Telling Right From Wrong
nytimes.com
Telling Right From Wrong
1–10 of 19 posts
Re: Telling Right From Wrong
#2I have heard (but never confirmed for myself) that the term translated as sin into English from the Torah has more of the sense to miss the mark in the original Hebrew.
It appears from this summary this atheist has replaced traditional Western religious-based morality with the very same moral system, sans God.
Re: Telling Right From Wrong
#3Building a plausible a-religious moral philosophy always reminded me of building a plausible perpetual motion machine.
How can you conceal the fact that you're trying to extract a conclusion from a system that doesn't have a premise? Well, there are indeed lots of methods of misdirection.
The last try at building a perpetual motion machine that I remember involved claiming to have a device for "amplifying power" but not being able to hook the device to itself "somehow". Made the system harder to disprove.
Re: Telling Right From Wrong
#4I have heard (but never confirmed for myself) that the term translated as sin into English from the Torah has more of the sense to miss the mark in the original Hebrew. It appears from this summary this atheist has replaced traditional Western religious-based morality with the very same moral system, sans God.
The word you are looking for is the Greek "hamartia" (αμαρτία) [1]. This does make the biblical association you're trying to set up significantly less tenable.
Re: Telling Right From Wrong
#5I have heard (but never confirmed for myself) that the term translated as sin into English from the Torah has more of the sense to miss the mark in the original Hebrew. It appears from this summary this atheist has replaced traditional Western religious-based morality with the very same moral system, sans God.
[deleted]
Re: Telling Right From Wrong
#6Building a plausible a-religious moral philosophy always reminded me of building a plausible perpetual motion machine. How can you conceal the fact that you're trying to extract a conclusion from a system that doesn't have a premise? Well, there are indeed lots of methods of misdirection. The last try at building a perpetual motion machine that I remember involved claiming to have a device for "amplifying power" but…
Building a moral system from premises always reminded me of Data in star trek trying to understand emotions logically. It just doesn't work that way. Every culture has a system of morality, even apes have a strong sense of fairness. And one would have to be very ignorant of the bible (or any religious text i've seen) to think morals come from it.
Re: Telling Right From Wrong
#7I have heard (but never confirmed for myself) that the term translated as sin into English from the Torah has more of the sense to miss the mark in the original Hebrew. It appears from this summary this atheist has replaced traditional Western religious-based morality with the very same moral system, sans God.
The word you are looking for is the Greek "hamartia" (αμαρτία) [1]. This does make the biblical association you're trying to set up significantly less tenable. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamartia
Well, the hebrew word: Torah, means "instruction" (תּוֹרָה).
So I guess that means if you forget the instruction,
you are certainly missing the mark.
Re: Telling Right From Wrong
#8right: ->
wrong: 1=2
Re: Telling Right From Wrong
#9Building a plausible a-religious moral philosophy always reminded me of building a plausible perpetual motion machine. How can you conceal the fact that you're trying to extract a conclusion from a system that doesn't have a premise? Well, there are indeed lots of methods of misdirection. The last try at building a perpetual motion machine that I remember involved claiming to have a device for "amplifying power" but…
A religious basis doesn't make a moral philosophy any more reasonable (you can't argue real divine inspiration without proof). I am not sure if you even intended to imply that, of course.
A "scientific" moral philosophy is still rooted in some fundamental non-objective rule, of course, but that's not necessarily a bad thing nor does it affect its plausibility.
One fundamental is that humans are separated from other animals[1] not just by self-awareness but also awareness of others — and the resulting effect of empathy. With this information, it can be argued that this ability bestows an obligation to care for others. A consistent moral philosophy can be built from that and other observations.
[1] This could apply to equal or lesser degree to some other species but we have no way of verifying it currently.
Re: Telling Right From Wrong
#10This is still a distinctly minority view among moral philosophers. I believe (I can't find the survey at the moment) that most think the is-ought gap is fundamental.