From: pel@maximo.enet.dec.com (Phillip E lujan)
Newsgroups: alt.callahans
Subject: Re: Unbe Awakens
Date: 18 Dec 92 16:58:50 GMT
Reply-To: pel@maximo.enet.dec.com (Phillip E lujan)
Organization: Digital Equipment Corporation

In article <105249@bu.edu>, mjmh@crsa.bu.edu (Michael J M Holmes) writes:
(Excellent personal viewpoint on morality and religion deleted)
|> "I'd just like to plead for understanding - aside from the religious or
|> philosphical considerations, when people put these beliefs into
|> *action*, when moral considerations get turned into pragmatic
|> events and decisions, this is the crucial point that I worry about.
|> People who wear their moralness on their sleeve, or people who
|> look down on nontheists as unable to be moral (or, perhaps worse,
|> acting moral but for the *wrong* reasons)."
|> 
|> "When we get to the point where people turn this from discussion
|> into right/wrong games, then nobody is helped."
|> 
|> /* notices that he is towering above everyone, as a result of the
|> soapboxes growing under him.
|> 
|> "Fudgesicles!  I did *not* mean to get this preachy!  Especially since
|> John isn't at all the type of person I worry about.  Sorry to use
|> your statements as a jumping-off point for all of this, John!"
|> 
|> With that, the purple guy asks for some help to get off of these
|> darned soapboxes...
|> 
|> ========================================================================
|> Mike Holmes       mjmh@crsa.bu.edu           "Happiness Will Prevail!"
|> Boston University Department of Geography (a truly GREAT place to work!)
|> ========================================================================

Starknight activates his grav-beams and drifts up to /*.  "Let me give you a
hand down from here, my friend.  Although, while I'm up here..."

"My personal feelings on this matter are that morality and religion are NOT
the same thing.  Personally, I find that most people have their own sets of
morals, and live by them constantly.  Please note that I distinguish morals
from societal constraints (i.e., Thou shalt not kill); some people would have
no moral qualms about killing someone else.  Fortunately for the vast
majority of us, society (which includes religions) places certain additional
restrictions on us, based on their view of the 'rightness' or 'wrongness' of
a certain type of action.

"One of my best friends in RL is the kind of person who won't go to church or
subscribe to the beliefs of any organized religion...  In fact, he's fairly
hostile about the idea, and fiercely resists any attempt to sway his view-
point.  In order to keep from being bothered by prosyletizing, he tells
people that he worships the one true god...  Cthulhu.  He has been known to
go as far as talking about human sacrifices in front of particularly per-
sistent people...

"Does this make my friend less moral than the rest of us?  No, actually he
has a stricter moral standard in many respects than I do; he's just not
religious.  (Neither am I, but that's another story.)  I DO know that he
would be there to help me if I needed help, just as I would be there for
him, and that he would tell me if he thought I was following a path that was
not morally correct for me.  He also accepts that my beliefs and his are not
the same, and can look at things (more or less) from my viewpoint.

"Hmmm....  I seem to have gotten off the track, just a little.  Oh, absolute
moral standards - and whether or not one religion has a monopoly on that.  I
don't think so, and I'll tell you why - because morals differ from person to
person, place to place, time to time.  For example, most of us would be (in RL)
revolted at the thought of eating human flesh, and would consider it morally
wrong.  Yet, to our distant ancestors, eating the flesh of a dead enemy was
not only a common practice, it was MORALLY right - for, in that way, you
showed your respect for his skills...  It was morally wrong to leave the body
of a conquered foe for the lesser creatures to eat; besides, his ghost might
come back to haunt you.

"Well, enough pontificating."  Starknight looks down at the growing pile of
soapboxes, then flits to the floor, /* on his back.  Activating his pressor
beam, he flicks the soapboxes into a darkened corner and orders a rum and tonic.

----------------------
Starknight
Riding my favorite hobby horse (reasoned discussion)