On Mon, Mar 24, 2003 at 12:14:03AM -0000, iaamoac wrote: > --- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], Erik Reuter <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > That murder stops someone from living (thinking, moving, > communicating, > > etc.) is verifiable and obvious. True, it is a belief that one > shouldn't > > stop someone else from living against their will, but it is a belief > > that follows quite easily from comparison of empirical observation > of > > the results of murder with noting one's own will to live. The > founding > > fathers of America might have called it a "self-evident truth" > instead > > of a belief. > >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Geez, you really murdered the quotes there! I'll repair it: On Mon, Mar 24, 2003 at 12:14:03AM -0000, iaamoac wrote: > --- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], Erik Reuter <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > That murder stops someone from living (thinking, moving, > > communicating, etc.) is verifiable and obvious. True, it is a belief > > that one shouldn't stop someone else from living against their will, > > but it is a belief that follows quite easily from comparison of > > empirical observation of the results of murder with noting one's own > > will to live. The founding fathers of America might have called it a > > "self-evident truth" instead of a belief. > > The Founding Fathers considered the existance of a Creator to be > "self-evident" as well, so I don't think that you are appealing to a > source whom you want to consider authoritative. Hmmm, can you provide sources where one or more wrote "the existance of God is self-evident"? I'm curious, even though it is not important. See, they clearly did NOT consider religious beliefs "self-evident" in the same way as, for lack of a better word, "human rights". That is why they created system with separation of church and state. > Moreover, isn't there a difference between "self-evidence" and > "knowledge"? There are different types of knowledge. The validity of the most universal type is testable by experiment. On the other end of the scale, there is "self-evident" knowledge, which can at best only be claimed to be plausible or reasonable. Which makes it a kind of belief. But there are also a range of beliefs, ranging from the basic and useful, such as "the world exists independent of myself [1]" on one end (which might be called self-evident) to the esoteric, such as "an omnipotent, omniscient, spiteful god created the world in 6 days about 5000 years ago but she will not give clear evidence of her existence until you die and go to heaven". > Indeed, if I was on an island society, and I was endowed with the only > gun on the island, I might not consider a law prohibiting murder to be > all-that-self-evident. I think most people would. Throughout world history, most civlilized cultures and societies have considered unprovoked murder of "us" to be acceptable behavior. Of course, if you were considered "them", then murder was sometimes acceptable, but I'd say this was more a case of people not recognizing similarity between themselves and the other than considering murder acceptable. Interestingly, the "other" who was allowed to be killed was often defined by difference of religion. > Most importantly, what about my other questions? What is your opinion > of those other laws? Same. > Indeed, consider the following law - what about laws prohibiting > incest and sex with minors? For example, what if a certain extended > family believes that child development is furthered by arranging for > the child to have an early sexual experience before puberty with a > close relative, to "show them the ropes" so to speak. Would a law > imposing the belief that incest and sex with minors is wrong on this > family be evil? You've brought up 2 issues here: incest and rights of children. Incest by itself is something that, if consensual, doesn't cause direct harm to anyone. But because of family dynamics it certainly opens up a lot of possibilities for abuse and non-consensual behavior. Which leads to the question of whether children can consent to something. Most societies agree than 5 year olds can't consent to complicated social activities, and 21 year olds can. The exact age of consent for different activities and different cultures and different people varies quite a bit. Best possible world -- a determination would be made on a case-by-case basis whether a "child" was able to consent to certain activities based on the child's development and the activity. But we aren't that sophisticated yet, so in America we just choose 18 for sex and that's it. Is it a belief? Probably, but most people recognize it as a belief of convenience. Quite different than many religious beliefs, I think. [1] I just saw the movie _Vanilla Sky_. Great movie. I recommend it! -- "Erik Reuter" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> http://www.erikreuter.net/ _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
