[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RveEw0VjN5g[/youtube]
youtube.com/watch?v=RveEw0VjN5g
As iambiguous would say… “anything can be rationalized”…
Does that mean anything is rational?
Haha, what a find.
I remember reading about an assassination attempt by this method (I’m not sure if it’s the one referred to in the video) - the body is great at absorbing explosions. The suicide bomber died with a muffled pop and the would-be victim was unscathed.
Haha, and I thought these guys were just party-poopers. They’re jihad-poopers as well.
Like I’ve always said, anything can be rationalized.
Can I rationalize not doing something that I maintain is rational?
The answer is no.
Thus not anything can be rationalized.
I am a river.
That’s a game you play with words. Or so it seems to me. But every behavior the human body is physically capable of can be rationalized. And even a cursory examination of human history shows just how broadly that can be interpreted.
But no behaviour that the human body is physically capable of can be rationalized when there are better reasons against it.
(Perhaps anal sex with your priest in the interests of blowing up random people would count. For godssakes… if nothing else, why jeopordize the saintliness of your priest by requiring him to stick it in your ass when a dildo would be much easier!)
That’s the first thought that sprung to mind Mo… there are other methods of achieving the desired effect without having to resort to sodomy, or perhaps it’s just an excuse to ‘go there’ 
Says who? For this to work it assumes it is always you [the river] who gets to decide if someone else’s reasons for doing something are better or worse than your own reasons for not doing it.
We chuckle with incredulity at the things others are able to convince themselves are reasonable but they do. And in part because what we choose to believe is often a complex intertwining of thought, emotion and even baser instinct. Not all of it is even comprehendable consciously.
You are an atheist so anything done in the name of God is perforce irrational. As though that settles it once and for all.
And yet there are folks who scoff at the idea of, say, “objective morality” in much the same manner in which you scoff at religion.
Says the very person who owns that physical body.
Not if there are no better reasons not to do it. And as a matter of fact I am devoutly religious.
Two minds in two bodies come into conflict. And in your religion [apparently] the one you side with…wins?
Absolutely not. In my religion, just as in golf, the one who makes the fewest errors wins. And in my religion, just as in basketball, the one who scores the most points wins. And in my religion, just as in botany, the one who makes life grow and flourish the most…is a winner.
This pretty much excludes mandated anal sex by a priest so that you can blow yourself up and kill people.
Alas…
The reason someone wins or loses in golf and basketball is because winning and losing is calculated by adding up the score. You either put the ball in the hole with the fewest strokes or the ball through the hoop with the most shots. Either/or. Simple.
But with human biology, things can get more complicated. If we abort a perfectly healthy fetus does that make life grow and flourish? Well, some argue “no” from the perspective of the fetus and some argue “yes” from the perspective of the pregnant woman. You know what that means: conflicting goods. In order for this particular pregnant woman to “win” this particular fetus must “lose”. So, let the rationalizations begin.
No, this behavior is rationalized as well. How? By positing the “will of God”.
Then you come along and insist that, no, according to your religion, God does not exist. And that apparently settles that even if the religions of other folks insist that He does.
Yes, abortion is indeed tricky… although in many cases it’s quite an easy decision.
And the vast majority of cases generally are very easy. Moral choices abound, moral dilemmas are a tiny, tiny, miniscule fraction of them. Such as the case of anal raping your priest so he can stick grenades in his ass and kill people…right? …right?
Ahhh the will of god. And if I tell you that I act on the will of a talking half-moose-half-man, what will you say? You will say, “what reasons have you to think such a thing exists?!” —and if I am honest, I will tell you, “none, really”. Or, perhaps I will say, “I have some, a few, here and there… but none really that he wants me to have anal sex with my priest”. And then I’ll continue and ask why a benevolent person would want random people blow up and mass suffering. And you won’t have an answer. Which means you won’t have reasons. Which means you will be irrational. —And thus not all views can be rationalized.
Tricky. This may well be as close as you will allow yourself to come to conceding the existence of conflicting goods. And if you begin with the assumption that human life begins at conception and that killing human life greatly detracts from its growth the only easy decision is to prohibit all abortions. Save perhaps in instances where the life of the mother is imperiled.
You and I must have access to two very different news media. Mine is veritably bursting at the seams with all manner of conflicting narratives regarding all manner of conflicting behaviors. And the dilemma always seems to revolve around the fact that they never get resolved. Choice here revolves around the willingness to embrace democracy and the rule of law: moderation, negociation, compromise.
The fact is such behaviors are deemed to be a dilemma by those who believe in God’s will but are uncertain as to its applicabilty vis a vis “infidels”. So, yes, there are folks able to circumvent proscriptions regarding sodomy by rationalizing it: jihad takes precedence.
But this is basically how those opposed to abortion view folks like Sam Harris who are able to rationalize it in the name of science.
And what is sodomizing yourself in order to kill infidels deemed enemies next to killing the truly innocent unborn?
They have answers. They have reasons. But: because they base them on assumptions you do not share they are perforce deemed irrational. But the fact that they actually pursue the behaviors means they have managed to rationalize them.
You make the rationalization go away with words. But they embody it out in the world we live in.
What?
Why would it be on the news if it wasn’t conflicting? You make hundreds of moral choices every day. Very often you get it wrong. But what the right answer is, is entirely clear and unconflicted. You may go years without yourself encountering a genuine moral dilemma. 99.99% of all the choices that you make (which all fall in the realm of morality—because morality is about what you ought to do) are easy moral cases. For some reason, you take the .001%, and blow it up into this nihilistic postmodern metaphysics about the nature of reality.
What seems more likely to you…
A. We have good answers to 99% of the questions, and therefore likely just don’t know what the answer is to the 0.01% of them.
B. We have good answers to 99% of the questions, and therefore there is no answer to the 0.01% of them, and because of this we must ditch everything we knew about the 99%.
B is what you are doing. This is why you cannot even come out and say that getting anally raped by your priest so that you can kill random people is TOTALLY IRRATIONAL. Stop. Pause. Think about what you’re saying.
Hundreds a day? Come on, this must stretch the idea of a “moral choice” to encompass…practically anything? Should I watch the Olympics instead of a movie? Should I have chicken for dinner instead of fish?
Or am I misundertanding you? Why don’t you note some of the moral choices you made today so far. So I can get a clearer picture of what you mean by “hundreds” of them.
Oh, and which ones may well have been “wrong”?
Yes, and this often revolves around the fact that many simply take for granted there really is only one way way in which they ought to do many, many, many things. It is only when they stumble into an existential landslide and are confronted with new experiences or new narratives that they begin to grasp just how complicated the world of human interaction can become.
Again, let’s be clearer here about what you mean by a “moral choice” first. For example, enumerate just a few of the hundreds that you made today.
Here you presume this rebuttal is adequate to the points I raised above. These:
The fact is such behaviors are deemed to be a dilemma by those who believe in God’s will but are uncertain as to its applicabilty vis a vis “infidels”. So, yes, there are folks able to circumvent proscriptions regarding sodomy by rationalizing it: jihad takes precedence.
And:
They have answers. They have reasons. But: because they base them on assumptions you do not share they are perforce deemed irrational.
Well, I don’t believe it is adequate. And I can only leave it to others following this exchange to judge for themselves who is being more reasonable. I am certainly willing to concede though it is not me. But I would like to be convinced of it.
YES, exactly right! —Because no matter what you do there is a question about whether you ought to do it. And as you recognize, most of the answers are clear and unobjectionable.
You already gave some examples… “Should I watch the Olympics instead of a movie? Should I have chicken for dinner instead of fish?”
Sure, you can stretch this to include things like, “ought I to brush my teeth or not?” or “ought I to breathe in or not breathe in air?” Or “ought” here can revolve less around value judgments and more around simply accomplishing some task: “If I want a clean body ought I to take a shower?”
But how many “quandaries” of this sort make it into a serious discussion of moral or religious values?
The OP elicits the expected reactions: Can you believe these fucking idiots?! That was certainly my reaction.
Personally, I think they are deluded to the point they should seriously consider seeking out psychiatric care. But that is not how the world looks from inside their heads. There really are people like them and they can and do rationalize the sorts of behavior many of us here view as ludicrous. And all one need do to embrace behavior like this is to believe in one or another God as the explanation for “existence”. Then if comes down to interpreting “God’s will”.
And, again, many view behaviors like abortion [or other behaviors you or I might rationalize] in much the same way.
Almost none…01%, as I said!
…And that’s the point…the vast majority of instances of what you ought to do are clear and incontrovertible. Which is why I am baffled that you focus on the .01% of disagreements and conclude thereby that any view about anything is as good as any other… including the 99.99%. You take it up onto the skyhooks and make it into a metaphysical claim about the nature of what you ought to do.
And stop talking descriptive claims about what people actually do think, I’m talking about whether they should, or are justified in thinking so. No doubt, someone alive thinks nuclear war because a rabbit told him is a good idea, or that he should be returned to the throne as the king of france… SOMEONE THINKS THAT… the question is whether they should.