Dante`s Inferno- what level are you in?

[katya]

I, suffering once again from insomnia, decided to look for a website where I could read Dante`s Divine Comedy online. I had started it in America and made it almost all the way through Inferno, so I had an idea what it was. Anyway, in my search, I came across this quiz: http://www.4degreez.com/misc/dante-inferno-test.mv It`s a quiz about what level of Dante`s Hell you would end up in, supposing things were as he says. I thought hey, why not? Well, I answered all the questions honestly (and a lot of the questions were objective, clearly yes or no, thus making the results a little less relative), and halfway through the quiz I realized about in what direction I was headed... Turns out I ended up on the 8th level, out of 9 levels of Hell and one for Purgatory. :eek: Shock!

I was curious to see how my fellow mooters would fare. But really, it got me thinking about it. At first it seemed a little harsh, throwing me down there like that. The thinking seemed almost old fashioned. Well, some of the things I don`t really think are bad, like homosexuality and atheism, but some of you might disagree with me there and that`s fine. But there are a lot of sins that`ll put you down into a deeper level of Hell that I think really are something that maybe should be avoided, regardless of religious beliefs. For example gluttony, greed, malice. What do you think? Do you think Dante is behind the times or timeless? And does this thread already exist or maybe should be placed in the General Lit. thread? Because I don`t mean it to be about Dante or the Divine Inferno exactly, but just the ideas presented within (which is kind of the same?).

Read: The question I am asking is (1) what score did you get and (2) do you think the world (or your life) would be better if people (or just yourself) avoided such sins as gluttony, greed, lust, malice, etc.? Or do you think we should enjoy the world, food, possessions, sex, violence, etc.? Regardless of any religious beliefs (i.e. "Because God said so"). Do you think it`s worth trying to live a pure and virtuous life?

[The Gaffer]

I'm in Limbo:

These are the virtuous pagans, the great philosophers and authors, unbaptised children, and others unfit to enter the kingdom of heaven. You share company with Caesar, Homer, Virgil, Socrates, and Aristotle.

The quiz seemed to be asking the same thing in lots of different ways. I guess that's how these things work.
do you think the world (or your life) would be better if people (or just yourself) avoided such sins as gluttony, greed, lust, malice, etc.? ?
Hondootedly
Or do you think we should enjoy the world, food, possessions, sex, violence, etc.?
Well, of course, you can enjoy the world without having to be gluttonous or violent about it.
Regardless of any religious beliefs (i.e. "Because God said so"). Do you think it`s worth trying to live a pure and virtuous life?
Yes, on many levels. In utilitarian terms, both for self-interest and collective interest; in moral terms, it is the right thing to do.

But the question is kind of an oxymoron without some sort of religious belief: I believe that we are all moral beings, and the vast majority of us live our lives in a way that we think of as being decent. By definition, since what we think of as decent could be defined as what we think is acceptable behaviour.

Whether that matches up to some sort of God-bothersome yardstick, or even a Leftie, Knit-your-own-free-range-sandals yardstick, is a different question.

[Spock]

D.I. is literature; abracadabra, it's there.

[Lief Erikson]

I'll keep you company, Katya, among the others who are tearing their own skin off :eek:. I'm in the 8th level of hell too :D.

Though some of the things I marked down aren't really sins, I think. For example, "do you "hate" everyone?" I answered yes to, because Jesus said, "whoever does not hate his mother, brother and sisters for my sake is not worthy of me." :D Jesus, of course, was merely saying that nothing must come higher in a person's life than God. I don't know if I succeed in that completely yet, but their question was open to my devious, twisting interpretations!

It was a very fun quiz.

[inked]

For the attentive reader, one will see in Dante's Inferno the application of the moral code by which they professed to live. Stoics and Cynics and Aristotleans etc are present, as well as followers of Nietsche before their current designations. Those without a professed code of ethics or morals are judged by natural law.

Contrary to the popular assumption that Dante just put his enemies there, you'll find many friends and acquaintances and persons of stature.

I, not surprisingly, think moral behaviours very important. :D

[Lief Erikson]

Contrary to the popular assumption that Dante just put his enemies there, you'll find many friends
What friends of his did he put in there?

[-elfearz-]

Cute thread :)

I expected to end up somewhere around level 9...but in fact I'm a Virtuous Non-Believer (Level 1), and get to spend eternity in "a place of sorrow without torment...upon the brink of grief's abysmal valley." :rolleyes:

I'm also highly lustful, moderately heretical and moderately fraudulent :evil:

do you think the world (or your life) would be better if people (or just yourself) avoided such sins as gluttony, greed, lust, malice, etc.? Or do you think we should enjoy the world, food, possessions, sex, violence, etc.? Regardless of any religious beliefs (i.e. "Because God said so").

Both :). I don't think there's anything wrong with enjoying the world, but think that any kind of self-gratifying behaviour, when carried to extremes, can be very unhealthy both for individuals and society. I think certain amounts of gluttony, greed, lust and malice occur naturally in most people (maybe even all people), but that any of these traits is unhealthy in excess.

Of course, what "excess" is is relative :p Like Gaffer said, we live our lives according to personal sets of morals (whether these morals are determined/influenced by religion or not); therefore different people will consider different kinds of behaviour to be acceptable/unacceptable.

Do you think it`s worth trying to live a pure and virtuous life?

I agree with Gaffer - I think that most people do naturally try to live moral lives, and that most of us try to live "pure" lives in the sense that we try to avoid things that we consider "evil". But of course, we don't all think the same things are "evil".

[Pytt]

I got into 6. level of hell, where the heretics goes.

[inked]

What friends of his did he put in there?

Here's a cool site to double check references. Put it in your favourites:

http://danteworlds.laits.utexas.edu/index2.html

As to friends:

Virgil (Limbo by his own admission)

Ciacco (Circle 3, Canto 6) gluttony; nickname ="pig"

Guido Cavalcanti's father, Cavalcanti de Cavalcanti (Circle 6, Canto 10) who speaks of Dante's best friend, Guido Cavalcanti, and his impending death and displacement to ?hell?

Brunetto Latini (Circle 7, Canto 15) Dante's mentor and friend

As to the admired by Dante:

Limbo and the Classical Greats there besides Virgil

the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick (Circle 6, Canto 10)

etc.

That should get you going. :D

[BeardofPants]

Seventh Level of Hell
Guarded by the Minotaur, who snarls in fury, and encircled within the river Phlegethon, filled with boiling blood, is the Seventh Level of Hell. The violent, the assasins, the tyrants, and the war-mongers lament their pitiless mischiefs in the river, while centaurs armed with bows and arrows shoot those who try to escape their punishment. The stench here is overpowering. This level is also home to the wood of the suicides- stunted and gnarled trees with twisting branches and poisoned fruit. At the time of final judgement, their bodies will hang from their branches. In those branches the Harpies, foul birdlike creatures with human faces, make their nests. Beyond the wood is scorching sand where those who committed violence against God and nature are showered with flakes of fire that rain down against their naked bodies. Blasphemers and sodomites writhe in pain, their tongues more loosed to lamentation, and out of their eyes gushes forth their woe. Usurers, who followed neither nature nor art, also share company in the Seventh Level.


do you think the world (or your life) would be better if people (or just yourself) avoided such sins as gluttony, greed, lust, malice, etc.? ?
To a certain degree. As with anything, moderation is the key.


Or do you think we should enjoy the world, food, possessions, sex, violence, etc.?
I don't think it is wrong to enjoy things in life, as long as there is no harm to others.


Regardless of any religious beliefs (i.e. "Because God said so"). Do you think it`s worth trying to live a pure and virtuous life?

No. I don't see the need in living a pure, virtuous life. I like sex, and I don't see the point in bein' a shrinking violet about it.

[Spock]

I don't see the point in bein' a shrinking violet about it.

:rolleyes: I don't think we'd *ever* think that of you no matter what the subject. :p :evil:

[sun-star]

I got Purgatory. If I start to feel smug about it, do I plummet down a couple of levels? ;)

I was curious to see how my fellow mooters would fare. But really, it got me thinking about it. At first it seemed a little harsh, throwing me down there like that. The thinking seemed almost old fashioned. Well, some of the things I don`t really think are bad, like homosexuality and atheism, but some of you might disagree with me there and that`s fine. But there are a lot of sins that`ll put you down into a deeper level of Hell that I think really are something that maybe should be avoided, regardless of religious beliefs. For example gluttony, greed, malice. What do you think? Do you think Dante is behind the times or timeless?

Most of the sins Dante includes are timeless, and are still around today even if they've taken on new forms. However, the scale that he puts them on is not necessarily shared by many people now, and probably indicates the preoccupations of his time - the particular emphasis given to treachery, for example, can certainly be seen as reflecting political concerns as well as moral ones. Dante also doesn't seem to have a place for Pride, which is one of the deadly sins... I don't know if suicide is still technically considered a sin by the Church, but in my experience people who try to commit suicide or are depressed aren't treated as sinners any more. Anyway, I'd say Dante is of his time rather than behind the times.

Read: The question I am asking is (1) what score did you get and (2) do you think the world (or your life) would be better if people (or just yourself) avoided such sins as gluttony, greed, lust, malice, etc.? Or do you think we should enjoy the world, food, possessions, sex, violence, etc.?

I agree with those who've said that moderation is the key (except with malice and violence, perhaps ;)). Food, possessions and sex were all created by God and were surely meant to be enjoyed, as long as they aren't valued above anything else.

[inked]

Sun-star,

Pride is THE capital sin, the font from which all the others flow. Betrayal is the ultimate state of pride: "My way or the highway" - which Brutus. Cassius, and Judas all succumb. This is pictured and written in the Inferno.

"Lucifer, Satan, Dis, Beelzebub--Dante throws every name in the book at the Devil, once the most beautiful angel (Lucifer means "light-bearer") then--following his rebellion against God--the source of evil and sorrow in the world, beginning with his corruption of Eve and Adam in the Garden of Eden (Genesis 3). Dante's Lucifer is a parodic composite of his wickedness and the divine powers that punish him in hell. As ugly as he once was beautiful, Lucifer is the wretched emperor of hell, whose tremendous size (he dwarfs even the Giants) stands in contrast with his limited powers: his flapping wings generate the wind that keeps the lake frozen and his three mouths chew on the shade-bodies of three arch-traitors, the gore mixing with tears gushing from Lucifer's three sets of eyes (Inf. 34.53-7). Lucifer's three faces--each a different color (red, whitish-yellow, black)--parody the doctrine of the Trinity: three complete persons (Father, Son, Holy Spirit) in one divine nature--the Divine Power, Highest Wisdom, and Primal Love that created the Gate of Hell and, by extension, the entire realm of eternal damnation. With the top half of his body towering over the ice, Lucifer resembles the Giants and other half-visible figures; after Dante and Virgil have passed through the center of the earth, their perspective changes and Lucifer appears upside-down, with his legs sticking up in the air. Consider the implications of visual parallels between Lucifer and other inhabitants of hell.

Eternally eaten by Lucifer's three mouths are--from left to right-- Brutus, Judas, and Cassius (Inf. 34.61-7). Brutus and Cassius, stuffed feet first in the jaws of Lucifer's black and whitish-yellow faces respectively, are punished in this lowest region for their assassination of Julius Caesar (44 B.C.E.), the founder of the Roman Empire that Dante viewed as an essential part of God's plan for human happiness. Both Brutus and Cassius fought on the side of Pompey in the civil war. However, following Pompey's defeat at Pharsalia in 48 B.C.E., Caesar pardoned them and invested them with high civic offices. Still, Cassius continued to harbor resentment against Caesar's dictatorship and enlisted the aid of Brutus in a conspiracy to kill Caesar and re-establish the republic. They succeeded in assassinating Caesar but their political-military ambitions were soon thwarted by Octavian (later Augustus) and Antony at Philippi (42 B.C.E.): Cassius, defeated by Antony and thinking (wrongly) that Brutus had been defeated by Octavian, had himself killed by a servant; Brutus indeed lost a subsequent battle and took his life as well. For Dante, Brutus and Cassius' betrayal of Julius Caesar, their benefactor and the world's supreme secular ruler, complements Judas Iscariot's betrayal of Jesus, the Christian man-god, in the Bible. Judas, one of the twelve apostles, strikes a deal to betray Jesus for thirty pieces of silver; he fulfills his treacherous role--foreseen by Jesus at the Last Supper--when he later identifies Jesus to the authorities with a kiss; regretting this betrayal that will lead to Jesus' death, Judas returns the silver and hangs himself (Matthew 26:14-16; 26:21-5; 26:47-9; 27:3-5). Suffering even more than Brutus and Cassius, Dante's Judas is placed head-first inside Lucifer's central mouth, with his back skinned by the devil's claws (Inf. 34.58-63). " (Danteworlds, op cit)

[Falagar]

Being a great admirer of Dante (though I haven't even finished Inferno yet) I'm happy to say I managed Limbo. :p Though, by only altering two-three questions (not such a big leap, I'd consider them minor), I ended up in the 6th.

In other words, still some things to take care of before I get to see the man himself down there in the 9th.

[katya]

Nice replies so far everyone. ^_^ I figured you`d probably say it was about a balance. But the thing is, I have been going through life doing just that- trying to avoid excess while still enjoying life. But I wonder, maybe it just might be better to try even harder- I think I am tempted to say "it`s ok in moderation" just because I want to do something. I wonder if it would be better if people did think about it more like "this is bad, period". Does anyone think there could be something gained from it? Or avoided, for that matter? I`ve seen people unhappy because of their excess- maybe they thought they had a balance too. What do you think?

That`s interesting, Falagar- which level is limbo again?

[The Gaffer]

IIRC, Limbo is for "virtuous unbelievers". Which is a bit annoying, having spent one's life being virtuous because you chose to rather than because you were afraid of going to Hell.

Sun-star makes some very sensible comments, as ever. A good example might be sex: I don't see any problem with being "virtuous" and going at it like rabbits. Clearly, an older conception of "virtue" is involved here.

Katya, I assume you are referring to the less black-and-white areas, such as getting rat-arsed on booze and drugs and waking up in a pool of your own puke.

In which case, excess is good in moderation. :p

[katya]

excess is good in moderation. :p
Brilliant. Just brilliant. :D

I asked about the limbo because I was wondering about how much the test result changed. But yeah, this is kinda lame. Makes me start thinking about what I would do if I was God. For example, I`d reward the people who didn`t believe in me. But that`s another story...

No further comments at this point. But why do I always see lotus flowers???

[Lotesse]

I've got the Seventh level reserved for me, with all the violent, heretical, wrathful, gloomy and lusty whackjobs! It'll be fun... :evil: :D Can't wait!

[inked]

Lotesse,

It may not be as much fun as you anticipate.

Charles Williams in the Figure of Beatrice (1943) remarks on the entry of Virgil and Dante into Hell:

p.114 - "The wild and savage forest...has been fossilized into the fixed pattern of perverted voluntary affirmations. The circles of hell contain what is left of the images after the good of intellect has been deliberately drawn away."

And, on the entrance to your level, the Wrathful...

p.120 - "By a rough track the poets reach the foot of the descending slope. A marsh spreads before them; it is that called Styx, and in the Stygian bog are naked creatures covered with mud, striking, kicking, biting, and tearing each other. Here the erring soul has passed from what was, at worst, a kind of common hostility against a common hostility to a sheer anarchic anger. Every other creature is its foe; its resentment springs against all. ...Hatred may turn outwards or inwards; in this swamp lie all - those who look outward are seen on the surface raging; those who look inward 'Beneath are those whose sighs make the water bubble, as, wherever you look, you may see. Fixed in slime, they say:"We were sullen once in the sweet air where the sun brings gladness, for we bore a sluggish smoke in our hearts; now we lie sullenly in the black mire." This is the hymn they gurgle in their throats, for the are not able to utter whole words.' (VII, 117-126).

Doesn't sound like fun in my book! Even if you go deeper!

[Lotesse]

Yeah yeah yeah, Inked. Whatever you say! :D :rolleyes: By the WAY, did you take the fun little quiz that goes with this thread? What level are you in - and you have to answer the questions honestly, Inked. No pretending to be Mr. Perfect.

It is LITERATURE, Inked, not reality. FICTION. Just like religion. All religious mythology is just that, myths, not real. So YES, it sounds like fun! Bring it on! It'll be great! :) :eek: :D

[Blackheart]

Second Level of Hell

You have come to a place mute of all light, where the wind bellows as the sea does in a tempest. This is the realm where the lustful spend eternity. Here, sinners are blown around endlessly by the unforgiving winds of unquenchable desire as punishment for their transgressions. The infernal hurricane that never rests hurtles the spirits onward in its rapine, whirling them round, and smiting, it molests them. You have betrayed reason at the behest of your appetite for pleasure, and so here you are doomed to remain. Cleopatra and Helen of Troy are two that share in your fate.

Level 2 Lustful Extreme

Was there actually any doubt about this outcome?

Though I disagree with "You have betrayed reason at the behest of your appetite for pleasure" since reason would lead us to believe that there is no place called hell and therefore there is no spiritual reason not to engage in pleasurable acts.

[Blackheart]

And once again... the delay caused by this interminable cable under the sea has caused me to double post...

I really should look at getting some kind of faster carrier pigeon analogue..

[inked]

Yeah, yeah, Lotesse. It's literature. That's why people comment on it and even learn from it. That's why there's ENTMOOT ... because of Tolkien! :p

By the way, Charles Williams was an Inkling and therefore acquainted with JRRT. They had CS Lewis as a friend of both of them, but they did not get along. Even though they shared some interest in Dante. Tolkien was a member of the Dante group (see Letters, but I don't recall which).

Lighten up, Lotesse, or you may end up in the Stygian marsh. (See, there's that literature thing again!) Or, possibly, you could do a piece on the similarities between JRRT's marsh into which Frodo fell and was rescued and Dante's from which no one was rescued.

I would prefer, of course, that it not be from the personal angle, but that's your choice! :p

[inked]

Yeah yeah yeah, Inked. Whatever you say! :D :rolleyes: By the WAY, did you take the fun little quiz that goes with this thread? What level are you in - and you have to answer the questions honestly, Inked. No pretending to be Mr. Perfect.

It is LITERATURE, Inked, not reality. FICTION. Just like religion. All religious mythology is just that, myths, not real. So YES, it sounds like fun! Bring it on! It'll be great! :) :eek: :D

No way I'll get less than purgatory, Lotesse. I'm a Christian. And, I'm from South Carolina originally, so I'm bound to end as I began in Paradise. :D

And I resent that you think I pretend to be perfect, Lotesse. I modestly and humbly admit that I am not (yet) perfect. But I shall be! Remember the bumpersticker: Christians aren't perfect, just forgiven!

(Let's see that's extra time for Pride in origins on the cornice of Mount purgatory. Less time for faith in the Redeemer. Extra points for being nice to Lotesse. Hey, I'm making progress up the mountain! :D )

[katya]

Hm, but have you actually tried the test yet? Don`t just talk about it before you take it silly. :p

And everyone please try and get along. Or this thread might end up in the level for the violent and malicious or something. :eek:

[Lotesse]

Thank you, Katya! You ARE the bomb.

You know, that second level looks really fun. I would so love to kick it with Helen of Troy and Cleopatra. :D

[inked]

But we are getting along, Katya! Self-deprecatory humour has a difficult reception. Rather like those who don't see Dante's poking fun at himself in his self-characterizations. Sheeeesh! :eek: ;)

[katya]

Heehee. :) The way you keep not telling your results is more than a little suspicious, me thinks. :p Come on, after all this we wanna know!

And no one really answered my second question, which was the real question I guess I was trying to ask in the first place. About whether anyone thinks it`s worth it to skip the "moderation" and try and avoid sin completely. Like maybe even though it`s hard it`s worth it. I`m not saying either way but I wanna know what you all think.

[Lotesse]

I know; it's hilarious! Inked pretends that he cannot take the personality quizzes and these kinds of quizzes that reveal a bit about who the quiztaker is; he says his computer at his office somehow prohibits him from taking the online quizzes. :rolleyes: :D :D Can I hear a "YEAH, RIGHT!"

To answer your second question Katya, on whether it is worth it to skip the "moderation" and try and avoid sin completely - absolutely NOT! Are you kidding me? Life is to be enjoyed, within reason and not at the expense of fellow human beings. On the contrary, we all ought to enjoy life comfortably. Moderation is useful to prevent harm from coming to oneself or one's fellows as a result of extensive fun, so in that respect, I say yes, moderate to a certain extent. But the concept of sin and sinning belongs to the religious folk; they can keep their angst and worry about sin. Definitely not my bag.

[inked]

Well, second question first then! (I still cannot access the quiz from work and haven't had my home computer repaired.)

There are lots of traditions of attempting to avoid sin completely. The Christian, of course, comes immediately to mind in the West, but also Buddhism and Hinduism and Islam, and animism, et alia ad infinitum ad hominem.

How exactly one avoids sin or bad karma or angering the daemons is particular to each tradition and sub-traditions.

Perhaps the most famous representation in the Western world that doesn't use the word sin is St. Augustine's dictum: "Love God and do as you please."
That's pretty simple and profound. If you love God properly, above all else, then you would want to enter into His life and would order all your doings, thoughts, and spirit to maximize your experience of Him; therefore, you could do as you please because you would wish to please God.

The difficulty I have in doing that is the difficulty of separating what I want from what it means to love God. I want my own way; my way or the highway; I did it my way! That means that when I attempt to order my life around God, I end up ordering it around myself. What I have discovered in 50-plus years of attempting that process is that God gets short-changed.

Oh, I can get along reasonably well for short periods of time on my own steam, but I have never found - when I have been truly honest with myself - that it lasts. Somehow, God gets confused about how I want the world to run and I have to strike out on my own. I even read the owner's manual and still get the functions wrong, strip the gears, and bust the belts and burn out the computer chips.

Sin, by the way, is not merely being bad or evil. It is missing the target - as in not hitting the bulls' eye everytime I am charged by sin. I end up getting gored when the aim is off by any amount. Then there's a rampaging bull loose in the china shops of everyone else. Sin can also be not clean, not pure, not set apart. And I find that there's much of me that wants my way and contaminates my best efforts. And sometimes I do desire to do various pleasures in the wrong way - take them at improper times or to improper degrees or from improper sources. Then, I just go along with myself pretending that God will go along to get along, too. Then another person is injured by my behaviour and I have offended against God and human!

Wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from this condition? I find that I know the good, but that I do the wrong I do not wish in my inmost being because there is in my body/mind/spirit-complex-that-is-I (soul, if you will) a principle of disobedience that I cannot control! It overwhelms my every effort ultimately and I am powerless to conquer it.

When I hear what Confucious said about morals and behaviours, and the Buddha, and Baha'ullah, and Jesus, I recognize the truth but I find myself powerless to accomplish it daily, weekly, monthly, annually, or until my death.
I realize that I need an outside agency to accomplish for me what I cannot do for myself. I need help, and more than help, I need a person to go my bond, redeem me, and release me, AND empower me to do what St. Augustine says.

There is, blessedly, just such an One. That's the Incarnate Son of God who did pay my debt, set me free, went my bail, washed away my stains and impurities, and empowered me to live so that I can more love God and thus do as I please.

NOT that I have achieved that goal yet hourly or daily or weekly or monthly or annually! But I press on toward that end, that I may be so conformed to the Incarnancy that some day - in this world or the next - I may LOVE GOD and DO AS I PLEASE. That will be winning the spiritual Olympics, and I will get the crown, not just a medal. The highest accolade in the Natural and Supernatural worlds is the chief end for which we are created: "Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful in little. You shall be ruler over much." That much I take to mean over my entire being - when I can in deed and in reality love God and do as I please.

So, I would say that striving for sinlessness is a very valuable experience. It taught me much that I otherwise would never have admitted.

(apologies to St Paul for major paraphrases!)

PS Lotesse, Why lie about the computer? It's so minor a point I would not consider lying about it. Now, if lying would get me the 365 million lottery payoff all for myself, I might be tempted. But not for this! :p

[Blackheart]

Heehee. :) And no one really answered my second question, which was the real question I guess I was trying to ask in the first place. About whether anyone thinks it`s worth it to skip the "moderation" and try and avoid sin completely. Like maybe even though it`s hard it`s worth it. I`m not saying either way but I wanna know what you all think.

Define "Sin" first... How can you say whether or not something is good or bad or worth avoiding or seeking out if we don't have a working definition... For instance are you referring to the idea of christian sin, or sin related to jewish traditions, or just plain 'ol Sin in a more general vein...

Is it always a bad thing, for example?

[The last sane person]

In accordance to christianity, I'd be sent to:

First Level of Hell - Limbo

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Charon ushers you across the river Acheron, and you find yourself upon the brink of grief's abysmal valley. You are in Limbo, a place of sorrow without torment. You encounter a seven-walled castle, and within those walls you find rolling fresh meadows illuminated by the light of reason, whereabout many shades dwell. These are the virtuous pagans, the great philosophers and authors, unbaptised children, and others unfit to enter the kingdom of heaven. You share company with Caesar, Homer, Virgil, Socrates, and Aristotle. There is no punishment here, and the atmosphere is peaceful, yet sad.

[katya]

Yeah, sorry I didn`t explain better. I will when I get home today. I`m in no shape to do it just now. ^^;

[Lief Erikson]

Life can be enjoyed without sin. In fact, I think it is enjoyed more without sin.

Imagine a world without corruption, where no one cheated to get ahead, where no one damaged their bodies through horrible self-destructive practices, where no one deceived one another selfishly, where no one attacked anyone else. A place with no laws except traffic lights ;). With no locks on doors. With no fear for children. Imagine all the billions that could be taken away from military spending, and what else that money could be spent on! Imagine a world with no hatred or anger. With no murder. With complete cooperation and friendship. Sharing would be everywhere without selfishness and the world's resources would be distributed to all the hungry. There would be no hungry person left in the world. Sickness would take an astounding decrease with all those new billions of dollars available for medical aid. It would be a world without fear. Harmony, peace and love would dominate life. Happiness would be far greater in a world without evil, I think.

And even in a life without evil, happiness is greater. People who do evil often find discontent, and the wrongdoing usually leads to unsatisfied life. On the other hand, doing good can be very fulfilling to people.

Places where evil is removed and goodness magnified are the best places of the world. The less evil there is in this world the better, I say. Therefore I say no evil, no evil in moderation, not in the smallest amount. There should be no truce, no peace with evil. Constant war must be waged against evil, so that we can do our share in bringing the beauty to existence. I don't believe that the beautiful vision of a pure world will ever be fulfilled here on this Earth, but that doesn't mean we should bypass doing our share in working toward that ideal.

[Lief Erikson]

No way I'll get less than purgatory, Lotesse. I'm a Christian.
Then what does that make me? I'm in the 8th level :eek:. Though of course, I was rather trying for a lower place :p.

[Blackheart]

Imagine a world without corruption, where no one cheated to get ahead, where no one damaged their bodies through horrible self-destructive practices, where no one deceived one another selfishly, where no one attacked anyone else.

A world without humanity...

There should be no truce, no peace with evil. Constant war must be waged against evil, so that we can do our share in bringing the beauty to existence.

I realize that this is an "ideal" utopia we're talking about, so I won't point out the futility of it, but have you ever considered the sheer boredom of a world without conflict, differences, and challenges?

Eventually in this utopia, all the poor people will have been helped. All the "evil" will have been banished. Everyone will stand on their bland lawns and smile blandly at the bland people walking by to look at other people's bland lawns. Wouldn't matter if they were PERFECT lawns and the sidewalks paved with gold, it will be bland because it will be the same...

And it will all be the same, because you've equated perfection with eliminating one pole of the axis... instead of with something like say.... Balance and Harmony.

[Hasty Ent]

No. I don't see the need in living a pure, virtuous life. I like sex, and I don't see the point in bein' a shrinking violet about it.

As others have already stated, I don't see them as being mutually exclusive. You can enjoy sex and live a pure and virtuous life in my world. Of course, I probably define "pure" and "virtuous" differently than some people might. ;)

Oh, btw, BoP? Scoot over a bit.... I'm in Level 7, the same as you. Oh, I see Lotesse is here, too. *waves* :D

A few of the questions seemed ambiguous, for instance using a term like "often" -- what people consider "often" varies wildly in my experience. Instead of "often" I would have written a specific quantity -- daily, weekly, monthly, et al. Still, a fun test. Although I'm a little disappointed I didn't make it to Level 9. :evil:

[Lief Erikson]

A world without humanity...
This world, anyway ;). I agree that this world will never be like that.
I realize that this is an "ideal" utopia we're talking about, so I won't point out the futility of it, but have you ever considered the sheer boredom of a world without conflict, differences, and challenges?
There would still be differences and challenges. The Space Race would be a neat example of one of those challenges.
Eventually in this utopia, all the poor people will have been helped. All the "evil" will have been banished. Everyone will stand on their bland lawns and smile blandly at the bland people walking by to look at other people's bland lawns. Wouldn't matter if they were PERFECT lawns and the sidewalks paved with gold, it will be bland because it will be the same...
That sounds horrible. Not at all what I had in mind.
And it will all be the same, because you've equated perfection with eliminating one pole of the axis... instead of with something like say.... Balance and Harmony.
Do you think our world is better off because we had Hitler?

[Blackheart]

There would still be differences and challenges. The Space Race would be a neat example of one of those challenges.

At which point we will eventually bump into another intelligent species... starting the entire process of conflict over again..


Do you think our world is better off because we had Hitler?

That depends on what you mean by better... Anyone can play the suppose game. Suppose Stalin had been completely unopposed... how many do you think the Red Purges would have gotten then?

In order for that to be a logical question, you would have to propose some kind of alternate... but if you really want to press the issue, I would rather have had humanity go through that conflict, and learn some of the things they learned, than sit around staring at my neighbor's immaculately tended, bland lawn...

Without conflict, there is no pain. Without pain there is no growth. The alternative is stagnation and death.

The source of conflict is however, what we often refer to as "evil"...

That's not to say that you can't have TOO MUCH of a bad thing... as someone pointed out, moderation is a "virtue".

[Lief Erikson]

At which point we will eventually bump into another intelligent species... starting the entire process of conflict over again..
That's quite an assumption. But the point inconsequential, for I'm not arguing that utopia is possible. I was just pointing out that amazing challenges can still face mankind without war.
In order for that to be a logical question, you would have to propose some kind of alternate... but if you really want to press the issue, I would rather have had humanity go through that conflict, and learn some of the things they learned, than sit around staring at my neighbor's immaculately tended, bland lawn...

Without conflict, there is no pain. Without pain there is no growth. The alternative is stagnation and death.

The source of conflict is however, what we often refer to as "evil"...

That's not to say that you can't have TOO MUCH of a bad thing... as someone pointed out, moderation is a "virtue".
I can see what you're saying, but I disagree that growth can only come from pain. Pain is one source of growth, a special kind of growth that can be very helpful and healthy. There are other ways of growing, however. When Newton's apocryphal apple fell on his head, he didn't say, "oh, the pain! I must learn." Rather, it was simple curiosity that drew him on. This is a common way of things. Curiosity is another stimulus for growth that you're forgetting. It's a very important one for young children also. When they build blocks and start artwork, pain is not the impetus for their learning.

Though I think you do have a valid point that pain serves a valuable role in people's lives by teaching them. It speeds up learning, I guess one could say.

[Blackheart]

That's quite an assumption. But the point inconsequential, for I'm not arguing that utopia is possible. I was just pointing out that amazing challenges can still face mankind without war.

Conflict doesn't always mean war. When you go shopping, and you look for the lowest price, you are participating in a conflict based system of economics... you are in conflict with the grocer, who wants the highest return on his investment.

To avoid sounding overly sarcastic, I will merely point out that an awful lot of conflict free utopias have real difficulties with their economic systems...

I can see what you're saying, but I disagree that growth can only come from pain. Pain is one source of growth, a special kind of growth that can be very helpful and healthy. There are other ways of growing, however.

I disagree however. Growth involves change. Which means that something is going to be New, which means that it has to be adjusted to. You may not call it pain when it is at a level below a certain threshold, but it is the same stimulus. With repetition, the new situation becomes adapted to, and perhaps even sought after. But at that point, it is no longer growth...


When Newton's apocryphal apple fell on his head, he didn't say, "oh, the pain! I must learn." Rather, it was simple curiosity that drew him on. This is a common way of things. Curiosity is another stimulus for growth that you're forgetting. It's a very important one for young children also. When they build blocks and start artwork, pain is not the impetus for their learning.

Curiousity is a survival mechanism. It functions to allow humans to learn from other people's mistakes and the environment before they have to experience pain or death... Since once of it's primary benefits is to avoid pain and danger, I would point out that I don't consider it an effective contradiction...

Though I do consider it a more elegant and preferable method than mere response...

You can also point out the same thing about the human ability of foresight. It functions in much the same way as curiousity, allowing us to forsee future pain and danger, and thus avoid it...

Though I think you do have a valid point that pain serves a valuable role in people's lives by teaching them. It speeds up learning, I guess one could say.

Nothing solves a problem faster, or I might even venture more elegantly, than a genetic algorythm... though all that culling of the failed solutions is distressing...

I would ask a question though... Why do people "learn"?

not how... but Why... Why do they even have that ability?

[Blackheart]

Not to mention, that if we conquored space... other planets would eventually have nice bland lawns with streets paved of gold also...

[Lief Erikson]

Would a world populated with Mother Teresas and Martin Luther King Juniors be a place of bland faces and immaculate lawns? People in the world who have most successfully rooted evil out of their lives are the most exciting and admirable people on the planet.

Edison and Newton also weren't driven forward in their studies by suffering, it's important to note. They studied for the heck of it. One of my sisters loves machinery and tinkering, and that is not because of pain. I also have a strong intellectual curiosity, and it is not the result of pain.

We learn many important lessons from pain. However, pain is not the source of all learning, and it is a mistake to assume that communities on Earth with little evil are bland, boring places. Let me speak for my own household, a place where in my opinion, there is little evil. It is a fun place to live :D.
To avoid sounding overly sarcastic, I will merely point out that an awful lot of conflict free utopias have real difficulties with their economic systems...
Yet these are not populated with Mother Teresas, people who are willing to give of themselves without thought of return. There are people who will work passionately and be willing to share all they own. If everyone was like that, utopia would work fine.
I would ask a question though... Why do people "learn"?
Some, like Edison, Galileo and Newton, and many others, learn for the simple fun of it. Others learn because of necessity, environmental pressure.

[Lotesse]

The world would not be poulated with Martin Luther King Juniors and Mother Teresas, simply because in a perfect world there would be no need for them to be what has made them famous. Utopia has no need for a civil revolution leader, or someone to feed the masses of hungry children, because they do not exist.

[katya]

Also, remember to answer for the individual person too. Does being more pure lead to a happier life?

I`m gonna use a couple examples to illustrate what I`m trying to say.

First, let`s say lust. Do you look at pornography? fantasize about explicit sexual situations? regularly have sex with someone who is not a husband/wife/long term boyfriend/girlfriend? Lustfull feelings are probably there for you to some extent. It`s natural. But I think humans have come to the point where we don`t have to worry too much about keeping the population up. So suppose someone decided to rid themselves of this feeling. Do you think, if sucessful, or even partially so, do you think it would make them happier in spirit or would their biological needs make them unsatisfied?

Or, how about gluttony. I have to say, I am known for being a big lover of (a) meat and (b) chocolate. (And pizza, but that`s a whole `nother story.) Obviously there`s nothing wrong with eating to stay alive. And enjoying that food. But what about when you eat dessert after every meal like I tend to, or you eat a lot even when you`re not hungry? Do you think it`s possible to become more spiritually happy by eating nuts and fruit and tofu and stuff (my idea of healthy food, somehow, lol)? Maybe in this case it`s not even to say that eating too much is a sin, but is it like more pure to eat more in moderation and healthily?

It`s hard classifying things into sinful or pure because it`s easy to be subjective. So I guess that`s why let`s use Dante as a guide. That`s what inspired me anyway.

*eats Milky Ways. "May contain peanuts", hahaha*

[Farimir Captain of Gondor]

I got into 6. level of hell, where the heretics goes.

I too am burning in the "Extreme" 6th level. Ahh to be a heretic. :D

[Blackheart]

Would a world populated with Mother Teresas and Martin Luther King Juniors be a place of bland faces and immaculate lawns? People in the world who have most successfully rooted evil out of their lives are the most exciting and admirable people on the planet.

The key word is "Their" lives. But the reason we even know about them is the fact that there are conflicts for them to struggle with. As pointed out, if there were no conflicts, they would indeed be bland faces...

Edison and Newton also weren't driven forward in their studies by suffering, it's important to note. They studied for the heck of it. One of my sisters loves machinery and tinkering, and that is not because of pain. I also have a strong intellectual curiosity, and it is not the result of pain.

No, but it is directly linked to your genetic ancestor's pain, or rather, not your genetic ancestors, but the ones who weren't quite curious enough to look for all the available options and resources.... the ones who failed to make it.

We learn many important lessons from pain. However, pain is not the source of all learning, and it is a mistake to assume that communities on Earth with little evil are bland, boring places. Let me speak for my own household, a place where in my opinion, there is little evil. It is a fun place to live :D.

I'm sure it is, but it doesn't exist in a vacuum. The world outside is full of conflict, which makes such islands that much MORE attractive. After all, if the entire world were free of evil, then why not live on the street? It would be much the same wouldn't it?

[Blackheart]

It`s hard classifying things into sinful or pure because it`s easy to be subjective. So I guess that`s why let`s use Dante as a guide. That`s what inspired me anyway.

"An it harm no one, do what though wilt". Is it going to cause the person, or another person, spiritual or physical harm to indulge themselves?

If yes, then perhaps you shouldn't do it.

But if not doing it is going to cause you, or someone else, physical or spiritual harm, then you shouldn't "not" do it.

Balance and moderation really are key principles, and it's one of the reasons why such things ARE subjective. Absolute moral standards always wind up harming someone...

[Lief Erikson]

Is it going to cause the person, or another person, spiritual or physical harm to indulge themselves?

If yes, then perhaps you shouldn't do it.

But if not doing it is going to cause you, or someone else, physical or spiritual harm, then you shouldn't "not" do it.
Agreed.
Balance and moderation really are key principles, and it's one of the reasons why such things ARE subjective. Absolute moral standards always wind up harming someone...
Who did Martin Luther King Jr. harm? White racists? Is that not a worthwhile kind of harming?
The world would not be poulated with Martin Luther King Juniors and Mother Teresas, simply because in a perfect world there would be no need for them to be what has made them famous. Utopia has no need for a civil revolution leader, or someone to feed the masses of hungry children, because they do not exist.
The fact that they wouldn't be famous wouldn't mean they would not exist. And there still would be a very large amount of giving of oneself to others that could be done in such a Utopia, even if there aren't abused, sick or starving people in the world.
the reason we even know about them is the fact that there are conflicts for them to struggle with.
Who cares if we know about them or not? What matters is that they exist. The fact that we don't know about them doesn't make them bland.
No, but it is directly linked to your genetic ancestor's pain, or rather, not your genetic ancestors, but the ones who weren't quite curious enough to look for all the available options and resources.... the ones who failed to make it.
Whether that is the original source of curiosity or not, curiosity wouldn't end with the end of suffering. I expect you may well be right that it has been genetically hardwired into our species. If this is so, it's not going anywhere any time soon.
I'm sure it is, but it doesn't exist in a vacuum. The world outside is full of conflict, which makes such islands that much MORE attractive. After all, if the entire world were free of evil, then why not live on the street? It would be much the same wouldn't it?
You know, a tricky aspect of this discussion is that in my view, evil is related to death. With the end of evil comes the end of death, and everyone who is done with evil is done with death. That comes from scripture I know, and is part of my Christian beliefs. Therefore people of this Utopia will never die, and they will have experienced already the pain of this world. Thus everyone who experiences that world would be able to appreciate it fully.

A tough part of the discussion though, this. I hate to argue with you on this subject, because I agree with SO MUCH of what you're saying, and you're helping me to see even more clearly why (IMO) God would have designed such a thing as pain into the world.

[Lief Erikson]

Also, remember to answer for the individual person too. Does being more pure lead to a happier life?
In answer to your couple examples, I'll just quickly remark that one can enjoy sex without being promiscuous, and can enjoy food without being gluttonous. Furthermore, there are lots of people who have abandoned gluttony and promiscuousity for Christ, and have testified that they have led very happy, fulfilled lives since then, and more than before.
It`s hard classifying things into sinful or pure because it`s easy to be subjective. So I guess that`s why let`s use Dante as a guide.
And that's why I use the Bible as a guide ;) :). And all the moral claims in it make a great deal of sense, IMO.

[Lotesse]

“Because things are the way they are, things will not stay the way they are.�

~ Bertolt Brecht

[Blackheart]

Who did Martin Luther King Jr. harm? White racists? Is that not a worthwhile kind of harming?

Harmed who? No one? How is it harming someone to force them to confront their behavior? It might be PAINFUL.. oo look we're back where we started..

There WERE other extremist groups however who did harm people, and plotted worse. Should they have done those things that actually HARMED people? Even in a good cause? I would say no...

Nor do I think that MLK had an absolute moral standard. If one followed the absolute moral standard outlined in Leviticus, slavery is legal and permissable. Obviously he had other beliefs, meaning that he was in fact using a different definition of morality than the "written word of god".

Who cares if we know about them or not? What matters is that they exist. The fact that we don't know about them doesn't make them bland.

What about growing up in a world without conflict? Sure sounds like it would be conducive to blandness...

Whether that is the original source of curiosity or not, curiosity wouldn't end with the end of suffering. I expect you may well be right that it has been genetically hardwired into our species. If this is so, it's not going anywhere any time soon.

But that's sort of the point... In a perfect utopia, we're not talking about a couple of centuries... we're talking about millenia of stable, conflict free society. Curiousity might even CAUSE conflict... it would eventually be eradicated.

You know, a tricky aspect of this discussion is that in my view, evil is related to death. With the end of evil comes the end of death, and everyone who is done with evil is done with death. That comes from scripture I know, and is part of my Christian beliefs. Therefore people of this Utopia will never die, and they will have experienced already the pain of this world. Thus everyone who experiences that world would be able to appreciate it fully.

There are worse things than dying. I won't bother to argue about a metaphyscal realm, but in a worldy realm yes, there are indeed worse things than dying. Does that make them more or less evil?

I will however point out though that such a metaphysical realm is also predicated on the ETERNAL suffering of millions of people who were not "chosen". I certainly wouldn't want to be put in that postion. I have too highly a devoloped sense of guilt. I wouldn't be able to enjoy a minute of paradise.

A tough part of the discussion though, this. I hate to argue with you on this subject, because I agree with SO MUCH of what you're saying, and you're helping me to see even more clearly why (IMO) God would have designed such a thing as pain into the world.

Take it one step further then. If pain is there for a reason, then, following your logic, evil would be there for a reason also. Now of course we can argue all day about what that reason is, but the crux of the argument is the neccesity of evil.

You can take it several ways, the limited viewpoint... It isn't evil we just don't understand it...

The "evil is an illusion" gambit...If it's neccesary, then how can it be evil?

Or any other number of rationalizations.

My personal opinion is that we live in an imperfect world, because if it were any other way we wouldn't be human. People who ascend to some metaphysical realm of perfection really aren't going to be human anymore.

Why would they need curiosity? Leaning? What would they possibly need or want? They probably WOULD sit around all day singing praise to the Lord....

Not MY idea of heaven or a reward... I LIKE humanity, flaws and all... But then I'm sort of a humanist at heart...

If there was ever a utopia, a perfect realm, it would HAVE to include some section, some slice or smidgen of conflict. Otherwise it wouldn't be a utopia for humans at all...

[Lotesse]

Blackheart, you, Sir, are the bomb :) :) SO very glad to have you here at Entmoot! SO glad! I love, love love reading your posts.


The mind is its own place, and in it self
Can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven.

Better to reign in Hell, than serve in Heaven.

~ John Milton, Paradise Lost

[Curubethion]

:eek: Huge philosophical posts by Lief Erickson! :eek:
RUN FOR THE ENTMOOT HILLS!!!
:p

[Lief Erikson]

I'll respond to Blackheart the rest of the way eventually. Right now is not a good time for me, but I fully intend to get to it.

[Lotesse]

He's intimidating, yes? :D :evil: ;) I see you've met your match, dear Lief! :D He's a formidable arguing force around here; I am ecstatic that he's joined the Entmoot club and eagerly look forward to each & every one of his posts. :)

[Lotesse]

Oh - Lief, BTW, have you taken the Dante's Inferno test yet, and posted your results? If you have, I must've missed that post somewhere, & you could perhaps show us? and if you haven't, well, could you? :)

[Lotesse]

Never mind, Monsieur Erikson, :o I found it - you're 8th level. :) My bad; I couldn't find your post until I looked back last page, where you called Inked on his pompous-sounding "the least I'd get would be purgatory - I'm a christian" remark. I forgot to tell you, I thought that was so cool when you responded "Then what does that make me;" NICE!! That was cool, Lief. :cool: :)

[Lief Erikson]

He's intimidating, yes?
Sorry to disappoint- I'm far from admitting defeat!
He's a formidable arguing force around here; I am ecstatic that he's joined the Entmoot club and eagerly look forward to each & every one of his posts. :)
Actually, I haven't even read his post yet :p. But I know it'll be good and worth spending time on, as you point out, so I wait until I have time. At the moment, it's 11:30 at night and my bed time, so now isn't a good time, and earlier wasn't a good time because I had to leave for a UCI conference at that moment. Tomorrow I'm celebrating my mother's birthday party with my family. I might be able to squeeze in a response tomorrow, though.

I'll just respond to the first part tonight. (Writes for a while)

Never mind. I'm hooked now; I'll respond to it all tonight.
Harmed who? No one? How is it harming someone to force them to confront their behavior? It might be PAINFUL.. oo look we're back where we started..

There WERE other extremist groups however who did harm people, and plotted worse. Should they have done those things that actually HARMED people? Even in a good cause? I would say no...
Martin Luther King Jr. wanted the whites no longer to have the best seats on buses and cafeterias all the time. No longer to have first dibs on housing et al. This is a direct economical kind of harm to their situation that he brought about. It was in good cause though. Causing harm to others thus sometimes should be done when it is in a good cause. Stopping Hitler from conquering the world would be another case where causing direct harm to people is in good cause and justified.
Nor do I think that MLK had an absolute moral standard. If one followed the absolute moral standard outlined in Leviticus, slavery is legal and permissable. Obviously he had other beliefs, meaning that he was in fact using a different definition of morality than the "written word of god".
MLK was a Christian, not a Jew. He did adhere to the best of his ability though to the written word of God. He did have absolute values. I can argue this from his "Letter from the Birmingham Jail," where he used the Bible as evidence to back his claims. If he was a relativist, he would have understood that the Bible can be interpreted anyway anyone wants, and he wouldn't have tried to convince his argument using it. However, he used the Bible in an argumentative way, taking it as a postulate that it was literally true (I can prove this from textual passages) and arguing from there against the white moderates.

I recently addressed the point of the Christians not obeying all the written forms of the law in a post in the "Religious Knowledge" thread in General Messages. We can continue that line of debate there, if you like :).
Quote:
Who cares if we know about them or not? What matters is that they exist. The fact that we don't know about them doesn't make them bland.


What about growing up in a world without conflict? Sure sounds like it would be conducive to blandness...
You're changing the subject, evading my point. Oh well :D.

As I said before, I believe evil is linked with death, and that when evil ceases to exist, death will cease to exist. Thus everyone in the world will have already experienced and learned the lessons pain has to teach (or that God wanted them to learn through pain). Then there will be new things to learn. There are many possible achievements and fields of study, many challenges for humanity without conflict with one another. I don't think conflict between one another or against nature is necessary. It teaches important lessons, but once those lessons are learned, conflict's purpose is done and there is no more need for it. People live together in beautiful harmony sometimes without much conflict. My parents, for example, work together wonderfully and a conflict between them is an extremely rare occurrence.
But that's sort of the point... In a perfect utopia, we're not talking about a couple of centuries... we're talking about millenia of stable, conflict free society. Curiousity might even CAUSE conflict... it would eventually be eradicated.
Forgetting my eternal life, eternal curiosity religious views, I'll turn back to the perspective that says we have a finite lifetime in utopia and curiosity will end up being culled out of our genes (though this is uncertain; homosexuality somehow manages to stay, if you are one of those who thinks it's related to genes, while being a constant detriment in our gene pool).

Do you honestly think that the violence inherent in humanity could possibly continue for millenia with our species continually gouging itself but never killing itself off completely? Millenia of peace and joy for all, falling into final blandness, is far better than a few centuries left of human hell, IMO. Blandness may be a disappointing and dismal ending, but at least we'd still be happy ;). If violence and evil remain though, we will experience far less happiness, great misery, and swift extinction. So there's a choice as to which end is preferrable.

For myself, the answer to this seems obvious.
I will however point out though that such a metaphysical realm is also predicated on the ETERNAL suffering of millions of people who were not "chosen".
First of all, there is only one verse in the Bible that says eternal torture. That verse is in the Book of Revelation, a vision, and visions frequently have symbolic meaning rather than literal.

There are numerous passages that say there is eternal fire and there is a place that mentions eternal destruction. Jesus said that body and soul will be destroyed in hell, but he didn't say they'd be eternally tortured in hell. That the fire should be eternal is logical, for it is justice. That the people burning in the fire should be forever doesn't necessarily follow.

Furthermore, Jesus did say very clearly in the New Testament that people would be punished in different amounts on Judgment Day, in proportion to their crimes. For some the judgment would be heavy and for some lighter. So there is clearly justice at work here, and the claim that there is eternal torture espoused in the Bible is tenuous.
Better to reign in Hell, than serve in Heaven.
I think that was Satan talking, in Paradise Lost ;).
My personal opinion is that we live in an imperfect world, because if it were any other way we wouldn't be human. People who ascend to some metaphysical realm of perfection really aren't going to be human anymore.
You say that because this is the humanity you experience day to day. You haven't witnessed perfection in people. In my view, humanity lost some of what made it human when it sinned. It embraced slavery, lost the freedom to make all of its decisions. It had no choice but to do evil, but freedom was part of God's plan for our race. We haven't the freedom to avoid doing evil, but are enslaved to evil unless set free. That loss of freedom is a loss to our nature as humans.
I will however point out though that such a metaphysical realm is also predicated on the ETERNAL suffering of millions of people who were not "chosen". I certainly wouldn't want to be put in that postion. I have too highly a devoloped sense of guilt. I wouldn't be able to enjoy a minute of paradise.
I can appreciate that perspective too. My Dad, a devout Christian, feels the same way.
Take it one step further then. If pain is there for a reason, then, following your logic, evil would be there for a reason also. Now of course we can argue all day about what that reason is, but the crux of the argument is the neccesity of evil.
I already have taken and argued that step on other threads. I believe evil is necessary for the learning of certain lessons, but beyond a point, it becomes unnecessary. A child who burns his hand once doesn't need to learn the lesson not to put his finger on the candle again. When God's use for evil and pain is over, they become unnecessary. Then they will be eradicated and God can teach us what he wants us to learn next.
Why would they need curiosity? Learning? What would they possibly need or want? They probably WOULD sit around all day singing praise to the Lord....
There would be a lot for people to want (When will that ever not be?) and a lot for them to work for, and a lot to bring them pleasure.

Curiosity would indeed be very useful for learning. That's its primary function in the world today. No big change there.
Not MY idea of heaven or a reward... I LIKE humanity, flaws and all... But then I'm sort of a humanist at heart...
I like humanity too :). But I don't like its flaws. When I hear people make snide remarks about others behind their backs, I strongly dislike those comments because they are bad. When I hear one of my brothers putting down my other brother, I strongly dislike that too because it is bad that is being done. I strongly dislike it when men mistreat women. The other way around too, of course, but I was thinking sexually because of that horrible recent Golden Globe incident. I don't like Saddam's sons' senses of humor. We would be better off without evil. Small and big evil, if we could be rid of all of it while maintaining all the good and replacing the evil and lower good with greater and greater good, we'd live in a far more pleasing environment. Our world could be a lot better and more enjoyable a place than it is.

[Lief Erikson]

You really got me on a roll there with that post, Lotesse, suggesting I was done for! :D The challenge stirred in me something fierce and I came back kicking!

Blackheart is fun to talk with indeed :). As are you :).

[Lotesse]

You really got me on a roll there with that post, Lotesse, suggesting I was done for! :D The challenge stirred in me something fierce and I came back kicking!
:D :D I knew you would, if I made that little comment! I've gotten to know you pretty well by now, I guess. :) You LOVE debating so much, and I know you, you HATE to let a good argument end. And you always gotta have the last word, even if it's to concede a point. :D :)

HOWEVER, I still like Blackheart's angle better here. No offense! But you know me. :)

[Lotesse]

^^^^

[Lief Erikson]

You bet :D.

[Blackheart]

Martin Luther King Jr. wanted the whites no longer to have the best seats on buses and cafeterias all the time. No longer to have first dibs on housing et al. This is a direct economical kind of harm to their situation that he brought about. It was in good cause though. Causing harm to others thus sometimes should be done when it is in a good cause.

There's obviously a difference in semantics here. Pain is a temporary situation. Harm is something long term, it's damage. Are you trying to tell me that the end of segregation brought economic harm to the south?

I would disagree. I point out below that doing evil in the name of good is not good... it is a morally relatavistic viewpoint of necessity. If you are stating this, then how can you reconcile that MLK could be a moral absolutist while rationalizing that he is harming someone "for their own good" ???

Stopping Hitler from conquering the world would be another case where causing direct harm to people is in good cause and justified.

So a question.. which would have been better.. directly assassinating Hitler, or having to go through hundreds of thousands of politicaly trapped or deluded germans to get to him?

WWII was not a good cause. It was a necessary cause. That is the failure of the "Evil is good because it is necessary, and necessary is good" rationalization.

Was it really neccesary to firebomb Dresden? Or Tokyo? War may be a necessity at times, but it is never a "good cause"...

MLK was a Christian, not a Jew. He did adhere to the best of his ability though to the written word of God. He did have absolute values. I can argue this from his "Letter from the Birmingham Jail," where he used the Bible as evidence to back his claims. If he was a relativist, he would have understood that the Bible can be interpreted anyway anyone wants, and he wouldn't have tried to convince his argument using it. However, he used the Bible in an argumentative way, taking it as a postulate that it was literally true (I can prove this from textual passages) and arguing from there against the white moderates.

I disagree again. One letter on one issue does not a philosophy make. MLK had numerous conflicting beliefs. A little bit of research will show this to be true, just as it is true of any human.

What you are saying when you say he had absolute values is that under no conceiveable circumstance would there ever be a time when he would think it expediant or NECESSARY to ignore those values. That is not human.


I recently addressed the point of the Christians not obeying all the written forms of the law in a post in the "Religious Knowledge" thread in General Messages. We can continue that line of debate there, if you like :).

No need to. I'm well aware that the old torah doesn't apply to christains after the "new commandments". That was an example of the problems with using a document containing conflicting directives to advocate that someone is using an absolute moral standard. The entire fact that he was arguing with other members of the clergy should illuminate this problem.

I'll go one step further and state that one of the reasons MLK was an effective proponant of Civil Rights was BECAUSE he was possesed of a degree of moral relativity.

Advocating the breaking of unjust laws because they are a "code that is out of harmony with the moral law" is counter to the long held idea of divine right. What if the Pope had expressed a position favoring segregation? For goodness sakes... the man's name is Martin Luther...

Just because someone is pointing to a moral value that has more merit than another moral value doesn't mean they are holding an absolute moral value; on the contrary it means they are engaged in RANKING the RELATIVE merits of two conflicting moral values.

Anyway this has become a side issue to the question of a utopia. I won't bother to address it unless it somehow gets related back to the topic

___________________________________________

You're changing the subject, evading my point. Oh well :D.

Not really... "What matters is that they exist. The fact that we don't know about them doesn't make them bland."

No but the fact that they would have grown up in a world without conflict would mean de facto that the person they became would never have existed...

As I said before, I believe evil is linked with death, and that when evil ceases to exist, death will cease to exist. Thus everyone in the world will have already experienced and learned the lessons pain has to teach (or that God wanted them to learn through pain). Then there will be new things to learn. There are many possible achievements and fields of study, many challenges for humanity without conflict with one another..

Where does one even begin...

Lets start with the idea of still needing to learn... WHY? Ignorance is a form of imperfection... No one will need to learn anything, they'll already know it all...

Of course there wouldn't be any conflict, no one will need anything. Desire would be extinguished...Possibly no one will even need to interact with others...

Harmony, good sir, is not the result of a million instruments all playing the same note... but the sweet interaction between notes that could conflict, but instead find a common ground.

Forgetting my eternal life, eternal curiosity religious views, I'll turn back to the perspective that says we have a finite lifetime in utopia and curiosity will end up being culled out of our genes (though this is uncertain; homosexuality somehow manages to stay, if you are one of those who thinks it's related to genes, while being a constant detriment in our gene pool).

Oddly no one ever called it homosexuality until the 1800's... A trait is never just genes, it is also environmentaly driven. There isn't a gene for homosexuality, there are a set of traits that might predispose someone to same gender preferences in a particular environment. You might think that a subtle difference, but it isn't. People have genes for red hair, not for behaviors...

Stating that those types of tendancies are a detriment to the gene pool is also just plain silly. If human males had no nurturing instincts whatsoever we'd be in pretty sad shape now wouldn't we?

Curiousity would also cease to be expressed. At least as curiousity. The traits would likely come out in some other direction impossible to predict. Eventually, after enough time for selection to take effect, if the conditions which cause those tendancies to be expressed as a curiousity behavior pattern were to re-emerge, the behavior pattern would no longer be expressed as curiousity, but as something else.

Do you honestly think that the violence inherent in humanity could possibly continue for millenia with our species continually gouging itself but never killing itself off completely?

In a word, yes. Easily, in fact. If you want to look at the principle of extinction, which species are the ones that go extinct? The ones that settle down and adapt to a niche so firmly that they are then unable to re-adapt to changed conditions. I have little fear that humanity is going to suffer that fate.

Millenia of peace and joy for all, falling into final blandness, is far better than a few centuries left of human hell, IMO. Blandness may be a disappointing and dismal ending, but at least we'd still be happy ;).

How would you know you were happy? What joy? What peace? How do these things you talk about exist in the absence of their opposites? Without Sorrow there is no such thing as Joy. Without War there is no concept of Peace. That is what I mean by blandness... No Lows.. but no Highs either...

If violence and evil remain though, we will experience far less happiness, great misery, and swift extinction. So there's a choice as to which end is preferrable.

Your conclusion doesn't follow since your preceding arguments are invalid. Without violence and evil you can't have any happiness at all. Without violence and evil, we would swiftly become ossified into an ecological niche, and subject to extinction through sudden environmental change.

First of all, there is only one verse in the Bible that says eternal torture. That verse is in the Book of Revelation, a vision, and visions frequently have symbolic meaning rather than literal.

Wait... now it's invalid because it's only mentioned once? Or it's invalid because it's in a book filled with symbology? Are you seriously stating you want to apply this argument?

There are numerous passages that say there is eternal fire and there is a place that mentions eternal destruction. Jesus said that body and soul will be destroyed in hell, but he didn't say they'd be eternally tortured in hell. That the fire should be eternal is logical, for it is justice. That the people burning in the fire should be forever doesn't necessarily follow.

Wait you're bringing this up in an thread entitled "DANTE's INFENO" ???? From what you are stating, there is NO HELL, only a burning purgatory...

Not to mention that as such it would precisely meet my criteria for a slice of conflict in an otherwise "perfect" utopia...

So there is clearly justice at work here, and the claim that there is eternal torture espoused in the Bible is tenuous.

There's enough support for it to convince thousands of Christians world wide... I wouldn't call it tenuous... You are being disingenious. Aside from the christian bible there are also a number of apocryphia from the intermediate period between the codification of the Torah and the rise of christianity that state that hell is indeed eternal. But of course, those aren't canon. But the statement about eternal gnashing of teeth IS...

But I still think it's damn near hilarious to have this argument in a thread about Dante's Inferno...

____________________________________

You say that because this is the humanity you experience day to day. You haven't witnessed perfection in people.

Lets address this point by point. No, thankfully I haven't witnessed any perfection in humanity.

In my view, humanity lost some of what made it human when it sinned.

Really? what made humanity any different from say... angels? Being incarnate? Why didn't we lose the bodies then?

It embraced slavery, lost the freedom to make all of its decisions.

I must point out that in the very literal sense of the term a christian is a slave to god, and his decisions are made by him. Joyfully perhaps, but your point makes no sense in the context of sin, except in the context of man no longer being a slave to god and setting himself up as a master, but that means that he actually is making his OWN decisions.

It had no choice but to do evil, but freedom was part of God's plan for our race. We haven't the freedom to avoid doing evil, but are enslaved to evil unless set free. That loss of freedom is a loss to our nature as humans.

What the? We had no choice but to do evil but we had freedom planned for us? Excuse me? Doesn't sound like freedom to me, unless you're referring to some other kind of freedom... You eat one apple and lose the ability to make any decisions after that? That is preposterous. It makes a mockery of personal responsibility. It would make "the devil made me do it" a rational legal defense.

I already have taken and argued that step on other threads. I believe evil is necessary for the learning of certain lessons, but beyond a point, it becomes unnecessary. ...

At which point we are no longer human. You may want to quibble and say that we are humans "fallen from grace" and that we are "enslaved by evil" but what I hear is you are saying we are "sub-human". So be it then. I'd rather be sub-human than "human"....

We would be better off without evil. Small and big evil, if we could be rid of all of it while maintaining all the good and replacing the evil and lower good with greater and greater good, we'd live in a far more pleasing environment. Our world could be a lot better and more enjoyable a place than it is.

I would be mean and insist that you define good, but Socrates already did that far better than I ever could. I'll content myself with pointing out that what you suggest is an impossibility given that humans remain human.

And since I enjoy humans, I disagree with your statement that the world would be a more enjoyable place, and insist that you define "better"... That's a joke by the way...

[katya]

:eek: Oh my.. I think everything seems to be ok for now. I`ll check back later. Carry on. :)

[inked]

Never mind, Monsieur Erikson, :o I found it - you're 8th level. :) My bad; I couldn't find your post until I looked back last page, where you called Inked on his pompous-sounding "the least I'd get would be purgatory - I'm a christian" remark. I forgot to tell you, I thought that was so cool when you responded "Then what does that make me;" NICE!! That was cool, Lief. :cool: :)

Not pompous, Lotesse! Fact! In Lief's case, I think the same, in fact!

But, I don't make the final judgment on anyone. Unlike some politically correct types I can think of... ;)

[Spock]

Was it really neccesary to firebomb Dresden? Or Tokyo? ..

Actually, YES.

Churchill had to let the Luftwaffe bomb a city in the UK or risk them changing the codes; Dresden was bombed because of its strategic infrastructure. The fire storm that developed was unpredicted.

Tokyo? The buildings were mostly wood; same senario. ....remember Pearl Harbor? :confused:

[inked]

Harmed who? No one? How is it harming someone to force them to confront their behavior? It might be PAINFUL.. oo look we're back where we started..

IT's ok if everyone agrees you should do it according to current societal standards, but don't go using any other ideas which might be not PC.

There WERE other extremist groups however who did harm people, and plotted worse. Should they have done those things that actually HARMED people? Even in a good cause? I would say no...

Nor do I think that MLK had an absolute moral standard. If one followed the absolute moral standard outlined in Leviticus, slavery is legal and permissable. Obviously he had other beliefs, meaning that he was in fact using a different definition of morality than the "written word of god".

Agreed on paragraph one. MLK appealed to the higher absolute standard to repudiate the societal standard in your Lev citation. He was holding the social situation in Lev to the higher standard of Christian moral standards as noted by Paul in Philemon and Ephesians. That was why slavery was abolished in GB and the USA. You may note that it is rampant throughout the world yet.


What about growing up in a world without conflict? Sure sounds like it would be conducive to blandness...

But that's sort of the point... In a perfect utopia, we're not talking about a couple of centuries... we're talking about millenia of stable, conflict free society. Curiousity might even CAUSE conflict... it would eventually be eradicated.

Curiosity would be the least likely to cause conflict, BH. It's the people and the behaviours known as the seven capital sins that cause conflict and have always thwarted the attempted utopias throughout history. Original sin is the one empirically verifiable truth of Christianity - as GK Chesterton observed. It is also the one empirically verifiable state of all known societies for which documentation or observation exists. You can call it power plays for goods, sex, relationships, materiel, et cetera, but it remains human fault which destroys human relationships with each other and with God.



There are worse things than dying. I won't bother to argue about a metaphyscal realm, but in a worldy realm yes, there are indeed worse things than dying. Does that make them more or less evil?

I'd need your philosophical rationale for judgment to deal with this specifically, BH, but it certainly sounds hiearchical and predicates some values as more worthy than others.

I will however point out though that such a metaphysical realm is also predicated on the ETERNAL suffering of millions of people who were not "chosen". I certainly wouldn't want to be put in that postion. I have too highly a devoloped sense of guilt. I wouldn't be able to enjoy a minute of paradise.

False. To be predicated is to come after. The metaphysical realm existed before the creation. It cannot logically be predicated on the nonexistent. Which is the precise reality Christianity conveys: humanity is derivative and to be truly human one needs acknowledge that reality and align with it. Resistance is futile, not because of arbitrarily imposed punishment, but because nonexistence is that without the Creator. God does not depend on humanity for existence. Humanity does depend on God.



Take it one step further then. If pain is there for a reason, then, following your logic, evil would be there for a reason also. Now of course we can argue all day about what that reason is, but the crux of the argument is the neccesity of evil.

False. The connection you make assumes that pain is an evil. It is not. Pain is a fact of physical existence. If it is absent, one cannot avoid injury. Note the rare exemplars of individuals without a sense of pain - children who must be watched constantly for injury prevention, patients with leprosy who cannot feel the rats eating their fingers or toes while asleep, the paraplegics who cannot feel bedsores, etc.

The Christian argument is that evil is derivative. There is not one thing purely evil because evil is derivative and must have a good upon which to exist - even if that existence is destructive (say, Lord Voldemort, for example).

Evil was a potential, that is, the choice of the lesser good when a higher was possible, or self-will instead of obedience, until it was actualized by personal choice. The Adversary aspired to be God and to take the throne for himself, derivative creature that he was. That actualization brought evil into existence. And, so, Adam (humanity). Unable to know evil as potential without actualization, humanity chose to make it existent and knowable in the purely human limitation. Still so chooses, by the way, - empirically verifiable!



You can take it several ways, the limited viewpoint... It isn't evil we just don't understand it...

The "evil is an illusion" gambit...If it's neccesary, then how can it be evil?

Or any other number of rationalizations.

Christianity won't allow the evil is an illusion gambit. Christianity asserts that the existence of evil by human choice is inescapable by humanity and that God did act so as to free us in Jesus of Nazareth and by means of His Incarnation, Passion, Death, Burial, and Resurrection.

For illusion, you must go to Hinduism or Buddhism or modern materialism-only, though in different modes of understanding the illusion(s).

My personal opinion is that we live in an imperfect world, because if it were any other way we wouldn't be human. People who ascend to some metaphysical realm of perfection really aren't going to be human anymore.

Why would they need curiosity? Leaning? What would they possibly need or want?

Your attribution of curiosity to imperfection is interesting but that substantiates the existence of the potential for imperfection in humans - not in curiosity. If EVE, in the story hadn't been curious, she wouldn't have listened to the serpent talk about the knowledge of good and evil or being as God, would she? So humanity is not humanity by imperfection. Curiosity can be falsely ordered and partake of the nature of evil, that is, disobedience. But it did not come into existence at that point. To be fully human would be enable to be totally curious about any and everything without danger of disordered curiosity.

People who become fully human aren't going to be restrained by the state of affairs considered normative due to human experience in a fallen world. And Christians are, avowedly, going to achieve divinization, partaking of the divine nature, the life of the Holy Trinity. There's an eternity of curiosity and discovery to be had and not limited to merely what we can conceive of as questions now. There is a reason humans only use about 10% of their grey matter!


They probably WOULD sit around all day singing praise to the Lord....

Not MY idea of heaven or a reward... I LIKE humanity, flaws and all... But then I'm sort of a humanist at heart...

Yes to the first sentence. I agree with the second insofar as it contains all the standard misunderstandings of imagery.

I like humanity, it's people I can't stand is a PEANUTS truism from Lucy. But God doesn't merely like humanity, He loves us enough to die for us and expects us to catch the disease and so love our fellow humans whether we like them or not.

If there was ever a utopia, a perfect realm, it would HAVE to include some section, some slice or smidgen of conflict. Otherwise it wouldn't be a utopia for humans at all...

Again, a false assumption. Unless you define utopia as the absence of conflict, which seems rather the inverse of a true utopian hope for concord in the face of conflict, the reasoning is circular.

And, we aren't promised utopia as Christians. We are promised that we shall be as Christ. That job description was full of conflict and pain and misunderstanding as well as eternal joy unspeakable.

I opt for the fully human, divinized, resurrected, regenerate Life - not the merely human constrained by my imagination and limited world view.

[Blackheart]

Actually, YES.

Churchill had to let the Luftwaffe bomb a city in the UK or risk them changing the codes; Dresden was bombed because of its strategic infrastructure. The fire storm that developed was unpredicted.

Tokyo? The buildings were mostly wood; same senario. ....remember Pearl Harbor? :confused:

So that means it was good thing right? Because it was necessary, that means it's right and good and acceptable?

See the subtle distinction? Probably not very subtle, but there must be something tricky about it, because people seem to miss it an awful lot in the "Modern World".

Evil maybe be necessary, but it can't be good. If it were good, then where's the distinction? Only in an imperfect world can you have such utter nonsense as: doing evil in the cause of good...

Any time an act that harms someone is "necessary" you really have to examine it with a magnifying glass. Otherwise any "good" that comes out of a harmful act is likely to be outweighed by the evil...

Oh and I'd say dropping incendiaries on civilian population centers is definitely something that deserves to be under intense scrutiny before anyone says that more good than evil, or if you prefer growth than harm, comes from such an act...

When does necessity outweigh moral or ethical imperatives? In the most familiar form, when do the ends justify the means? Is it justifiable to burn thousands of "enemy" civilians in order to prevent hundreds of friendly combat casualties? If not, then what's the ratio? 1:1? 2:1? 5:1?

What's the best return on our investment of good for evil? At what point does an act become so "Evil" that it outweighs the Necessity, and become UNnecessary?

These should be the kinds of questions that military planners lose decades of sleep over. Otherwise they might get bumped down a level or two... thought frankly ,IIRC, in Dante's Inferno Intentions count strongly.

Something I find dissatisfying, since I feel that results are much more indicative of the forethought someone puts into their actions....

[inked]

Blackheart,

cross-posted; please see above. Gracias!

[Blackheart]

IT's ok if everyone agrees you should do it according to current societal standards, but don't go using any other ideas which might be not PC.

That could have been clearer and is open to several different interpretations.


He was holding the social situation in Lev to the higher standard of Christian moral standards as noted by Paul in Philemon and Ephesians.

Which would mean he was engaged in ranking the relative merits of conflicting moral systems.



Curiosity would be the least likely to cause conflict, BH. It's the people and the behaviours known as the seven capital sins that cause conflict and have always thwarted the attempted utopias throughout history.

Actually I always sort of favored the idea that it was the fact that humans are unable to completely subsume their individuality into sytems that fail to allow for it.

Original sin is the one empirically verifiable truth of Christianity - as GK Chesterton observed. It is also the one empirically verifiable state of all known societies for which documentation or observation exists. You can call it power plays for goods, sex, relationships, materiel, et cetera, but it remains human fault which destroys human relationships with each other and with God.

Sorry but I don't subscribe to original sin. I'm aware of the philosopical concept however. I do not however agree that there is empirical evidence that all humans are tainted by sin. First you would need to supply some empirical evidence that sin actually exists... a rather difficult proposition. Are you sure you aren't speaking allegorically?

I'd need your philosophical rationale for judgment to deal with this specifically, BH, but it certainly sounds hiearchical and predicates some values as more worthy than others.

Don't most (if not all) philospophical and moral systems (at least in practical application) follow that standard?


False. To be predicated is to come after. EXCERPTED, not because of arbitrarily imposed punishment, but because nonexistence is that without the Creator. God does not depend on humanity for existence. Humanity does depend on God.

By all accounts, not everyone shall be saved. Those that aren't saved, suffer. Eternally. SO you're avoiding the issue by saying that it's THEIR fault they are suffering eternally...

Makes no distinction to me if was their fault.... I'll adress the rest and specifically why it doesn't matter to me later.

[Lotesse]

Well I, for one, wait with bated breath for more from you, Blackheart! I always get stoked reading your counterpoint arguments; your style is the bomb, you are an excellent debater, and I literally ALWAYS look forward to what you have to post in these threads. You, sir, are a fantastic breath of fresh air in these argument threads. Have I mentioned all this before? :o Well, it always bears repeating! So glad you're here in Entmoot!!! :) :) :)

[inked]

That could have been clearer and is open to several different interpretations.

Precisely. E.g., it's not acceptable for Nazi's or Stalinists by common consent and world warfare. But, it is also not acceptable if PC is your abiding moral value.

Which would mean he was engaged in ranking the relative merits of conflicting moral systems.

Which would mean he was ranking within a moral system of conflicting hiearchies of values - not different systems, but different emphases.

Actually I always sort of favored the idea that it was the fact that humans are unable to completely subsume their individuality into sytems that fail to allow for it.

Which came first humans or systems? Individuals or societies? By your rationale, no humans fail just the system. That is not the witness of multiple individuals in multiple systems who say that the fault lies within themselves (cf. Buddha, Ghandi, Paul, etc). What say you about that?

{QUOTE=Blackheart] Sorry but I don't subscribe to original sin. I'm aware of the philosopical concept however. I do not however agree that there is empirical evidence that all humans are tainted by sin. First you would need to supply some empirical evidence that sin actually exists... a rather difficult proposition. Are you sure you aren't speaking allegorically?[/quote]

Slavery, prostitution, drug dealers, blue-collar criminals, white-collar criminals, al-quaeda, the Peron regime in Chile in the 80's, the communists in any country you can name (but including Pol Pot, Stalin, Mao, etc., etc.),
capitalists in the absolute pursuit of unmitigated profits, Hitler, Nazis, Fascists, Mussolini, Idi Amin, child molesters, rapists, murderers, those who engage in biochemical warfare, adulterers, liars, cheaters, self-aggrandizers, racists, etc.

Enough?

Sin is glaringly obvious. REcall Einstein's comment: "Whether or not you can observe a thing depends on the theory you use. It is the theory which decides what can be observed." That is true of physical reality and certainly true of spiritual reality. I am not speaking allegorically but practically. Watch your local evening news and tell me that the human tendency to corrupt everything is not merely an observation of Dwarves and Elves in Tolkien.

Don't most (if not all) philospophical and moral systems (at least in practical application) follow that standard?

I cannot place your referent to 'that standard'. Please elucidate. IF you meant what I said about hiearchies of value on moral standards, then, yes.
All societal valuations of moral standards come about by the valuation of specific moral qualities. E.g., the Spartans, courage; the early Romans, familias et patrias; the Communists, abdication of the individual to the state; the Republicans, subsumption of the state to the individuals of the state - but all are merely emphasizing one aspect of the moral above others, not inventing new systems of morality. Do you know of a culture that truly valued cowardice as the pre-eminent virtue? Can you imagine such?


By all accounts, not everyone shall be saved. Those that aren't saved, suffer. Eternally. SO you're avoiding the issue by saying that it's THEIR fault they are suffering eternally...

Makes no distinction to me if was their fault.... I'll adress the rest and specifically why it doesn't matter to me later.

I'm not avoiding an issue, BH, I'm pointing out a logical fallacy. Eternity is not predicated on human existence.

Your point is, I suspect, that you do not like the reality that what one does as indicative of what one is has longterm consequences. The Ted Bundy's of the world are fortunately uncommon, but their behaviours define them. How should it be different for you or I merely because we are not serial murderers?
As Jesus pointed out, the origin of murder or lust or avarice is the human heart in hate, diordered desire, or worship of the material. Sadaam's use of nerve gas against the Kurds originated in his mind and heart and will before it was actualized; so are our faults and failures.

Do you really think that the world would equate all behaviours as equal and without content?

[Blackheart]

Continued briefly due to time constraints.

False. The connection you make assumes that pain is an evil. It is not. Pain is a fact of physical existence. If it is absent, one cannot avoid injury. Note the rare exemplars of individuals without a sense of pain - children who must be watched constantly for injury prevention, patients with leprosy who cannot feel the rats eating their fingers or toes while asleep, the paraplegics who cannot feel bedsores, etc.

Err, no. If you read back, I equated pain as a precurser to growth. It is neccesary, but don't confuse necessity with evil, or good. HARM on the other hand, something that causes damage, and damage being a long term detriment to growth, you can associate with evil if you like, but that may or may not be so.

But regardless of all the semantic quibbling, your objection misses the point. If pain is a necessity imposed by some cosmic entity, then it CAN follow (and I make the argument that it DOES follow) that evil is a necessity (of the human condition) imposed by an outside cosmic agency.

Christianity won't allow the evil is an illusion gambit. Christianity asserts that the existence of evil by human choice is inescapable by humanity ....
For illusion, you must go to Hinduism or Buddhism or modern materialism-only, though in different modes of understanding the illusion(s).

If you note, I was pointing out the shortcomings of such rationalizations. If you will also note, I pointed out the necessity of evil to the human condition. You can call it inescapable, but that is just looking at it from the other side of the telescope.


The Christian argument is that evil is derivative. There is not one thing purely evil because evil is derivative and must have a good upon which to exist - even if that existence is destructive (say, Lord Voldemort, for example).

Which relates to pointing out that it is a necessary condition of the human experience how? If it were a condition imposed by an outside entity, it could still be derivative from precursory conditions like.. free will.

So humanity is not humanity by imperfection. Curiosity can be falsely ordered and partake of the nature of evil, that is, disobedience. But it did not come into existence at that point. To be fully human would be enable to be totally curious about any and everything without danger of disordered curiosity.

And there is the fundamental difference. You call it imperfection. I call it; the state of things AS THEY ARE. The human experience does not exist in a vacuum. If you change the environment, change the "rules of reality" you are changing the very definition of what it means to be human. If you change the definition, you might as well change the name. Continuing to call them human is disingenious.

It sounds like you've crossed into thinking that I equated curiousity with evil. I pointed out that there was no NEED for curiousity in a realm where everything is already known, and that continued display of such a trait would lead to disorder. Why would you be curious about something you already know everything about? Saying that you could be fully human in such a realm is a bit of a misnomer, if you regard curiousity as part of the human experience.

People who become fully human aren't going to be restrained by the state of affairs considered normative due to human experience in a fallen world. And Christians are, avowedly, going to achieve divinization, partaking of the divine nature, the life of the Holy Trinity. There's an eternity of curiosity and discovery to be had and not limited to merely what we can conceive of as questions now. There is a reason humans only use about 10% of their grey matter!

Lets be done with calling them human. If it makes you feel better you can say former humans who have transcended the mortal realm, or some such. Or "Angels" if that is too long. After all they've achieved "divinization"...

But you have still failed to tell me why such a creature would need such a trait as curiousity, if they partake of omnescience...

As a side note, humans use 100% of their brain. They only activate about 10% of it at a time (what is refereed to as "attention"). The odd notion that 90% of our brain is unmapped and unused, lying fallow, is a misunderstanding from people who have misquoted or misunderstood how basic neural networking functions.


But God doesn't merely like humanity, He loves us enough to die for us and expects us to catch the disease and so love our fellow humans whether we like them or not.

And so why would someone accept that a particular individual is irredeemable and therefore doomed to an eternity of suffering. Not justice, not correction, but permanant suffering, with no real understandable or concievable purpose. Frankly oblivion would preferable to eternal suffering.

Again, a false assumption. Unless you define utopia as the absence of conflict, which seems rather the inverse of a true utopian hope for concord in the face of conflict, the reasoning is circular.

You might have noticed that that WAS the point I was already aiming at. In otherwords, MY definition of UTOPIA INCLUDED conflict. A small slice of it at the very least. Someone ELSE had defined utopia as the absence of conflict. You may need to read back a few posts. But thank you for at least pointing out that a utopia without conflict is a false assumption, I was working up to it in a less brusk manner...

[Blackheart]

Precisely. E.g., it's not acceptable for Nazi's or Stalinists by common consent and world warfare. But, it is also not acceptable if PC is your abiding moral value.

I'm afraid that is even less clear. What are you trying to say? Are you trying to argue that white southerners are less well off economically or politically in a non-segregated society?

Which would mean he was ranking within a moral system of conflicting hiearchies of values - not different systems, but different emphases.

They are different systems. You can refer to them as sub-systems if you like, but that's quibbling. Baptist fundamentalists for example, have a different moral system than catholics, even if they are both based on christian traditions.

But that's still beside the point, if you are engaged in ranking different values, you are engaging in relativism.

Which came first humans or systems? Individuals or societies? By your rationale, no humans fail just the system. That is not the witness of multiple individuals in multiple systems who say that the fault lies within themselves (cf. Buddha, Ghandi, Paul, etc). What say you about that?

I think I already said it. "humans are unable to completely subsume their individuality into sytems that fail to allow for it." Did I fail to state it clearly enough? What do you say about the fact that all the humans you point out then went on to create NEW systems of moral conduct? Ones that were, perhaps, able to tolerate individuality better.

And yes, I would say that it's not humans that fail, it is the society they exist within. Asking which came first, humans or society is like asking whether chickens or eggs came first. It is meaningless noise. Humans do not exist outside the bounds of society, unless you are going to somehow clone then and drop them off as an infant in the wilderness and expect them to survie...

Slavery, prostitution, drug dealers, blue-collar criminals, white-collar criminals, al-quaeda, the Peron regime in Chile in the 80's, the communists in any country you can name (but including Pol Pot, Stalin, Mao, etc., etc.),
capitalists in the absolute pursuit of unmitigated profits, Hitler, Nazis, Fascists, Mussolini, Idi Amin, child molesters, rapists, murderers, those who engage in biochemical warfare, adulterers, liars, cheaters, self-aggrandizers, racists, etc.

Enough?

All you have done is provide a list of atrocities, social problems, and individuals who were considered evil. No where have you pointed out what makes these individuals or problems sinful. You just assume that they are, because you are assuming the existence of sin. You cannot provide a list of examples and point to them as empirical evidence for a class or category which you cannot define empirically.

You CAN however use them as correlational items. But that is different topic, since my original objection was to the word empirical. You haven't even tried to point out why these things are considered evil, nor have you considered if there were any mitigating factors due to necessity.

Sin is glaringly obvious. REcall Einstein's comment: "Whether or not you can observe a thing depends on the theory you use. It is the theory which decides what can be observed." That is true of physical reality and certainly true of spiritual reality. I am not speaking allegorically but practically. Watch your local evening news and tell me that the human tendency to corrupt everything is not merely an observation of Dwarves and Elves in Tolkien.

You should be careful in using that quote. There are competing theories that account for the data just as well, if not better... Models that actually can be based empirically, since they describe set conditions and are based on other underlying theories of social interaction.

The objection was not to the existence of sin, but to the idea that you can EMPIRICALLY verify the existence of a philosopical or spiritual concept.

It would be of little purpose to deny the existence of a concept like sin in a discussion about Dant'es inferno, now wouldn't it?

The concept of ORIGINAL sin however, is a distinction between two philosophical constructs. The idea that all humans are tainted from birth is objectionable to me, because it bases the flaw on something humans have no control over, the past. To hold someone accountable for something they have no control over is not an act of justice.

The closest concept to it which I will concede to, is the idea that if humans exist within a flawed society, then they are rapidly converted to the "sins" of the society they exist within.

I cannot place your referent to 'that standard'. Please elucidate. IF you meant what I said about hiearchies of value on moral standards, then, yes.

Yes that is what I meant. Which means that, as much as we would like to think that there is an absolute moral value out there, all systems in their practical application at least, realize the neccesity of some relativism.

but all are merely emphasizing one aspect of the moral above others, not inventing new systems of morality. Do you know of a culture that truly valued cowardice as the pre-eminent virtue? Can you imagine such?

Survival. Mid-20c United states...

Yes new values do arrive. And they are integrated into, and on top of, old traditions. New values do arise, because the world is ever changing. They get related back to earlier traditions, because traditions are useful for certain things, one of them being a comparison of the relative value of "values"...

I'm not avoiding an issue, BH, I'm pointing out a logical fallacy. Eternity is not predicated on human existence.

I must point out that whether or not eternity is predicated on the existence of humanity has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with the fact that eternity is a postulated condition of a christian afterlife. You can say it is predicated on the existence of god, but it makes absolutely no practical difference for the purpose of the discussion.

Your point is, I suspect, that you do not like the reality that what one does as indicative of what one is has longterm consequences. The Ted Bundy's of the world are fortunately uncommon, but their behaviours define them. How should it be different for you or I merely because we are not serial murderers?

Your assumption is off the mark. At no point did I suggest that individuals should not suffer the consequences of their actions. What I did point out, is that eternal suffering is of no purpose, allows no growth or change, and is in fact a form of harm, not pain. Harm being permanant damage.

Since you are postulating the existence of a divine justice, one would assume that it would take some concept of the idea of a fair punishment. Or even rehabilitation. Even the worst individual that has ever existed, lets take your example of Ted Bundy, given the postulated existence of eternity, the worst things that he ever did will be temporary. Therefore, no matter what punishment is chosen, to make it eternal makes it unjust, because of the disproportionate effect.

As Jesus pointed out, the origin of murder or lust or avarice is the human heart in hate, diordered desire, or worship of the material.

Which actually has nothing to do with what I am pointing out. I think I pointed out before that IT DOES NOT MATTER WHERE the origin of the sin was. So what if all of humanity is irredeemable and burdened with sin, even "original sin".

WHAT does that have to do with the idea that eternal punishment even roughly approximates justice?


Do you really think that the world would equate all behaviours as equal and without content?

Oddly enough, if you read back, you'll note that I am arguing against the existence of an absolute moral value...
And stated quite firmly that the imposition of an absolute moral standard does MORE harm than good... which is another way of saying that it does more evil than good.

So no I don't really think that all behaviors are equal, since that was my original point... Obviously NEITHER did Dante, since he postulated several different layers of hell... though frankly one is hard put to choose any of them as less harsh, since they are all eternal...

I seriously think you are missing the entire point of the original discussion, which was whether or not avoiding sin was always a good thing. Which is how we got onto the discussion of necessity. If it is necesary, then it is unavoidable. If it is unavoidable and necessary, then avoiding it completely may actually NOT be a "good" thing.

Hence the exhortation to "moderation in all things"

Which was countered by resorting to a utopian ideal. Much of the following discussion was related to the problems of perfection and remaining human within the framework of a utopian ideal. In other words a continuing discussion of the problems of imposing the absolute upon humanity which exists within an imperfect world.

But the discussion seems to have moved away from the original point. I have tried to point it back towards the original thread, that being a discussion of the philosophical merits, or lack thereof, of Dante's idea of hell...

To restate some of the salient points of the side discussion:

I pointed out that pain was a necessary precursor to growth and learning.

Pain is not neccesarily evil.

Pain is not equivilant to harm, pain being a temporary phenomenon, whereas harm is "permanant" and stifles growth.

You can roughly substitute the terms growth for good, and harm for evil...

Those are all semantic distinctions. The meat of the matter is that eternal punishment would seem more of a harm than a growth factor. In other words, more of an evil than a good.

People are objecting that it's not god's fault that they are punished eternally, it's the fault of humanity, because humanity has at it's core original sin, or some other flaw.

To which I have been pointing out, bullshit, humanity did not design this system under it's postulated rules. To hold someone accountable for circumstances outside their control is not an act of justice. Nor is it an act of justice to assign a permenant harm as punishment for a temporary pain.

Since this has become a long and involved discussion (or threatens to) I won't bother to address any of the other side issues anymore. Problems with the eternity of a utopia or applying eternity to human traits are just a mirror image of this issue. Absolute values or the existence of the absolute are a tangent, that only relate because enternity is an absolute concept.

[inked]

I'm afraid that is even less clear. What are you trying to say? Are you trying to argue that white southerners are less well off economically or politically in a non-segregated society?

If you elect to make societal standards the measure of morality, you have no appeal when a society goes wrong. Historically, however, the existence of absolute values and their use in opposing such abberations as humanity is prone to have been widely used.



They are different systems. You can refer to them as sub-systems if you like, but that's quibbling. Baptist fundamentalists for example, have a different moral system than catholics, even if they are both based on christian traditions.

But that's still beside the point, if you are engaged in ranking different values, you are engaging in relativism.

No. If you engage your brother or sister in the absolute moral system, you are pointing out to them where their emphases are incongruent with the system acknowledged by all. If they have a different morality, you have no basis to engage them for relativism would say that all systems are equal and no one can judge another. That is patently false on the face of history. If someone takes your seat at the theatre, you oppose them on the ground of common morality: "Excuse me, that's my seat." If they do not acknowledge your 'ownership' of the seat, you appeal to the idea of "fairness" - "But I paid for that seat. Here's my ticket." If they continue to refuse your claim, you get the usher to enforce the moral dictum of fairness. Of course, if the seat-occupier is armed and dangerous, or bigger than you, you might ignore their immorality ("you shall not steal" has been violated). But I'll bet you won't continue complaining that "it's not fair". No absolute morality, no violation, no foul.



I think I already said it. "humans are unable to completely subsume their individuality into sytems that fail to allow for it." Did I fail to state it clearly enough? What do you say about the fact that all the humans you point out then went on to create NEW systems of moral conduct? Ones that were, perhaps, able to tolerate individuality better.

How do you decide better, BH? To what are you appealing that I should acknowledge better? IF the appeal is to better 'toleration of individuality' was Hitler or Stalin the more realized individual? Idi Amin or Mengele? Buddha or St. Theresa?

And yes, I would say that it's not humans that fail, it is the society they exist within. Asking which came first, humans or society is like asking whether chickens or eggs came first. It is meaningless noise. Humans do not exist outside the bounds of society, unless you are going to somehow clone then and drop them off as an infant in the wilderness and expect them to survie...

IF you do not have humans in relationship, you do not have society, BH. A person alone is not a society. Two persons is a dyad, a minimalist society, perhaps. It is only with three or more that the issues of social relations contain the necessary complexity to allow for groupings of majority rule. And, an infant in a dyad is just such a complexity simply by need, and not nearly as competent to disrupt as another adult. The complexity increases to the power of the number of individuals. That's why they develop rules to govern relations. Law, for example, to govern contracts, marriage, divorce, etc, is merely a societal outworking of the moral principles and differs between societies in particular applications. Even international law recognizes specific moral values between nations. IT's not a chicken or an egg scenario, BH. The egg doesn't relate.



All you have done is provide a list of atrocities, social problems, and individuals who were considered evil. No where have you pointed out what makes these individuals or problems sinful. You just assume that they are, because you are assuming the existence of sin. You cannot provide a list of examples and point to them as empirical evidence for a class or category which you cannot define empirically.{/quote]

I'll try to remember this when someone accuses me of being immoral for my opposition to gay 'marriage', adultery, drunkeness. Think they'll by that I'm not sinning against the zeitgeist by identifying sin but merely listing examples of atrocities, social problems, or individuals. Nope! They're going to immediately appeal to their conception of "justice, fairness, tolerance, inclusivity" or whatever brand name they label their concept of morality to oppose me. IT will be an appeal to an absolute standard, however, and one they hope I share so as to allow an argument to re-prioritization.

[QUOTE=Blackheart} You CAN however use them as correlational items. But that is different topic, since my original objection was to the word empirical. You haven't even tried to point out why these things are considered evil, nor have you considered if there were any mitigating factors due to necessity.

Necessity is a mutha, eh? It justifies all behaviours? So any violation of necessity would be empirical evidence for what? I don't need to point out why these things are considered evil, BH, because you and everyone else knows they are when they happen to you or your family or your tribe or your nation. It's only in the cozy comfort of your monitor's glow that you think otherwise.



You should be careful in using that quote. There are competing theories that account for the data just as well, if not better... Models that actually can be based empirically, since they describe set conditions and are based on other underlying theories of social interaction.

The objection was not to the existence of sin, but to the idea that you can EMPIRICALLY verify the existence of a philosopical or spiritual concept.

It would be of little purpose to deny the existence of a concept like sin in a discussion about Dant'es inferno, now wouldn't it?

Rather. That'll be two points and no rim! :eek:

The concept of ORIGINAL sin however, is a distinction between two philosophical constructs. The idea that all humans are tainted from birth is objectionable to me, because it bases the flaw on something humans have no control over, the past. To hold someone accountable for something they have no control over is not an act of justice.

The closest concept to it which I will concede to, is the idea that if humans exist within a flawed society, then they are rapidly converted to the "sins" of the society they exist within.



Yes that is what I meant. Which means that, as much as we would like to think that there is an absolute moral value out there, all systems in their practical application at least, realize the neccesity of some relativism.

Great! Take it to the philosophy thread. But this is the Dante thread and Dante was a Christian. His definitions apply.



Survival. Mid-20c United states...

Yes new values do arrive. And they are integrated into, and on top of, old traditions. New values do arise, because the world is ever changing. They get related back to earlier traditions, because traditions are useful for certain things, one of them being a comparison of the relative value of "values"...



I must point out that whether or not eternity is predicated on the existence of humanity has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with the fact that eternity is a postulated condition of a christian afterlife. You can say it is predicated on the existence of god, but it makes absolutely no practical difference for the purpose of the discussion.



Your assumption is off the mark. At no point did I suggest that individuals should not suffer the consequences of their actions. What I did point out, is that eternal suffering is of no purpose, allows no growth or change, and is in fact a form of harm, not pain. Harm being permanant damage.

Since you are postulating the existence of a divine justice, one would assume that it would take some concept of the idea of a fair punishment. Or even rehabilitation. Even the worst individual that has ever existed, lets take your example of Ted Bundy, given the postulated existence of eternity, the worst things that he ever did will be temporary. Therefore, no matter what punishment is chosen, to make it eternal makes it unjust, because of the disproportionate effect.



Which actually has nothing to do with what I am pointing out. I think I pointed out before that IT DOES NOT MATTER WHERE the origin of the sin was. So what if all of humanity is irredeemable and burdened with sin, even "original sin".

WHAT does that have to do with the idea that eternal punishment even roughly approximates justice?




Oddly enough, if you read back, you'll note that I am arguing against the existence of an absolute moral value...
And stated quite firmly that the imposition of an absolute moral standard does MORE harm than good... which is another way of saying that it does more evil than good.

So no I don't really think that all behaviors are equal, since that was my original point... Obviously NEITHER did Dante, since he postulated several different layers of hell... though frankly one is hard put to choose any of them as less harsh, since they are all eternal...

I seriously think you are missing the entire point of the original discussion, which was whether or not avoiding sin was always a good thing. Which is how we got onto the discussion of necessity. If it is necesary, then it is unavoidable. If it is unavoidable and necessary, then avoiding it completely may actually NOT be a "good" thing.

Hence the exhortation to "moderation in all things"

Which was countered by resorting to a utopian ideal. Much of the following discussion was related to the problems of perfection and remaining human within the framework of a utopian ideal. In other words a continuing discussion of the problems of imposing the absolute upon humanity which exists within an imperfect world.

But the discussion seems to have moved away from the original point. I have tried to point it back towards the original thread, that being a discussion of the philosophical merits, or lack thereof, of Dante's idea of hell...

To restate some of the salient points of the side discussion:

I pointed out that pain was a necessary precursor to growth and learning.

Pain is not neccesarily evil.

Pain is not equivilant to harm, pain being a temporary phenomenon, whereas harm is "permanant" and stifles growth.

You can roughly substitute the terms growth for good, and harm for evil...

Those are all semantic distinctions. The meat of the matter is that eternal punishment would seem more of a harm than a growth factor. In other words, more of an evil than a good.

People are objecting that it's not god's fault that they are punished eternally, it's the fault of humanity, because humanity has at it's core original sin, or some other flaw.

To which I have been pointing out, bullshit, humanity did not design this system under it's postulated rules. To hold someone accountable for circumstances outside their control is not an act of justice. Nor is it an act of justice to assign a permenant harm as punishment for a temporary pain.

Since this has become a long and involved discussion (or threatens to) I won't bother to address any of the other side issues anymore. Problems with the eternity of a utopia or applying eternity to human traits are just a mirror image of this issue. Absolute values or the existence of the absolute are a tangent, that only relate because enternity is an absolute concept.

Pardon me if I know Dante would disagree with a great deal of this, but I'm out of time for now. Perhaps later.

[Lotesse]

* balh, blah, blah, wordy, wordy, jibber-jabber-blah blah bl - *oh, what? Sorry, was dozing off there for a second. Was - was inked saying something? Hmmph, must've dozed off when his post came on...

I love this what Blackheart says here; it is so quoteworthy that it goes in my own private journal of collectible sayings & thoughts:


" To hold someone accountable for circumstances outside their control is not an act of justice. Nor is it an act of justice to assign a permenant harm as punishment for a temporary pain. "

[Rían]

wow - I just looked in on this thread, and I must say I hope no one ever accuses me of making long posts again, because I'll just point them to this thread :eek:

*gets out Dante*

Hi Blackheart! How have you been?

And congrats on going over 5k, Lotesse! :)

[Rían]

I just took the test and ended up in Purgatory, but scored high in level 3 and moderate in levels 5, 7, and 8. Low to very low in the rest. But some of those questions were worded poorly and very hard to answer.

[BeardofPants]

As others have already stated, I don't see them as being mutually exclusive. You can enjoy sex and live a pure and virtuous life in my world. Of course, I probably define "pure" and "virtuous" differently than some people might. ;)
This is why I should actually bother reading posts before spouting off my VERY. IMPORTANT. OPINIONS. shuddap spock. They are important. Anyway, I guess I can see the point of enjoying sex, and still maintaining a virtuous life... But it's all bollocks right? End of the day, humans are as self-serving as they'll ever be, unless it somehow benefits them to work within a group dynamic, and even then it's so they will get warm 'n fuzzies from helping out...



Do you think our world is better off because we had Hitler?

You think we would have had the technical and social advances that we have today without Hitler, and WWII? Nothing like a war to push forward technology and social issues.

[BeardofPants]

He's intimidating, yes? :D :evil: ;) I see you've met your match, dear Lief! :D He's a formidable arguing force around here; I am ecstatic that he's joined the Entmoot club and eagerly look forward to each & every one of his posts. :)
Alex? Er I mean Blackheart? He's been in the stygian abyss for donkeys years.
*also likes reading diddykins comments

[Blackheart]

If you elect to make societal standards the measure of morality, you have no appeal when a society goes wrong. Historically, however, the existence of absolute values and their use in opposing such abberations as humanity is prone to have been widely used.

The standards of a society are hardly ever the same as the moral values. I would say almost never. The standards are usually several notches lower...

This is because many of those "absolute" moral values have conflicting results when they are practically applied.

Since this is still a side issue, I will just say that you can engage in relativism even while adhering to an absolute moral standard. It is a question of APPLICATION vs IDEALS..


No. If you engage your brother or sister in the absolute moral system, you are pointing out to them where their emphases are incongruent with the system acknowledged by all.

Absolute moral systems are almost never applied practically. If you are engaging someone in a disussion about the benefits of applying one absolute value over another absolute value, that is engaging in the weighing the of the practical benefits two absolutes. Which means that you have slipped into relativism, because you simply cannot have two absolutes. Not in a practical application.

Of course, if the seat-occupier is armed and dangerous, or bigger than you, you might ignore their immorality ("you shall not steal" has been violated). But I'll bet you won't continue complaining that "it's not fair". No absolute morality, no violation, no foul.

That's patently absurd. The basis for an idea of justice is ingrained in individuals by society (family primarily), and codified by law. The fact that you can concieve of a system where might is right and it is codified into law reveals how "relative" such applications of ideals are.

If it was the middle ages, and it was a noble in your seat, would that make it right? It certainly would as far as a peasant was concerned. But it wouldn't make it right as regards our current society.

And yet under the fuedal sustem, it was considered that "the right of kings" and nobility was an absolute. Upheld by the church and codified by law. What happened to that "absolute"?

Again this is a side issue. Though you can of course start applying how our current society is "better" than a fuedal system and then carry it to the question below...

How do you decide better, BH? To what are you appealing that I should acknowledge better? IF the appeal is to better 'toleration of individuality' was Hitler or Stalin the more realized individual? Idi Amin or Mengele? Buddha or St. Theresa?

But, I won't get pulled into a metaphysical argument on the nature of "better" at the moment. Especially since in the context better obviously means more effective, and therefore you should be able to answer your own list of examples no matter how fine you draw the line. (I'll give you a clue, however. Toleration of individuality roughly approximates equality and is one of the necessary componants).

Instead I'll just point out what you said earlier:

"By your rationale, no humans fail just the system. That is not the witness of multiple individuals in multiple systems who say that the fault lies within themselves (cf. Buddha, Ghandi, Paul, etc). What say you about that?"

If that was so, then why is it that those individuals wound up creating new systems and societies? Instead of just demanding that individuals adhere more closely to the strictures of the old system?

It has nothing to do with whether or not the new systems being created are BETTER or WORSE, it has to do with the idea that they implemented a CHANGE in response to percieved flaws in the old systems. Wheras you stated that it was due to the fact that they percieved flaws within themselves. If the flaws that concerned them the most were with themselves, then why did they need to invent new systems? Or PERHAPS, they looked at the flaws they percieved within themsleves an endimic to the OLD systems..


IF you do not have humans in relationship, you do not have society, BH. A person alone is not a society. //--||--\\ Even international law recognizes specific moral values between nations. IT's not a chicken or an egg scenario, BH. The egg doesn't relate.

I think that was rather my point.

your quote: "Which came first humans or systems? Individuals or societies? By your rationale, no humans fail just the system."

Humans do not exist outside of society. Not as human animals. Stating that the failure of humans to engage in moral behavior is something inherant in the human animal or a particular individual completely ignores the fact that there is no such thing as a human in isolation from society. Any failure of a human to integrate into a society is primarily the failure of the society.

Now of course you can go on and on and cite reams of reports on genetic traits influencing aggressive behaviors and other types of behaviors. But that still doesn't place the blame on the individual. If anything it places some of the ability for those individuals to control their behavior outside their reach. Again, how can you hold someone responsible for something they have no control over?

If it was a society that was truly enlightened, and I have as little an idea about what that would be like as anyone else, those individuals would have a positive place that suited their abilities and individual tempraments.




Ahh a main issue at last:

Great! Take it to the philosophy thread. But this is the Dante thread and Dante was a Christian. His definitions apply.

If that were the case, then why bother to have a discussion? It's one thing to argue within a particular context, without denying the existence of the entire context, and another thing to then suddenly declare that the context is immutable.

In other words, I feel quite comfortable addressing the implications of the effects of the existence or non-existence of original sin on Dante's Hell in a thread about Dante's Inferno.

But the existence of Sin itself? What would be the point? You can easily predict the outcome of such a discussion, and therefore it is of no interest.

So no, I don't think I will take it to another thread, since it relates quite well to the original topic.

[Blackheart]

Alex? Er I mean Blackheart? He's been in the stygian abyss for donkeys years.

I think I have a picture of you around here somewhere woman....

:evil:

[Spock]

REMEMBER THE MOOT RULES-NEVER ATTACK THE POSTER

[Blackheart]

REMEMBER THE MOOT RULES-NEVER ATTACK THE POSTER

What if it's a poster of the Partridge Family? Can we throw eggses at it then?

Perhaps it would help if you were to be a tad more specific? Or did I somehow miss a post?

[Lizra]

Hi Blackheart....What's up?

[Rían]

wow, Lizra! How's the garden and the painting?

[Lizra]

Good...everything's good. See my site for painting vibe. Still talking Tolkien? I think I said it all.....more or less. ;)

[Rían]

*goes to site*

ooh, I remember the one on the lower left - I like it! What's it called? You should get a computer person to have the title come up when you move the cursor over your works - that would be cool!

I'm not talking Tolkien as much - I was really into one of the rpgs for awhile (my first experience at them) but there were too many tempers and it blew up :(

[BeardofPants]

I think I have a picture of you around here somewhere woman....

:evil:

Ya still got that? One day I'm gonna haxxor your site, and stick teletubbies all over it.

Yeah, that's the least of my worries right now, mister hoochie coochie coo blackie wackie ickle-kins. ;)

[Blackheart]

Hi Blackheart....What's up?

Just doing the seventh century stretch... Working the kinks out of the tentacles.. etc.

[Blackheart]

Ya still got that? One day I'm gonna haxxor your site, and stick teletubbies all over it.

It could only improve it. I've been extremely slack lately.

Yeah, that's the least of my worries right now, mister hoochie coochie coo blackie wackie ickle-kins. ;)

I didn't think it would weigh heavily on your mind anyway ...

By the way that's not how you pronounce my name...

[Lizra]

Just doing the seventh century stretch... Working the kinks out of the tentacles.. etc.
I saw your giant schlon....eh....avatar. I couldn't resist it.....It turned me on..... :p

Rian, go to the the page labeled "Figments". All the non-objective abstracts are there...with titles. I believe you are referring to the black one, titled "Encouragement". Thank you.

[Blackheart]

I saw your giant schlon....eh....avatar. I couldn't resist it.....It turned me on..... :p

That must be why I wound up on the second level... ;)

[Rían]

I saw your giant schlon....eh....avatar. I couldn't resist it.....It turned me on..... :p

Rian, go to the the page labeled "Figments". All the non-objective abstracts are there...with titles. I believe you are referring to the black one, titled "Encouragement". Thank you.

oh, I see ...

Yes, the titles are there - I like "Terra" a lot, too. Very nice!

[Lotesse]

Is this going to be a chat room now, or is this thread still for talking about Dante's Inferno? Just wondering. :)

Lizra, nice to see an old veteran return! So, did you take the test at the beginning of this thread? At which level are you in Dante's Inferno? :)

[Nurvingiel]

Oh my goodness!! It's Lizra and Boppy! Welcome back you guys! :) :D :)

I took the test, and then read the first couple pages of the thread. So Inked, did you take the test yet or what? Inquiring minds want to know! :D ;)

I'm in Level 1 - Limbo.

I got a high Lustful score, but a low Heretic score. I just have to read Dante's Inferno (or is the title Divine Comedy?) now!! I consider myself a heretic sometimes! :D

[Rían]

No, I don't think this is going to be a chat room now :rolleyes:, but when a long-time Mooter like Lizra returns, I think some chat is fine. That decision is up to a mod, I guess.

Re the test - I think I would have scored higher in Lustful, but I lied on two of the questions :eek: :D because I didn't want to start being innundated with ads for "enhancement" and other such junk - we finally got rid of them and I don't want any more!

I'm so sad I can't read Dante in the original language :( I"m sure it loses a lot in the translation :(

[Lotesse]

I think there is both Divine Comedy AND Dante's Inferno; two different books. I could be wrong - someone correct me on this.

Good luck, I mean GOOD LUCK trying to get Inked to deign to take the Dante's Inferno test along with the rest of us mere mortals! :D :D Do you have any idea how long I've been trying to get him to take ANY of these tests that show others what kind of personality quirks or weaknesses we might have? He won't do it; he's the only one. I think he fears being thusly exposed here; right Inked? ;) :D Scrred much? ;) *tries to rouse Inked to the challenge* - take the test, Inked! What's so scary about it?

[sun-star]

The Inferno is the first part of the Divine Comedy, which also comprises the Purgatorio and the Paradiso.

RÃ*an, I know what you mean about translations. I've been reading a book on translation which discusses how difficult it is just to translate the one line above the gates of hell (famously rendered as 'Abandon all hope, ye who enter here'). Translations can never really be the same as the original. I like Dorothy L Sayers' version, though - admired by Lewis, not to mention inked, IIRC ;)

[Rían]

yes, that's the one I ended up getting, after comparing several.

I know that I just love Milton's Paradise Lost, and the thought of what must be lost in translation makes me sad. And it has to be the same with any translation :(

[BeardofPants]

Oh my goodness!! It's Lizra and Boppy! Welcome back you guys! :) :D :)

Hey Nurv, I'm around sporadically, seems like I lurk a lot right now. :rolleyes:

Alex? Do be a good boy and check yer pms. ;)

[Rían]

(hey, SheBoP - check out the "favorite quotes" thread here - I'd love to hear some of yours!)

[sun-star]

Edit: nevermind.

[Lizra]

That must be why I wound up on the second level... ;)

Mmmmm...level 2! ;) I'll come visit you after I work on my tan on level 6....I'm sure there will be some interesting activities going on on level 2! :cool:

Guess I'll get some sunscreen and an asbestos thong. :p

[Blackheart]

Asbestos might be a tad itchy...

Anyway, waiting till you are dead to have fun sounds like poor planning to me... Carpe Diem and then ____ the living crap out of it...

[Lizra]

Itchy? Scratchy! ;)
Who says I'm not having fun now! :D Actually, I'm having fun imagining visiting you on level 2....of course, after I'm dead I will be quite busy...rotting.... :p

[BeardofPants]

It's called feedin' the worms, Lizra, feedin' the worms.

[Lotesse]

Pushin' up daisies? Answerin' the last call? Crossing the Great Divide? Feeding the fishes? Permanently checked into the Hotel California, next to the crow-bait farm, after passing through Termination Station? Hooo - ah!!

[littleadanel]

Pushin' up daisies! lol. :o :D Sorry, but.. what a mental image. Besides, in Hungarian we have a flowery expression for death too: smelling the violets from beneath...

Oh! and I'm third level. ;)

[Blackheart]

Actually I have direct evidence of an afterlife, but since I am a selfish bastard, I refuse to share it with anyone.

[BeardofPants]

If it's you that I'm gonna see at the end of the light in the tunnel, then I see I'm going to have to have a contingency plan to avoid death! ;)
*tries vainly not to think of BH replete with rusty halo and harp

[Blackheart]

If it's you that I'm gonna see at the end of the light in the tunnel, then I see I'm going to have to have a contingency plan to avoid death! ;)
*tries vainly not to think of BH replete with rusty halo and harp

MMmmm ... as quaint an image as that is, it won't do any good to try to avoid me.. I mean it.. it.. yess..

I meant.. "It"...

And I can't really play the harp... which makes it the more scary I suppose...

[Lizra]

Actually I have direct evidence of an afterlife, but since I am a selfish bastard, I refuse to share it with anyone.

yeah, yeah, yeah.....big piffle. :rolleyes:

[Blackheart]

yeah, yeah, yeah.....big piffle. :rolleyes:

Exactly. Which is why I never bother to tell anyone. :p

[Rev. Justin Timberlake]

Lvl6.

[inked]

I think there is both Divine Comedy AND Dante's Inferno; two different books. I could be wrong - someone correct me on this.

Good luck, I mean GOOD LUCK trying to get Inked to deign to take the Dante's Inferno test along with the rest of us mere mortals! :D :D Do you have any idea how long I've been trying to get him to take ANY of these tests that show others what kind of personality quirks or weaknesses we might have? He won't do it; he's the only one. I think he fears being thusly exposed here; right Inked? ;) :D Scrred much? ;) *tries to rouse Inked to the challenge* - take the test, Inked! What's so scary about it?

Hi, Ya'll - d'ja miss me? Welcome back BoP and Lizra!!!

Lotesses, I see sun-star has given you the data on Dante and the The Commedia as he named it! It was given the adjective Divine by a publisher who (rightly !!!) judged it to be a magnificent poem.

I've still got the bum computer at home and the filter at work!

Dorothy L. Sayers has the best annotations by far to enable understanding. But for the variations in nuance try John Ciardi's and Pinske's translations, for my money. Pinske has only out the Inferno last I checked.

[Rían]

I'm enjoying Sawyers' notes right now :)

[inked]

I think there is both Divine Comedy AND Dante's Inferno; two different books. I could be wrong - someone correct me on this.

Good luck, I mean GOOD LUCK trying to get Inked to deign to take the Dante's Inferno test along with the rest of us mere mortals! :D :D Do you have any idea how long I've been trying to get him to take ANY of these tests that show others what kind of personality quirks or weaknesses we might have? He won't do it; he's the only one. I think he fears being thusly exposed here; right Inked? ;) :D Scrred much? ;) *tries to rouse Inked to the challenge* - take the test, Inked! What's so scary about it?

Ah, Lotesse, you unbeliever! I spent 3 hours getting my home computer back on-line and immediately (well, soon)...(well, in less than 24 hours) went to take the test.

Guess what?
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I got Purgatory, repenting believer. No caveats. No lies. No videotape.
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Your humble apologies are, no doubt, spilling readily from your repentant lips! :rolleyes:
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Rather like your acknowledgement of my acute prophetic powers and self-knowledge.
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I did rank rather low on the modesty and humility scores, I suppose!!!!!! :eek:

[Gwaimir Windgem]

I was fortunate enough to make it to Purgatory. Whew. :eek: I hope God checks this when I kick the bucket... :p

Hmm, let's see what my handy little Dante's Inferno Test says about this one...


Purgatory

You have escaped damnation and made it to Purgatory, a place where the dew of repentance washes off the stain of sin and girds the spirit with humility. Through contrition, confession, and satisfaction by works of righteousness, you must make your way up the mountain. As the sins are cleansed from your soul, you will be illuminated by the Sun of Divine Grace, and you will join other souls, smiling and happy, upon the summit of this mountain. Before long you will know the joys of Paradise as you ascend to the ethereal realm of Heaven.

:D

Total score:

Purgatory Repenting Believers Very High
Level 1 - Limbo Virtuous Non-Believers Moderate
Level 2 Lustful Low
Level 3 Gluttonous High
Level 4 Prodigal and Avaricious Moderate
Level 5 Wrathful and Gloomy Low
Level 6 - The City of Dis Heretics Very Low
Level 7 Violent Low
Level 8- the Malebolge Fraudulent, Malicious, Panderers High
Level 9 - Cocytus Treacherous Low

Looks like I need to work on my Gluttony levels, and based on Level 8, I guess I have to stop working as a pimp. :p Hmm...I wonder if I was Fraudulent, Malicious or (who knows) Pandering?

[Elfhelm]

City of Dis. Always Dis. It's because I read other scriptures than the ones my parents gave me. *shrug* That's Dante for ya.

[Nautipus]

I got into Purgatory.....Probably not the best test.;)

[Nerdanel]

Oh yes. The City of Dis: the 6th level of Hell. Probably didn't get any lower because I don't enjoy shopping and I try to save energy. :D And I didn't get any higher up, I guess, because I'm an atheist.

I seem to be highly lustful and violent, too.. o.O I'm a bit surprised by that second one. Oh well. :D

[Mari]

The third hell...

[The last sane person]

The Dante's Inferno Test has sent you to Purgatory!

How did I manage purgatory?

[Nautipus]

Hey! Your here, too? Coolio...

[The last sane person]

Yes, not sure how I managed it. Guess I must have toned down in the past few years.

[Midge]

I got into Purgatory...

As to the living thing... I like trying to live a virtuous life. It gives me an excuse to be good.

[Curufin]

Sixth level? Crap.

[Annatar]

Purgatory-phew

[katya]

Oh, it's my thread! I just happened to re-read Inferno a few weeks ago, and I'm working on Purgatorio now. The imagery is so interesting. I wish I could read Italian.

I'm thinking more and more that living in a way that's likely to get you unto Dante's Heaven might be a nice thing to do for yourself. There are some exceptions though, but living moderately and avoiding excess and violence seems like a good idea. In other words, no, I don't think eating lots of nice foods and sleeping with anyone you want and giving into your anger and envy and malice is going to make you happy.

I just took the test again and I got level 8 again. I mostly get sent to hell for improper religious beliefs and sex. Those are my exceptions mentioned about. I don't think "misuse" of sex is a good thing, but I don't think sex is sinful, even before marriage.

[Noble Elf Lord]

Sixth level. Sounds good. :cool: The Furys better beware, I'm not gonna go down easily...:evil:

[katya]

Total score:

Purgatory Repenting Believers Very High
Level 1 - Limbo Virtuous Non-Believers Moderate
Level 2 Lustful Low
Level 3 Gluttonous High
Level 4 Prodigal and Avaricious Moderate
Level 5 Wrathful and Gloomy Low
Level 6 - The City of Dis Heretics Very Low
Level 7 Violent Low
Level 8- the Malebolge Fraudulent, Malicious, Panderers High
Level 9 - Cocytus Treacherous Low

Looks like I need to work on my Gluttony levels, and based on Level 8, I guess I have to stop working as a pimp. :p Hmm...I wonder if I was Fraudulent, Malicious or (who knows) Pandering?
My scores actually looked a little like this: High in a couple of the lower levels of hell, and lowish in everything else except level 8. There must be some questions that just put me there. I think I might have to ask God for a re-trial.

[Acalewia]

Purgatory

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

You have escaped damnation and made it to Purgatory, a place where the dew of repentance washes off the stain of sin and girds the spirit with humility. Through contrition, confession, and satisfaction by works of righteousness, you must make your way up the mountain. As the sins are cleansed from your soul, you will be illuminated by the Sun of Divine Grace, and you will join other souls, smiling and happy, upon the summit of this mountain. Before long you will know the joys of Paradise as you ascend to the ethereal realm of Heaven.

Total score:

Purgatory Repenting Believers High
Level 1 - Limbo Virtuous Non-Believers High
Level 2 Lustful Very Low
Level 3 Gluttonous Moderate
Level 4 Prodigal and Avaricious Very Low
Level 5 Wrathful and Gloomy Low
Level 6 - The City of Dis Heretics Very Low
Level 7 Violent Moderate
Level 8- the Malebolge Fraudulent, Malicious, Panderers Moderate
Level 9 - Cocytus Treacherous Very Low

[Kami]

City of Dis!! :) (Hi Acalewia!! Good to see you here..)

Cool quiz..

Sixth Level of Hell - The City of Dis

You approach Satan's wretched city where you behold a wide plain surrounded by iron walls. Before you are fields full of distress and torment terrible. Burning tombs are littered about the landscape. Inside these flaming sepulchers suffer the heretics, failing to believe in God and the afterlife, who make themselves audible by doleful sighs. You will join the wicked that lie here, and will be offered no respite. The three infernal Furies stained with blood, with limbs of women and hair of serpents, dwell in this circle of Hell.


Purgatory Repenting Believers Very Low
Level 1 - Limbo Virtuous Non-Believers Low
Level 2 Lustful High
Level 3 Gluttonous High
Level 4 Prodigal and Avaricious Moderate
Level 5 Wrathful and Gloomy High
Level 6 - The City of Dis Heretics Extreme
Level 7 Violent Extreme
Level 8- the Malebolge Fraudulent, Malicious, Panderers Moderate
Level 9 - Cocytus Treacherous High