “killing is a way of life”. But A is not a part of that village; he was just this lost man from a city. Now, is that fair? How then can you reconcile the beliefs of a village from that of the city? Thus, there must be a law that is universal to man, and that is the Law of God.”

I will answer this. Of course it would be too unfair for A. imagine yourself being the silly person to have forgotten that left turn is not right turn. And the price of it is your life. Gee. That’s unfair indeed.

Now let me ask you how do you think the village’s belief that killing is a way of life deviated from the city’s belief that killing is barbaric if you think that universal morality exists already?

Judging from your arguments greensophia, you recognize that there isn’t any concept of universal morality. That is why you are advocating for it, and I quote: “How then can you reconcile the beliefs of a village from that of the city? Thus, there must be a law that is universal to man, and that is the Law of God;” “I do not deny the influence of one’s environment and culture on one’s thinking but surely there must be a limit to it.”

no “there must be” will come from “there is.” You see, mores, norms, taboos, man-made laws come from one source – morality. Everything is interconnected as:

Supreme being (to generalize people’s different gods)gmoralityg(influenced by) environment, norms, and culturegdeciphered by humans ginterpreted by conscience gman-made laws, ways of life, beliefs, dogmas, etcetera etcetera etcetra

The mere fact that the village people (according to your question) can kill A because that is their way of life signifies that there is no concept of good and evil regarding killing and keeping someone’s life. To the village people it is good, to A it is bad. The varying beliefs conclude that theirs are incompatible concepts of morality.

I will wait for rebuttal.hehehe have a nice day