IxCimi'....lol
"The problem for you apparently is that you think there is a need for a Thunderous Being to set fire and brimstone upon those who do not follow his commandments."
I don't have that problem. I believe an individual’s happiness or misery in life is dictated by the morality in which they choose to subscribe to. I see no virtue in the foundation of 'Do no harm' that’s all?
You believe in abortion?....How does that co-exist with do no harm? As I said we will now see your justification and denial to an action that many people believe is a great harm. What if that last abortion was the next Mozart? You just did harm on a scale I can't even describe....
Like I keep asking you, where is the virtue?
Do you kill the rapist you catch in the action of raping your wife? Is that not harming? What about the pain you just caused to the rapists family who loved him? They did nothing to you. If you do nothing, then are you not letting your wife be harmed? How do you reconcile that?
“Frankly, I prefer children who do what is required of them without compelling them with threats and punishments.”
Innate morality? Well that would certainly eliminate the need for any sort of parenting. Hmm interesting.
“ If "Do no harm" is not part and parcel to your internal make up, then of course it would have no meaning and little impact on you.”
No, you are right; it’s not and wouldn’t. I’m not that much of an insensitive prick. I operate on the virtuous philosophy of Do good only.
Virtue: What is virtue? Beneficence towards the fellow-creature. Can I call virtue things other than those which do me good? I am needy, you are generous. I am in danger, you help me. I am deceived, you tell me the truth. I am neglected, you console me. I am ignorant, you teach me. Without difficulty I shall call you virtuous. But what will become of the cardinal and divine virtues? Some of them will remain in the schools.
What does it matter to me that you are temperate? you observe a precept of health; you will have better health, and I am happy to hear it. You have faith and hope, and I am happy still; they will procure you eternal life. Your divine virtues are celestial gifts; your cardinal virtues are excellent qualities which serve to guide you : but they are not virtues as regards your fellow-creature. The prudent man does good to himself, the virtuous man does good to mankind. St. Paul was right to tell you that charity prevails over faith and hope.
But shall only those that are useful to one's fellow-creature be admitted as virtues? How can I admit any others? We live in society; really, therefore, the only things that are good for us are those that are good for society. A recluse will be sober, pious; he will be clad in hair-cloth; he will be a saint: but I shall not call him virtuous until he has done some act of virtue by which other men have profited. So long as he is alone, he is doing neither good nor evil; for us he is nothing. If St. Bruno brought peace to families, if he succoured want, he was virtuous; if he fasted, prayed in solitude, he was a saint. Virtue among men is an interchange of kindness; he who has no part in this interchange should not be counted. If this saint were in the world, he would doubtless do good; but so long as he is not in the world, the world will be right in refusing him the title of virtuous; he will be good for himself and not for us.
But, you say to me, if a recluse is a glutton, a drunkard, given to secret debauches with himself, he is vicious; he is virtuous, therefore, if he has the Opposite qualities. That is what I cannot agree : he is a very disagreeable fellow if he has the faults you mention; but he is not vicious, wicked, punishable as regards society to whom these infamies do no harm. It is to be presumed that were he to return to society he would do harm there, that he would be very vicious; and it is even more probable that he would be a wicked man, than it is sure that the other temperate and chaste recluse would be a virtuous man, for in society faults increase, and good qualities diminish.
A much stronger objection is made; Nero, Pope Alexander VI., and other monsters of this species, have bestowed kindnesses; I answer hardily that on that day they were virtuous.
A few theologians say that the divine emperor Antonine was not virtuous; that he was a stubborn Stoic who, not content with commanding men, wished further to be esteemed by them; that he attributed to himself the good he did to the human race; that all his life he was just, laborious, beneficent through vanity, and that lie only deceived men through his virtues. " My God ! " I exclaim. " Give us often rogues like him ! " Voltaire
Paule Walnuts.
P.S. maybe this will help you classify me better.
Deism: Deism is a term coined in the philosophe movement and applies to two related ideas: a) religion should be reasonable and should result in the highest moral behavior of its adherents; b) the knowledge of the natural world and the human world has nothing to do whatsoever with religion and should be approached completely free from religious ideas or convictions.
