Ahh secularism...

[MSimon]

Demon Rum. The real Demon was in the people who demonized it.

See Prohibition, Alcohol.

[GIThruster]

I have actually met the Devil and made friends with him.

Seriously, I can't be the only person who thinks you sound nuts?

[MSimon]

I have actually met the Devil and made friends with him.

Seriously, I can't be the only person who thinks you sound nuts?

What? A Christian that doesn't believe in the Devil?

In any case it is a Jewish concept and was picked up from the Zoroastrians in Babylon during the Jewish exile in Babylon. Also called Persia. Now a days Iran. The exile is one of the reasons the Iranian people still have some affinity for the Jews despite the current Islamic overlay. Both people still have a fondness for Queen Esther. A name believed to have been derived from Ishtar.

Don't Christians know their history? Pity.

And I hear tell that the Prince of Darkness/Old Nic showed up once in Georgia looking for souls to steal.

http://youtu.be/cDm_ZHyYTrg

[Skipjack]

See here's the problem Skip, you want to write long posts about issues you understand nothing about, have certainly never studied and apparently not thought about for more than 2 minutes in your entire life. OTOH, ethics has been a field of study in philosophy forever, and anyone who has actually studied it has had to spend hundreds or thousands of hours on the subject. People like me for instance.

So have you read Eibl-Eibesfeldt then?

[MSimon]

See here's the problem Skip, you want to write long posts about issues you understand nothing about, have certainly never studied and apparently not thought about for more than 2 minutes in your entire life. OTOH, ethics has been a field of study in philosophy forever, and anyone who has actually studied it has had to spend hundreds or thousands of hours on the subject. People like me for instance.

So have you read Eibl-Eibesfeldt then?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iren%C3%A4 ... Eibesfeldt

http://evolution.anthro.univie.ac.at/in ... feldt.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love_and_Hate_%28book%29

[Skipjack]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iren%C3%A4 ... Eibesfeldt

http://evolution.anthro.univie.ac.at/in ... feldt.html

Yepp, that is him. Quite an interesting read about how much of our behaviour is genetic and pretty much the same throughout mankind no matter where they are.

[GIThruster]

In any case it is a Jewish concept and was picked up from the Zoroastrians in Babylon during the Jewish exile in Babylon. Also called Persia. Now a days Iran. . .

Don't Christians know their history? Pity.

Actually, Iran is Persia. Babylon is Iraq. The Jewish captivity in Babylon was in fact ended when the Persian King Cyrus the Great conquered Babylon and gave the Jews permission to return home.

It's a little shocking you don't know the difference between Babylon and Persia given all that has been happening over there this last decade. If you can't afford TV you should at least try to get the news off the web.

BTW, the Jewish version of the Devil shows up in the Book of Job, which was written many centuries before the jewish captivity in Babylon. It is likely older than the Pentateuch, and may have been carried by Abraham's father Terah when they first emigrated from Babylon.

You don't know your bible very well for someone who claims to be a lapsed jew.

[GIThruster]

See here's the problem Skip, you want to write long posts about issues you understand nothing about, have certainly never studied and apparently not thought about for more than 2 minutes in your entire life. OTOH, ethics has been a field of study in philosophy forever, and anyone who has actually studied it has had to spend hundreds or thousands of hours on the subject. People like me for instance.

So have you read Eibl-Eibesfeldt then?

Well my mistake then. You are obviously ignorant of all the work done in ethics these last few thousand years, and your own personal brand of ethics is taken from a zoologist, who likewise never studied ethics.

That would explain these constant failures to understand even freshman concepts.

[MSimon]

In any case it is a Jewish concept and was picked up from the Zoroastrians in Babylon during the Jewish exile in Babylon. Also called Persia. Now a days Iran. . .

Don't Christians know their history? Pity.

Actually, Iran is Persia. Babylon is Iraq. The Jewish captivity in Babylon was in fact ended when the Persian King Cyrus the Great conquered Babylon and gave the Jews permission to return home.

It's a little shocking you don't know the difference between Babylon and Persia given all that has been happening over there this last decade. If you can't afford TV you should at least try to get the news off the web.

BTW, the Jewish version of the Devil shows up in the Book of Job, which was written many centuries before the jewish captivity in Babylon. It is likely older than the Pentateuch, and may have been carried by Abraham's father Terah when they first emigrated from Babylon.

You don't know your bible very well for someone who claims to be a lapsed jew.

Just goes to show you how lapsed I am.

[MSimon]

So GIT.

Care to explain to me the ethics of persecuting people whose habits you don't like? I'm sure those thousands of years of human ethics can provide ample insight.

What happens now that you have set the precedent and some folks decide they don't like your habits? There is no end to it. What if your enemies come to power here? You will have no legal or moral defense against them.

BTW studying the inherent ethics of animals is not a bad way to get insight into the ethics of the human animal. It at least sets a baseline.

===

In any case it looks like pot prohibition will be falling the way alcohol prohibition fell. States will stop enforcing it. Colorado looks to be the first.

Prohibition keeps a LOT of folks voting Democrat. Way to support your enemies. I can't wait 'til we get the subject off the table. We might then have a chance to deal with our real problem. Economics.

[Skipjack]

Well my mistake then. You are obviously ignorant of all the work done in ethics these last few thousand years, and your own personal brand of ethics is taken from a zoologist, who likewise never studied ethics.

That would explain these constant failures to understand even freshman concepts.

Who cares about outdated philosophy that has long been overtaken by modern day science.
Ebl Eibesfeldts work is actually the most complete and scientific work on human behaviour done in the past 50 years. IIRC, he got the nobel price for his work. It is also among the first to actually look at it from a biological and evolutionary perspective. Whatever came before that is outdated compared to that. Goes to show how little YOU know about the subject!

[GIThruster]

One man's writings do not constitute "modern science" and they certainly do not overthrow thousands of years study of a discipline.

The nobel has long ceased to be more than a booby prize for all but the hard sciences and is awarded for all sorts of ego-stroking reasons, and politics that have nothing to do with excellence. Didn't Obama win one for getting elected? How embarrassing is that?

A joker who tells people human ethics can be derived from animal behavior is obviously wrong to anyone who has studied ethics. And like Kant's inability to explain a rational but evil man, this theory that people innately know right from wrong cannot explain Indonesian head hunters, South American cannibals, or hundreds of groups throughout history and pre-history that practice human sacrifice.

What do I need to say except this notion is obviously and stupidly wrong?

[Skipjack]

Didn't Obama win one for getting elected? How embarrassing is that?

Nobel PEACE PRICE...
Not nobel price for science. Eibl Eibesfeldt is the most important behavioural scientist of the 20st century (he and his mentor Konrad Lorenz). He spent years with various tribes that had been pretty much untouched by civilization.
You clearly dont know anything about the subject!

[Skipjack]

Here is a selection of his other honors that he received:

1971 Goldene Bölsche-Medaille der Kosmos-Gesellschaft für Verdienste um die Verbreitung naturwissenschaftlicher Erkenntnisse
1981 Burda-Preis für Kommunikationsforschung
1988 Philip Morris Forschungspreis
1989 Ehrenmedaille der Bundeshauptstadt Wien in Gold
1994 Verleihung der Ehrendoktorwürde für Philosophie der Universität Salamanca, Spanien
1995 Großes Verdienstkreuz des Verdienstordens der Bundesrepublik Deutschland
1996 Nationalparklibelle in Gold mit Rubinen und Brillanten für außerordentliche Verdienste um den internationalen Naturschutz, verliehen vom Naturhistorischen Museum/Wien und der Nationalpark-Akademie Donauauen/Wien
1996 Schwenk’scher Umweltpreis der Stadt Ebersberg
1997 Gold-Medaille der Dres. Haackert Stiftung, verliehen für hervorragende Verdienste um die Erforschung des menschlichen Verhaltens
1997 Bayerischer Verdienstorden
1997 Jahrespreis der Stiftung für Abendländische Besinnung (STAB) aus Zürich.
1998 Österreichisches Ehrenkreuz für Wissenschaft und Kunst I. Klasse
1998 Inge und Werner Grüter-Preis für gelungene Wissenschaftsvermittlung für Verdienste um die Meeresbiologie und Riffforschung
1999 "Premio Catedra Santiago Grisolía" für die Verdienste um die Erforschung der Ethologie des Menschen und der Aggressivität
1999 "Al mérito", verliehen von der Charles Darwin Foundation, Ecuador
2001 Ehrenpreis der Heinz-Sielmann-Stiftung für den Einsatz für den Naturschutz, vor allem auf den Galápagos-Inseln
2003 Goldenes Ehrenzeichen für Verdienste um das Land Wien
2005 Verleihung der Ehrendoktorwürde für Psychologie der Universität Bologna, Italien

[GIThruster]

You clearly dont know anything about the subject!

Guilty as charged. There are far too many people who want to be philosophers and pretend to be, to keep up with all the crack pottery. Seriously, have you ever met someone who doesn't like to consider himself a philosopher of some sort? I'm totally not surprised that a zoologist studying animals came up with a crackpot theory that people are just like animals, and that he can explain human ethics as part of nature. I'm just surprised anyone can take such crack-pottery seriously.

Or maybe Skippy misrepresented the theory. That could be too. All I can say is, it's obviously not true that humans are born with a genetic code that gives them their sense of right and wrong. This is obviously not true for literally thousands of reasons, some of which I've already noted to you, and anyone who has actually studied ethics knows this is so.