Saudis order elderly woman to 40 lashes for mingling

[BRP]

Completely outrageous. 40 lashes? Only?

Why not give her a fucking hug while you are at it?

[TheShadyMan]

Socrates, as quoted by Aristotle, "I am the wisest man in the world, for I know that I know nothing."

Once people get the idea that nothing is concrete, I think we'll have a lot less arguments.

Except over whether or not nothing being concrete is concrete.

[Kuya]

Actually, yeah. You can't prove what is and is not human rights, what people consider the basic rights of a human vary from one person or another. The idea of 'rights' altogether is a human construct. I don't agree with it, but I don't really have a means of proving which idea of rights is 'better' because 'better' is also a pretty subjective term.

Not really. You might ask yourself, better for whom?

edit: what i'm saying is that, if better is subjective, then study it subjectively, by which i mean look at why people think it's better and how or why it benefits them.

[TheShadyMan]

Not really. You might ask yourself, better for whom?

edit: what i'm saying is that, if better is subjective, then study it subjectively, by which i mean look at why people think it's better and how or why it benefits them.

But how do you know WHICH is better? There isn't any objective criteria for it.

[Kuya]

The thing is, that's simplistic, you can't outright judge some moral value as better based on ignorance of it's particularities. You have to look at whom the rules benefit, and you could say that whichever rules benefits the most people or perhaps, benefits no one at all (no one is favoured) is the best rule/right.

edit: the "objective" criteria would be whom it benefits, however, if you happen to be part of one of the culturally determined rights in question, you may tend to play yours up.

[Elvis]

There is Natural Law. And the Harm Principle. But then again, some people like getting whipped...

[TheShadyMan]

The thing is, that's simplistic, you can't outright judge some moral value as better based on ignorance of it's particularities. You have to look at whom the rules benefit, and you could say that whichever rules benefits the most people or perhaps, benefits no one at all (no one is favoured) is the best rule/right.

edit: the "objective" criteria would be whom it benefits, however, if you happen to be part of one of the culturally determined rights in question, you may tend to play yours up.

That's the thing. It could be who benefits the most, or benefits no one, but how do you know which one to use? Which one of these choices is better? See the circular logic there? You can't define better, because you can't define the criteria to put against it. Any of that demands that you have to say something like 'human life is priceless' or 'what benefits the most is best', and you really can't say either or anything like that is 'right'.

Edit: Basically, you can't logically define morals unless you're willing to submit to an unprovable statement.

[Ramor]

I pay tens of dollars for this kind of thing, and she gets it for free just by having a couple unrelated people of the opposite sex in her house.

Ridiculous.

[TheShadyMan]

Fuck, you can't even say logic is the best way to decide things, because even then you could still be wrong. Just because logic has worked so far doesn't mean it always will. You could flip a coin a billion times, and there is a small, but real chance, that it comes up heads every time, and if someone tried to tell you that sometimes when you flip a coin it comes up tails, you'd laugh in their face. Yeah, from what you have, your conclusion is logical that coins always come up heads, but its not right.

[TheShadyMan]

Okay, I think I've found the best (lol) way to put this. The idea of 'best' or 'better' is a human creation, therefore fallible. It isn't like Science, where the laws of the universe say 'this is what happen when you do this to this' and that's that, laws of morality and society aren't discovered, they're created, so they are flawed.

[scrockstar]

I think it's funny when people bash lolreligion and then impose their standard of morals on other people. You can be an atheist and an intolerant bastard you know.

[Elvis]

Seems pointless to argue this. Especially w/ Shadyman's conclusions - which I think counter his argument.

If we are human, then what's the point of applying a standard (that there is no standard) that is intrinsically irrelevant to our species?

We are born into societies. Into religions. Into political systems. We are born w/o choice. We do not choose to exist. We do not choose what we look or sound like. We may be born disabled in some way.

And yet, we can have these handicaps or blessings (depending on your 'luck') and 'feel' different inside. Some people are born a man but feel like a woman. Some people are born a woman but feel like a firetruck.

I think technically, Shady is right. We create our own standard of right and wrong but there are plenty of exceptions to the rule (that there are no rules).

Things to consider:
Harm principle
Will to live or Will to power
Natural law
Natural rights (subsection: John Locke)
Social contract

Consider that inside, beyond the 'physical shell', there may exist the concept of a soul. It doesn't need religious connotations. It could simply be your 'identity'. Your 'self' underneath the external representation of 'you'. So inside, you may differ further. Our thoughts are our own and our sense of 'self' is our own. In that case, does the physical world even matter?

But then again, choice. You have to agree w/ this conclusion and then give a damn about it. We still need to eat/sleep/poo/piddle/procreate/etc. Blah blah blah.

Sheesh. Lets just bash Islam instead of thinking.

[scrockstar]

Toss in Beyond Good and Evil by Fredrick Nitchie for good measure and we can call it /thread

[scrockstar]

Consider that inside, beyond the 'physical shell', there may exist the concept of a soul. It doesn't need religious connotations. It could simply be your 'identity'. Your 'self' underneath the external representation of 'you'. So inside, you may differ further. Our thoughts are our own and our sense of 'self' is our own. In that case, does the physical world even matter?

But then again, choice. You have to agree w/ this conclusion and then give a damn about it. We still need to eat/poo/piddle/procreate/etc. Blah blah blah.

Sheesh. Lets just bash Islam instead of thinking.

The whole mind / body argument is a whole other can of worms which ends in you having to make a deontological argument for a universal standard of ethics. I'd prefer to take the postmodern 'highroad' and just let people do whatever they want to do in their own culture.

[Elvis]

True.

My point though, is that over time we can create rules/policy and morals.

This happens over time though. These ideas get passed onto future generations.

And 'new' people are born into them at first. We can grow up and choose later on. But at first we have no choice - as every other person had no choice.

So if our initial natural state is without choice, then wouldn't we have to judge what is right or wrong based on that phase of no choice?

Now, I don't mean to imply that a baby can debate complex world issues and in being a baby (the initial, 'perfect' state insofar as it is 'innocent') proceed to judge.

But, we could agree that a baby has the will to live. They cry when they are hungry. Laugh when they are amused. Etc. No baby wants to die right after they are born.

So I think - and I didn't really explain it clearly in my first post - my opinion is that we have certain 'natural' rights based on our initial state of existence. Our perception may change but that is learned - not natural.

[TheShadyMan]

It is pretty pointless to argue, but when you delve into it, it makes accepting anything pretty fucking hard. I think it's funny that when people start to lose their sanity, people say they're 'losing touch with reality' but I've found the closer you get to reality, the harder dealing with it is. What do people do people do when reality is too stressful on the mind? Take substances to alter their state of mind, whether it's alcohol, prescription drugs, or illegal drugs. Or meditate, clear their head, take a vacation. All of which are ways of distancing yourself from reality. I think we might eventually run into a problem where we're going to run into a wall of sorts where the human brain won't be able to comprehend what we're faced with. Or we're going to get far enough along we'll figure out how the universe works in its entirety. We'll never know everything, but one day we'll know how it all works, and who knows what happens then? I've got a couple other theories, but they're all pretty off topic, but alot of people I've talked about them with thought they were pretty damn interesting, if anyone wants to drop me a PM or IM sometime. Emerson once said he would walk a hundred miles through a snowstorm for a good conversation.

[Elvis]

Post them here.

I think the original subject matter of the thread has run it's course.

All of this stuff relates anyways. We're just discussing it conceptually instead of looking at the human rights abuses in Saudi Arabia from a geopolitical/historical perspective.

[TheShadyMan]

Fuck, I don't feel like typing them out right now, but I'll do it tomorrow probably when I check back on this thread, it's fucking 3:15 and I'm supposed to go to SASC at 8.

[Elvis]

San Angeles Saluki Club? D;

http://www.khiva.net/rafi_bob_lompoc3a.jpg

[TheShadyMan]

Substance Abuse Services Center