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HalfMooner
Dingaling
Philippines
15831 Posts |
 Posted - 06/22/2012 : 23:20:44 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by On fire for Christ
because people are usually so busy pointing out how shocking and immoral opinions like his are that they forget to explain why, if your morality is based on reason and it is not just a social construct, then you should be able to bypass morality and give logical reasons why he is wrong.
The problem is that this guy who is probably fairly intelligent, if misguided, is coming up with seemingly logical reasons for his bigotry that may come across as convincing to some people. He isn't just prosthelytizing that abortion is wrong and blacks are inferior based on dogma.
Just telling us how "sick" and "repulsed" you are really just seeks to reinforce the social paradigm that sexism and racism are bad, but does nothing to actually back up that position. In this case the racist, sexist bigot is using reasonable language and rhetoric, facts figures etc and the liberal rebuttals rely on social dogma and just take a moral high ground as if that is enough.
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I would not claim that my morality comes from logic (or at least not much so). Morality seems to come from an interaction of innate instincts and the social milieu that one develops within.
Our minds like to construct perfectly logical reasons for all our thinking and actions, but for the most part this is ex post facto rationalization. Much of our actual decision-making is done at a deeper, more primitive level of our brains. Our emergent consciousness then signs on and claims the decision for itself, decorating it with rationalizations.
Vox Day, it's my guess, grew up in an environment where he perceived that he and his wealthy family were privileged people for whom common social standards and ethics simply did not apply. I don't know the details of how his his racism and misogyny in particular developed, but I imagine they grew more readily in his family environment.
As for his Christianity versus his racism and misogyny, the Bible, both Testaments is positively misogynist, and racism in perfectly consistent with the genocidal tribal attitudes of the Old Testament.
Theodore Beales' father, Robert Beale, was and is deeply into the Religious Right, and served Pat Robertson as his Minnesota campaign manager in 1988. He's a Southern Baptist. "He is also a former shareholder and board of directors member of WorldNetDaily." Among these Religious Right people misogyny and racism are pretty much standard fare, especially among the WND crowd.
So my guess is that Vox Day's "morality" of racism and misogyny comes from a privileged upbringing and a rather twisted father, augmented by years and years of being in the midst (at at the forefront) of wingnuttery of the worst kind.
But that's only a guess. In reality, it's next to impossible to figure out where the seeds of our own morality comes from (before our conscious minds dresses it up in a logical, scientific, or scriptural costume).
Somehow, though, I really don't want to know the details of where Vox Day got all his "morals". I figure I'd be creeped out if I knew. |
“Biology is just physics that has begun to smell bad.” —HalfMooner
Here's a link to Moonscape News, and one to its Archive. |
| Edited by - HalfMooner on 06/22/2012 23:24:12 |
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On fire for Christ
SFN Regular
Norway
1273 Posts |
Posted - 06/23/2012 : 05:56:24 [Permalink]
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| Interesting. I assumed non-religious people would have at least some kind of concrete underpinning for morality. If it's some kind of innate instinct or social construct as you say then how can you be appalled at other people's values if they differ from yours and how can you argue that they are immoral and you are not? |
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HalfMooner
Dingaling
Philippines
15831 Posts |
Posted - 06/23/2012 : 07:28:54 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by On fire for Christ
Interesting. I assumed non-religious people would have at least some kind of concrete underpinning for morality. If it's some kind of innate instinct or social construct as you say then how can you be appalled at other people's values if they differ from yours and how can you argue that they are immoral and you are not?
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True, it's difficult. Trying to be moral is serious grown-up work. I think most skeptics and freethinkers are quite aware that deriving good morality is a brain-wracking chore. And we often will make mistakes in defining our morals. That awareness of our humanity, morality and our fallibility makes us try that much harder, and be that much more careful.
But we do have certain advantages over those religious who try to base their morality on 2000 to 4000 year old scriptures: We know we're making shit up as we go along, so we tend to be very, very careful.
The very religious think their morality, their ancient made-up shit, comes from an invisible magic man in the sky. So instead of being cautious and considering eons of cultural differences, they just dive right in with their eyes closed.
Nobody's morality is perfect, but DIY morality is hands-down, easily better than following the morality of ancient slave-state kings and priests. |
“Biology is just physics that has begun to smell bad.” —HalfMooner
Here's a link to Moonscape News, and one to its Archive. |
| Edited by - HalfMooner on 06/23/2012 08:32:48 |
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moakley
SFN Regular
USA
1888 Posts |
Posted - 06/23/2012 : 08:05:15 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by On fire for Christ
Interesting. I assumed non-religious people would have at least some kind of concrete underpinning for morality. If it's some kind of innate instinct or social construct as you say then how can you be appalled at other people's values if they differ from yours and how can you argue that they are immoral and you are not?
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I believe PZ has provided a good summary for objective morality. He admits to it not being perfect, but when compared to bible based morality it is a superior approach. It is also likely the approach employed by most religious the primary difference being we have no need to attribute good behavior to a god. Or behave good as a result of a god belief.
Responding to a voice in your head to do harm is completely irrational considering the only known source for that voice. So what objective morality can be derived from irrational thinking. |
Life is good
Philosophy is questions that may never be answered. Religion is answers that may never be questioned. -Anonymous |
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HalfMooner
Dingaling
Philippines
15831 Posts |
Posted - 06/23/2012 : 09:45:58 [Permalink]
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Yeah, moakley, that's what I meant to write. 
PZ's little morality guide is about as good as one can get. |
“Biology is just physics that has begun to smell bad.” —HalfMooner
Here's a link to Moonscape News, and one to its Archive. |
| Edited by - HalfMooner on 06/23/2012 09:52:02 |
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Dr. Mabuse
Septic Fiend
Sweden
9688 Posts |
Posted - 06/23/2012 : 11:09:18 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by On fire for Christ
I assumed non-religious people would have at least some kind of concrete underpinning for morality. |
Jesus didn't invent The Golden Rule. But I think it's safe to say that it governs (at least partly) most secular people. |
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"Equivocation is not just a job, for a creationist it's a way of life..." Dr. Mabuse
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 06/23/2012 : 22:37:20 [Permalink]
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There is no objective morality that any of us can know. Divine Command Theory was demolished by Plato nearly 400 years before Christ's alleged birth. That leaves us with the only possibility of an objective morality one that transcends all god-concepts, and so which is inherently unknowable due to the fact that we cannot know with any certainty the mind of any conceivable god(s) who attempt to deliver morality to us only through revelation. Thus, an objective morality may as well not exist.
We're left with completely mortal morality, which is nothing more than a set of rules of behavior that will (supposedly) help us reach some societal goal or other. It is only the choosing of the goal(s) which is subjective. Whether or not the rules you set out to reach those goals will be successful is a question which is completely amenable to critical thought and experimentation (in principle: some of the tests may be immoral on their face, given certain goals).
Given the above, saying "that's immoral" is no different from saying, "that conflicts with my goal(s)." It is a values-based statement, but one which is rationally examinable, but more importantly allows for truly "righteous" indignation. Who is to say that my goals are more important than someone else's? I am, of course.
Because it all boils down to selfishness. Almost everyone will agree that pure selfishness is a bad thing, so whose goals are less selfish makes all the difference (even Ayn Rand sought "enlightened self-interest," a sort of altruistic selfishness, probably because "greed is good" appeals only to the most sociopathic). So if I can justify my goals as being in the best interest of more people than your goals, my morality "wins" because you'll be seen as being more selfish. Seriously: whose morality is more desirable boils down to who looks less like an asshole in the eyes of everyone watching, and thanks go to the powers-that-be that such perceptions are malleable and modifiable through argumentation. Otherwise, we'd be stuck with some bronze-age nonsense dreamt up by nomadic shepherds.
(Along these lines, the worst lessons learned in Star Trek and its follow-ons are those in which "who's to say your morality is better than others" wins the day, because those episodes inevitably end with someone in some minority losing what we would generally see as a basic human right or two for no other reason than that they are a minority or that "tradition" should trump their desires. This would be, of course, massively hypocritical within the context of the hyper-moralistic Star Fleet regulations. If that was Roddenberry's intent, then the man sickens me, and so I hope it was really nothing more than later screenwriters screwing with his otherwise-apparent dream of a truly egalitarian society. I know for certain that these wrong values are promoted in the Next Gen, Voyager and Enterprise series. I don't recall whether TOS or DS9 had similar problems.) |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
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Do You Know This Face? (105)
