From owner-freebsd-chat Fri Sep 6 18:29: 5 2002 Delivered-To: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.FreeBSD.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 1E2B237B405 for ; Fri, 6 Sep 2002 18:28:57 -0700 (PDT) Received: from mailsrv.otenet.gr (mailsrv.otenet.gr [195.170.0.5]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id CEB9D43E3B for ; Fri, 6 Sep 2002 18:28:55 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from keramida@ceid.upatras.gr) Received: from hades.hell.gr (patr530-b137.otenet.gr [212.205.244.145]) by mailsrv.otenet.gr (8.12.4/8.12.4) with ESMTP id g871SL7f018065; Sat, 7 Sep 2002 04:28:40 +0300 (EEST) Received: from hades.hell.gr (hades [127.0.0.1]) by hades.hell.gr (8.12.6/8.12.6) with ESMTP id g871SEcf017114; Sat, 7 Sep 2002 04:28:14 +0300 (EEST) (envelope-from keramida@ceid.upatras.gr) Received: (from charon@localhost) by hades.hell.gr (8.12.6/8.12.6/Submit) id g871SDmQ017098; Sat, 7 Sep 2002 04:28:13 +0300 (EEST) (envelope-from keramida@ceid.upatras.gr) Date: Sat, 7 Sep 2002 04:27:51 +0300 From: Giorgos Keramidas To: "Neal E. Westfall" Cc: chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Why did evolution fail? Message-ID: <20020907012751.GA16913@hades.hell.gr> References: <20020907001514.GA15779@hades.hell.gr> <20020906174735.C44831-100000@Tolstoy.home.lan> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <20020906174735.C44831-100000@Tolstoy.home.lan> X-PGP-Fingerprint: C1EB 0653 DB8B A557 3829 00F9 D60F 941A 3186 03B6 Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.org In message: <20020906174735.C44831-100000@Tolstoy.home.lan> "Neal E. Westfall" wrote: > On Sat, 7 Sep 2002, Giorgos Keramidas wrote: > > On 2002-09-06 10:02 +0000, Neal E. Westfall wrote: > > > What is *your* rationale for opposing slavery? I'll tell you mine. > > > I am grateful to God for having mercy on me as a sinner. As such, I > > > seek to glorify God by emulating His compassion that He had on me. > > > > Why do you need to have `God', or anything else that can take its > > place in your systems of beliefs, to set an example? Can't you, as an > > individual, a human being respect and value others without someone > > showing you ``the way''? > > So let me get this straight. You think you are so self-righteous > that you think you are not in need of an objective standard of right > and wrong, and that you just naturally do what is right (right according > to who?) in any given situation? No, I am not self-righteous. I do try, not to do things to others that I wouldn't want them to do to me. This is the only thing that one needs to aim to do, when questions like right and wrong pop up. This is the only thing that is needed for an infinite amount of people to be able to live together without having to look up to supernatural beings and entities, in order to be kind to each other. To return to the original question, making another human a slave is not something that I would like another human doing to me. This is then, by my own standards, as you called them, wrong. > How can you even define "respect" and "value others" without > appealing to some objective standard that gives such lofty goals > meaning? One person can not define or know an `objective standard' alone. The standard becomes manifest when many persons try to understand what is best for all of them and each individual separately. > Without objective standards, you have no right to expect such > respect from anyone. Fyodor Dostoevsky wrote, "If there is no God, > all is permissable." Please refute. I am not sure that there is a need for a god or other supernatural entity for humans to socialise and treat each other well. If they do try hard to avoid intentionally hurting each other, and strive both as individuals and as a team to catter for the needs both of their individuals selfs and the team as a whole, is there really a need for something like this? To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message