Morality101.net

Morality is Liberty without Force

Browsing Posts tagged religion

It’s wonderful to be able to address a group of people who are conservative thinkers! This group can accomplish a lot if we don’t hang ourselves. One thing I love about conservatives is that they know what they think and aren’t wishy-washy. That said, if we want to succeed in pursuing the agenda of taking back America, we must take tender care of each other. With conservatives that shouldn’t be difficult. Not all conservatives agree on everything, and it is those areas that can, if we allow it to, stand in the way of unity.

RELIGION
I would suggest we keep it toned down a bit. Those of us who believe cannot be harmed by those who do not, and we are not about to harm others. Religion is NOT an issue we must all agree on, even in a candidate.

ABORTION
Related to religion. Some see it as evil. Some see it as a privacy issue. Some see it as amoral and/or murder. Some see no harm in it. If you are like me, your feelings are strong and you won’t give up those feelings. BUT we must not allow our differences in this issue to separate us from our goal. We each retain our beliefs, but we don’t really need to attack each other, right?

WAR
Another area of disagreement. Not every candidate is going to satisfy all of us – can we not agree that if we see the candidate as a decent, honest person with integrity, we can tolerate him as an official? Vote the way you wish, but maybe we can refrain from bashing each other in the head as we go along? ;-)

MIDDLE EAST
Ditto the above

FREEDOM, LIBERTY
Do we all agree on the definitions? Do we not all want total freedom? We have to be careful on this one if one looks at abortion. The “my body is mine” thing? Some feel the unborn baby’s body is his, not his mother’s. For me personally this one is a really sticky one as I understand where the other side comes from, but disagree. We must think about HOW we disagree publicly and still maintain unity.

I am sure there are other hot button issues you can, and hopefully will provide. My suggestions are just that – suggestions. I am open to everyone’s suggestions.

I write this because I am pretty sure that’s how we lose honest elections: we allow single issues to rule our senses, whereas we possibly would all be better off if we CONSERVATIVES could coalesce instead of divide ourselves.

Please let me know what you think?

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Ms LaLaGirl had troubles with her truck, stopped alongside the road, and leaned under the hood.  Redneck comes by, asks the problem, she says she doesn’t know.  Redneck slams the hood on her, undoes his big buckle and says, “Lady, this just ain’t your day”.

Such has been this day, and perhaps later I’ll feel sorry for writing this and zap it, but I’m feeling “had” about my supposed “Friends” over on Digg.  After many very long days of posting and commenting there, I finally figured I’d learned the ropes, and had about 60 friends.  So to all of them I shouted the link to morality101, asking my so-called friends to Digg It and Share it.  This because all the circumstances made it seem as though the timing was right to pick up this doggie and run with it.

Ya know what?  I learned I have exactly two friends there — those who answered this simple request.  I learned that unknown others have just been blowing smoke.  Too often I learn such things the hard way.

So I have been very angry and upset, and went on some threads and Digg and blew a bunch of people away — not by name but by challenging dumb comments and posts.  There was no attempt to pussy-foot around and be diplomatic, I could see no reason for maintaining a batch of people who talk the talk but don’t walk the walk; mostly they’re plain old phonies.  From long experience thru life, I guess that’s pretty typical.  Good and true friends are hard to find – those few deserve being kept amongst the true treasures of one’s life.  The others are simply wasting your time and using up your precious life.

Okay, that said, you folks should know that there is but one priority for whatever short time might remain of my life.  That is the issue of morality — not talking about religion here — the morality to preserve and enhance of our personal lives.  Morality is so simple, it is really about nothing else.

In our entire lives it is rare indeed that we would choose to hand our life to another, saying, “I trust you, here is my life, into your hands, do with it whatever you wish.”  How many are in YOUR life to whom you would give such total and unconditional trust?  Be honest now, those cannot be other than perhaps your life-mate or your child, correct?

Yet we live today in a society (what IS a ’society’, anyway?) which demands that we must concede our minds, our lives, our property, our happiness… everything, to any unknown other.  What is a morality which would thereby claim your inferiority?  How does a supposedly “free” individual accept that some unknown horde of supposed humans is somehow superior to you.  How can you hand your lives over to unknowns whom you have had no occasion to learn of mutual trust or admiration?  How could you conclude, without evidence whatsoever, that any other unknown person or group might have your best interests as their goal?

You don’t really know me, no more than what I know you.  We are probably several states apart.  Perhaps we don’t even speak the same language.  Yet often we think we are “friends”. Wonder if and when that is true!

I’m cutting this short because of the collapse which headed for the dark age this morning.  Maybe later someday?

definition: Miriam-Webster

  • 1: the experience of mystical union or direct communion with ultimate reality reported by mystics
  • 2: the belief that direct knowledge of God, spiritual truth, or ultimate reality can be attained through subjective experience (as intuition or insight)
  • 3a: vague speculation : a belief without sound basis
  • 3b: a theory postulating the possibility of direct and intuitive acquisition of ineffable knowledge or power

definition: BrainyQuote

  • Obscurity of doctrine.
  • The doctrine of the Mystics, who professed a pure, sublime, and wholly disinterested devotion, and maintained that they had direct intercourse with the divine Spirit, and acquired a knowledge of God and of spiritual things unattainable by the natural intellect, and such as can not be analyzed or explained.
  • The doctrine that the ultimate elements or principles of knowledge or belief are gained by an act or process akin to feeling or faith.

Hundreds of different definitions. Okay, so much for the muddle-minded.
Striker’s definition: Belief and faith in the unknown and unknowable.

adherents.com lists largest 22 religions; 33% Christian, 21% Islam, 16% non-religious. 14% Hindu…22% Jewish ranks #12. Seems that there’s a plethora of differing thought.

So how is mysticism related to morality? It depends greatly on one’s definitions. of morality, true? Objective morality requires that we rely upon rationality; upon reasoning based on that which we KNOW. A mystic’s true test of Faith might be diving out of an airplane without a parachute, believing the spirits will bring a safe landing. An objectivist, knowing better, would use the parachute.

Here in the USA, we have freedom OF religion (/mysticism), but not freedom FROM religion. Thus we are embroiled in endless diatribe which result in laws for marriage, divorce, abortion, gay rights, blue laws, holidays for Christmas & Easter, drugs & alcohol & tobacco, and so much more. Then comes the dysfunctional mystical idea that we are our Brother’s Keeper, Brother being all humankind, rather than simply our families.

Such Ideas without rational basis cannot find universal acceptance. But the mystics have found the way via Democracy and the Guilt Trip. With Democracy it takes only a simple majority to force any idea, bad or good, upon everyone. The Guilt Trip is used to intimidate everyone, thus those candidates who survive the weeding-out process become our legislators, governors and the president, all obligated to pacify the mystics if they are to survive the next election. So now universal acceptance is no longer necessary. Now politicians claim a “mandate” to pass Laws, whether rational or not, and we citizens long ago ceded our rights to government by bestowing the powers of Law and the Duty to en-FORCE those laws. Rationality becomes irrelevant!

So the government becomes our Brother’s Keeper (now Welfare and Health Care and Licenses and …) in a myriad of ways. It is a great opportunity for those with power-mentalities to make friends with the Politicians and become Bureaucrats sworn to uphold and enforce the Law. But there’s a problem – all these Government people think they should be Paid, and have Offices and Cars and Buildings with Bathrooms and Computers and Desks and Telephones.

Therefore, toward the best interests of the mystics, we have Taxes which also used to pay for Wars. We don’t pay for Wars these days, it’s put on-the-cuff and called the National Debt. And we have the Minimum Wage which has helped so many people in China while making US manufacturers less competitive in the world markets.

Conclusion? Mysticism is both a waste of time and IM-moral.

I’m not interested in carrying on debate over this subject, so it’s closed to comment.

The Ten Commandments:

Exodus 20:2-17

1. I am the LORD thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. Thou shalt have no other gods before Me.
2. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the Earth beneath, or that is in the water under the Earth. Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate Me; and shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love Me, and keep My Commandments.
3. Thou shalt not take the Name of the LORD thy God in vain; for the LORD will not hold him guiltless that taketh His Name in vain.
4. Remember the Sabbath Day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work: but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the LORD thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates: for in six days the LORD made heaven and Earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath Day, and hallowed it.
5. Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee.
6. Thou shalt not kill.
7. Thou shalt not commit adultery.
8. Thou shalt not steal.
9. Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.
10. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor anything that is thy neighbour’s.
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Well, #6, 8 & 9 definitely make moral sense. Provided here only for reference, as debate is pointless