Replies (36)

Unfortunately today I found out that todays modern generations dont believe in anything and they treat everything as fake. Someone called in my presence a person that is genuinely charismatic an aura farmer... decency is going to die off with our generations...
20 years ago a man paid for my jeep to be fixed. I had taken money out of the bank to pay for it. Took my kids to a Walmart & bought a few items. Someone stole my money out of the diaper bag in the bathroom. When I returned to pay my money was gone. He didn’t see or care if it was a scam. He just saw a flustered mother with children and no way to pay. That’s real life.
Not that subjective. Don’t lie to people. Don’t use them to get what you want. Don’t kick someone when they’re already down. Don’t humiliate people for sport. Keep your word when it’s inconvenient. Help someone who can’t do anything for you in return.
Constant's avatar
Constant yesterday
You have to understand that this assumes a cultural strategy. What if my cultural strategy is to actively undermine the outgroup? I don't disagree with you, but there is an assumption of universalism there, and that is not a universal mode of operation. So....better gear up brother, we have a crusade or 2 to go on...oh and a whole lot of hanging, because that is how those norms got established in the first place🤷‍♂
Cultural strategy doesn’t get you out of it either. You can want to beat your outgroup and still not lie to their face, still not use people, still not kick someone when they’re down. Those aren’t universalist ideals, they’re just what functioning humans do even in a fight. History’s full of people who won without needing the hanging. Strategy and decency aren’t opposites, they’re just uncomfortable together sometimes.
Numbers 31 is a specific judgment on Midian tied to the Baal Peor incident, not a general ethical code Christians live by. Civil and ceremonial law expired with the old covenant. Moral law didn’t. Nobody’s building an ethic off Numbers 31 any more than off the imprecatory psalms.
Then we have another problem. I don’t believe in Baal and these other imaginary superstitions. Therefore, I would disagree, and many others will too, with this justification for murder. And I’m sure you’d disagree with the murders of other religions like Jews Muslims and extremist Christians. So I’ll reiterate again: everyone’s definition of decency is going to look different. And that fact alone guarantees that conflict will persist for humanity.
You called it murder. That word only makes sense if there’s a standard above culture, otherwise it’s just an ancient tribe doing ancient tribe things and you’ve got no ground to condemn it. You borrowed the absolute you say doesn’t exist. Nobody actually lives like a relativist. People know murder is murder regardless of era, then argue philosophy about it after
No switch happened, you just noticed the mechanism. Decency is simple because there’s a standard we’re all drawing from whether we admit it or not. That’s why you can call something murder and expect me to agree it’s wrong, not just different. If it was actually subjective there’d be nothing simple about it and nothing to argue over. Every side would just shrug and move on. Nobody does that.
Exactly! Basic morality: it’s wrong to initiate violence on peaceful people & similarly, it’s wrong to ask others to do that too image