It might be possible to shed some light on the issue of morality by examining some aspects of children’s behavior, and the behavior of some pre-modern cultures.
Many of us would like to believe that morality is universal, and some ascribe that universality to a belief that morality is divinely ordained, and therefore, an innate part of the human "soul", implanted in the growing person at the time of conception. While this belief may fit well into a society where popular attitudes are well regulated by tradition and consistent education of the young into what we hope are self-regulating adults with proper standards of behavior, it does not stand the test of ethnographic experience.
Dr. Philip Ellis Jackson illustrates his position, supporting the innate moral standard, with the example of a person yelling "I like to rape and murder little children' in a crowded public place. God forbid that we should ever encounter a situation where this type of behavior would be accepted, however, when we look at human history we find that many forms of behavior we no longer accept were once considered proper in certain times and places. The best examples were "religions" involving human sacrifice which were prominent in the Fertile Crescent and in Latin America before being displaced by other systems. According to some sources, such practices also occurred in Bronze Age Celtic cultures, and in regions where the worship of the Norse gods was prominent. One can also make the case that the Roman gladiatorial contests were a form of sacrificial rite, and that the Hindu practice of suttee could be also. Certainly, the ritual killings by the devotees of Kali would be considered a form of human sacrifice. These examples raise the question of whether or not the people involved considered their behavior right or wrong, and why the majority of human society no longer follow such practices today. The reason appears to be that we consider it improper to harm another human being, howerver, at the time it was cosidered proper. The lack of consistency is a problem
A second question arises from Dr. Jackson's use of children as the victims of the fictitious person in his example. Modern Western society generally sees children as "innocent" and not necessarily responsible for their behavior, not fully knowing right from wrong in all situations. The Gospels teach that true Christians have the faith of children, essentially believing what they are told and trusting in it. On the contrary side, we see William Golding's Lord of the Flies in which the children, denied adult supervision become savages in short order. It might be possible to shed some light on the issue of morality by examining some aspects of children's behavior. There are three examples, which should be useful in doing so. The first is the child who sees that certain situations are "not fair" and seeks to remedy them. This is the child who suggests that teams alternate in choosing players so that the talent is more or less evenly distributed. They are focusing on equality of opportunity, and as long as both sides follow the rules, they aren't likely to object to losing. His approach might be described as free market. Let everyone have a chance and the best one wins, as long as they follow the rules.
A second child is rather like Moe, the school bully in the Calvin and Hobbes comic strip. He knows what he wants, and takes it if he thinks he can get away with it. In his world might makes right. If a teacher or other authority figure intervenes and forces him to give back his ill-gotten gains, he sees that as further validation of this perception. He doesn't care if what he is doing is right or wrong; only that he can get away with it. This child is likely to either end up in crime, or as an authority figure so that he can exercise his muscle in a way that society approves of.
The third type might be best described as a socialist. He sees others having more than he has and engages in self-help equalization. He takes things when he thinks no one is looking. His validation of this comes from a belief that the theft is justified because he is unjustly deprived of things he should have, or else everyone else shouldn't have. His morality is selfish, rather than oriented on society as a whole. He focuses on equality of result, rather than opportunity, and ignores what would result if everyone did as he does. Lacking the muscle to be a bully, he becomes a sneak thief, instead.
The central question is why these children turned out so differently. Is it genetic, bad parenting, psychological, or otherwise? Simply stated, they do not appear to be imbued with a consistent moral sense that agrees with everyone else. Rightly or wrongly, each has a justification for his attitudes. The author is intimately familiar with these attitudes from experiences of his own youth, wherein he encountered people fitting all three of these models. There are others, as well, but perhaps not as well defined.
One must also address the issue of innocence. Is it a condition of ignorance and resulting trust, or is it lack of guilt? And, if it is lack of guilt, is that lack because one hasn't committed a social wrong, or is it because the acts committed were not interpreted as social wrongs at the time by the society in which they were committed or by the person committing them?
It appears more likely that much of the social moral sense is learned, and in some ways is the result of social custom imprinting itself on society for long enough until it is accepted. Thus, in a primitive society, if someone is told that their child must be sacrificed to the earthquake god to keep him quiet, and they refuse to allow it, run away to preserve the life of the child, etc., how will their society view it? Most likely, if a serious quake follows, they might see it as a great wrong, as evidenced by the god's wrath at being denied his due. The runaway is considered evil for visiting the damage on everyone else. On the other hand, if nothing happens, they might be less inclined to pass off the god as non-existent because social legend says otherwise.
Consider this in the context of a modern problem. In Islamic society rape is considered wrong, however, it is virtually impossible for it to be proven because the victim's testimony is discounted next to that of the possible perpetrator. Further, she is likely to be accused of baiting a perpetrator, trying to get him to pursue her, making him the victim, for which she is likely to be executed for immodesty. Does the conduct mesh with the stated intent? Most would be likely to say not. Now, borrowing from Dr. Jackson's example, how would the average orthodox muslim treat someone who says that he likes to rape little children? More likely than not is the possibility that he would blame the victim and sympathize with the "criminal", rather like the twisted logic of many modern liberal experts on criminal behavior who blame the victim, or society for someone's bad acts.
Lee Rodgers of KSFO radio 560 in San Francisco often referred to children as savages who need to be civilized. Looking at the behavior of some, it seems that he is right, or else, there is a flaw somewhere that prevents the innate moral sense or code from taking hold. When we find out why, if we can find out why, that may be the answer to the dilemma. Of course, we may have to get to heaven to find out, and that, we have come to believe is a one way trip.
slaib@intellectualconservative.com
http://intellectualconservative.com
Read more articles by Steven D. Laib
One of the things that attracted me to The Intellectual Conservative was the opportunity to fully explore an issue like the subject of a universal moral code. I’ve been fortunate enough to have private conversations with both Jim Carmine and Steve Laib on a variety of topics, and consider them to be good friends. That, however, doesn’t mean that we always agree. Like Jim’s essay, Steve Laib is way off target here in his conclusions about a relativistic moral code.
For instance, the example of human sacrifice tends to prove my point rather than his. I readily concede that human sacrifice was a somewhat common activity in the societies Steve illustrates, in that it occurred with a certain regularity for political and “religious” reasons. But two things need to be pointed out about this: (1) Only the leaders of that society could initiate this activity — unlike abortion, which in the United States any woman can initiate so long as legal (not moral) parameters are observed regarding the timing of that abortion. In societies practicing human sacrifice, parents didn’t go around killing their children or other family members the same way they engaged in other social activities. Nor was the indiscriminate killing of another family’s children/parents/relatives condoned. These killings were universally (and morally) inappropriate activities, and were recognized as such.
Harming innocent life was understood as innately immoral, whether it was your kid or a neighbor’s wife. The fact that ritual sacrifice occurred under highly specialize, highly limited circumstances illustrated the common understanding of the moral code. Enemy soldiers who were sacrificed were not considered to be “innocent”, and children who were sacrificed were not “harmed” — they were offered as a bridge between the population and the gods. They were killed for a purpose [a specific rationalization, like women who abort their children in the US today], not just for the heck of it [I’ll have rice instead of beans for lunch, vs. I’ll kill little Bobby at 3:00pm because I’m bored], because the universal moral code does not permit the deliberate harming of innocent human life.
Which leads to the second point. There is no innate more restraint against killing other people. We do this all the time through wars and executions. The innate moral code deals only with deliberately harming innocent human life, and I’ve used the example of a child to illustrate innocence at its most obvious. Killing a 50 year old man “just for the heck of it” is just as morally reprehensible for the same reason. It’s just harder to rationalize that the 5 year old child “deserved” it, while it’s easier to rationalize that someone of the wrong age/sex/race/etc. isn’t “innocent”. Go back to the example I used of how serial murders and rapists of adults view child killers and child rapists. Those who harm innocent adults may find a twisted way to rationalize their actions, but they can’t rationalize the same act against a child. [By the way, rationalizing-away the immorality of an act doesn’t make it moral. It simply lets the person acting immorally sleep better at night, as I’ve addressed in detail].
As to Steve’s second point, I will concede that children are less likely to recognize the innate moral code than adults, thus giving some credence to his Lord of the Flies example. But again, this has nothing to do with whether a universal moral code exists or not. It simply asserts (as have I) that certain people may not be able to access the code as well as others. Adults employ rationalizations (it’s a “choice”, not a “child”; all women are sluts and deserve to be raped, etc.), or suffer from mental problems (retardation, personality disorders, etc.) that prevent them from accessing the code.
Children don’t necessarily rationalize and aren’t inherently “defective”, but they are immature. Even without the benefit of a college education people still see the world differently at 40, 30 or 20 than they do at 10. This maturity will positively affect their ability to access their inner moral code. Not everyone will, because free will gives us a choice about how to act, and some will choose the path of rationalization or self-indulgence.
But again this is precisely my point, as I elaborated in my earlier essays. Just looking at abortion, even those who decide it’s really a “choice” not a “child” after all feel compelled to explain why it is NOT a child. But they don’t feel any similar compulsion to explain other choices they make in similar detail. Why? Because they know killing innocent life goes against the moral code, and the only way to live with the rationalization and sleep at night is to try and convince everyone that 19 week and 6 day old “proto-Phil” isn’t human, while acknowledging 20 week old “still-developing Phil” is.
As for the Islamo-fascist example Steve cited, I also dealt with this at length in my original essay ‘What Kind of Car would Jesus Drive to Take His Girlfriend to an Abortion Clinic?’ “So what is the trigger mechanism that allows a homicide bomber about to blow up a schoolbus full of Jewish children to also feel innate revulsion at the harming of innocent life? It’s not a different core moral code. The terrorist’s moral code is identical to ours, despite what we think about his actions. The trigger mechanism is actually his society, the civilization that gives him his cultural and political reference points. The fact that he finds no problem killing Jewish children is a result of his society and culture working to suppress the moral code that equates Jewish children with other innocent life, and allows him to think of them as animals instead. Pack the bus with a bunch of little Ayatollahs instead of Jewish scum, and his response is completely different. He’d ditch the bomb and invite them to his house for lemonade and cookies.
It’s not that morality is different for Arabs and Jews. It’s that certain Arabs re-define Jews as inhuman to permit their extermination [or different Islamic sects as heretics, and thus not “innocent”], since deliberately harming innocent life is forbidden by the universal moral code. I’d also point out that not every choice involves a moral issue. Many of the examples Steve used in discussing socialism, etc., do not involve accessing the universal moral code. I’ve spoken a lot about this in discussing the difference between capitalism and communism.
With all due respect to my friend Steve, I don’t think we need to wait to get to heaven to see what was really moral or immoral here on Earth. It’s right here inside each of us, waiting to be accessed by every individual on the planet.
Comment by Phillip Ellis Jackson | October 16, 2006
The author appears to be laboring under a misapprehension. I don’t think advocates of universal morality are suggesting that morality is universal because everyone acknowledges it. Universal morality is universal because it is universally given.
The “children are innocent” argument is irrelevant, for everyone recognizes that children need to be trained up in morality so as to take their place in society as a functioning individual. Moral behavior does not come naturally to people. Moral understanding is not universal.
Morality by consensus and morality by majority are meaningless. If morality is subject to the whims of culture, it is irrelevant. Morality must be an unchanging benchmark from generation to generation, or it is no benchmark at all.
Otherwise, whatever I decide is moral, is moral for me. And really, on what basis could anyone else challenge that? Certainly not on a moral basis, unless morality is universally transcendent.
If morality is relative to society and culture, constantly revised and redefined, it is relative. But one cannot maintain that morality is relative by employing an absolute statement to make such an assertion. This is self-refuting.
This is the central problem with atheistic morality, or the objectivism of the followers of Ayn Rand, for example. They are faced with an insurmountable problem in making the case for morality absent Diety. They have nothing but mankind to appeal to as the highest authority, a standard that leaves too much to be desired.
Comment by Mountain Man | October 17, 2006
One of the things that attracted me to The Intellectual Conservative was the opportunity to fully explore an issue like the subject of a universal moral code. I’ve been fortunate enough to have had private conversations with both Jim Carmine and Steve Laib on a variety of topics, and consider them to be good friends. That, however, doesn’t mean that we always agree. Like Jim’s essay, Steve Laib is way off target here in his conclusions about a relativistic moral code.
For instance, the example of human sacrifice tends to prove my point rather than his. I readily concede that human sacrifice was a somewhat common activity in the societies Steve illustrates, in that it occurred with a certain regularity for political and “religious” reasons. But two things need to be pointed out about this: (1) Only the leaders of that society could initiate this activity — unlike abortion, which in the United States any woman can initiate so long as legal (not moral) parameters are observed regarding the timing of that abortion. In societies practicing human sacrifice, parents didn’t go around killing their children or other family members the same way they engaged in other social activities. Nor was the indiscriminate killing of another family’s children/parents/relatives condoned. These killings were universally (and morally) inappropriate activities, and were recognized as such.
Harming innocent life was understood as innately immoral, whether it was your kid or a neighbor’s wife. The fact that ritual sacrifice occurred under highly specialize, highly limited circumstances illustrated the common understanding of the moral code. Enemy soldiers who were sacrificed were not considered to be “innocent”, and children who were sacrificed were not “harmed” — they were offered as a bridge between the population and the gods. They were killed for a purpose [a specific rationalization, like women who abort their children in the US today], not just for the heck of it [I’ll have rice instead of beans for lunch, vs. I’ll kill little Bobby at 3:00pm because I’m bored], because the universal moral code does not permit the deliberate harming of innocent human life.
Which leads to the second point. There is no innate more restraint against killing other people. We do this all the time through wars and executions. The innate moral code deals only with deliberately harming innocent human life, and I’ve used the example of a child to illustrate innocence at its most obvious. Killing a 50 year old man “just for the heck of it” is just as morally reprehensible for the same reason. It’s just harder to rationalize that the 5 year old child “deserved” it, while it’s easier to rationalize that someone of the wrong age/sex/race/etc. isn’t “innocent”. Go back to the example I used of how serial murders and rapists of adults view child killers and child rapists. Those who harm innocent adults may find a twisted way to rationalize their actions, but they can’t rationalize the same act against a child. [By the way, rationalizing-away the immorality of an act doesn’t make it moral. It simply lets the person acting immorally sleep better at night, as I’ve addressed in detail].
As to Steve’s second point, I will concede that children are less likely to recognize the innate moral code than adults, thus giving some credence to his Lord of the Flies example. But again, this has nothing to do with whether a universal moral code exists or not. It simply asserts (as have I) that certain people may not be able to access the code as well as others. Adults employ rationalizations (it’s a “choice”, not a “child”; all women are sluts and deserve to be raped, etc.), or suffer from mental problems (retardation, personality disorders, etc.) that prevent them from accessing the code.
Children don’t necessarily rationalize and aren’t inherently “defective”, but they are immature. Even without the benefit of a college education people still see the world differently at age 40, 30 or 20 than they do at age 10. This maturity will positively affect their ability to access their inner moral code. Not everyone will, because free will gives us a choice about how to act, and some will choose the path of rationalization or self-indulgence.
But again this is precisely my point, as I elaborated in my earlier essays. Just looking at abortion, even those who decide it’s really a “choice” not a “child” after all feel compelled to explain why it is NOT a child. But they don’t feel any similar compulsion to explain other choices they make in similar detail. Why? Because they know killing innocent life goes against the moral code, and the only way to live with the rationalization and sleep at night is to try and convince everyone that 19 week and 6 day old “proto-Phil” isn’t human, while acknowledging that 20 week old “still-developing Phil” is.
As for the Islamo-fascist example Steve cited, I also dealt with this at length in my original essay ‘What Kind of Car would Jesus Drive to Take His Girlfriend to an Abortion Clinic?’ “So what is the trigger mechanism that allows a homicide bomber about to blow up a schoolbus full of Jewish children to also feel innate revulsion at the harming of innocent life? It’s not a different core moral code. The terrorist’s moral code is identical to ours, despite what we think about his actions. The trigger mechanism is actually his society, the civilization that gives him his cultural and political reference points. The fact that he finds no problem killing Jewish children is a result of his society and culture working to suppress the moral code that equates Jewish children with other innocent life, and allows him to think of them as animals instead. Pack the bus with a bunch of little Ayatollahs instead of Jewish scum, and his response is completely different. He’d ditch the bomb and invite them to his house for lemonade and cookies.
It’s not that morality is different for Arabs and Jews. It’s that certain Arabs re-define Jews as inhuman to permit their extermination [or define different Islamic sects as heretics, and thus not “innocent”], since deliberately harming innocent life is forbidden by the universal moral code. I’d also point out that not every choice involves a moral issue. Many of the examples Steve used in discussing socialism, etc., do not involve accessing the universal moral code. I’ve spoken a lot about this in discussing the difference between capitalism and communism.
With all due respect to my friend Steve, I don’t think we need to wait to get to heaven to see what was really moral or immoral here on Earth. It’s right here inside each of us, waiting to be accessed by every individual on the planet.
Comment by Phillip Ellis Jackson | October 17, 2006
I agree with Mountain Man. Just because not everyone ‘gets it’, does not mean it’s not there or right in front of us. Steve, I think you are underestimating the human capacity for dodging moral responsibility. Relativist’ arguments of a mutable morality are just one example in a long line of obfuscations and equivocations for our less than sterling behavior.
The three examples you give of children are perfectly valid, but you aren’t putting them in the right context. You will find the same three examples in every culture regardless of moral framework. You will find them in L.A., Korea, Iran, Budapest, and Riyadh. You will have met and recognized them in ancient Babylon, Memphis, Athens, Rome, Mecca, Machu Pichu, and Hankow. You will find them both rich and poor. Each of those kids has a different capacity for grasping basic codes of conduct, and each adapts, more or less successfully, depending on that capacity. That is a very different proposition than saying differences in our natures (or the expression thereof) shapes morality. The bully is still a bully, and is resented whether his culture is liberal and he an outlaw within it or barbaric and he’s the boss. Only his position in society allows him (or a dominant group) to dictate a morality at variance with that basic civility all intelligent people equally recognize as a birthright (only requiring they be informed of it).
More to the point, regarding universal morality, are those codes that keep cropping up wherever people are freed of an oppressive rule. Unerringly, we find our way to the golden rule, a rule that repeats in every culture (even to oppressive ones). So also, we see nearly equal ideas of justice, association, deportment, courtesy, fair-trade, fair-play, sharing, charity, wrong behaviors (killing, assault, stealing, lying, sexual misconduct, &c), virtue, modesty, respect and reverence. Given every society (many independently) devise codes for the exact same set of behaviors suggest some universality all of us are apt to respect. That we arrive at different models for it only tells us we are groping. For example, few cultures still engage in religious taking of human life (Islam being a notable exception: eager martyrs, killing apostates and heretics, victims of terrorism and jihad, stoning of women). Various codes have been devised, accepted and defended; until a clearly superior code or improvement comes along to supplant it. The inferior code eventually adopts the improvement, resulting in convergence, bringing us closer to that true and universally recognizable morality. This process is not always in one direction and we do see reversals, but overall, we do see refinement.
Because people see differences in moral codes they regard as large (aren’t really) and because they can’t demonstrate their particular code is superior or inferior to any other, they assume morality no more than a useful artifact, and accept that moral-relativism has validity, even virtue. Yet, we can see without needing complete proof the one is superior and the other deficient. Some cultures clearly are more barbaric than others, despite an appearance of ‘high standards’; and it is this sort of barbarity that illustrates better than all our clever arguments of a universal, superior morality we steadily grope toward. Morality that does not even attempt to secure the blessings our creator intended for all is no more than a counterfeit, the tool of wicked men.
The reason Islam is so hostile to the West, is that the cultural guardians and lords of Islam recognize in Western philosophy and freedom an unstoppable threat to their hegemony over the mind of their own people. The moral superiority of freedom and of conscience is so manifest Muslim purist are forced to complain of "the unfairness and falseness of our freedom"! Islam's demand of submission and the dominance of shari'a is in direct conflict with a the now overwhelming preference for personal liberty. It takes enormous oppression and disinformation to keep people from grasping its simple truth. Because Islam is loosing in the battle of ideas, it has reverted to barbarity in a last ditch attempt at surviving without adaptation. It complains and propagandizes that freedom is immoral and favors our own moral-relativists in a bid to undermine free society. Kill as many as it can, it cannot reverse the march of freedom any more than put a djin back in its bottle.
Comment by Robert W. Stapler | October 17, 2006
One of the things that attracted me to The Intellectual Conservative was the opportunity to fully explore an issue like the subject of a universal moral code. I’ve been fortunate enough to have private conversations with both Jim Carmine and Steve Laib on a variety of topics, and consider them to be good friends. That, however, doesn’t mean that we always agree. Like Jim’s essay, Steve Laib is way off target here in his conclusions about a relativistic moral code.
For instance, the example of human sacrifice tends to prove my point rather than his. I readily concede that human sacrifice was a somewhat common activity in the societies Steve illustrates, in that it occurred with a certain regularity for political and “religious” reasons. But two things need to be pointed out about this: (1) Only the leaders of that society could initiate this activity — unlike abortion, which in the United States any woman can initiate so long as legal (not moral) parameters are observed regarding the timing of that abortion. In societies practicing human sacrifice, parents didn’t go around killing their children or other family members the same way they engaged in other social activities. Nor was the indiscriminate killing of another family’s children/parents/relatives condoned. These killings were universally (and morally) inappropriate activities, and were recognized as such.
Harming innocent life was understood as innately immoral, whether it was your kid or a neighbor’s wife. The fact that ritual sacrifice occurred under highly specialize, highly limited circumstances illustrated the common understanding of the moral code. Enemy soldiers who were sacrificed were not considered to be “innocent”, and children who were sacrificed were not “harmed” — they were offered as a bridge between the population and the gods. They were killed for a purpose [a specific rationalization, like women who abort their children in the US today], not just for the heck of it [I’ll have rice instead of beans for lunch, vs. I’ll kill little Bobby at 3:00pm because I’m bored], because the universal moral code does not permit the deliberate harming of innocent human life.
Which leads to the second point. There is no innate more restraint against killing other people. We do this all the time through wars and executions. The innate moral code deals only with deliberately harming innocent human life, and I’ve used the example of a child to illustrate innocence at its most obvious. Killing a 50 year old man “just for the heck of it” is just as morally reprehensible for the same reason. It’s just harder to rationalize that the 5 year old child “deserved” it, while it’s easier to rationalize that someone of the wrong age/sex/race/etc. isn’t “innocent”. Go back to the example I used of how serial murders and rapists of adults view child killers and child rapists. Those who harm innocent adults may find a twisted way to rationalize their actions, but they can’t rationalize the same act against a child. [By the way, rationalizing-away the immorality of an act doesn’t make it moral. It simply lets the person acting immorally sleep better at night, as I’ve addressed in detail].
As to Steve’s second point, I will concede that children are less likely to recognize the innate moral code than adults, thus giving some credence to his Lord of the Flies example. But again, this has nothing to do with whether a universal moral code exists or not. It simply asserts (as have I) that certain people may not be able to access the code as well as others. Adults employ rationalizations (it’s a “choice”, not a “child”; all women are sluts and deserve to be raped, etc.), or suffer from mental problems (retardation, personality disorders, etc.) that prevent them from accessing the code.
Children don’t necessarily rationalize and aren’t inherently “defective”, but they are immature. Even without the benefit of a college education people still see the world differently at 40, 30 or 20 than they do at 10. This maturity will positively affect their ability to access their inner moral code. Not everyone will, because free will gives us a choice about how to act, and some will choose the path of rationalization or self-indulgence.
But again this is precisely my point, as I elaborated in my earlier essays. Just looking at abortion, even those who decide it’s really a “choice” not a “child” after all feel compelled to explain why it is NOT a child. But they don’t feel any similar compulsion to explain other choices they make in similar detail. Why? Because they know killing innocent life goes against the moral code, and the only way to live with the rationalization and sleep at night is to try and convince everyone that 19 week and 6 day old “proto-Phil” isn’t human, while acknowledging 20 week old “still-developing Phil” is.
As for the Islamo-fascist example Steve cited, I also dealt with this at length in my original essay ‘What Kind of Car would Jesus Drive to Take His Girlfriend to an Abortion Clinic?’ “So what is the trigger mechanism that allows a homicide bomber about to blow up a schoolbus full of Jewish children to also feel innate revulsion at the harming of innocent life? It’s not a different core moral code. The terrorist’s moral code is identical to ours, despite what we think about his actions. The trigger mechanism is actually his society, the civilization that gives him his cultural and political reference points. The fact that he finds no problem killing Jewish children is a result of his society and culture working to suppress the moral code that equates Jewish children with other innocent life, and allows him to think of them as animals instead. Pack the bus with a bunch of little Ayatollahs instead of Jewish scum, and his response is completely different. He’d ditch the bomb and invite them to his house for lemonade and cookies.
It’s not that morality is different for Arabs and Jews. It’s that certain Arabs re-define Jews as inhuman to permit their extermination [or different Islamic sects as heretics, and thus not “innocent”], since deliberately harming innocent life is forbidden by the universal moral code. I’d also point out that not every choice involves a moral issue. Many of the examples Steve used in discussing socialism, etc., do not involve accessing the universal moral code. I’ve spoken a lot about this in discussing the difference between capitalism and communism.
With all due respect to my friend Steve, I don’t think we need to wait to get to heaven to see what was really moral or immoral here on Earth. It’s right here inside each of us, waiting to be accessed by every individual on the planet.
Comment by Phillip Ellis Jackson, PhD | October 18, 2006
I see now why you were interested in mine and Phil's discussion in the atheist thread Steve. :D
Take care,
william
Comment by liwfz | November 21, 2006