When I was in ninth grade, there was this girl named Michelle who was an office aid during my geography class. Everyday she would walk by the open door, and drop her pencil, grinning and watching to see if I was watching her pick it up....I was.
No...because by that logic p*dophile would be natural, with a set of desires, wants, and needs. I'm sure somehow some of them are able to determine that it is right. NAMBLA for example, loves to point back to the days of your beloved Socrates, and insist that pedophilia is not immoral.
Some people are more naturally inclined towards violence than others. Some of them may even be intelligent enough to argue that violence is necessary. Few would argue that violence is moral. Why not? They are what they are.
We actually have a dual nature. There is something out there that is greater than us. There is a perfect standard. Some pinnacle of evolution, an ideal that we all strive for. And then there's us. Lying, killing, stealing, child molesting, animal humping, monsters. It is my conscious that tells me to do whatever feels good to me. It is this superconsciousness, that tells me there are limits.
This fails to explain the nature of, oh, let's say p*dophile....molesting children seems to make them happy and healthy, and many would suggest that is the way nature wired these people. It would seem by your rationale, that to some extent p*dophile are a necessary part of nature. They are what they are?
But, I doubt you think that way at all. You probably think that my right to throw a punch if I want to, stops at the end of your nose. But why? Is it nature that dictates this? How could that be? Natural selection?
It would seem that without any higher authority, you and I are nothing more than a highly developed seasoning for a primordial soup. There is no right or wrong. I am a random emalgumation of chemicals, and it is no more wrong for me to blow up a nursing home, than it is for a comet to blow up a small moon or something.
So yes, in the absence of Being X, I am the highest authority in my universe, and no one else may dictate what is moral to me.
But there is a higher authority, and the declarations come in a manner very different than you may have been led to believe by organized religion. (I am eluding to the Jungian archetypes that SF mentioned earlier)
I'm just saying that if there is no higher authority than human intellect, then there is no such thing as morality. Furthermore, should some half-cocked hypothesis about how cells somehow managed to evolve into moral entities be formed, then we are still stuck with the quandary of precisely who's morals shall become the standard. My contention is that in the absence of something greater than ourselves, there is no such thing as right or wrong except in the imaginations of some overly developed mammals with no future or destiny other than the dirt, and it is no more immoral for me to kill you, than it is for a virus or cancer to kill a cell.
If we define authority as the right, and power to command obedience, then we must ask where the authority to establish a moral unit comes from.
If there is no higher existence on Earth than human beings, then we are doomed to a perpetual cycle of wars and violence. If there is no higher power, then I am no different morally than pond scum, and anything goes.
The problem is that in the English language there is not any clear cut consensus on the definition of the word love. Many languages have different words to describe different facets of love.
Still, I do believe in "love at first sight". You are right that a deep lasting love often requires time and consistent effort to develop. However, I still believe that a person can detect something beyond physical attraction in even just a glimpse. Call it kindred spirits,or whatever. The only way to know it is to experience it.
The feeling is so eerily familiar that it is frightening. I know because I have experienced it. We don't want to call it love, because we are afraid to believe in it. Maybe afraid of what people will think of you if you tell them you love a person without knowing them. Maybe afraid of being mistaken, and getting hurt as a result. Too often our feelings confuse us, when in reality their purpose is to guide us.
Why on Earth should it be so outlandish that two souls are connected, or destined to connect? It is a universal theme, in literature, music, or whatever artistic medium. How can peoples and cultures across the globe share this as an ideal, if it is nothing more than fantasy? It does not make sense to me that so many would share a fantasy were there no reality to link it to. Love at first sight must be real. Be careful not to kill it with fear.
diogenes Forum Posts (4,761)
Well at least we got a new word out of the deal
RE: Say Something.... You Know the Rest...??!!
Probably because you're here all the time....If you were on Wall Street, you'd see stock brokers all the time